Who is responsible of this tragegy, exactly? We can blame activision but someone from blizzard did sell it. I found this
‘‘On July 9, 2008, Activision merged with Vivendi Games, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company. On July 25, 2013 , Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi.’’
Can’t really find names though.
We went from dark creepy insane games like Diablo and Diablo 2 with supberb music, and brood war (became professional competition in korean) to a tournament with disconnects and players who switch to classic mode so they can try to play. Look super amateurish and non professionnal, but we’re talking about a billionaire company. You don’t have the ressource to at least fix the disc bug and get just little credibility?
In 2014, Activision Blizzard was the fifth largest gaming company by revenue worldwide, with total assets of US$14.746 billion and total equity estimated at US$7.513 billion.
I’m a bit surprised we don’t have more recent data. Are things going wrong for Activision blizzard?
It’s really sad. Will it be worse with Diablo 4?
4 Likes
Okay so here’s the thing about Blizzard Entertainment.
They’ve never really been an independent company. Since before they were named Blizzard they were owned by another company, and they’ve been bought and sold, bought and sold for years. Activision-Blizzard is simply the next owner of the company.
The previous owner of Blizzard Entertainment was Vivendi, and they didn’t really ‘sell’ Blizzard Entertainment. They chose to merge with Activision to create Activision-Blizzard. What you’re describing there is a stock buyout. Vivendi wanted out, so Activision-Blizzard bought the Vivendi owned stock so they could walk away.
No one from Blizzard was responsible for what happened at that level.
3 Likes
Well, according to Wikipedia:
In early 1994, they were acquired by distributor [Davidson & Associates] for $6.75 million ($11.6 million today)
and since that point the company has changed hands several times until Activision picked it up from Vivendi, which merged with Activision
Up through 2006, the CEO of [Activision] Bobby Kotick, had been working to rebound the company from near-bankruptcy, and had established a number of new studios. However, Activision lacked anything in the MMO market. Kotick saw that World of Warcraft was bringing in over US$1.1 billion a year in subscription fees, and began approaching Vivendi’s CEO [Jean-Bernard Lévy]) about potential acquisition of their struggling Vivendi Games division, which included Blizzard Entertainment.
So there you have it.
Kotick saw a good chance to make a lot of money (cause he was on the verge of bankruptcy), and now I wouldn’t be surprised if Activision takes this game down with it.
6 Likes
It’s called corporate greed buddy…everything else is loaded language
Vevendi Games.
Vivendi Games was brought out by Activision and restructured. Vivendi Games consisted of Sierra, some studios that worked for Sierra and Blizzard Entertainment. Vivendi Games also owned a lot of intellectual property including Empire Earth, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and much more.
During the merger they created the holding company “Activision Blizzard”. The name was chosen since Blizzard Entertainment was the largest division of Vivendi Games thanks to the success of World of Warcraft despite publishing the fewest games. Blizzard Entertainment still operates like it did when under Vivendi Games.
Needless to say one cannot fault Activision Blizzard much. They have a very good record with high quality remakes/remasters. Take a look at Crash Bandicoot and Spryo the Dragon, both of which received a lot of praise in general.
We do. They give the data every year at their annual share holders meeting. Last year they announced the huge staff reshuffle within Blizzard as they streamlined towards Diablo IV and other projects.