14 DAY TRIAL // In light of a breaking piece of news this weekend saying that Vivendi has bought a majority stake in Activision, not changing the latter's status much, Blizzard President and CEO Mike Morhaime had a little chat with blokes over at 1UP.com, revealing more details on the most important merger occurring in the video games industry at the time being. The interview excerpts below are going to shed some light over burning issues such as what's in it for each company, why the simple name and most importantly, what kind of titles should gamers expect to see from Activision Blizzard?
As soon as the news was out, one of our readers stated his hopes that "Activision's execs do not cramp up Blizzard's vision and style." We can't assure anyone this is not going to happen, but Morhaine briefly clarified that Vivendi hasn't actually "bought" Activision but just a majority stake in the company. More than that, as Vivendi Games is valued at "$8.1 billion, plus $1.7 billion in cash [...] they've given that to Activision in exchange for 52 percent in the resultant company, which is called Activision Blizzard," according to Morhaine.
As for the quality of Blizzard's games and services to come, the same man confirms that the next game to follow will be "branded as Blizzard Entertainment," and we're guessing it's not just the name that stays the same, but the product quality too. To clarify things even more, fans should know that the Activision Blizzard logo won't even be stamped on the products launching prior to this merger. Morhaine confirms: "You should not see it on anything. It will not be associated with any product."
Now, you're probably wondering exactly what Blizzard is getting out of the whole deal. Well, as Morhaine states... "The combined company will have strong financial flexibility, resources enable us to attract and reward the best industry talent. Activision is committed to an independent studio model, which we think is the right way to go, I think this combined company will have presence across multiple platforms, multiple geographies and will be well diversified and positioned to be a leading entertainment company going forward."
So the bottom line is that gamers are promised to get nothing but AAA products from the recently merged pair, but it still leaves the name issue. Why simply name it Blizzard Entertainment? 1UP told Morhaine that people were looking forward to a name that had "flair," such as "Blizzivision" or "Actard." Well, Blizzivision sounds quite nifty actually, but Actard...?
Morhaine too laughed his lungs out at the sound of this and stated that "the most important thing for [their] fans to understand is that [they] are preserving the Blizzard Entertainment brand," adding that ...as long as [he is] at Blizzard Entertainment [they] are not going to change the Blizzard Entertainment brand."