Raph’s Website » Vivendi buys Activision to create Activision Blizzard

Vivendi buys Activision to create Activision Blizzard

December 2nd, 2007 (Visited 4157 times) Tags:

It’s the big news of the game industry today.

The upshot:

The Blizzard name gets hurt. This is a shame. Blizz itself is going to retain its name, “Blizzard Entertainment,” but there’s sure to be some degree of market confusion and tarnishing of Blizzard’s brand, which is unquestionably the best in the industry, by having associated with absolutely everything coming out of Vivendi and Activision. Not a good branding choice — we’ll probably all call the new entity just “Activision” anyway. Or “A/B” which I will do because it is shorter to type.
EA will probably have to respond, since this makes them the #2 publisher (!). There’s that Ubisoft purchase that’s been dangling out there for ages… In fact, it may stimulate more M&A activity across the whole industry, and more consolidation.
It’ll be interesting to see whether EA and A/B diverge in their approaches; EA has been talking more and more about being “an entertainment company” whereas A/B seems like doubling down on traditional gaming.

The impact to employees will probably be minimal for quite some time to come. Both publishers are enormous, so everyone there is used to that sort of environment.

One states reason for the merger, btw, is for ATVI to get more online expertise. It will be interesting to see whether Blizzard’s online expertise can actually be translated outwards. After all, EA and others failed at that sort of approach.

It’s also amusing to remember that Blizzard was actually on the block not that many years ago.

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BlenderLaw wrote on December 4th, 2007 at 3:56 pm:

SEC yesterday relating to the proposed merger, including an investor presentation and a letter to employees. In addition, Activision has established a website with information on the merger for employees. Comments on the proposed merger at Raph Kosterhereand here.

buzzYA! - Get the latest Buzz in technology wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm:

s more likely is that EA will look for other acquisitions. Raph Koster, who started a company that bridges the web with virtual worlds, notes that EA seems to be moving towards global media concerns while Activision (ATVI) has been “doubling down on traditional gaming.” It will be interesting to see if EA starts eyeing music, TV, film, and other entertainment options. Also affected is The9 (NCTY), which operates World of Warcraft for Blizzard in China. Shares of the Chinese gaming operator, in which EA holds a 15

Techmeme wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 2:51 am:

+ Discussion: Computerworld, Crave,Raph’s Website, Los Angeles Times, paidContent.org and WOW Insider

Actizzard?! | TIAGOFARRAJOTA.COM ; O WEBLOG! wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 2:18 am:

[...] reacções não parecem ser muito más… O que te faz não gostar desta [...]

How Will Activision Blizzard Change Games Sector? - GigaOM wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 3:17 pm:

[...] that EA seems to be moving towards global media concerns while Activision (ATVI) has been “doubling down on traditional gaming.” It will be interesting to see if EA starts eyeing music, TV, film, and other entertainment [...]

Blizzard � Activision - �� - ��-�� wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm:

[...] �� (��, �� “�� ”, � �� [...]

How Will Activision Blizzard Change Games Sector? · New York Articles wrote on December 3rd, 2007 at 7:38 pm:

BlogoWogo - The Blog Network | How Will Activision Blizzard Change Games Sector? wrote on December 15th, 2007 at 5:05 pm:

Republished: Virtual Worlds in the News « Dan’s blog wrote on February 6th, 2008 at 1:38 am:

[...] profitable games business”, reports the BBC. Further coverage includes Raph Koster posting his impressions on the merger, and this factsheet on the Activision Blizzard website I found particularly informative. [...]

Patrick said on December 2nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm:

If you played Guitar Hero III, this shouldn’t seem suprising.

Steve said on December 2nd, 2007 at 3:33 pm:

From the gamers’ perspective, I think it will be easier to just keep calling them Blizzard. Unless of course, their corporate overlords mandate a name and corresponding logo change.

It would be interesting to see if the corresponding change in identity doesn’t lead to the voluntary departures of any personnel.

