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A short history of Activision Blizzard or how B.Net 2.0 came to be
July 2007 – July 2008: Activision and Blizzard merge in an 18 billion $ deal into Activision Blizzard, with Activision as the dominant partner. They get to appoint “Robert A. Kotick” as the new CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Holding company while Vivendi remains majority shareholder.
Notice, that while it might be true that Blizzard gets to remain “independent” in decisions as how to make their games or put together their teams etc., they both now share and have to please the same stakeholders, investors and have to ultimately answer to the same Board of Directors and Corporate Management.
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/boardOfDirectors.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/corporateManagement.html[/URL]
A great read and an unsettling post as a Blizzard fan.
July 2007 – July 2008: Activision and Blizzard merge in an 18 billion $ deal into Activision Blizzard, with Activision as the dominant partner. They get to appoint “Robert A. Kotick” as the new CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Holding company while Vivendi remains majority shareholder.
Notice, that while it might be true that Blizzard gets to remain “independent” in decisions as how to make their games or put together their teams etc., they both now share and have to please the same stakeholders, investors and have to ultimately answer to the same Board of Directors and Corporate Management.
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/boardOfDirectors.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/corporateManagement.html[/URL]
Source - [URL]http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252[/URL]A great read and an unsettling post as a Blizzard fan.
Looks like there's 4 different Call of Duty games in the works now as Activision expand the licence to try and get even more profits.
Of course word will get round that Respawn Entertainment (lots of ex-Infinity Ward employees) are the true successors of the Modern Warfare titles and fans will switch allegiance in due course.
The future of the COD games will certainly be interesting. But Activision are making enemies of developers and programmers and that kind of talent is not infinite, especially as games get bigger and more complex when it comes to producing AAA titles.
They have signed up Bungie's next project for a 10 year run but there's only so far you can go with yearly updates (EA made a loss in the past 2 years sitting back on their licences) before someone comes along with a better project. Also signing/buying up a AAA developer does not always give you the golden eggs you'd like (Rare anyone?).
And there's so much competition out there that each developer could take a big piece of Activision's pie for themselves. Ubisoft could make better hunting games if they chose. EA with Respawn and MoH are gearing up to challenge COD and Modern Warfare.
What was Eidos may produce some groundbreaking games for Square to beat Activision's efforts of Prototype etc.
In the end Activision is just a publisher and in the world of video games it's still 'easy come easy go' as far as licences like COD go no matter how much Activision might puff and preen in the current spotlight they're in.
But of course by then everyone will have made their money from Activision.
Of course word will get round that Respawn Entertainment (lots of ex-Infinity Ward employees) are the true successors of the Modern Warfare titles and fans will switch allegiance in due course.
The future of the COD games will certainly be interesting. But Activision are making enemies of developers and programmers and that kind of talent is not infinite, especially as games get bigger and more complex when it comes to producing AAA titles.
They have signed up Bungie's next project for a 10 year run but there's only so far you can go with yearly updates (EA made a loss in the past 2 years sitting back on their licences) before someone comes along with a better project. Also signing/buying up a AAA developer does not always give you the golden eggs you'd like (Rare anyone?).
And there's so much competition out there that each developer could take a big piece of Activision's pie for themselves. Ubisoft could make better hunting games if they chose. EA with Respawn and MoH are gearing up to challenge COD and Modern Warfare.
What was Eidos may produce some groundbreaking games for Square to beat Activision's efforts of Prototype etc.
In the end Activision is just a publisher and in the world of video games it's still 'easy come easy go' as far as licences like COD go no matter how much Activision might puff and preen in the current spotlight they're in.
But of course by then everyone will have made their money from Activision.
A short history of Activision Blizzard or how B.Net 2.0 came to be
July 2007 – July 2008: Activision and Blizzard merge in an 18 billion $ deal into Activision Blizzard, with Activision as the dominant partner. They get to appoint “Robert A. Kotick” as the new CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Holding company while Vivendi remains majority shareholder.
Notice, that while it might be true that Blizzard gets to remain “independent” in decisions as how to make their games or put together their teams etc., they both now share and have to please the same stakeholders, investors and have to ultimately answer to the same Board of Directors and Corporate Management.
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/boardOfDirectors.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/corporateManagement.html[/URL]
A great read and an unsettling post as a Blizzard fan.
July 2007 – July 2008: Activision and Blizzard merge in an 18 billion $ deal into Activision Blizzard, with Activision as the dominant partner. They get to appoint “Robert A. Kotick” as the new CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the Holding company while Vivendi remains majority shareholder.
Notice, that while it might be true that Blizzard gets to remain “independent” in decisions as how to make their games or put together their teams etc., they both now share and have to please the same stakeholders, investors and have to ultimately answer to the same Board of Directors and Corporate Management.
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/boardOfDirectors.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/ml/aboutUs/corporateManagement.html[/URL]
Source - [URL]http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252[/URL]A great read and an unsettling post as a Blizzard fan.