The people making the biggest fuss about this are those that have no idea what a publisher is, and what a developer is.
Blizzard is a developer. They have been owned by Vivendi for quite some time. Vivendi itself is a massive corporate entity. WoW has existed under this corporate entity for 3 years. Amazing huh ?
Other dev teams like Neversoft, Infinity Ward, Ravensoft and recently aquired Bizarre Creations all operate under Activision, and have produced perfectly fine games.
:P
what game from Bizarre was released by Activision?
Nothing at all. Recently they've been all over the board, but then Activision came out and snatched them up. They're doing The Club(And previously Metropolis Street Racer) for Sega, Project Gotham Racing for Microsoft, Boom Boom Rocket for EA, and oversaw Geometry Wars: Galaxies for Sierra. The activision buyout of them was really unexpected.
Blizzard should never let anyone touch their IPs. Sierra and the Diablo 'expansion'? Never again.
Actually, with a large chunk of the Diablo team having left Blizzard, I wouldn't mind seeing Raven Software try their hand at a Diablo game. I thoroughly enjoyed X-Men Legends, X-Men Legends 2, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and with Activision having lost the rights to a lot of Marvel characters, a Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is unlikely at this point. But their development team, overseen by Blizzard and their standards of polish, could probably make a pretty damn awesome Diablo 3.
But I am going to call one thing right now. Guitar Hero 4 will have Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, and possibly an unlockable Horde band.
I could go with that. I would love to see the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance gameplay refined some more and used in different genres.
Inglorious Coyote wrote:
Do we know Vivendi will get a controlling interest? I just heard it say they would be the largest single shareholder, that doesn't necessarily mean they'd have a controlling stake.
I'm pretty sure holding 52% of the stock is what I'd call a controlling interest.
Dang bottom paging.
So, this isn't really Activision and Blizzard merging at all, then, it's "Vivendi buys Activision, disguises it as a merger".
Pretty much. And yes guildwars was successful,but 2 million of free subscriptions is not even in the same damned reality of 8 million PAID subscriptions.
The way i see this,is that if anything internally Blizzard gains more clout with vivendi and such,even if only superficially. This could actually result in an increase of Blizzard goodness.
And lets be realistic,didnt WoW alone bring in over a billion for 2006? thats over 25% of what the mergers estimated intake will be. Blizzard can do whatever the fruck it wants within the bounds of reason. people leave companies,specially gamer peoples. Even the best company slowly sheds people who simply leave because they want to do their own thing.
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 and its chief executive will be Activision's current CEO Bobby Kotick. Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.
Jean-Bernard Levy, Vivendi chief executive, said: "This alliance is a major strategic step for Vivendi and is another illustration of our drive to extend our presence in the entertainment sector. By combining Vivendi's games business with Activision, we are creating a worldwide leader in a high-growth industry."
The two firms are hoping that their different strengths will combine to form a business which is powerful on every gaming platform and in every territory. Blizzard is strong in Asia, where its Starcraft series has proved hugely popular. Starcraft, a strategy game first released in 1998, is played by millions of South Koreans in gaming cyber-cafes, and by professional gamers on television.
Activision has developed a presence on all three new generation game consoles - Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii - with franchises such as Spider-Man and X-Men. The games software industry has been through turbulent years, with companies changing ownership and going in and out of business in rapid succession.
Activision was formed in 1979 and went through bankruptcy and a series of alliances and mergers before becoming successful. Blizzard had been through a number of owners before ending up in the hands of Vivendi in 1998.
The biggest player in the industry remains Electronic Arts, the firm behind such titles as the Sims and the Fifa football games. But the emergence of a powerful well-funded rival in Activision Blizzard could trigger a new upheaval in the industry, with smaller players being gobbled up by the giants.
EA is expected to re-overtake them at the end of this year, but It's a close call, with EA's Rock Band and Medal of Honor Airborne going up against Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3.
So I've made a chart to better explain the situation:
bigwah on
LoL Tribunal:
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
Everybody's freaking out, but has anyone mentioned how this makes World of Guitarcraft a possibility?
LF Bassist for Ragefire Chasm and gtg!
Heh.
Anyways, as has been pointed out by others, this merger is really between Vivendi Games and Activision. They are just using the name Blizzard in the merger. Why? Well because they can and Blizzard obviously has more star-power name recognition than Vivendi Games.
