f13.net

Just came accross following article  (http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071202005054&newsLang=en).


Is this beginning of the end for Blizzard?

Bearing in mind that it's Vivendi buying out out Activision (and not the other way around)...I doubt it.

Vivendi already owns Blizzard and Activision so it's more like they decided their two offspring should get married and produce entertaining two-headed children.

Isn't this a sign that Blizzard is getting more serious about developing for consoles?  That's how I took it.

If by "getting more serious" you mean "are being forced by the parent company", then yes.

Here's an article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm)

Considering Blizzard has been trying (unsuccessfully) to expand into the console market for awhile, I really wouldn't say forced.

Though I don't know necessarily how willing they were to merge with activision.

So, Blizzards been a HUGE success... and Activision has had near 30 years of almost continuous dismal failure... why would they let Activisions CEO run things? They BOUGHT Guitar Hero... they didn't actually make it.

http://www.blizzard.com/press/activision-faq.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7123582.stm

Good news for the industry?  :lol:

Muaha. You are a doubly-doubler!

 :pedobear:

Didn't see the topic in the MMOG discussion. Thought it would be more suited here since Activision releases around 923894 non-MMOG games a year.

I somewhat read this as a means for Vivendi to leverage Blizzard into the public equities market without doing a full-on spin out.  The reason Activision's CEO is staying on at the top is because Activision is the public company and it is less disruptive (plus he is likely a pure money-man). My bet is that Blizzard stays pretty much autonomous in development while getting access to Activision's console pipeline.

This sounds really bad for one reason: Blizzard is basically going public.

They will be losing that somewhat small layer of insulation from retard investors that they previously had when they were privately owned by Vivendi.  I'm no stock expert but doesn't this mean basically they'll be much more likely to be forced to match releases to quarterly reports or something?  I can imagine they won't be able to throw out crappy games like SC:Ghost and that warcraft adventure game too.

It's not blizzard, it's vivendi. They're just raping Blizzards name for the company name.

That's one way to put smack down EA. and wooooooooooooo doggy is Vivendi losing their only real cashcow.

Also, yes, I'm actually saying this, the following is not a hallucination:

Activision and Blizzard could work really well together.

Edit: Wait, wtf, why are they even letting VUG into the deal? I don't even know what's going on.

Blizzard has a lot of great programmers and great sound people and better than the industry norm writers. This can only be good. Either those people get pissed and leave or we get more good games.

Also, this guarantees Diablo 3 hits consoles. Fuck yea! There was never a single fucking PC thing about those games. (maybe that explains D1 on the PS1)

..and all it's best successors being on consoles too.

Because it's VUG taking over Activision and using the Blizzard name to do so.

oh

I'm OK with that. Activision, short of Neversoft and Infinity Ward is completely hit or miss.

Yes but they still produced two dud games (Starcraft Ghost and Warcraft Adventures) which they had the smarts to kill in order to keep their brand name as something relevant to gamers.  They also have the smarts to actually do the "it's not done till it's finished" thing.  I worry that being a public company who's stock value is highly reactive to stuff like dropped games is going to be good.

Imagine if they released a rushed D3 to meet quarterly reports and it sucked and then they pulled a fucking fallout on diablo in general after that.

Starcraft Ghost was made by Swinging Apes. They had only made Metal Arms before and were left to their own devices on that. It was good but the controls were wonk. So Blizzard bought them to take them out of their misery.

Warcraft Adventures was made in part with Animation Magic. It was canceled for being shitty. And for being a point and click game which would appeal to their customers just about... in no way at all. Also, the lore wasn't that interesting. I don't think Blizzard has the ability to write story like Purcell, etc.

I don't think either of these would've hurt their name btw. They appealed to a completely different consumer.

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/180px-Undead_male.gif)
(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/gh_lower.jpg)

There was a WC adventure game? I would play it!  :grin: Kinda like the lore myself.

At least it basically puts all of the VUG assets under Blizzard's name, I'm pretty sure Blizzard was pretty much the only company that did anything of worth in VUG. Smart move for VUG.

Since Activision is public doesn't this mean we can all go and own a piece of Blizzard? Convince them to start making good games again? :awesome_for_real:

There was one planned. It was taken out behind the sheds before players got a good look at it.

If Blizzard went public, they'd have to disclose accurate player numbers regularly since that ties directly to revenue (or at least I believe they would since it seems pretty important information for the market to know.

