Blizzard Breaks For Independence As Kotick Plans $8.2 Billion Dollar Buyout 203
MojoKid writes "The CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, announced this morning that he would lead an investor buyout of the company worth approximately $8.2 billion dollars. The move would free Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?) to become an independent publisher and free it from the clutches of Vivendi, the evil French entertainment conglomerate. Vivendi has reportedly been attempting to sell Activision Blizzard for years, due to an apparent hatred of actually turning a profit, given than the game developer owns some of the most popular franchises on Earth. Kotick has previously been known for his comments regarding exploiting game franchises and for gems like this: 'We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.'"
Since when is Vivendi the villain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do or die, Activision (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that the move to buyout the company also has do with Vivendi trying to force Activision to issue a $3 Billion dividend. Vivendi is a majority owner of Activision. Vivendi will get $2 Billion out of the deal, and if it works well enough, may force additional dividends in the future until Activision is rung dry and some or all of Vivendi's enormous debt is paid down. The buyout is a matter of survival for Activision.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/22/vivendi-activision-idUSL6N0FS0OQ20130722
Re:different goals (Score:5, Interesting)
The two go hand in hand. I've worked in a couple game development houses, and found that the good games we released were all titles we had fun making. Of course, there were fun games to make that we were flops as well, but literally every game that wasn't fun to make, indeed, felt like work to make, felt like work to play.
A fun game will always be fun to make. If your dev teams ever, EVER reach the point of, "Fuck this shit, I hate my job, kill me now," I promise you the game will be utter garbage.
Re:Well Then (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Blizzard breaking free from Activision would be much more welcome news than Activision breaking free from Vivendi.
Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hrm. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what's leading them to lose subscribers. If it's just fatigue, since the game is so old. One pattern I've noticed is as they've shortened the timeline between patches and expansions, players seem to quit more often. Once and expansion is announced, in game players (and I would assume subscriptions) drop. It seems like now it even happens in between patches. I assume it is because players feel whatever they earn will be worth less by the new patch/expansion. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better served by not announcing patches so early, and having longer cycles between expansions.