Blizzard and Activision merge?

[sinij]

Just came accross following article .

Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) and Vivendi (Euronext Paris: VIV) today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business -- which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s® World of Warcraft®, the world’s #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise -- with Activision, creating the world’s largest pure-play online and console game publisher. The new company, Activision Blizzard, is expected to have approximately $3.8 billion in pro forma combined calendar 2007 revenues and the highest operating margins of any major third-party video game publisher. On closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI.

Is this beginning of the end for Blizzard?

[Simond]

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

[geldonyetich2]

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.

[Nebu]

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

[geldonyetich2]

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

[CharlieMopps]

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

[Teleku]

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.

[CharlieMopps]

The new company will be called Activision Blizzard and will be headed by Activision's current CEO, Bobby Kotick.

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.

[Morfiend]

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

[Mosesandstick]

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

Good news for the industry? 

[cmlancas]

Muaha. You are a doubly-doubler!

 

[Mosesandstick]

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.

[Abagadro]

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.

[Amaron]

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.

[Wolf]

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

[schild]

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.

[schild]

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.

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)

[stray]

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

[Simond]

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

[schild]

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.

[Amaron]

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.

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.

[schild]

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.

[Tale]

[stray]

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

[Mosesandstick]

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

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?

[UnSub]

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

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

[UnSub]

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.

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.

[rk47]

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.

[Trippy]

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.

[Trippy]

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

[Amaron]

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

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.

[UnSub]

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.

[Wolf]

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.

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.

[schild]

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.

[Wolf]

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

Under the terms of the agreement, Vivendi Games will be merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. In the merger, shares of Vivendi Games will be converted into 295.3 million new shares of Activision common stock. Based on the transaction price of $27.50 per share of Activision common stock, this implies a value of approximately $8.1 billion for Vivendi Games. Concurrently with the merger, Vivendi will purchase 62.9 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock at a price of $27.50 per share – a premium of 31% to Activision’s average closing price over the past 20 trading days – for a total of $1.7 billion in cash. As a result of these transactions, Vivendi will own an approximate 52% ownership stake in Activision Blizzard on a fully diluted basis.

Activision Blizzard’s board of directors will be comprised of eleven members: six directors designated by Vivendi, two Activision management directors and three independent directors who currently serve on Activision’s board of directors.