I was lucky enough to go to E3 this year with the Joystiq crew last week, and while I had planned to cover some stories about WoW for you guys, the biggest story I came back with was: that there was no story. I didn't hear or see World of Warcraft mentioned once. When Blizzard said they were not showing at E3, they meant it -- I didn't even hear a competitor mention their name.
There was one mention of Blizzard at the Activision press conference on Tuesday. Mike Griffith name-dropped Blizzard once just to say the merger had happened, but there was nothing at all about World of Warcraft or any of Blizzard's properties. And I had planned to try out the Novint Falcon controller with WoW. I did try it out, and it is an interesting, if expensive, PC game controller, but Novint told me they didn't have it working in a form they wanted to show off with World of Warcraft yet.
Kind of strange that the biggest game in the world didn't get a single mention at the biggest game show in the world, but then again, it's not that weird when you consider that E3 has scaled way down by magnitudes from past years. Companies aren't as interested in the event when there are many, many other ways to market and show off their games to journalists, and considering that Blizzard has invested heavily in not one but two giant events of their own this year, it's no wonder they don't want to spend any money at E3. Shame that we couldn't bring you more WoW coverage from LA last week, but we'll be back there in October, and there'll be plenty of news to report then.
Develop magazine got to talk to Thomas Tippl, who is Activision's CFO (we've heard a lot from CEO Bobby Kotick, but never from Tippl before) about the Activision Blizzard merger and how it will affect both companies. Tippl reiterates what we've heard before: that Activision has no plans to tell Blizzard how to do their jobs when they've been doing so well already.
He does, however, say that a "portfolio review" is in order, and so employees of Sierra (Vivendi's other games division) should start working on their resumes, if they haven't started already. He also says the sales teams of each company will likely be consolidated -- they want to put an "all-star team" together, but the thing about stars is that not everyone can be one.
So the merger remains good news for Blizzard, not-so-good news for the rest of Vivendi. We're still curious to see what happens when/if Blizzard falls out of Activision's good graces. Sure, everything is peachy-keen right now, but when Blizzard's stubborn commitment to quality bumps up against Activision's almost yearly franchise releases, who'll walk away the victor?
Okay, so we've been waiting for this moment for a few months. The waiting probably hasn't involved breathless anticipation or anything, but there's definitely been waiting. It's now official, and there's very little to go wrong -- Vivendi is merging with Activision, destroying the Vivendi Games name in favor of the new entity: Activision-Blizzard.
Activision shareholders (and a little regulation-fu) were the only hold ups to the process. Today, Activision shareholders voted 92% in favor of merging with Vivendi. Which means that 8% voted against the deal -- I have to wonder what they were thinking. The old Vivendi folks have a 52% control of the new company (called Activision-Blizzard), which is projected to clock over $3.8 billion dollars annually.
The close date is tomorrow -- it's still technically possible that an enormous asteroid may fall from the heavens, plunging the entirety of the Earth into a post-nuclear wasteland. Or, zombies could attack. Maybe Zombie Murlocs, with their own MySpace accounts. But short of a Murloc invasion (I, for one, welcome our new Mrlglglglge overlords), there's nothing left for the merger but for the fat lady to sing.
We'll start this one off with the caveat that these days, you can find an analyst to tell you anything you want, so just in case you want to hear that Activision is apparently a "better investment" than Electronic Arts, Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel is your man. He says that Activision (the company that's merging with Vivendi/Blizzard, doncha know) is "way ahead" of its big competitor EA in terms of profitability.
His comments are more of an attack against EA than a compliment for Activision, however -- he mentions Call of Duty and Guitar Hero as big franchises for Activision, and they are, but he doesn't say a word about the Blizzard merger at all. And on the EA side, he leaves Rock Band off the list completely (EA is distributing it, not publishing it), and makes no mention at all of Madden or any of EA's other big franchises). Plus, he's been downon EA for a longtime.
