Activision Blizzard.. ?

[Modelworks]

Little more detail on the merger:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-b..._index.php?story=16458

The Activision/Blizzard Merger: Five Key Points
1. Activision Is The Dominant Partner

You can read this multiple ways, but in general, the company whose chief exec becomes CEO in a 'merger' such as this is in the driving seat, business-wise. One good, if more extreme example of this was the GameStop/EB 'merger', which concluded with the EB executives and name largely removed from positions of power in the company.

In this case, Activision boss Robert Kotick will be President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard, and Vivendi Games' Bruce Hack will be CCO of the combined company. Vivendi is still majority shareholder, but as for who's actively running the business - you do the math.

2. Blizzard - New Billing, Same Independence

One of the intriguing things about the old Vivendi structure was that, even when Martin Tremblay joined to run Vivendi's publishing, it was specified: "World Of Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment has been designated a stand-alone division reporting to VU Games' CEO, and is not part of Tremblay's product development mandate."

And it's the same deal, more or less, in the new system - Mike Morhaime will continue to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard Entertainment, and no explicit reporting structure is even discussed in the release. Blizzard will continue to plough its own furrow, then.

3. World Of Warcraft's Revenues: Absolutely Staggering

And there's a reason why Blizzard have been and are left well alone - the clout that comes with this mindblowing statistic: "Blizzard Entertainment [which has "over 9.3 million subscribers" to World Of Warcraft] has projected calendar 2007 revenues of $1.1 billion, operating margins of over 40% and approximately $520 million of operating profit."

This disclosure separates out Blizzard's revenue from Vivendi Games and Vivendi very explicitly, and shows why the division has been key to holding Vivendi Games together in recent years.

4. Vivendi's Non-Blizzard Assets? Way Downplayed

One of the things that came up repeatedly in detailed responses to Game Developer's Top 20 Publishers Report was that Vivendi's non-Blizzard assets, which includes multiple development studios (Radical Entertainment, High Moon, Swordfish, Massive Entertainment) and publishing labels (Sierra, Sierra Online, Vivendi Mobile) have a relatively low profile, with confused brand messaging for the latter - and their relative unimportance (for now) is shown in this announcement.

In fact, all that is commented regarding those elements of the business is: "Mike Griffith will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Publishing, which after closing will include the Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile divisions in addition to the Activision business." Sure, it's also noted: "Vivendi Games also owns popular franchises, including Crash Bandicoot and Spyro" - but those franchises are thus far past their prime, minus their original creators.

5. Electronic Arts: Still Bigger, Probably Worried

While the release notes that the merger will be "creating the world?s largest pure-play online and console game publisher", with the "highest operating margins of any major third-party video game publisher", it sounds like Electronic Arts is still the largest - predicting net revenue of between $3.8 and $4.0 billion for its 2008 financial year, as opposed to $3.8 billion for Activision's (not concurrent) 2007 calendar year.

However, given that EA's BioWare/Pandemic and Mythic/Warhammer Online acquisitions were partly to plug a gap in the MMO and RPG genres - one that Blizzard is already a master in, then... It's perhaps not a worry for EA CEO John Riccitiello just yet, but rather a pause for thought.

 

[joejld1]

I just had lunch and was driving back to work when I saw the campus right in front of my office in Irvine, CA. That group of buildings used to be Broadcom's , but I saw that Blizzard just moved in. I've been wondering what company it was for weeks. They started fencing the whole place about 3 weeks ago. I've seen a glimpse of their sign, but I only saw the "Entertainment" part of "Blizzard Entertainment". They had their names covered up with white sheets for weeks now. I guess they just unveiled and moved in just this morning. We've been joking that it might be some kind of other "entertainment", like an adult-themed company since that block was never fenced before.

 

[Fadardo]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Think not of Activision owning blizzard, but Vivendi (the owners of Blizzard) now controlling Activision and Blizzard, Vivendi now owns 52% of Activision and soon to be 68%.

For those of you who fear this merge, all you need to do is consider this quote. Activision will not be holding nearly as much weight over Blizzard compared to how much weight Blizzard will hold over Activision. I trust that Vivendi knows what they are doing. They have let the Blizz guys call the shots with little interference for quite some time now and the shear numbers show how successful they have been. There is no way Vivendi would ever allow Activision to damage that. If they even try, expect some of the big shots at Activison to get laid off really quick. My guess is that Vivendi plans on keeping the two of them separate for the most part with exception of maybe some experimentation with a completely different game. Vivendi probably just wants a piece of the console game market $$$. We'll see what happens..

Not true Xavier434 actually Vivendi has superceded blizzards decision before, including a now recent Wallstreet conference where they announced they had plans for Blizzard which clashed with Blizzards own plans. What they decided is Blizzard will be making 4-5 new MMO games in the next 10-15 years( not expansions of WoW mind you). Blizzard ended up denying this( as any developer would who want to keep their cards up their sleeves), but I have the leaked PowerPoint Presentation from that conference that was eventually forcably removed from the internet via lawsuit threats.

I can really see Vivendi making Blizzard do MMOs or focus mostly on MMOs as they now think they can just keep pumping them out and make World of Warcraft like profits. Vivendi Universal as a whole has lost billions of dollars due to bad management and the shareholders are now looking to Blizzard to recuipe those losses.