So the only way that this will mess up Blizzard games is if you think that the other shareholders besides Vivendi (which is the biggest shareholder) get a bug up their butt and and decide to throw their weight around. But why would they do this? Blizzard has been a very *financially* successful company, so why would the higher-ups muck around with it, in particular going against the biggest shareholder? They wouldn't.
If anything, I see the Activision side of things changing, since Vivendi is the largest shareholder. But I don't think any changes will become apparent for some time yet. So, please guys, call off the hounds and lynchmobs.
chrono_traveller on
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
Also, for as much as I remember that this isn't supposed to change anything, do you remember when EA was saying that their purchases of Origin, Maxis, Westwood and Bullfrog would also let those companies run autonomously?
They're still letting Will Wright do his thing over as Maxis; so long as they get kickbacks in the form of endless Sims sequels and expansions. If I get Spore out of it in the end, I really don't care.
Blizzard should never let anyone touch their IPs. Sierra and the Diablo 'expansion'? Never again.
Yeah, but Beyond the Dark Portal and Brood War were pretty good.
And before you say anything, go check your manuals. Go ahead. I'll wait.
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So... Starcraft Universe anyone?
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Okay, are you back? As you may have noticed, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal was made, in part, by a company called Cyberlore Studios, and StarCraft: Brood War was made, in part, by a company called Sapphire Studios. Didn't seem to affect their quality very much. One of the reasons when something like Warcraft Adventures or StarCraft: Ghost pops up, I'm initially optimisitic.
Somebody in another thread pointed out that this might really fuck up Rock Band, since Vivendi owns UMG, which owns (the music from) a shitload of bands, among them Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Guns & Roses, etc. etc.
On the other hand, maybe they won't notice, kinda like how we somehow manage to get a video game adaptation of a Sony Pictures-owned movie (Spiderman n) on a Microsoft console.
Blizzard never made "world of crash bandicoot" so nothing with their quality standards will change. It's an acquisition by Vivendi with the Blizzard name on it, nothing more... yet.
Somebody in another thread pointed out that this might really fuck up Rock Band, since Vivendi owns UMG, which owns (the music from) a shitload of bands, among them Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Guns & Roses, etc. etc.
On the other hand, maybe they won't notice, kinda like how we somehow manage to get a video game adaptation of a Sony Pictures-owned movie (Spiderman n) on a Microsoft console.
Or 'Astroboy: Omega Factor', a Sony Movies property, published by Sega, on a Nintendo Console
Mostly Battle.net programmers, a few early WoW devs and about half of Blizzard North (The Diablo guys).
Out of these, two games were produced. Guild Wars (The B.net and early WoW devs) and Hellfire: London (Diablo guys). Guild Wars is pretty good, but the general consensus on Hellfire is that it's disappointing considering who developed it. Either way, though, WoW is still the juggernaut, not Guild Wars or Hellfire.
To be fair, before WoW came along the subscription numbers of Guild Wars (what is it? 2 million ish?) would have been megaton type numbers.
WoW is a complete anomaly in the MMOverse and shouldnt be even considered a yardstick for anything. Guild Wars is extremely successful, especially considering it is free (which usually means poor)
Hellgate though is not good.
That wasn't my point, though. My point was that all of these developers left Blizzard because of the supposed control Vivendi had over Blizzard and neither game did as well. Hell, personally, I think WoW is a better game than both Guild Wars and Hellgate (Why the hell was I calling it Hellfire? Diablo expansion on the brain. . .). Not to say Guild Wars isn't a good game, because it is, great even, but it went to show those developers that they were wrong about the "control" Vivendi supposedly put on Blizzard.
And regardless if WoW is an "anomaly", something had to attract 9 million paying customers. Especially considering Guild Wars' 2 million don't pay monthly.
Mostly Battle.net programmers, a few early WoW devs and about half of Blizzard North (The Diablo guys).
Out of these, two games were produced. Guild Wars (The B.net and early WoW devs) and Hellfire: London (Diablo guys). Guild Wars is pretty good, but the general consensus on Hellfire is that it's disappointing considering who developed it. Either way, though, WoW is still the juggernaut, not Guild Wars or Hellfire.
