Blizzard and Activision Announce $18.8bn Merger 298
Ebon Praetor writes "The BBC reports that Blizzard and Activision have announced an $18.8bn merger. Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, will become the head of the joint company, while Vivendi, Blizzard's current parent company, will become the largest single investor in the new group. Even with the size of the merger, the combined company will still be smaller than the industry giant EA. 'As part of the merger plan, Blizzard will invest $2bn in the new company, while Activision is putting up $1bn. The merged business will be called Activision Blizzard ... Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.'"
A dupe in itself? (Score:5, Funny)
World Of Warcraft (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it really matters whether the game developers are going to be replaced by Activision or not, as a decrease in quality might spark some anger.
Especially since their number of players are
Re:World Of Warcraft (Score:5, Insightful)
Uptime improvements? How many 8's of uptime? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people who deliver online services like to measure their uptime in 'nines'.
Blizzard measure theirs in 'eights'.
Re:World Of Warcraft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:World Of Warcraft (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16457 [gamasutra.com]
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WoW - Biggest MMORPG in the world...has changed the gaming industry so much, other publishers are accusing Blizzard of destroying the market.
Starcraft - Still has the biggest professional gaming industry (South Korea) which has more money in it than all other professional gaming industries put together.
Diablo series - While not nearly as successful as the other two, proved itself as a popular RPG almost all gamers have had a go at.
Warcraft series
Simple. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:World Of Warcraft (Score:5, Funny)
COD5: Azeroth Edition (Score:2, Funny)
"{crackle} SGT Hulka, bring up your platoon of Orcs and get a crossfire on those Dwarves STAT!"
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If they could work together to make some sort of Warcraft themed massively multi-player FPS, I'd be on that like stink on poo. Different classes that are *actually* different, instead of just one guy having a bigger gun and more ammo. It would be
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How is the WoW community going to take it?
I think that depends on when and how the Wrath of the Lich King comes out. As of patch 2.3, they've trashed most of the sport of WoW (leveling to 60), so I'm sure I'm not the only one anxiously awaiting the new expansion.
Give me my World of Warcraft (as I've experienced it for the last year or so) and I don't particularly care what they do corporate-wise.
I'm not sure why I love that game more than Nethack/Rogue, but I do.
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Since 2.3 half the quests have degenerated into 'hunt the questionmark' and it's insanely easy to level.. in fact it's more of a task to *not* level before half your unfinished quests go grey.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Besides that, they've also cut the "armor repairs tax" in half because you now get a 20% discount from vendors where you're exalted. (I like that change a lot more than I like the Azeroth nerfing).
It's not all bad. There's no reason whatsoever to pay someone to "powerlevel" your character and with the revered and exalted additional discounts + decreased time at low levels, it's easier to save up mount money so there's less reason to pay for gold, less reason to pay exorbitant
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On the plus side what if Activision's management is replaced with Blizzard's. Blizzard's process obviously works. This could be the start of us seeing a lot of much higher quality games.
Hopefully.
Makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
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I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:5, Funny)
No, that's what causes me to hit on ugly chicks after six drinks.
Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:4, Funny)
I prefer Active Blizzard for the name (Score:2)
Yo! (Score:3, Funny)
"Blactavision" makes me think of "Blacula". But silly as that (and my suggestion) sounds, it's better than "Activision Blizzard". What were they thinking? They may as well have called themselves "No Imagination Games Corp."
-Keeping Activision (on its own) would have been cool for the nostalgia factor.
-Keeping Blizzard (on its own) would have been cool for the currently-successful factor
-If they couldn't decide, they should have just gotten a new name altogether. Maybe they co
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Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm just talking about Blactavision!
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New MMORPG (Score:4, Funny)
Re:New MMORPG (Score:4, Informative)
It's too bad too. Imagine how awesome it would be to have a game where orcs could be pwned by an Obelisk of Light.
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alas, it'll never happen
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You better not let EA hear you say that. They're the ones that own Westwood now no? Anyway they suck, all the good people left. Petroglyph ftw.
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I might pay good money for World of XCom
Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:5, Informative)
Provides some details. From their front page:
Re:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)
They routinely rush studios to push out complete and utter crap under the Activision Value title. Even the decent games still come with serious flaws due to the rushed timetables.