Also, NCsoft is a public company and it typically runs a pretty tight ship. The real issue will be if the new entity only cares about what its stock price is doing versus what it is currently producing. When stock price > product / service, then things go pear-shaped.

Call of Duty V is a foregone conclusion >_<
I can't see what kind of game will both combined companies will churn out.
We have enough RTS with SC2. FPS is quite crowded. MMO? Uh...no.

I don't get it. That just dilutes Blizzard's profits. To put it another way I understand why Activision would want to be acquired by Vivendi but I don't understand why Vivendi would want to acquire Activision.

I merged the two topics so things up to this point may be a bit "choppy".

D1 appealed to a completely different consumer than their bread and butter at the time.  If it had sucked ass nobody would of said "well blizzard sucks now" of course.  But they would of lost that reputation where hordes of gamers buy their games without even thinking about it.

On the topic of why would Vivendi buy Activision:  This is just a guess but it might have a lot to do with the fact that Vivendi's bread and butter is the Music Industry.   With all the changes in that industry it makes sense for them to try and leverage on the other side of their business and there weren't many other choices to buy as far as publishing houses go.  I've seen some speculation on Guitar Hero + Vivendi Music as well.

Why buy? It's all about size.

Vivendi want to be a new media company across lots of industries, but currently lacks a recognisable position in video games (compared to Sony and EA). Blizzard is associated with just a few games, but has a very big, very well recognised brand. Which is why they went with Activision Blizzard (who someone else has dubbed 'Blactivision', which is a much better name and allows for the development of new blaxploitation titles) and not Activision Vivendi (ActiVivendi? Vivtivision?). What is hoped no doubt is that gamers will keep chanting the mantra of "Blizzard don't make bad games" and buy what Blactivision put out. Which in turn will boost Blactivision's market share.

Which is of course wrong, because Blizzard only got that reputation because they don't make unfun games, not because the brand is catchy.

Why not? VUG has been struggling to get decent single player games out there for years. If it wasn't for WoW they'd be dead. Short of FEAR they haven't had a "hit" for a very long time.

Also, and that's talking out of my ass as I know shit about this stuff, someone said that 'vivvendi" is putting all it's assets under blizzard's name. VUG is part of the Vivendi Universal group which also has a bunch of telecoms and whatnot. I'd think that if VUG is actually buying Activison that the new Activision-Blizzard would still be a part of the Vivendi Universal group.

No, you're correct.

VUG sucks without Blizzard. Would be the next to go after Atari. Acclaim has a better chance of staying alive than a Blizzardless VUG.

Also, I'm fond of Vivendivision.

btw since I was reading through the Press Release here are the two key parts, imo

Yeah, it's Vivendi taking control of Activision & using the Blizzard name as a smokescreen (like I said earlier).

I'm guessing the Activision CEO is a money man rather than a promoted programmer, hence why he's staying on.

I think its activision's try to slap EA a bit more.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16458 - That's an interesting article on the merger.

Except that it starts off wrong -- Activision is not the dominant partner. The CEO answers to the board. Who controls the board? Vivendi. Who does the board answer to? The shareholders. Who owns the majority of the shares? Vivendi. Activision was given the CEO position to make it look like a "merger" when in fact it's an acquisition.

Edit: Actually Robert Kotick is not just a figurehead since Activision does have more experience with console games and such so there are practical reasons to have him running things but it's clear from the legal structure that Vivendi is calling all the shots.

Activision is selling out because they know GH has peaked and gets THE king of the MMOGs. Vivendi gets to monetize its games business with a publicly traded company it controls that can now self-fund development. Vivendi itself doesn't have to finance any more game development since it will be done through the new combined company.

Also, the investor slides reveal Blizzard operating income (that's pre-tax) of $517 million.  That's a lot of money hats.

According to Blizzard's president, Mike Morhaine (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164670) the name change is just a corporate thing and won't ever appear on the games. Also, the deal is good for Blizzard because the "combined company will have strong financial flexibility, [and] resources enable us to attract and reward the best industry talent."

Yes, because Blizzard is a struggling studio who can barely find industry talent.

All I can think is that Vivendi looked at EA and decided they wanted to be that big too.

Yes. Which means more sequels, more fading franchises with the occasional joy game.