To be fair, before WoW came along the subscription numbers of Guild Wars (what is it? 2 million ish?) would have been megaton type numbers.
WoW is a complete anomaly in the MMOverse and shouldnt be even considered a yardstick for anything. Guild Wars is extremely successful, especially considering it is free (which usually means poor)
Hellgate though is not good.
That wasn't my point, though. My point was that all of these developers left Blizzard because of the supposed control Vivendi had over Blizzard and neither game did as well. Hell, personally, I think WoW is a better game than both Guild Wars and Hellgate (Why the hell was I calling it Hellfire? Diablo expansion on the brain. . .). Not to say Guild Wars isn't a good game, because it is, great even, but it went to show those developers that they were wrong about the "control" Vivendi supposedly put on Blizzard.
And regardless if WoW is an "anomaly", something had to attract 9 million paying customers. Especially considering Guild Wars' 2 million don't pay monthly.
Just wanted to clarify a few things.
1. I don't think the ArenaNet guys ever said why the specifically left Blizzard, other than the "explore new possibilities" type stuff
2. Roper and Co. left Blizzard because Vivindi was, at the time, shopping around for someone to buy their medioce game division (this was before WoW. While Blizzard was successful back then, their successes weren't making up for the rest of the Vivindi's game division's losses), and no one at Blizzard had any say in who they got sold to. It had nothing to do with Vivindi interfering with the day-to-day workings at Blizzard.
Does anyone know where the statements made by Bullfrog, Origin, and Westwood employees are still posted? After those devs were acquired by EA, they were all so cheerful for the opportunity.
Does anyone know where the statements made by Bullfrog, Origin, and Westwood employees are still posted? After those devs were acquired by EA, they were all so cheerful for the opportunity.
Good thing this wasn't 1. a company being acquired and 2. involving EA in any way.
Does anyone know where the statements made by Bullfrog, Origin, and Westwood employees are still posted? After those devs were acquired by EA, they were all so cheerful for the opportunity.
Why does everyone keep bringing this up? This situation is nothing whatsoever like those. Bullfrog, Origin, and Westwood were fairly successful studios who were acquired by a monolithic megacorp. Blizzard is not a fucking fairly successful studio; they're GARGANTUAN. They print money. They have an influence on the gaming world, in terms of both money and market share, that is right up there with Activision. This is a merger, not an acquisition. Anyone who is really concerned about losing Blizzard's integrity needs to learn the difference between the two.
This is neither a buyout nor a poorly disguised takeover.
How is it not a poorly disguised takeover? Before the "merger", Vivendi controlled VU Games and Activision controlled, well, Activision. Post-"merger", Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard, which consists of VU Games and Activision combined.
This is neither a buyout nor a poorly disguised takeover.
How is it not a poorly disguised takeover? Before the "merger", Vivendi controlled VU Games and Activision controlled, well, Activision. Post-"merger", Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard, which consists of VU Games and Activision combined.
Activision didnt need to merge, nor did Vivendi. Its not a takeover, its a merger to boost both their profits.
Considering the CEO of Actiblizzion is the CEO of Activision control seems to still rest more with Activision.
Plus, while vivendi is of course much larger than activision, VU games is pathetic compared to activision in the game market.
This is neither a buyout nor a poorly disguised takeover.
How is it not a poorly disguised takeover? Before the "merger", Vivendi controlled VU Games and Activision controlled, well, Activision. Post-"merger", Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard, which consists of VU Games and Activision combined.
Isn't the CEO of Activision becoming the CEO of the merged company? A poorly disguised takeover would have resulted in a purge.
Oh wow, when I first saw this thread, I thought it was a really bad april fool's joke thread that someone resurrected, but after reading all those news posts, well I still find it difficult to believe. I mean, usually there's a lot of speculation followed by official denials, but this sort of just came out of the blue.
Well, my opinion is that this won't really mean much for the next few years. After all, people have been prophesying Blizzard's doom since the Vivendi acquisition (probably earlier than that too), but they've seem to hold their own pretty well- even after a lot of their core developers left. Blizzard is successful enough that the new board will know to leave it on its own for now, but as with any management change, the long range strategy of the new company will be impacted. What this will mean is pretty much impossible to say, although if things keep going the way they have, it doesn't look like Blizzard will do anything stupid soon.
