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Vivendi merges with Activision

lukeiamyourdad

By lukeiamyourdad
in Ahto Spaceport Cantina

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lukeiamyourdad Newbie

lukeiamyourdad

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http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183557.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0

 

Yep, they will be the biggest player in the arena.

 

Bring on the "zOMG monopoly! Advertising! Bad games!" hate.

 

Of course, it's all crap.

 

Well, I suppose the main question mark about this is Blizzard.

 

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3168513659&sid=1

 

They've already answered a few questions, but the hate and fear is still there.

 

Of course, things will change, the current head of Activision will be leading the new company, but Vivendi still holds the majority and we know it has been good with Blizzard in the past. Also, they have 9 best-selling titles in their pocket, including Korea's religion and the biggest MMORPG on the planet. Up to now, they promise that nothing will happen to the quality of their games and I believe them. Why? They might not have control over certain things and the leader is different, but they still are the mightiest part of the new company. They cannot be messed with.

 

The changes will mostly be in the managerial, financial and operational sense, which shouldn't affect the quality of games. Would Blizzard still be allowed to dump a game they don't feel is good enough like they did with StarCraft Ghost? Nobody knows, but considering their strength, I have no doubt they could. No moron on Earth would be a big enough idiot to try to tell Blizzard what to do.

 

 

The other point in question is that mergers lead to monopolies which leads to companies making you pay whatever they want for their games. Of course, that is all BS. Yes, there are mergers. Yes, it changes something. No, we're never going to see a gaming monopoly. Why? There are laws against that and no, not even they are over the law.

 

Then there's the question of game pricing. Unlike what some people think, the head of those companies are not total idiots. There's a certain point beyond which the gamer will start refusing to pay for a game. Will you buy a single game for 150$? Probably not. Gaming makes a lot of money because it's accessible to the masses. The pricing is already relatively high for most games and piracy is already a problem. If a monopoly decided to make people pay an insane price for their games, nobody would buy the games. As far as I know, it isn't like heroin and you can certainly get out of it by finding other less costly sources of entertainment without a problem. Or it could push everyone towards piracy.

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lukeiamyourdad Newbie

lukeiamyourdad

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Hopefully, it won't happen and all indicates that such a thing won't happen. There's no way someone will try to screw with Blizzard's near perfect track record. When you're up there very high, you can fall down very hard. Trying to "control" Blizzard and pushing them would do something to that end. You'll go from one of the most respected developers to a bunch poop-throwing targets.

 

Worth noticing, people aren't getting worked up too much about this. Scanning the various responses over various forums and blogs, things are much calmer then when EA bought Bioware. Yes, there are people unhappy, but the same amount of hate isn't there.

 

Though people have to remember, when this is finalized, this is the biggest publisher in the world.

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Char Ell Newbie

Char Ell

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The gaming industry is definitely going through a consolidation period right now. EA acquired BioWare|Pandemic Studios. Warner Bros. bought Telltale Games and by most accounts is still shopping for other gaming companies. And now Vivendi is dropping the dough to acquire Activision and merge it with their own games division, Blizzard of course being the biggest component of that.

 

I'm somewhat surprised that LucasArts hasn't acquired anything, especially after former LucasArts VP John Geoghegan said the following in 2005

"I would expect us to make some strategic acquisitions at some point, but that isn’t to say we’ll be executing that any time soon. “We need to prove to ourselves that we can grow organically first. Once we have done that then you’ll see us making strategic acquisitions possibly on the technology side or the development side."
I guess LA is still concentrating on their "organic" growth but I think they're missing the window for external acquisitions, if they want to do any. I sometimes wonder if LA was interested in acquiring BioWare|Pandemic Studios but lost out to EA.
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SilentScope001 Newbie

SilentScope001

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I guess LA is still concentrating on their "organic" growth but I think they're missing the window for external acquisitions, if they want to do any. I sometimes wonder if LA was interested in acquiring BioWare|Pandemic Studios but lost out to EA.

 

The utter irony. After wanting to leave LA's grasp and be able to use the Mercs series for their own, Pandemic Stuidos could have been bought by them. :p

 

Somewhat similar to Pixar fleeing Disney in order to branch out and do its own thing...only to get bought by Disney anyway.

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