Back in December 2007 it was announced that Vivendi and Activision were going to merge with Blizzard Entertainment and create the largest gaming company on the planet. Today that has become a reality as the two have completed the merger.
What this means for the gaming community:
Activision-Blizzard is now the powerhouse in game development. Activision which primarily develops console games will continue to do so. Activision also develops the popular Guitar Hero games which have continually gotten better and through this deal may have more freedoms with song licensing (primarily because of big-wigs' ties to record labels).
Blizzard will continue to operate under its current brand/logo/label and development staff. Their merger will not effect any of the games in development and frankly can only help speed them up. StarCraft fans can hope and pray that StarCraft: Ghost is resurrected, and may finally be released now that they have the cooperation of console guru Activision.
The company, both brands, will continue to put out top-notch games at even faster paces because the company has far more resources (money and man-power) to pull from. The gaming community, especially blizzard buffs, was at first afraid of what would become of their beloved games and brand. But rest assured, this merger will benefit the gamers (not to mention probably the shareholders) and we, the gaming community, will be reaping the rewards -- awesome games!
Activision-Blizzard's press release can be found HERE.
Blizzard's Q&A explanation of what this all means can be found HERE.