This is neither a buyout nor a poorly disguised takeover.
How is it not a poorly disguised takeover? Before the "merger", Vivendi controlled VU Games and Activision controlled, well, Activision. Post-"merger", Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard, which consists of VU Games and Activision combined.
Isn't the CEO of Activision becoming the CEO of the merged company? A poorly disguised takeover would have resulted in a purge.
The CEO is just an employee; he'd be left in if he's competent, just like any other employee. I guarantee you the board of directors will be completely different.
It's VU buying a majority stake in Activision, and part of that purchase is the higher-profile Activision brand name. I mean, there's nothing explicitly wrong with that, I suppose, but that's what it is.
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Nothing at all. Recently they've been all over the board, but then Activision came out and snatched them up. They're doing The Club(And previously Metropolis Street Racer) for Sega, Project Gotham Racing for Microsoft, Boom Boom Rocket for EA, and oversaw Geometry Wars: Galaxies for Sierra. The activision buyout of them was really unexpected.
I actually kind of enjoyed the expansion.
I could go with that. I would love to see the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance gameplay refined some more and used in different genres.
Huh? I thought Hellfire was actually pretty good. The monk was my favourite class.
Pretty much. And yes guildwars was successful,but 2 million of free subscriptions is not even in the same damned reality of 8 million PAID subscriptions.
The way i see this,is that if anything internally Blizzard gains more clout with vivendi and such,even if only superficially. This could actually result in an increase of Blizzard goodness.
And lets be realistic,didnt WoW alone bring in over a billion for 2006? thats over 25% of what the mergers estimated intake will be. Blizzard can do whatever the fruck it wants within the bounds of reason. people leave companies,specially gamer peoples. Even the best company slowly sheds people who simply leave because they want to do their own thing.
You have put in picture form the exact same thing that went through my mind when I read the title.
Please tell me my favourite game company won't start making bad cash-in games. Please.
I hope this won't affect Blizzard, though I do see it as a weird move. I mean, Blizzard is pretty much rich and has a huge budget. Why merge?
Edit: "The're rich and have a lot of monies!" Damn, I'm a literary genius.
Actually, both you and the BBC have it wrong: Activision already overtook EA earlier this year:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/24/activision-overtakes-ea-as-top-third-party-publisher/
http://www.central-it.de/html/news/internationale_news/6386267/index.html
http://www.destructoid.com/activision-rocks-ea-s-face-off-becomes-the-top-third-party-36258.phtml?kb
EA is expected to re-overtake them at the end of this year, but It's a close call, with EA's Rock Band and Medal of Honor Airborne going up against Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
LF Bassist for Ragefire Chasm and gtg!
Heh.
Anyways, as has been pointed out by others, this merger is really between Vivendi Games and Activision. They are just using the name Blizzard in the merger. Why? Well because they can and Blizzard obviously has more star-power name recognition than Vivendi Games.
So the only way that this will mess up Blizzard games is if you think that the other shareholders besides Vivendi (which is the biggest shareholder) get a bug up their butt and and decide to throw their weight around. But why would they do this? Blizzard has been a very *financially* successful company, so why would the higher-ups muck around with it, in particular going against the biggest shareholder? They wouldn't.
If anything, I see the Activision side of things changing, since Vivendi is the largest shareholder. But I don't think any changes will become apparent for some time yet. So, please guys, call off the hounds and lynchmobs.
Don't forget to leave out the important bit, where before, Vivendi controlled VU Games and now, Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard.
And Bizarre Creations needs to go on that list for fucks sake.
We need more Vespene Gas!
They already tried that once; see StarCraft: Ghost.
Also, they started out as console developers back in the day.
People have been doing that since the days of Warcraft III
They're still letting Will Wright do his thing over as Maxis; so long as they get kickbacks in the form of endless Sims sequels and expansions. If I get Spore out of it in the end, I really don't care.
Yeah, but Beyond the Dark Portal and Brood War were pretty good.
And before you say anything, go check your manuals. Go ahead. I'll wait.
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....
So... Starcraft Universe anyone?
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....
....
