Why isn't Blizzard independent (Activision)

[Tokas]

I don't know how these things work, so just curious.
Basically Mike Morhaime and couple others founded Blizzard Entertainment, which was Silicon and Synapse I think at the time.
They started making games... and when they decided to self-publish, they were acquired by some other company?
But how... and freaking why?

I keep reading here and there that Activision is ruining Blizzard, which let's assume is true, can't they just split and Blizzard be Blizzard, and Activision be something none of us cares anymore?

[Deleted]

Publically traded companies are a thing. Because that way you have more money avaiable to put into bigger projects, which result in bigger profits.

In December 2007, Activision announced that the company and its assets would merge with fellow games developer and publisher Vivendi Games. At the time, Vivendi was best known as the holding company (A holding company is a company that owns other companies' outstanding stock. The term usually refers to a company that does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies to form a corporate group.) for the game studios Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. The new company was to be named Activision Blizzard, and would retain its central headquarters in California. Bobby Kotick of Activision was announced as the new president and CEO, while René Penisson of Vivendi was appointed chairman.[19] The European Commission permitted the merger to take place in April 2008, approving that there weren't any antitrust issues in the merger deal.[20] On July 8, 2008, Activision announced that stockholders had agreed to merge, and the deal closed the next day for an estimated transaction amount of US$18.9 billion.[21]

Vivendi was the majority shareholder, with a 52% stake in the company.[21][22] The rest of the shares were held by institutional and private investors, and were to be left open for trading on the NASDAQ stock market for a time under NASDAQ: ATVID, and subsequently as NASDAQ: ATVI. At this point, Jean-Bernard Levy replaced René Penisson as chairman of Activision Blizzard.[7] The merger made Activision Blizzard the parent company of Vivendi Games' former divisions.[23] While Blizzard retained its autonomy and corporate leadership in the merger, other Vivendi Games divisions such as Sierra ceased operation.[24] With the merger, Kotick was quoted stating if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they "won't likely be retained."[24] However, a number of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Prototype were retained and are now published by Activision.

On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi for $5.83 billion, dropping the shareholder from a 63% stake to 11.8% by the end of the deal in September.[33] At the conclusion of the deal, Vivendi was no longer Activision Blizzard's parent company,[34] and Activision Blizzard became an independent company as a majority of the shares became owned by the public. Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly retained a 24.4% stake in the company overall. In addition, Kotick remained the president and CEO, with Brian Kelly taking over as chairman.[33] On October 12, 2013, shortly after approval from the Delaware Supreme Court, the company completed the buyback, along the lines of the original plan.[35] Vivendi sold half its remaining stake on May 22, 2014, reducing its ownership to 5.8%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard

[Pann]

Activision own Blizzard, the only way Blizzard could become independent of them is if ATVI wanted to sell them and a buyer came forward.

[Deleted]

You could go to Activision and make an offer to buy Blizzard

I would wait for the market to crash though, right now valuations are still near all time highs

[Deleted]

Didn't Blizzard buy themselves off or did that fail in the end?

[Pann]

Didn't Blizzard buy themselves off or did that fail in the end?

Vivendi were the majority share holders until ATVI purchased most of these shares back.

[Tokas]

But is this shit still a thing now that things like Steam and Kickstarter are a thing? Is it really necessary to sell your ass to some morons just so survive? (As a new gaming company)

[Deleted]

But is this shit still a thing now that things like Steam and Kickstarter are a thing? Is it really necessary to sell your ass to some morons just so survive? (As a new gaming company)

eh?

Activision is a 25 BILLION dollar market cap company

You think we do those transactions over kickstarter and steam?

[Tokas]

It's not true. People don't take the time to learn things.

Let's hope so, but wouldn't it be nicer if 100% Blizzard belonged to Blizzard and their decisions were theirs, not their shareholders, who are probably not even gamers, just businessman.

[Deleted]

if memory serves blizz sold themselves to some book company very early on, before they were even called blizzard i think. they haven't been independent for almost their entire existence, but have had the luck off being allowed to make their own decisions for the most part.

heck they are probably the most independent they have ever been right now, after they bought themselves out from vivendi.

[Tokas]

eh?

Activision is a 25 BILLION dollar market cap company

You think we do those transactions over kickstarter and steam?

