Activisions real influence over blizzard

[Liara]

bobby kotick is the CEO of activision/blizzard. my mistake for not stating that earlier. hes not just activision ceo he was the man chosen to be responsible for both companys. and as weird as it may sound blizzard is a subsidiary of activision blizzard

Activision Blizzard ≠ Blizzard Entertainment.

[moocowfrakmilk]

I stopped reading about halfway through when it became clear that the massive wall of text was simply airing the laundry list of grievances everyone has with Bobby Kotick. Yes we get it, he's a douche. Move on.

I'm not going to refute every one fo the very weak connections the teamliquid post tried to make between Koticks asshattery and blizzard, because it would be a massive waste of both your time and mine.

[zach0011]

activision blizzard is just the name of the company over all of activision and blizzards holding before they merged. blizzard is also still a seperate developer under activision blizzard. look it up guys quit just trying to say im wrong when all you do is hit quick reply and try to sound like a whitty asshole

[seam]

bobby kotick is the CEO of activision/blizzard. my mistake for not stating that earlier. hes not just activision ceo he was the man chosen to be responsible for both companys. and as weird as it may sound blizzard is a subsidiary of activision blizzard

There are 3 companies.

Activision
Blizzard
Activision Blizzard

The first is a publisher. It's like a sister company to Blizzard(They are equals, in other words), a developer(Which publishes it's own games).
Activision-Blizzard is a holding company for both.

If you don't know what that means, don't post.

[Caiada]

There is one source that I took the liberty to find from your stupid teamliquid forum post.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/03/activision-quietly-restructures-senior-management-and-internal-organization.html

It specifically says this IN THE ARTICLE they use as a source.

"Blizzard Entertainment, maker of the successful online game World of Warcraft, remains an independent unit."

It reports what it's doing to a guy who only has experience with financial operations, who in turn tells Kottick what's going on. We have no idea of any further connection than that at all. You can't just lump in WoW and Blizzard's other games with the former Activision lineup; they aren't managed together or in the same way. They're essentially separate companies with a shared publisher.

[zach0011]

There are 3 companies.

Activision
Blizzard
Activision Blizzard




The first is a publisher. It's like a sister company to Blizzard(They are equals, in other words), a developer(Which publishes it's own games).
Activision-Blizzard is a holding company for both.

If you don't know what that means, don't post.

So are you trying to refute or agree with me? cause last i checked holding companys had very high sway in the decisions of the company's they hold. they are the financial backbone

[Gothicshark]

in the end Blizzard Has the Money and the power, Activision is there for added stability. After all Blizzard has become what it is off of 3 Intellectual properties and Activision has Hundreds.

[seam]

There is one source that I took the liberty to find from your stupid teamliquid forum post.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/03/activision-quietly-restructures-senior-management-and-internal-organization.html

It specifically says this IN THE ARTICLE they use as a source.

"Blizzard Entertainment, maker of the successful online game World of Warcraft, remains an independent unit."

It reports what it's doing to a guy who only has experience with financial operations, who in turn tells Kottick what's going on. We have no idea of any further connection than that at all. You can't just lump in WoW and Blizzard's other games with the former Activision lineup; they aren't managed together or in the same way. They're essentially separate companies with a shared publisher.

Be prepared for "YOU CAN'T TRUST WHAT THEY SAY!!!" people.

It happens all the time, and it's funny how people selectively choose which sources to follow.

If it shows Blizzard is by their self "They're lying, it's obvious"
If it shows Blizzard has some guy on the janitorial staff that works for Activision "SEE?! ACTIVISION CONTROLS THEM!"

So are you trying to refute or agree with me? cause last i checked holding companys had very high sway in the decisions of the company's they hold. they are the financial backbone

If you know how much control a Holding company is, you should be able to figure it out on your own.

[Amorac]

So are you trying to refute or agree with me? cause last i checked holding companys had very high sway in the decisions of the company's they hold. they are the financial backbone

Not always, the company I work for operates so mostly independent from it's holding corp. As long as finances are fine they don't intervene at all.

Mostly because the management of the holding company know just about nothing of our market, and management of the company I work for knows almost everything about it.

[Gothicshark]

I should point out that my roommate's uncle is on the board of Activision and I am sure that the power comes from Blizzard, Activision is there to bring more Content to Blizzard. and from the Activision POV Blizzard has the Money.

[zach0011]

A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow the ownership and control of a number of different companies. In the U.S., 80% or more of stock, in voting and value, must be owned before tax consolidation benefits such as tax-free dividends can be claimed.

They have nothing to say about the direction of the game, they probably don't even know what products Blizzard actually makes.
All they see is a company that is making profit, so they invest.

They are essentially the publishers, and if you think publishers dont have a say or try to force their money making schemes upon developers then you are an idiot. sorry I dont like to be an asshole but everyone else seems so inclined to be an ass to me i guess ill let it come out

---------- Post added 2011-08-06 at 10:04 PM ----------

I should point out that my roommate's uncle is on the board of Activision and I am sure that the power comes from Blizzard, Activision is there to bring more Content to Blizzard. and from the Activision POV Blizzard has the Money.

well then I guess ill have to point out that im bobby kotick and everything ive said is actually 100% true cause well i said im bobby kotick

[Crushima]

Exactly. Again for all the Blizz fanboys who defend Blizz being "independent" of Activision. Yes, in sense they are but its always about the bottom line and Activision wants to squeeze the most out of WoW as they can. So in my opinion they "dumb" it down, make it easy so they appeal to the masses. Most people do not have time or want top put in the effort that you had to when WoW first started out. I'm not saying WoW vanilla or TBC was perfect but definately required more time and effort.

