Activision and Blizzard to Merge Today
 

Publisher Activision today announced that its merger with Blizzard Entertainment parent company Vivendi Games has been approved by the board of shareholders, and the transaction is expected to officially close today, July the 9th. The new company, dubbed Activision-Blizzard, is valued at roughly US $18.9 billion.

Activision and Vivendi Games will combine their businesses through the merger of a newly formed, wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision with and into Vivendi Games. As a result of the merger, Vivendi Games, the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision. Vivendi will receive approximately 295.3 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock. Concurrently with the merger, Vivendi will purchase approximately 62.9 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock at a price of $27.50 per share for a total of approximately $1.7 billion in cash, resulting in a total Vivendi ownership stake in Activision Blizzard of approximately 52% on a fully diluted basis and approximately 54% of shares outstanding. As of the closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online and console game publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry.

Source: Activision

Good news for shareholders i guess. As long as Blizzard, ect... keep preoducing quality games, this wont effect the consumer much, heck, with more resources now at all of thier disposal things may be better::crosses fingers::!

Anyone notice they released a new song for GHIII download: "I am Murloc"?
Coincidence?

Mmm... console-Diablo 3... well, guess you can always dream. :p

That was rather unexpected

Diablo console would be a good idea but i hope it stays with PC only.

cool! looking forward to some kick@ss game's :rockout:

Blizzard have their cash cow called wow.Apart from diablo 3 dont expect many new games from them,just lots of updates for wow.

so long as they dont start charging a subscription fee for Fps's then im down with that.

Activision ftw (btw i hated cod2)

Activion has always made quality products remember, this isnt EA where talking about, though there is one company i miss, Interplay

- WoW Guitar Heroe Edition : Play Guitar Heroe using Wow Characters.
- Call of Duty MMORPG: Form your squad, lvl up, figth against other soldiers, go to special missions with your friends, defeat the enemy. "You are not ready!!"
- Call of Duty Space Craft: Single Player or Multiplayer.

Pleases Actiblizz, send the money for the ideas, thanx. lol

Call of Warcraft, join the thousands online with this amazing FPS where you can be anything (Note Hunters where removed as being to powerful in an FPS compared to a warrior)

That is one confusing merger...

Ubisoft really hit the spot


They already did it with the first. Failed miserably.

@ candle 86,They are called huntards:laugh: i used to play wow but realized how monotonous it is.

Wasn't this decided 4-6 months ago they just hadn't done it?

Lets hope Blizzard isn't tainted and just left to do their thing. Other then how they have handled several aspects of WoW I still think Blizzard is a top notch company.

this somehow bodes very ill for the PC market . . . :( Everything will be ported to console, or from console to PC, leaving us with dumbed-down gameplay, controls, graphics . . . :cry:


there is now only one hope for us PC-only gamers . . . Interplay re-entering the market :toast:

One hope? Lol if anything it's not interplay. It's Valve. Steam has saved the PC market. The only thing as good as Steam is Blizzard.

we haven't seen anything from Interplay in years . . . back in the day they were always coming up with games worth playing, although they did make some for consoles as well

I agree, they make good games. However, I disagree in the fact that they will somehow be the one hope for PC gaming. :laugh:

no kidding, interplay was awesome, now I can't get some of their old games to work fdue to alck of support. but I did manage to score a mint copy of klingon academy which i promptly defiled by opening and playing lol.


but yeah activision has had some good games and it's not like blizzard is going to abandon their typical habits.

oh i want that yogurt, all i have in my collection from interplay

Start Trek 25th Anniversary
Starfleet Acadamey
Startfleet Command
Starfleet Command 2 + EXP

I missing KA. Actully KA is one of the biggers ones im missing from my entire collection lol

Star Trek a Final Unity
Star Trek 25th Anniversary
Starfleet Acadamey
Starfleet Command
Starfleet Command 2 + EXP
Starfleet Command 3
Star Trek Bridge Commander
Star Trek Armada
Star Trek Armada II
Star Trek Voyager Elite Force + EXP
Star Trek Elite Force II
Star Trek Away Team
Star Trek Starship Creator
Star Trek Legacy

So i have most of the popular ones just no KA

world of call of duty?