In short, this isn't going to change anyone's mind. If you're a fan (or stockholder) of Activizzard, then great, there's a bright future in it for you. And if you're not, and you'd rather embrace EA, this guy is just biased enough that he's not going to change your mind. But we're all for competition anyway -- it can be good games time now?
Steven Mallas over at BloggingStocks notes that Activision's stock (AVTI) capped a new 52-week high yesterday at $36.84. By the end of the day, the final price was slightly lower, but overall it grew nearly 5%. Mallas mentions what's on all of our minds -- Guitar Hero for DS, sure, but Activision is about to pick up a 10-million subscriber powerhouse called Blizzard. That's worth a little something to investors.
So while other, similar companies lost share price yesterday (Electronic Arts and Take Two, for example), our Activision overlords (whom I, for one, welcome with open arms) continues to do well. With Wrath of the Lich King pending around the corner, we can hope for the stock to pick up a few additional pennies. I don't know what effect the whole eSport buzz might have, but it could still be too early to tell.
In Blizzard company news, another major milestone for the planned Blizzard-Activision merger is now set for July 8th, when a special meeting of Activision's shareholders will vote on their merger with Vivendi Games, Inc., the parent company of Blizzard. The meeting will take place in Beverly Hills, CA.
The timing of this meeting is apparently later than expected according to sister site Big Download, but it is worth noting that it still beats out E3, which will take place on July 11th-13th. You'll recall that Blizzard and Activision dropped out of E3. Rumor has it that they are also planning to hold a press conference during E3, on the first day, and being able to reveal final details of when, where, and how the merger will complete during that press conference would be quite a coup, for sure.
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision, took the stage at the All Things Digital conference, and spoke a little more about the Activision Blizzard deal.
Kotick fesses up that a lot of the merger was about Blizzard's people. While a pessimist might read this as "we can't compete with them, so join 'em," what I see is a deep level of respect for Blizzard and its creation. Kotick said, "the merger is really our mechanism to get access to Blizzard's talent, capability and infrastructure." This isn't really a surprise, and reinforces what Kotick's had to say about being considerate of Blizzard's culture.
As has been said before, Kotick doesn't seem like a bad guy. What he's doing is acknowledging the good work Blizzard's done in the past. He straight out says that, "I've never seen anything quite like World of Warcraft, not just as a gaming experience, but as a social experience, as a business."
That's not the kind of sentiment issued by someone who doesn't like what they just bought (Ed: But would someone who just spent $18.8 billion on anything not like it?). While Kotick doesn't say directly much about the future of Blizzard, things are still looking good for our favorite Blue team.
Approval by the European Commission was necessary because Vivendi (the owner of Blizzard and now the buyer of Activision, if you haven't been keeping up with all this) is a French media company, and therefore subject to EU business laws and antitrust concerns. Officials were mulling over the merger because of fears that Vivendi's ownership of Universal Music Group would give Activision Blizzard an unfair advantage in licensing music for games like Guitar Hero.
They finally decided that it's not a threat to the health of the market, and approved the merger. So there it is. It's done. The government can't save you now; Activision Blizzard is your new master. I tremble in terror before the fictional (yet somehow inevitable) Bard class and its l33t Guitar Hero skillz!
The D.I.C.E. Summit's official site describes the event, currently taking place in Las Vegas, as a meeting of "the video game industry's most influential leaders," so of course you know Blizzard's there. Gamesindustry.biz's coverage of Mike Morhaime's presentation today doesn't reveal anything too earth-shattering about the company or the World of Warcraft. It's about the same thing we've heard from him in the past, but hey, if the presentation isn't broke, don't fix it, right?
It's still good to hear that Blizzard's on the right track, of course, and it's actually amazing that even with Mike Morhaime about to get his eighth boss, Blizzard's stayed pretty consistent on quality and dependability, as almost anyone who's had to switch bosses can tell you. But it looks like that, even with the Activision merger, we can expect the same tradition of long development cycles leading to quality games, which is, if familiar news, also comforting news.
