The strange timing of this massive announcement aside, details are starting to come to light about what the merger of Activision and Blizzard means to all involved. First, Blizzard has made an official announcement in their forums, followed by a separate post with a FAQ about the merger. The FAQ basically says absolutely nothing will change on the Blizzard side. No layoffs, no managerial changes, no ship date changes. This is no surprise since no one in their right mind is going to mess with the success that is the Blizzard name and the team behind it.The official press release mentioned in our first post today is a bit dense on the corporate speak, but the interesting parts are:
- The new Board of Directors will have 11 seats: 6 of those filled by Vivendi, 2 by Activision and 3 by independent directors from Activision's board.
- There will be a live webcast with the management of the two sides tomorrow morning at 8:30am EST and can be viewed at www.vivendi.com and www.activision.com
Kudos to our own Art Orneck on the "Activizzard" reference. It sure beat out my "Blizzvision" for cleverness.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-02-2007 @ 3:58PM
veto said...
why on earth would blizzard , with a great brand image,want the words activision slapped infront of it ?
years of image branding gone in one swift swoop .
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12-03-2007 @ 4:32AM
Tarbh said...
"The Activision Blizzard brand will not appear anywhere as a consumer-facing brand. Basically it is a corporate brand for the overall company. If you want to buy stock in the company, the stock is called Activision Blizzard; the central shared services for the company, such as the sales and distribution force, will be Activision Blizzard. But Blizzard Entertainment will continue to be a publishing label.
..... It (Activision Blizzard) will not be associated with any product."
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164670
I guess business people wont give a crap as long as it makes money, but they know it would alienate the hell out of fans.
12-02-2007 @ 5:34PM
NeuroMan42 said...
Activision was once a force to be reckoned with. Over the past few years their games have been very lackluster. There has been a few close calls of Activison going bye-bye too. I think this is to save their ass more then anything else.
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12-02-2007 @ 7:49PM
theRaptor said...
Activision Blizzard? ACTIVISION BLIZZARD?
WTH?
I forsee that name lasting a few months before they get their sense back.
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12-03-2007 @ 4:54AM
lirean said...
If what they say actually happens, we won't notice anything in terms of production changes. And the "Activision Blizzard" name is merely a corporate name that won't appear on anything other then corporate matters and won't even appear on packages.
As long as what they say is true, I'm not fussed. If it's true, of course...
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12-03-2007 @ 9:35AM
Tagor said...
This seems to further pave the way for WoW on the Console.
I figure the StationPass will end up on the PS3 and WoW on the 360. I’m sure either Sony or MS would give their left one to further get into the MMO market.
However, having already gone through a console/mmo transition on FFXI, this, if they do infact bring WoW to the console, can cause frustration to the existing player base. Though it’s sure would surely bring WoW well past the 10M mark if done incorrectly it could cause mass exodus to newer next-gen titles.
Anyway , who knows... they might be implementing elements of Guitar Hero into WoW :-/ FTW (jk)
All and all it seems like a good move, things can only get better for both Activision and Blizzard and Vivendi will continue to post awesome earnings in their game division.
The thing that took me by a bit of surprise is that Blizzard looking at approximately 520M in operating profit for 07. Not too bad for a video game.
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12-03-2007 @ 2:36PM
Rob said...
I always thought that another game might kill WoW(and Blizzard)but now we'll watch corporate politics do what no other game developer has been able to do in the last 3 years.
Activision=Blizzard Slayer
/cry
Everyone gather around and watch Activision slit the throat of the goose that lays golden eggs!!
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