Vivendi looking to unload Activision Blizzard

[The Ogdru Jahad]

I'm skeptical with the claims by people that Activision was the reason blizzard went down the drain, I have no clue how much Activision really has to do with the blizz team. But it COULD be that they are just squeezing them for more money than ever and the devs cant keep up. But idk...if blizz splits..it will be a good day.

[Perkunas]

I'm skeptical with the claims by people that Activision was the reason blizzard went down the drain, I have no clue how much Activision really has to do with the blizz team. But it COULD be that they are just squeezing them for more money than ever and the devs cant keep up. But idk...if blizz splits..it will be a good day.

Two words.... Bobby Kotick. The guy is a mega tool and the fact that he has any say in Blizzard is reason enough to blame the merger for the lack of quality.

[Deficineiron]

Two words.... Bobby Kotick. The guy is a mega tool and the fact that he has any say in Blizzard is reason enough to blame the merger for the lack of quality.

I wouldn't want Kotick to head the team that designed an mmo I liked. I would need churn data to further support or refute my view, but I don't think he grasps the mindset of the typical mmo player in the first few years of wow. Accessibility is good as a catch-all phrase, but it there IS such a thing as too much in the context of an MMO (how much is too much is debatable by those interested). I think wow has crossed and colonized the far side of the accessibility ravine at least in part under general direction from the top to 'make the game as accessible as possible.' One day I will find that blue comment from early last year on naxx25 tuning that indirectly appeared to support my assertion that 3.0.2 tuning at all levels wasn't want the devs intended.

I would want bobby kotick to run a video game company, if I held a significant ownership stake. The guy's career is genuinely impressive. He took activision from literally the knock on the door of bankruptcy and created tremendous shareholder wealth. He is getting roughly a quarter billion dollars a year FROM china, which impresses me even more - how many companies have such a one-way financial arrangement in that market?

Let none of the various un-nice things I say about a/b and wow ever give the impression I have nothing but respect and admiration for Kotick, based on all the data I have seen.

[Dzudzadzo]

So you want Blizzard to seperate from Activision and lose a large portion of their funding? Yes they make a lot of money from WoW, but they need money to fund production of their other games (D3 and SC2). Sure box sales will give them money for them, and RMAH for D3, but how far do you think that will go in development for new tech for the games?

Same way it went before Blizzard got taken over by Activision. Great games do not need great funding but great ideas. Great ideas come from great minds which are no developed or influenced by money from the very beginning. Blizzard didnt need "colosal" ammount of money to create WoW, they needed colosal idea, solid philosophy and good game vision.

Ofcourse I dont mean that money doesnt help along the way. My point is that there's more to creating great games then just ton of money.

[Tomana]

Whoever buys that stake is going to at the least a fortune 500 co, if not a fortune 100, and there is no limit to how bad in game design the world's largest corporations can produce. I can already see the suits asking whoever is in charge of blizz 'well why can't we sell top-tier gear or special items in the company store? diablo 3 lets players buy items for cash!' That is just 1 of many, many ways a new owner might try to jazz up the numbers $.

Osmeric was talking about a spin-off scenario, i.e. when AB becomes independent

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 01:51 PM ----------

Great games do not need great funding

These days, they do. Each WoW expansion costs are in the range of dozens of M$.

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 01:52 PM ----------

Two words.... Bobby Kotick. The guy is a mega tool and the fact that he has any say in Blizzard is reason enough to blame the merger for the lack of quality.

Yes, but Blizzard was already owned by someone else long before that. Activision was not its first "master".

[Osmeric]

Osmeric was talking about a spin-off scenario, i.e. when AB becomes independent

Well, I was talking about levering up the balance sheet. What happens to the (devalued) stock of Acti-Blizz after the cash has been stripped out, I didn't really specify. It could be sold on the open market, or sold to another company, or just distributed to Vivendi shareholders.

[Rolex Snob]

I hope Activision and Blizzard do split up, maybe WoW will get better because of that.

Doubt it, this game reached max shelf life.

You can only go on so long, you just end up with hold-outs that invested so much of their life they can't let go.

Holding on to WoW now seems like that 28 year old that just can't let high school go and move on.

Unless there is a total engine revamp, there isn't much else to do to make this game better. It's not that Blizzard "sucks" now, it's that this game has been out for too damn long. Throwing panda's at it just shows ideas have officially run out!

[NobodyThere99]

I've sold all my Blizzard activison shares shortly after Cataclysm release and I am glad I did so. Bought them during naxx era when everyone thought the WoW is gonna die.

I am planning to buy some somewhere around end of august or september, but not so sure about that. Blizzard is making way too many mediocre games at the moment, which should help lower the price, but at the same time there are big expectations for MoP, which probably won't be fullfiled, but still lot of people will buy the game.

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[Nindoriel]

Doubt it, this game reached max shelf life.

You can only go on so long, you just end up with hold-outs that invested so much of their life they can't let go.

Holding on to WoW now seems like that 28 year old that just can't let high school go and move on.

Unless there is a total engine revamp, there isn't much else to do to make this game better. It's not that Blizzard "sucks" now, it's that this game has been out for too damn long. Throwing panda's at it just shows ideas have officially run out!

Or maybe some people have just started playing, or are on-and-off-again players for a while now, so they are not as tired of the game as those people, who are playing for almost 8 years now.