Well here is your new strength ! (Score:2)
Blizzard (or at least the worker there) as far as I can tell has always tried to not rush, and make sure all major bug are out before getting a title out. Which is how they got their reputation. But on a short term point of view, this is a loss for the share holder, since more money is spent whereas they could already release the title at an earlier point. So now blizzard get strengthened by activision dev cycle : rush everything out. Spend less money on title. Churn them quicker. Customer
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Re:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:4, Insightful)
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There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal. ... combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content
if this is true, how can:
Also be true? Either nothing is changing or something is, you can't have it both ways. The reason for mergers and aquisitions is generally that the companies involved believe that through the merger some gains can be made. The way that history proves works is through reductions is redundancy. (call these layoffs, retrenchments, rightsizing, as your personal tastes dictate) The other not-so-successful-historically model is the "merge two companies with no redundancies, run them together and lose money" model (ref: AOL-Time-Warner among others)
They now have ~twice the advertising clout and a bigger stick to negotiate with retailers. ie. Stock or we will only have limited quantities of SC2 and COD5 for you.
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Or maybe... 1bn + 2bn = 18.8bn.
The way I see it, Activision must have had some super cool idea for the next major online cash cow err game. But, Activision must have determined that they lacked the resources to complete this epic production on their own. So, they carefully weigh their options of ways to raise the extra 2bn they estimate is needed to complete the project. Stock offering, venture capitalists... apparently they decided that their best option was to merge with another larger gaming compa
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My gosh (Score:5, Funny)
I screamed.
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Well, like you said, both Blizzard and Activision are businesses, and businesses exist to make money that they can return to their owners and shareholders. Both Blizzard and Activision don't make games just because it's fun to. They make games because people will pay money for them.
I actually think this will help gamers. First off, Vivendi wi
Guitarcraft: Lords of Music (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, that might actually be quite fun. Did you ever play Loom? That was a point-and-click adventure game where all your actions were done by playing short phrases of music.
Update it to the present day, and you have your character roaming the wilderness blowing monsters away with your sw33t r1ffs. The more powerful the spell, the harder it is to play, so your character's skills are directly related to your skills. If you could solve the lag issue, you could even have the ability to team up with other players and jam together for extra power.
Hmm. Different character classes would map to different types of music quite well. Healer == psychedelic 60s. Tank == 80s power ballad. Fighter == rock. Necromancer == death metal...
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$18.8bn? (Score:3, Funny)
Starcraft (Score:4, Insightful)
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As long as Starcraft 2 is still going to be released finished, this is fine with me. Let us hope that they don't rush SC2 out the door half-done and utter garbage shall we?
(Shudder...) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:(Shudder...) (Score:5, Funny)
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some questions (Score:2, Funny)
R.I.P. (Score:2)
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A lot of merged/acquired/grown by purchasing companies are little more than feudal arrangements w
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Gamers have made it clear that they'll buy secondhand ideas if the games are put together with a high enough level of quality and polish. Quality outsells originality -- mostly because the objective of gamers is to have fun, and a lot of the old ideas are very fun when executed well.
Commentary (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, it doesn't seem like their different developer studios have a lot of synergy though: The end result is a company that has very diverse offerings, and will be difficult to market as a single entity. It's not like either company needed the other for stability purposes though: Both WoW and Guitar Hero are the kind of franchises that allow a company to have a nice R&D budget and take risks with new franchises.
So I guess the merger will just mean they'll be able to push retailers around more easily, and make their revenue even more predictable.
Re:Commentary (Score:5, Funny)
The Ghost of Infocom moves north.
The Ghost of Infocom enters.
The Ghost of Infocom hits Blizzard with the long sword.
Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Eighteen billion? (Score:2)
-FL
EA is no longer alone at the top. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a fascinating move for one very important reason: EA. This merger combines a hugely profitable juggernaut of game-making (Blizzard) with what is probably the largest publisher out there (Activision). Electronic Arts suddenly got not only competition, but may have just dropped into second place, all in one fell swoop.
This is a great move for Blizzard: there is no other development company that is such a proven success, having long passed the point of "one hit wonder" or "a lucky run," and they now have access to, in light of how bankable they are, absolutely vast wodges of capital for their future plans. This is an awesome move for Activision: a publisher (with some developer in there too) that has quietly grown over the last decade to become one of the largest now has pretty much the ultimate triple-A development juggernaut at its core. This last bit is a key point, as it reflects EA. EA is large publisher wrapped around a large and important development house. Vivendi and Activision have now stepped up to that level and type of operation, and can be expected to give EA a run for its money.