Again it is a business and the bottom line is what counts so I don't blame Blizz just a little dissapointed the way WoW has evolved. Maybe it would still have continued this path with or without Activsions, who knows.

Wrong. Catacylsm did the opposite of dumbing down the game. All cata raids so far have been much more challenging than wotlk. Normal and heroic modes included.

The same goes for the heroic dungeons. Wotlk ones were super easy compared to the troll heroics of cata, for the casual player.

[Cherrysoul]

ANY business needs to break even or ultimately make a profit to survive, Big corporations need to make substantial profits to keep share holders happy... this is not new, and Blizzard/Activision are not immune. No profit, no business, no Blizzard, no WoW..... seriously stop complaining about the facts of life or in this case running a business.

[zach0011]

ANY business needs to break even or ultimately make a profit to survive, Big corporations need to make substantial profits to keep share holders happy... this is not new, and Blizzard/Activision are not immune. No profit, no business, no Blizzard, no WoW..... seriously stop complaining about the facts of life or in this case running a business.

thanks for the life lesson there sir. but what you said realy doesnt hold any relevance to this. you just stated that business need to make money and without money they cant make their product.

[Gothicshark]

They are essentially the publishers, and if you think publishers dont have a say or try to force their money making schemes upon developers then you are an idiot. sorry I dont like to be an asshole but everyone else seems so inclined to be an ass to me i guess ill let it come out

---------- Post added 2011-08-06 at 10:04 PM ----------



well then I guess ill have to point out that im bobby kotick and everything ive said is actually 100% true cause well i said im bobby kotick

I'm not disagreeing with you, I am just pointing out that the two companies are using each other for mutual benefit, Blizzard has capital, and Activision has IP. Together they could become the most influential Video Game company in the US. And could even rival EA and square-enix in distribution and Market share.

As for my roommate, yah he is who he is but my roommate is an Idiot and a looser so I discount most of what he says and would not have believed who his uncle was if it wasn't for actually meeting him once at E3. and that was brief. But I do believe when my idiot roommate says 'Activision and Blizzard are in a Mutually beneficial relationship.' I do not believe him when he makes grand statements of what Blizzard may or may not do, because once again he is an Idiot.

[Thage]

teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252

I posted this article over on the official wow forums and got a quick deletion of my thread and ban. I would like to share this information here mainly because of the way it was shut down over on the official forums. Blizzard has repeatedly stated that activision has no say in their day to day business but here is definitive prove that they do. Not a qq thread I just have a problem with being lied to by a company i have supported for year and still pretty much support

Activision has no say in Blizzard's operations. It was a merger, they are both owned by Vivendi.

[Smitzelplix]

Maybe Activision has more say than people believe or maybe they don't. But what I find interesting is that even though there are people who say Kotick is a ass, Activision is the devil, etc people keep buying their games and it's to the point where their actually seeing increased revenue with q2 2011, Kotick himself said "I'm pleased to announce that Activision Blizzard delivered another quarter of better-than-expected growth" http://seekingalpha.com/article/2844...all-transcript.

This tells me that the people who hate Activision are hugely outnumbered by those willing to buy their games time and time again. Activision haters may call these people sheep, go ahead be my guest I bet a vast majority of them would never even know their being called these names since they probably don't even bother with website forums they just go about playing their games in bliss. Face it it's you<them

And I'm not a ActiBlizz fanboy, sure I play some of their games but I'm not opposed to speaking against them from time to time or at least being able to see things from a different perspective that might not agree with everything they do.

Let me prove how much I'm into ActiBlizz, I own only two Activision games right now Prototype and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I never did own any Guitar Hero games let alone played them and the same can be said about their Call of Duty games I have played those though but never spent money on them always played them at a friends house. Want to know how many Blizzard games I've owned and played, just WoW and it's expansions.

[Araella]

"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

Well I guess that would make the past couple years a great success then ...

[Decimation]

In a (possibly) vain attempt to bring some cohesion to the argument of who's who in the world of Activision-Blizzard, here's several links that show exactly what there public association is:

Robert(Bobby) Kotick is the CEO, President and Director of Activision Blizzard, Inc.

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...tle=ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC
http://people.forbes.com/profile/robert-a-kotick/1126

The above information simply states he is the primary leadership of the organization, of which Blizzard Entertainment is a subsidiary, according to Forbes, headed by Mike Morhaime:

http://people.forbes.com/profile/mic...orhaime/119128
http://investing.businessweek.com/re...tle=ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC

Thomas Tippl is the COO and CFO of Activision Blizzard, who oversees Blizzard:

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...tle=ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC
http://people.forbes.com/profile/thomas-tippl/1120
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...anization.html

The definition of a CFO:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cfo.asp

The definition of a COO:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coo.asp

Blizzard Entertainment also lists Paul Sams as COO of that subsidiary:

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...Title=Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

TL;DR Crowd - According to the literal definitions of the publicly-available information, the Activision-Blizzard hiearchy in order of 'Big Cheese' downward:
Robert Kotick
Thomas Tippl
Mike Morhaime
Paul Sams
For the knee-jerk react and post crowd - I am NOT saying Kotick is the center of all that is purportedly wrong with Blizzard, WoW, Diablo 3, etc. I am simply providing information that hopefully clarifies who officially is in charge of what. Blizzard may very well retain autonomy on the core decisions of their product releases and their direction overall, there are certainly MANY statements to be found online saying as such. Yet it would be extremely remiss to dismiss the just as plentiful statements from Kotick and Tippl that tend to suggest that things may not be as un-influenced as we may believe. Are they simply posturing? Perhaps. Yet this is a big-money business where people with such responsibility don't make statements as such unless they had some amount of validity to them.

[Decimation]

I would argue the opposite, considering how much misinformation and confusion abounds when this subject appears.