You don't need to know all of the details, or what this means for Blizzard, to understand and have a laugh. Simply note that Activision is the company that brought out titles such as Guitar Hero and Call of Duty.
I'm a particular fan of this comic, and I'm not exactly sure why. I mean, I do play Horde, and an orc at that; and no one likes to get ganked! The style in which the night elf is depicted, combined with the last frame, had me laughing out loud though.
If you feel you have a particularly solid grasp on the matter, Elizabeth has asked for your predictions on the future of the company. Because I know you can all tell the future, there's no point in keeping it to yourselves.
We've all had a couple of days to mull over the news of the big Activision Vivendi merger announced this weekend. The forums, official and unofficial, have been filled with outcries of concern over what this means for the future of Blizzard and their favorite game, while Blizzard has reassuringly repeated that nothing is really changing. But after all the excitement dies down, the truth is that it's all just words until we see what happens. But today I'm asking for your predictions: where will the new Activision Blizzard be a year from now?
And the answer-- in my analysis-- is, as usual with most mergers: money. The fact is that Activision wants to be the biggest gaming company in the world. They want it all-- consoles, PC games, you name it-- and connecting with Blizzard helps them get a big part of that. World of Warcraft has turned Blizzard from a quality game designer into a videogame powerhouse, and Activision, in reaching for the top, has invited Blizzard on their team.
Blizzard will profit from it as well-- Activision knows how to get games published and marketed (just look at Guitar Hero III, which has done incredibly well for being a game that was not only not made by the original developer, but actually released up against a strong competitormade by the original developer). Blizzard knows how to make great games, and Activision knows how to release them, so both companies obviously think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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
The BBC site has a very good summary of the merger along with a brief background on both companies. And The New York Times site has a deeper analysis from a business perspective. It points out that Activision is trying hard to compete with EA Games and adding Blizzard will not only put its annual revenue on par with its main competition, but will give it a criticial foothold in the online gaming and Asian gaming markets.
Kudos to our own Art Orneck on the "Activizzard" reference. It sure beat out my "Blizzvision" for cleverness.
I'm a little overwhelmed by the news that Vivendi has acquired control of Activision to form Activision Blizzard. The PDF (you'll need Adobe Reader) for the transaction is here.
Vivendi is contributing Vivendi Games (which includes Blizzard ) and some cash to the tune of $1.7 Billion.
Vivendi will have a 52% stake in Activision Blizzard.
Activision will be merged entirely into Activision Blizzard and will bring all of their games including Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Tony Hawk.
My main concern in all of this is a selfish one. I don't want Blizzard to be kept to new deadlines in creating their games. The "we'll release when it's ready" philosophy may be frustrating when we are impatient for new games and expansions, but it produces high quality games. Having worked for a video game publisher before, I know how rigid deadlines can hurt otherwise promising games. And we can see where the Diablo team still produces a fun game, but one that was obviously released before it was ready when we play Hellgate: London.
What do you think of this news? Will the merger hurt WoW? Or do you think Blizzard will be able to continue mostly autonomously considering they are currently such a cash cow for their owners?
I was lucky enough to go to E3 this year with the Joystiq crew last week, and while I had planned to cover some stories about WoW for you guys, the biggest story I came back with was: that there was no story. I didn't hear or see World of Warcraft mentioned once. When Blizzard said they were not showing at E3, they meant it -- I didn't even hear a competitor mention their name.
Develop magazine got to talk to Thomas Tippl, who is Activision's CFO (we've heard a lot 
We'll start this one off with the caveat that these days, you can find an analyst to tell you anything you want, so just in case you want to hear that Activision is apparently a "better investment" than Electronic Arts, Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel is your man. He says that Activision (the company that's merging with Vivendi/Blizzard, doncha know) 
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision, took the stage at the 
The D.I.C.E. Summit's official site
So now that 
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