General Discussion

Gamasutra has taken an interesting and in-depth look the Activision Blizzard merger, its affect on their gaming titles, and on the games industry.

The surprise announcement of the impending merger of Activision and Vivendi Games that was announced in December 2007 caused shockwaves throughout the industry that are still being felt now, in mid-2008, as the deal rolls towards completion.

The prospective company (still pending approval for its existence from stockholders and various government agencies) has made even further waves with other recent moves, such upcoming CEO Bobby Kotick floating concepts such as Blizzard being used to push Activision franchises such as Guitar Hero into Asian markets and the decision to leave the Entertainment Software Association (and as a result not taking part in this year's E3).

Read more here.

i thought vivendi already owned blizzard? why would they merge if they own them?? O.o

They do own Blizzard....they are taking over activision.......saw one interesting article that said there may be a possible starcraft mmo in the works......at the professional mmorpg portal site check it out

If they think there are any flies on Bobby Kotick they're kidding themselves. What that guy did with slacktivision is nothing short of amazing. That company was circling the drain when he came on board. He's pretty much the ultimate suit though. He'll kill a game in a heartbeat if it's losing money and he's big into sequels and expansions. Not much of a risk taker unless he can see a clear profit. I'm hoping he can do something to bring Sierra back. They used to make some damn good games but lately it's been pretty thin.

My concern would be with the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Does that mean the monthly subs would go up ... i sure as heck hope not.

   Blizzard has been given a lot of independence by Vivendi. This won't change.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

If they think there are any flies on Bobby Kotick they're kidding themselves. What that guy did with slacktivision is nothing short of amazing. That company was circling the drain when he came on board. He's pretty much the ultimate suit though. He'll kill a game in a heartbeat if it's losing money and he's big into sequels and expansions. Not much of a risk taker unless he can see a clear profit. I'm hoping he can do something to bring Sierra back. They used to make some damn good games but lately it's been pretty thin.

As for WoW, I can see them charging more for character transfers and the like but not the monthly subscription, unless Wrath adds much more than expected, but I'm sure Blizz is holding back a big surprise or two.

As the article quoted Blizzard is the ONLY reason activision approached this merger. Despite Vivendi's golden child profits it still is posting losses on its financial statements. In order for Vivendi to keep some semblance of respect they had to merge in order to spread their losses out and Blizzard was their trump card.

Activision wants Blizzard bad really bad. So, they accepted a 52/48% loss of control and taking on most of Vivendi's debt in order to gain access to Blizzards operations model. Simple as that.

As for touching blizzard. No one will they are too hot right now. If anything Acti-Blizzard will offer more micro-financial offerings to Blizzard's portfolio. What does that mean, just like EQ there will be a WoW store where players can put up their created wares for sale and then Acti-Blizzard will take a cut of that in order to boost profits further. Just one example of many possible others.

Blizzard's upper management knew very well going into this merger it was all about them and they played their hand beautifully. Kudos