 

[Zenoth]

Meh ... Blizzard ...

They are good for WoW right now and what else ... SC2 ? Maybe ... but it's not released yet. Personally I haven't touched a Blizzard game since Diablo 2, so I don't feel particularly "bad" if I think that Activision MIGHT screw up some of Blizzard's "good" ideas in the future, because to me Blizzard have created two great games, and they are WC2 and D2, oh and ... yeah well, I liked Black Thorne and The Lost Vikings but that's quite a long, very long time ago. And seeing how they leave D2 players in the dust with each passing seasons isn't forcing any pity from me if Activision does anything negative.

 

[AdamK47]

I'm happy with my 12.73% gain in one day.

 

[Skott]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Andy22

Originally posted by: Finalnight
They should go with Blactivision as the new company name.

"When is Starcraft II coming out?"

"Shut yo mouf fool!"

Dude that was terrible. Not the semi-racist slant...just the comedic content.

Agreed. I would vote for Actilizzard which someone had mentioned earlier. :thumbsup:

KT

LMAO... thats a terrible name. I nominate BlizzAct for a name. Not a great name but better than Actilizard.

 

[JBT]

meh PC gaming will be fine after this. I havn't played a Blizzard game since WC3 and even that wasn't great.

 

[TehMac]

I think people spelling the end because a stinking publisher purchases a developer is rather silly, and a fatalistic view only produces an insatiable desire for games that may be beyond what is possible.

Like EA purchasing Bioware; EA specifically stated that they're basically publishing all Bioware's stuff and reserve the right with this purchase. The new president of EA was an old hand at Bioware, so there's some chance a shred of respect toward's Bioware's original plans will carry out.

Either way, you'll have giants like EA churning out games, and then newcomers like THQ bringing in amazing games--it's a cycle. Now at least, EA has some competition, they're threatened, so this could go either way.

 

[Etern205]

Call of Duty 4 with WOW anyone?

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: Beev

Originally posted by: QueBert
Activision makes better games than Blizzard...

GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

LOL He must be drunk/high/crazy.

SORRY, I should say Publishes. SOFII > anything Blizzard ever put out. They also use to make some of the best c64 games hand down, if you take Activisions entire catalog into consideration no company can match what they've done. If you want to compare the 2 in the past 3 years, ok maybe Activision would get a response like you gave. Anyone who owned a C64 will back me up as them being one of the best publishers/game makers of all time.

 

[DangerAardvark]

Originally posted by: Skott

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Andy22

Originally posted by: Finalnight
They should go with Blactivision as the new company name.

"When is Starcraft II coming out?"

"Shut yo mouf fool!"

Dude that was terrible. Not the semi-racist slant...just the comedic content.

Agreed. I would vote for Actilizzard which someone had mentioned earlier. :thumbsup:

KT

LMAO... thats a terrible name. I nominate BlizzAct for a name. Not a great name but better than Actilizard.

Screw all ya'll. The name will definitely be Blizzlevizzle. Fo shizzle.

 

[skace]

I only read this thread to see all the ridiculous anti-blizzard people spout their opinions about how Blizzard hasn't made a good game since xyz. That shit cracks me up in ways you cannot imagine.

Oh and Modelworks, nice link.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Etern205
Call of Duty 4 with WOW anyone?

Mechwarrior MMO

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Fadardo

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Think not of Activision owning blizzard, but Vivendi (the owners of Blizzard) now controlling Activision and Blizzard, Vivendi now owns 52% of Activision and soon to be 68%.

For those of you who fear this merge, all you need to do is consider this quote. Activision will not be holding nearly as much weight over Blizzard compared to how much weight Blizzard will hold over Activision. I trust that Vivendi knows what they are doing. They have let the Blizz guys call the shots with little interference for quite some time now and the shear numbers show how successful they have been. There is no way Vivendi would ever allow Activision to damage that. If they even try, expect some of the big shots at Activison to get laid off really quick. My guess is that Vivendi plans on keeping the two of them separate for the most part with exception of maybe some experimentation with a completely different game. Vivendi probably just wants a piece of the console game market $$$. We'll see what happens..

Not true Xavier434 actually Vivendi has superceded blizzards decision before, including a now recent Wallstreet conference where they announced they had plans for Blizzard which clashed with Blizzards own plans. What they decided is Blizzard will be making 4-5 new MMO games in the next 10-15 years( not expansions of WoW mind you). Blizzard ended up denying this( as any developer would who want to keep their cards up their sleeves), but I have the leaked PowerPoint Presentation from that conference that was eventually forcably removed from the internet via lawsuit threats.

I can really see Vivendi making Blizzard do MMOs or focus mostly on MMOs as they now think they can just keep pumping them out and make World of Warcraft like profits. Vivendi Universal as a whole has lost billions of dollars due to bad management and the shareholders are now looking to Blizzard to recuipe those losses.

I'm ok with that provided they understand the quality and quantity concerns when it comes to the required staff for that many MMOs. 4-5 seems like a lot though. We'll see what happens. Plans often change, but as long as Blizzard continues to retain their quality by not being forced to rush content then I will be happy. Also, keep in mind that I used the phrase "little interference" meaning that it still happens but it is not much in comparison to the pressures that other companies have placed on developers. A fine example would be EA and their involvement in some recent titles.