(By “voluntary”, I mean, people who won’t be disposed of during the merger process).

joshlee said on December 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm:

Is Activision Blizzard just going to be the name of the combined corporation? It seems like kind of a mouthful as a brand name. I could imagine them maintaining separate imprints, since there’s not a lot of overlap in their portfolios.

I’m trying to decide if I’m going to start calling them Actizzard or Blizzvision.

Steven "PlayNoEvil" Davis said on December 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm:

Of course Blizzard’s online expertise hasn’t even been spread across the existing Vivendi game assets and Activision bought Demonware earlier this year to do the same thing.

Kerri Knight said on December 2nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm:

We keep drifting further from independent studios, publishers, designers, developers, etc. into more and more monolithic entities. I can’t say I’m a fan of this trend (but then, I dislike most trends :9).

Morgan Ramsay said on December 3rd, 2007 at 2:18 am:

Activision Blizzard … Not a good branding choice …

Yet another reason why I have little faith in the present state of interactive entertainment marketing. If this name is committed to the complete brand identity, Waukeen help us.

We keep drifting further from independen[ce]…

That’s not really true. We’re more likely drifting further from what you call monolithic entities.

Michael W. said on December 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 am:

Blizz itself is going to retain its name, “Blizzard Entertainment,” but there’s sure to be some degree of market confusion and tarnishing of Blizzard’s brand, which is unquestionably the best in the industry, by having associated with absolutely everything coming out of Vivendi and Activision. Not a good branding choice

Well Vivendi has owned Blizzard Entertainment for quite some time, all the while publishing such gaming milestones as “Barbie Horse Adventures: Blue Ribbon Race” and “Eragon”. I’m pretty sure Vivendi even has a small logo on the WoW box. If you ask the average gamer, if that makes them less excited about “Starcraft II”, they will probably just look at you wierd.

From the WoW forums:

Q: Q: What will happen to the Blizzard brand name?
A: The Blizzard brand name will stay the same as it’s always been: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Erik Bethke said on December 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 am:

Wow that explains why Activision did not respond to EA’s 20% purchases of The9 and Neowiz.

Still EA has plenty of cards in its deck to repair that revenue fall besides the Ubi purchase…

-Erik

Raph said on December 3rd, 2007 at 9:38 am:

Steve, Michael — the reason to worry about tarnishing of the brand is that now everything that Activision and Vivendi make will say “Activision Blizzard” on it. So now we have Guitar Hero III, from Activision Blizzard, and so on. Obviously, GH3 isn’t going to tarnish much of anything, but it certainly dilutes the name “Blizzard” to mean something more than it used to. And when you add in all the licensed titles and the like that will be published by Activision Blizzard, it’s potentially a serious impact to the Blizzard name. A lot depends on how they actually go about branding the publishing entity, with logos and splash screens etc.

Michael W. said on December 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 am:

I see what you are saying. Blizzard’s name will become meaningless if the Activision side of things slaps Blizzard’s name on everything (and I tend to agree that this will probably happen unless Blizzard employees have enough clout to protest against it, which they very well may)

I still don’t think that means Blizzard’s already established franchises will suffer. The Legacy and prestige of Blizzard will still exist within the Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft names -unless of course they let Activsion start making titles using their IP’s such as: “Barbie’s Magic Space Pets: My First Zergling!”

Morgan Ramsay said on December 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm:

I still don’t think that means Blizzard’s already established franchises will suffer.

The effects of branding are retroactive.

unless Blizzard employees have enough clout to protest against it, which they very well may

If you’re talking about clout at the negotiating table, I hope they do. But these decisions typically rest in the hands of the parent company’s communications department. What usually happens is that department will insist on the wrong decisions because they sold themselves on the strange idea that brand identity guidelines and brand architecture were never to be violated.

Jim said on December 7th, 2007 at 12:34 am:

The main question… what will happen to Blizzard’s “when they’re done” release schedule for games? Will Activision pick it up, or will Blizzard be forced to abandon it?