14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Activision has announced that its shareholders, who had been asked to vote in a special meeting, approved the merger between the company and Vivendi Games, which has ownership of Blizzard and Sierra Games. The announcement did not mention the ratio of the vote or what other steps the two companies have to take in order to complete the merger.
In fact, it is a take over. As Vivendi Games and Activision combine assets and operations, Vivendi Universal - which is a media conglomerate with interests in movie making, television and the music industry - will buy a controlling stake in the newly created company. Its name has not been officially designated yet.
It is expected that the final financial deals required for the process to be completed could be made by the end of the week and that an official announcement from the new company might come as early as next week. It should bring in almost 4 billion dollars in revenue in 2008 and will likely beat Electronic Arts in both market share and operational profits.
The initial announcement that Vivendi Games and Activision were beginning talks regarding a merger shocked the videogaming world back in December 2007. Some of the commentators welcomed the move, as it means a consolidation of two big companies which could slash costs and bring a lot of interesting games to players, while others thought that the creation of another industry behemoth would mean the end of small publishers and developers.
The current Activision Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Kotick, will be the front man of the new company, while most Sierra Games projects will be integrated into the Activision release schedule. Blizzard will remain autonomous in the new entity, working on its own videogaming projects without interference from Activision's people.