Guys, Blizzard will still be able to do whatever the hell they want. They bring in too much cash not to be allowed that luxury.

I have a feeling that this a way to stab at EA, no doubt. Those evil bastards have gotten all high and mighty by underpaying employees and working them longer hours, franchise sitting on games (if I'm correct), and buying out the competition in order to stay on top. I applaud the effort and hope Activision and Blizzard will crush them!

Well that was . . . unexpected.

First post perhaps?

This is interesting, and I wonder what the effects will be for both firms. Blizzard gets access to the various activision brands and the potential profits there, and activision gets access to the blizzard brand and it's high profile games. It will be interesting to see how exactly this effects future projects, they will certainly have more money to hopefully pursue new IP's.

Sheesh.

Vivendi should use that money to make Homeworld 3. Stupid bastards.

@ NecroSen:

Uhm, Vivendi owns Blizzard, not Activision.

As such, practically everything good by Activision will get shafted much like the (nonexistant) support WoW has had since launch.

@ Grendal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_games

Blizzard, High profile games? More like lowest common denominator ones!

World of Guitar Hero perhaps? GuitarCraft maybe?

This is really strange...

@GoodRobotUs
The Unfortunate name, I'm sure, is proabably for "street cred" among gamers Activision is the number one third party developer and blizzard just plain kicks ass.

I have had a special hate in my heart for Vivendi ever since they got one of my favorite game series and developers canned...bah to them.

Maybe Blizz games will have decent server management and customer support now?

Wow, this is really an interesting development.

Personally I see this as a step forward for both companies, especially Blizzard. Namely, Activision has a strong presence in the console market and could bring about the re-emergence of StarCraft: Ghost since they'll now be able to work on it in-house instead of contracting out like the last 2 attempts. Not to mention the possibility of a console port for StarCraft 2, which I think would be great for the Wii since now you could literally point and click just like with a mouse. Not to mention it would make the Wii seem a little less gimmicky if it played well and had a good online structure.

Activision on the other hand gets the opportunity to work with some great licenses like WarCraft, StarCraft, and possibly even a new Diablo could get thrown into the works.

While I'm not that big of a fan of Blizzard Entertainment, they are a lesson to the entire industry that "...it's done when it's done..." is an attitude that's well worth having unlike most companies which are dictated by their sales and marketing schedules first. ID Software also does the "...it's done when it's done..." attitude of course.

I'm willing to give this a chance.

It'd be hilarious to have an orc guitarist in the next GH.

Will the combination of Activision and Vivendi be bigger than EA? I'd guess yes, but does anyone have solid figures.

Interesting to see a publisher merge with a developer, publishers usually have a lot more pushing power. On the other hand, we are talking about Blizzard. Blizzard is making enough money off WoW now to become fully independant, they operate almost independantly anyway; Vivendi gives them free reign with budget and schedule.

I'm not sure having the Activision CEO come in to run everything is gonna work well, but only time will tell.

Looks like Penny Arcade are prophetic

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/09

@p51:

Wow. That's almost scarily accurate. Insider info perhaps? Meh, PA is usually pretty good at calling things when they see them.

(whistles) holy cow, didn't see that coming. Hope the merge doesn't punk up Blizzard. I'd hate to lose one of the few developers that's still doing things well.

Vivendi are a bunch of fucking morons. They had Valve right in their pocket, but they decided to piss them off and Valve went straight to EA, losing literally billions in revenue. Vivendi could have been a challenger to EA, but shitty managing decisions and treating their best developers like shit will mean they will never be better than EA.

Just a minor correction, if it hasn't been pointed out already - the actual merger is between Activision and Vivendi Games, not Activision and Blizzard.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3168513654&sid=1&p...

@Las

Talk to a game industry professional and find out what they think of EA.

I'm going into game design and EA is a scary company. They are kind of like a giant virus, they find something that makes money and then eat it. Then their crappy management makes the devs hate their jobs and they leave, splitting great teams up.

EA has a horrible record as far as how they treat their employees and a nasty habit of lying to prospective employees about how they will be treated. They are extremely controlling on developers and have been known to destroy what would otherwise be a good game due to their insane restrictions and management practices.

Big example ebing when they tell you you'll be working 40 hour weeks on salary and as soon as you sign, they hit you with 60+ hour weeks.

Knowing what i do, I'll be avoiding EA like the plague when I start looking for a job, just thought I would point out that little flaw in your praise of EA.

Most companies are better companies, EA is just bigger.

las, attorney

I'm no hater, so I hope this doesn't seem like it, but EA has a history, in my opinion, of shipping crappy games that never further a physics engine or AI routine.

There are some fine exceptions to the above, but EA's history of doing nothing but releasing crappy sequels is why Activision recently passed them to become the #1 third party game publisher in the cosmos. I own a few EA games, but check their lineup... nearly everything is a sequel; although slightly shinier than it's predecessor.

Again, I'm no 'lan, attorney' hater, but I have been accused of being an EA hater.

From the article, it looks like GP is correct. Activision and Blizzard are merging and Vivendi's ownership of Blizzard means they will own a large portion of the merged company.

Somewhere on earth, Larry Probst just crapped his pants...

[...] Source: World of Dealcraft: Blizzard, Activision Merge Bookmark it: [...]

WOW is not that great....WC3 was not that great.... SC2 might be good if its more like SC/WC2 and less like WC3...in any case it will be a mixed bag of projects ,I hope some are worthwhile...

@ZippyDSMlee

WoW is not that great...

But it prints money and flies off the shelves. Only bigger gaming success I can think of right now might be the Wii.... the only thing limiting the Wii is that Nintendo can't produce them fast enough to meet the demand. For the genre WoW is (MMO), it is many levels higher than competetors. Sure, there may be one that has some specific facet that is better than WoW in that area, but overall, WoW beats the others hands-down.

WC3 was not that great...

It has its moments. I really liked the story-based structure of the single player missions. I really didn't care for the multiplayer much though.

SC2 might be good if its more like SC/WC2 and less like WC3…

From what I've seen it is *very* much like SC. Blizzard learned from some mistakes in WC3, like the "hero" ideas, etc. didn't quite pan out the way they wanted. They are really focusing on not making it "WC3 with a SC paintjob", but at the same time, not being "SC1, but with 3D graphics and a couple new units". From what I saw at BlizzCon, they are getting a pretty good game built, but there was a lot more work to be done.

in any case it will be a mixed bag of projects ,I hope some are worthwhile…

Blizzard's projects sell. And sell well. Activision, I believe, was the company that got more out of this deal than Vivendi Games did.

To date, I have had no problems with Blizzard's support. It has been excellent, from day one to now. And I've had my fair share of problems with WoW over the years since... umm.... the beta.

The only problem I forsee with this is that Activision is a bunch of money-grubbing whores, and this merger does nothing more than give them a way to manufacture even more commercial crap, and jam even more in-game advertisements down our throats, until it's commonplace to be playing SC2, and building billboards for McDonalds, and making galactic Starbucks.

Blizzard Vision.

It sounds like something I'd see on Heroes...

I wonder what this will do to WoW support and the Call of Duty series.

I think WOW support will get better after seeing the merger of these 2 giants. I'm also excited to see the release of Starcraft 2 from this new company.