What particularly pleases me is how this could be seen as providing a "good guys" team to stand against EA's often-percieved "bad guys" team [livejournal.com], which should be an interesting public dynamic to watch
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On a consumer experience level the both suck, but EA at least try's while Activision doesn't seem to give rats as as long as they are getting their fat check at the end of the year. Personally I think I have purchased my last Blizzard game since there is no way A
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But you're right. I should read these a little closer. This was only for part of one year.
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That's like saying there's a "semantic" distinction between fruit and fruit trees. Vivendi owns several media and telecom businesses. (In fact, they used to be a major player in the media world, with movie studios, cable networks, and more. But that's another story.) Not only will this new company be a small part of Vivendi's operation, but Vivendi will share ownership with Ac
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Given the way Blizzard's lawyers treated the bnetd developers, I have to question the "good guy" stance you're attributing to them. They are not good guys, any more than any other major corporation out to protect its "intellectual property".
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That Blizzard is
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Even with the size of the merger, the combined company will still be smaller than the industry giant EA
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Even with the size of the merger, the combined company will still be smaller than the industry giant EA
Dice it up how you will. The New York times, for example, notes that:
The two companies said that their combined revenue for 2007 would be $3.8 billion. The combined company will challenge Electronic Arts, with projected 2007 revenue of about $3.7 billion...
I'll stick with my original comment that in particular, EA "may have" just dropped into second place, and as well stick with the spirit of my post in general: that EA now has company, so to speak.
Unlicensed? (Score:2)
Activision Blizzard (Score:3, Funny)
If they wanted to depend on brand name recognition, they should have simply called themselves "The Creators of WOW & Call of Duty".
Starcraft II ramifications (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Starcraft II ramifications (Score:5, Informative)
Blizzard hasn't been a "release it only when it's done" company since Warcraft 3: TFT. I've Participated in the last 4 Blizzard betas, and there was a remarkable shift from Warcraft 3: RoC to Warcraft 3: TFT -- you almost couldn't even call TFT a beta test by comparison. It lasted maybe 2 months total? The game came out very incomplete -- missing an entire single player campaign from what had been promised -- but was slowly added in over the course of several balance patches (the game as also a joke of balance when it came out). Blizzard, to their credit, did do a good job with the final product -- it just took them a couple months worth of patches after release to get the job done.
I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you, but Blizzard has been a "patch it till it's done" company for a few years now, just like everyone else.
This actually works out well enough in the MMORPG setting since often they are able to patch in missing content and polish/fix other content before players even get to it -- since it takes players some time to burn though the lower-end content which tends to be the most polished/playtested.
I do give them credit for actually delaying TBC (thus causing it to miss it's initial November 30th release date which would have meant massive Christmas sales) and spending more time with it -- but they almost didn't have a choice there -- there was literally no content above level 67 at the time and 3 out of the 7 zones weren't even populated/open/quested/etc, not to mention none of the raid content was implemented yet.
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Count your blessings (Score:3, Insightful)
Guitar Hero (Score:5, Insightful)
Vivendi, owner of the Universal Music Group -- world's largest music publisher, buys a controlling stake in Activision, maker of Guitar Hero -- the world's most popular music-based game franchise.
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It'd be my hope that this means that the entire UMG library will be available for GH players to use, but I'm afraid of what they're actually likely to do.
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-
You're with your friends, having a few beers and some laughs on Guitar Hero.
- After the fifth beer, male bravado is starting to kick in. You and your buddies all start to think you're guitar Gods.
- "I bet you ca
I think there is something afoot. (Score:2, Informative)
(Look on the upper right side of page)
I have been making potshot guesses regarding what they are up to.
This changes those guesses. It may boil down to simple licensing issues. Activison has something Blizzard needs and is willing to pay for it? A merger here would put a lot of those licensing issues out of the purview of mo
Massively Multiplayer Pitfall! (Score:4, Funny)
Another American company owned by France (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Zonk (Score:3, Funny)
You shouldn't repeat yourself in your summary, it makes the summary redundant. It's like when you say something twice and it becomes redundant.
Oh, thank the FSM... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks, Activision! (Thactivision.)
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Buying Notes (Score:2, Funny)
Didnt the creators of Blizzard already leave... (Score:2)
So Good luck with that company.
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What?
"We'll do everything exactly the same way as always with exactly the same people and everything will be exactly the same -- except totally better somehow!!!"
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Wild World of Pitfall (Score:2)