Blizzard will stay in the PC game business with supposed autonomy. Let's face it, Blizzard's autonomy made Vivendi very rich with WoW. Had WoW not existed, neither would Vivendi as a games company. It's in the company's best interests to let Blizzard do what it does without interference, at least until they fuck up something badly. Like say, if the WoW expansion flopped, SC2 was a buggy POS flop or everyone stopped playing WoW en masse.

Just had a thought - L70ETC in GH4?  :awesome_for_real:

Another exchange going through my head.

Vivendi: Okay, Blizzard, you and Activision are merging.  We'll call you Activizzard.

Blizzard: Well, alright, I guess we'll take Activision under our wing.

Vivendi: Oh no, we're putting Activision in charge.

Activision: Th4t's r1t3 b14tch!!

Blizzard: What?! Those guys have been downsliding for years.

Vivendi: Listen, Blizzard, we're really ticked off about all that money you wasted on Starcraft: Ghost, don't even start with us.

Blizzard: But World of Warcraft had made you billions!  It's probably the main reason you're still in business!

Vivendi: Shut up, you worthless hacks.

Activision: Y0u t3ll th3m b0zz!

What? Why? I don't get it.

Some of those job postings on their website have been up for some time.  Also, Irvine isn't a cheap place to live.

(http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2051/vivendivisionel5.png)
from: http://www.vivendi.com/corp/en/Activision_Blizzard/fichiers/20071203_EN_factSheet.pdf

How the hell do you put Crash Bandicoot and Starcraft in the same sentence?  :awesome_for_real:

Well. I didn't have photoshop at work. But I wanted to do this (glad no one else did):

(http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/2750/vivendivision2pu5.jpg)

Photoshop of the year if you ask me.

(sans Blizzard)

They're French.

I had to make it fair PR.

No one cares about the french.

I have to wonder what, exactly, Blizzard gets out of letting Vivendi run the show.

I also wonder if this has anytrhing at all to do with Atari (formerly Infogrames).  They, too, are French.

Give it to me straight: Are the french taking over computer gaming?

(http://www.soton.ac.uk/~squash/pages/photos/term1/xmas/xmas%2043.jpg)

Better picture:

(http://53.img.v4.skyrock.com/530/fati-maroc/pics/806764013_small.jpg)

But becoming Activision Blizzard isn't going to change that issue. Unless they start paying double the market rate or move to a more tech-friendly place or start setting up multiple Blizzard offshoots (Blizzard East, South and Nor' Nor' West, perhaps) having Activision on board isn't going to help them recruit.

Unless Blizzard really wants Activision programmers in their development seats.

Crash Bandicoot is French?  That explains sooo much.

From the Gamasutra article:

"Blizzard Entertainment [which has "over 9.3 million subscribers" to World Of Warcraft] has projected calendar 2007 revenues of $1.1 billion, operating margins of over 40% and approximately $520 million of operating profit."

 :eat:



Today's New York Times article. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/arts/television/05schi.html?ref=arts)

So, uh, Blizzard, I know I said your game is doomed all but, uh, could you float me a loan?

Ruh-roh!

Check out today's Penny Arcade.

Blactivizzard should just send a mailshot to the Flagship Games studio along the lines of "Want to wash the stench of failure off? Come back to work for the company you stormed out of in a hissy fit! We promise we won't laugh at you for more than a decade...two, at the most"  :oh_i_see:

They have to be careful.  40% margins are great for any company but stock prices are fickle.  If they drop from 40% to 35%, still a ridiculously high number, their stock price will take a HUGE hit.  Wall street doesn't see 35% they see 5% less than last quarter.

It was probably a bad idea to take Blizzard public this way.

I hope this doesn't mean that Blizzard is going to be forced into making a WoW 2 or a Diablo III.  If they're forced to have either of those two titles (both of which I hope don't exist for another 10,000 years) out by a certain date, they're going to be rushed and suck completely.

With any luck, it's not going to be a "EA to Origin: You're an Ultima Company Now" thing.

Unsub had reported in a new denned thread that they're working on a new MMORPG (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/15644).  I'm betting Universe of Starcraft.

Starcraft Galaxies.  :oh_i_see:

lol

 In regards to some MMO job listings. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=897881D4CE64698207D2D3DF2AED40A8?topicId=3168513730&pageNo=2&sid=1#38)