Unless something crazy happens, it seems that the Activision-Blizzard merger (which is really the Activision-Vivendi merger, actually) will go down without a problem -- shareholders are voting on it this week, so by next week we should see confirmation that Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft are under the same umbrella.Gamasutra has posted a nice long feature about what exactly that means, for both companies and for the rest of the industry. As we predicted, there probably won't be huge repercussions for either of the biggest companies involved -- both Activision and Blizzard will continue to go their own separate ways for now, sharing only a name among investors (Gamasutra even says the names on the game boxes won't change at all). The biggest impact will be on the little guys in between -- Activision's previous shareholders now have to answer to Vivendi (who will hold a majority stock in the company), and Viviendi's smaller division, the former glory of Sierra Games, will have to answer to Activision before publishing any of their titles.
And of course the other big consequence we've seen so far is that Bobby Kotick apparently feels he knows everything there is to know about the MMO game. Sure. For now, though, it's business as usual for both Activision and Blizzard -- if there will be any change in either company because of the merger, we likely won't see it for a while.
[via Blizzplanet]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-11-2008 @ 1:48PM
Oldbear said...
Great screen shot.
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6-11-2008 @ 1:49PM
Oldbear said...
... oh, and I welcome our new Overlords! /bow
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6-11-2008 @ 2:20PM
Kaljin said...
Activision...ugh. Sucks they merged with Vivendi, but as long as they stay out of Blizzard, they can put Thrall in the next guitar hero for all I care.
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6-11-2008 @ 2:46PM
Xioyn said...
Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain in guitar hero FTW
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6-11-2008 @ 3:21PM
NeSuKuN said...
/agree
6-11-2008 @ 3:19PM
Ircasha said...
Having ridden through a few mergers myself, it would be a safe bet that no matter what all concerned parties say in public, beneath the covers there are lots of changes planned (with brand new org charts and all).
It's all just a matter of time, my friends.
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7-10-2008 @ 6:16PM
Kyn said...
Apparently, you don't know Blizzard.
When people tell Blizzard to do something- like ship War3 before its ready...
.
Blizz says no.
PEople say to do it! they wave their hands in the air, get angry, make threats!
Blizz laughs at them.
And then the people wander away, because they recall that, in the end, Blizz will make them money.
And the world is good.
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