Some time last month, Activision and Vivendi Games merged into what is now the biggest third party publisher of video games. Activision is well known for being behind such huge hits which featured Tony Hawk, James Bond, Call of Duty and Marvel characters, but Vivendi is bringing in its own big hits. The company was slated as the publisher of the upcoming Ghostbusters game along with Prototype and Brutal Legend, the newest game created by Tim Schafer. Vivendi also has an extensive list of music subsidiaries which could greatly benefit Activision's recently acquired Guitar Hero Series. It is also the parent company of Sierra which owns the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises as well as all of Blizzard Entertainment, including World of Warcraft. With 9.3 million subscribers, World of Warcraft will be bringing in approximately half the new company's profits and a fourth of its revenues. Since Blizzard is such a dominate name in the gaming industry at the moment, it can easily be seen why the new company will be labeled as Activision Blizzard.
So just how big is this new Activision Blizzard company? The estimated value of the new company is $18.9 billion. In comparison, the former largest third party publisher EA is valued at $3.8 billion. However, EA is still technically the more powerful company due to holding a stronger retail and marketing presence. That means that Activision Blizzard will be making more money, but from fewer titles. However, due to a stronger retail and marketing presence, EA is still the more powerful third party publisher, meaning Activision Blizzard is making more money from fewer games, but with a larger revenue, how long will it be before the new larger publisher becomes number one in every way?
Source: GameInformer.com
Reported by: Chris G. (Nomad)
I heard about this a couple weeks ago. Sounds like a really good business move. Not sure about games, though. We'll hafta wait and see.
If WoW is making half the revenue for the merged company, why would Blizzrad need to merge in the first place?
Their name is the standard of excellence and quality in games, thus the low amount of IPs.
Hopefully they don't start being like EA.. releasing half-finished games left and right.
well, Blizzard was already owned by Vivendi, and Vivendi is the reason for the merger more so. yes they're making a lot of money with WoW, but they still have a ton of new IPs and various games that they need a lot of money for, thus, the extra money will be helpful for those titles. also, Vivendi technically purchased the majority stock of Activision, so it's more like Vivendi ate Activision and thus Activision became a part of it. the article goes into other benefits to both as well. Activision is mostly North American. by having Blizzard, which does quite well with the Asian market (roughly 2.5 million WoW subscribers in NA and 5.5 million in Asia), Activision can start branching into the Asian market. it's not a real asset to either so much as a huge benefit to both