Okay, are you back? As you may have noticed, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal was made, in part, by a company called Cyberlore Studios, and StarCraft: Brood War was made, in part, by a company called Sapphire Studios. Didn't seem to affect their quality very much. One of the reasons when something like Warcraft Adventures or StarCraft: Ghost pops up, I'm initially optimisitic.
On the other hand, maybe they won't notice, kinda like how we somehow manage to get a video game adaptation of a Sony Pictures-owned movie (Spiderman n) on a Microsoft console.
Or 'Astroboy: Omega Factor', a Sony Movies property, published by Sega, on a Nintendo Console
Blizzard North got consolidated into Blizzard's main studio, but that's about it.
Serously; WoW has 9 million subscribers and StarCraft II is in production; how could you possibly think Blizzard was dead?
That wasn't my point, though. My point was that all of these developers left Blizzard because of the supposed control Vivendi had over Blizzard and neither game did as well. Hell, personally, I think WoW is a better game than both Guild Wars and Hellgate (Why the hell was I calling it Hellfire? Diablo expansion on the brain. . .). Not to say Guild Wars isn't a good game, because it is, great even, but it went to show those developers that they were wrong about the "control" Vivendi supposedly put on Blizzard.
And regardless if WoW is an "anomaly", something had to attract 9 million paying customers. Especially considering Guild Wars' 2 million don't pay monthly.
Imagine the directing and squad based combat of call of duty 4 where you are a bunch of marines fighting over some planet against protoss and zerg...
Honestly, just give the best developers under Activision some blizzard liscenses and have blizzard supervise. Fanservice and cash cows.
Just wanted to clarify a few things.
1. I don't think the ArenaNet guys ever said why the specifically left Blizzard, other than the "explore new possibilities" type stuff
2. Roper and Co. left Blizzard because Vivindi was, at the time, shopping around for someone to buy their medioce game division (this was before WoW. While Blizzard was successful back then, their successes weren't making up for the rest of the Vivindi's game division's losses), and no one at Blizzard had any say in who they got sold to. It had nothing to do with Vivindi interfering with the day-to-day workings at Blizzard.
Man no seriously if this means they will be WoW on 360 then I'm all for it but still aren't they going a bit over board with the merging?
I lol'd.
Good thing this wasn't 1. a company being acquired and 2. involving EA in any way.
Why does everyone keep bringing this up? This situation is nothing whatsoever like those. Bullfrog, Origin, and Westwood were fairly successful studios who were acquired by a monolithic megacorp. Blizzard is not a fucking fairly successful studio; they're GARGANTUAN. They print money. They have an influence on the gaming world, in terms of both money and market share, that is right up there with Activision. This is a merger, not an acquisition. Anyone who is really concerned about losing Blizzard's integrity needs to learn the difference between the two.
How is it not a poorly disguised takeover? Before the "merger", Vivendi controlled VU Games and Activision controlled, well, Activision. Post-"merger", Vivendi controls Activision Blizzard, which consists of VU Games and Activision combined.
Activision didnt need to merge, nor did Vivendi. Its not a takeover, its a merger to boost both their profits.
Considering the CEO of Actiblizzion is the CEO of Activision control seems to still rest more with Activision.
Plus, while vivendi is of course much larger than activision, VU games is pathetic compared to activision in the game market.
Isn't the CEO of Activision becoming the CEO of the merged company? A poorly disguised takeover would have resulted in a purge.
Well, my opinion is that this won't really mean much for the next few years. After all, people have been prophesying Blizzard's doom since the Vivendi acquisition (probably earlier than that too), but they've seem to hold their own pretty well- even after a lot of their core developers left. Blizzard is successful enough that the new board will know to leave it on its own for now, but as with any management change, the long range strategy of the new company will be impacted. What this will mean is pretty much impossible to say, although if things keep going the way they have, it doesn't look like Blizzard will do anything stupid soon.
Edit: If anyone is interested, here's the official press release, which contains quite a few legal details. http://blizzard.com/press/071202.shtml
This needs to be quoted again. This is an amazing coincidence. Tomorrow's comic should just be this one again.
Its all coming in place
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The CEO is just an employee; he'd be left in if he's competent, just like any other employee. I guarantee you the board of directors will be completely different.
It's VU buying a majority stake in Activision, and part of that purchase is the higher-profile Activision brand name. I mean, there's nothing explicitly wrong with that, I suppose, but that's what it is.