Vivendi buys Activision to create Activision Blizzard
(Visited 9566 times) Game talk
Dec 022007
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. š
- 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. š
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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.
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 ādoubling down on traditional gaming.ā 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
+ Discussion: Computerworld, Crave,Raph’s Website, Los Angeles Times, paidContent.org and WOW Insider
If you played Guitar Hero III, this shouldn’t seem suprising.
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).
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.
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.
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).
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.
That’s not really true. We’re more likely drifting further from what you call monolithic entities.
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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:
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
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.
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 Blizzardās 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 IPās such as: āBarbieās Magic Space Pets: My First Zergling!ā
The effects of branding are retroactive.
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.
[…] 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 […]
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[…] 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 […]
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?
[…] 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 […]
[…] profitable games business”, reports the BBC.Ā Further coverage includes Raph Koster posting his impressions on the merger,Ā Ā and this factsheet on the Activision Blizzard website I found particularly informative.Ā […]