Vivendi and Activision merge to create Vivendi-Activision

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

when i read those games i thought: these games didnt sell for squad, how did they get the money to buy blizzard, a BIG moneycow

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

well just as long as the name on the opening doesnt change
and say some wierd new merger name i guess it dont matter
there will be more resources and more people working on the games
that means that we will have a greater choice of quality games
like SC2!

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

ijffdrie: Vivendi is a massive media group that works with a lot more than just games. Vivendi actually bought the company that bought Blizzard about ten years ago.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Activision has made some good first person shooters so this may go well for Blizzard. Shooters like Quake and several Starwars first persons like Dark Forces or other titles like Gunman and others. This could mean they will start on SC:Ghost after SC:2 which would be interesting.... Anyways its good news because now I can invest into blizzard and show support

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

I think you're being an optimist if you think EA will stop mass producing crap. Know why? Crap sells. People complain, and then they go buy the game. After playing about it, they whine. Then they buy sequel.

If mass producing crap didn't make money, they wouldn't do it. But it does make money, so Vivendi will probably do it to. It's called business sense. Don't want crap games? Don't buy crap.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

The thing is, they were able to pull it off because they were on top of the dogpile. none of the other dogs could push their products as well because they didn't have as many. With a large competitor, EA won't have the breathing room it had before that allowed it go get away with selling crap.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Assuming Vivendi doesn’t decide to mass produce terrible as well. Which it does, with about the same ratio as good games to terrible games as EA.

You see, it's kind of a monopsony effect.

Gamers are willing to buy terrible games (very shiny terrible games, but terrible none the less). However, gamers only buy terrible games from big publishers. As such, a small game company cannot successfully make a terrible game (one that sells), simply because it doesn't have the ability to push it on to gamers like larger companies. This means they must make good or great games to exist. Meanwhile, larger companies make terrible games, as cheaply as possible. The small developer needs to top itself with each game in order to continue to independently exist (make a profit). They can’t, and thus join the horde of mega-company monotonous game drones.

But the best part is that since the big publishers are all make bad games, they insure the others will survive.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

The monopoly position is the position that Activision Blizzard would be pushing EA out of. You'll see that in many major industries, there is not one major power, but two, a "duopoly". Other industries have several big hitters, and are considered to be "oligopolies." What we have in the game industry is a monopoly, of sorts. It isn't anywhere an actual monopoly, but the strength of EA makes it seem that way. With the rise of a serious competitor, one that may very well move higher-quality products, EA can no longer turn the same kind of profit through bulk alone. They will have to respond to AB's quality by producing quality of their own. Now, you do point out that it will be possible for AB to simply drop down to EA's level of quality instead of bringing it up, but in a competitive environment, this is not likely to happen.
Each will want to be the one with "the" game, and they'll have to put a lot of effort into making that happen. Of course crap will still be released, but it'll stop being the bread and butter of the company. Many people that buy games don't actually play them, but enough of them do that can distinguish quality that, if one publisher has an edge on quality, with both producing the same quantity, that publisher will come out on top.

Also I should note that neither EA or AB are not developers. They are publishers. They have developers, fund other developers, and publish for even other developers, but development isn't their main job. What will happen is that they will redistribute money made from games that sell well (both bad and good) into funding more sequels, stuff they know will sell, and more experimental projects, stuff they hope will give them the edge.
This is actually already occurs, to some degree, within EA, it is just not very noticeable because the experimental games are released infrequently and without a lot of hype. EA does contain, within it, great developers, and some of them even have enough sway to get the leverage to produce quality games.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

this will either mean that games in general will become crappy, or that they will become better

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

lets hope that the latter is what happens

but thats kind of a given

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

That list of games is extremely shortened. Check this out: Click here.

Amongst MANY other things, Activision was responsible for the Total War series for a while. It's a humongous company with MANY titles produced under it... I won't say I've heard too many wonderful things about them, but if Blizzard says they think they can get a good distribution and marketing branch out of Activision, along with even deeper pockets... well, they're right.

I just hope Blizzard doesn't have to change their philosophy any with this merger... I know they say they won't be affected, but I don't really see how they can avoid it.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Activision made Mechwarrior 2.

Most of the games they listed sucked but Activision does have some really good games under their name.
They are just older games

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

I'm pessimistic, but maybe that's just because my roommate (who has yet to learn he’s a spoiled rich white kid, not “down with the brothersâ€)

Either way, Vivendi will want to recoup its loses from this sale ASAP, so Blizzard is on a short leash.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

I thought they said Merger not sale.

From what I read they are signing an agreement that makes them one company and the only money changing hands is Vivendi buying Activision stock. That means technically Vivendi is the one doing the buying

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Vivendi is buying about 8 billion dollers worth of stock (maybe 9), and I would bet they took out a loan to do it.

Why?

Because almost every other company does. Either way, their out 8-9 billion.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

No not really. Vivendi HAS to buy stock otherwise their execs wouldn't actually have any control over Activision. In publicly traded companies the shareholders with the most stock decide who makes the decisions therefore Vivendi is buying stock so their execs can choose the Activision execs

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

What's not really?

That's the whole point of buying the stock. But where do you get 8 billion?

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

Not really as in it is not really a waste of money

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

I never said it was.

 

Re: VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD

That's where, lol.

Purchase price for Burning Crusade expansion: $20 * 3.4 million = $68 million
Subscription fee: $15 per month * 9.3 million = $140 million... per month.