The USD 15.8 Billion Marriage of Activision & Vivendi Games

December 3, 2007 by Chapree

Yesterday, Activision & Vivendi Games made an announcement that nobody really saw it coming. They are going to merge into what would be the world’s largest video games publisher. As a result to the USD 15.8 billion worth of deal, the result of the merge would be Activision Blizzard.

I smell a lot of moneh.

Alright, let’s ignore the technical details for a bit because it is pretty much full of numbers. It does contain a lot of important details (if you actually cares) but anybody can get lost in those numbers easily. So, let’s keep it simple and I believe many are more concern about this one single question: what will happened to Blizzard?

Of course, many gamers are concerned about this merger effect on Blizzard. After all, they are the keeper of several genre defining games such as Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft and the hugely life & socially draining popular MMO, World of Warcraft. Let’s not forget their upcoming titles such as South Korea national sports Starcraft II. Realizing this, Blizzard explained this issue with a FAQ at their website. A nice way to say that nothing going to change in the land of Blizzard.

Meanwhile, the other corporate giant in video game industry - EA, already felt the heat from their new competitor. EA shares fell 1.3 percent when the annoucement was made, according to an AP article. When asked about the merge, a spokesman for EA said, “We look forward to the competition and believe that EA still has the strongest portfolio of perennial game franchises,”.

Full press release is available here.

[Thanks to our forum leader, the mighty and fearless H@H@ for the news]

Activision Blizzard Official Website
The New Activition Blizzard @ Lowyat.NET Forums

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