Ofc not, but they didnt' start at 25 bil did they?
I mean if a new company arises, with some amazing ideas, can they survive and become huge without selling themselves to whoever is richer?

[Deleted]

Ofc not, but they didnt' start at 25 bil did they?
I mean if a new company arises, with some amazing ideas, can they survive and become huge without selling themselves to whoever is richer?

It's certainly possible, but if you wanna make it big, you need money (how else are you going to bring your great idea to the people out there?) first. Which is why people do it.

[Netherspark]

Activision doesn't own Blizzard. This is how it works:

Blizzard and Activision partnered up to create a new parent company called Activision Blizzard, then made themselves subsidiaries of it. It's basically just corporate voodoo meant to pool resources and prevent themselves from being bought-out by other companies.

[Tokas]

Activision doesn't own Blizzard. This is how it works:

Blizzard and Activision partnered up to create a new parent company called Activision Blizzard, then made themselves subsidiaries of it. It's basically just corporate voodoo meant to pool resources and prevent themselves from being bought-out by other companies.

To prevent? So I make a company... and I have to shimmer because someone may buy me without me even wanting?

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It's certainly possible, but if you wanna make it big, you need money (how else are you going to bring your great idea to the people out there?) first. Which is why people do it.

So it's sort of a loan, life-time loan, which you cannot repay, nice.

[Orange Joe]

I don't know how these things work, so just curious.
Basically Mike Morhaime and couple others founded Blizzard Entertainment, which was Silicon and Synapse I think at the time.
They started making games... and when they decided to self-publish, they were acquired by some other company?
But how... and freaking why?

I keep reading here and there that Activision is ruining Blizzard, which let's assume is true, can't they just split and Blizzard be Blizzard, and Activision be something none of us cares anymore?

Short answer is. Blizzard is independent of Activision


Long answer is. Currently there is a holding company that owns both Activision and blizzard. The board of that holding company is made up of members from both companies. Activision has no real say in what blizzard does. In theory the holding company could exert some will, but have no reason to.

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To prevent? So I make a company... and I have to shimmer because someone may buy me without me even wanting?

As the owner of a company, you would have the choice to put it on the market.

[Deleted]

To prevent? So I make a company... and I have to shimmer because someone may buy me without me even wanting?

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So it's sort of a loan, life-time loan, which you cannot repay, nice.

You can repay it, by buying back the stocks you previously sold.

But the point of a publically traded company is to get a lot of people to invest into your business, to create a sizable sum that you then use for business, to generate a profit. Of course every shareholder is then entitled to a % of the profit too. Then there's big holding companies like Activison or Vivendi, which are shareholders with massive amounts of money. (Billions)

[Deleted]

To prevent? So I make a company... and I have to shimmer because someone may buy me without me even wanting?

If you own the whole company, you can decide whether to sell or not.

But what if the company is owned by 100 people, each with 1% of the company? If 51 of those people want to sell, they are the majority, even if you disagree.

Activision is a 25 billion dollar company owned by thousands of people

You can own a piece of Activision-Blizzard too, just buy a share, they cost around 34 dollars each

[p291u]

Let's hope so, but wouldn't it be nicer if 100% Blizzard belonged to Blizzard and their decisions were theirs, not their shareholders, who are probably not even gamers, just businessman.

It doesn't matter if the shareholders are businessmen or not. They want a successful company that continues to grow and provide benefits otherwise there is no point for them to own shares in it. The way you do this in a game company is by making good games that people like to play so that they keep coming back to buy expansions, new games, etc. Blizzard already makes their own decisions, they've been doing it for a long time and have been extremely successful. Vivendi owned them for a while but they had large financial troubles further up the chain and had to sell off Vivendi Games.

Activision and Blizzard are both individual subsidiaries that are owned by the parent corporation Activision Blizzard. They each make their own decisions. This is a benefit, because of the merger they can share ideas, IPs and copyright, marketing teams/resources, other resources, etc... to improve each other's products.

[Deleted]

This how the grown up's world works.

You will understand when you're older and finished school.

[tankbug]

I keep reading here and there that Activision is ruining Blizzard, which let's assume is true, can't they just split and Blizzard be Blizzard, and Activision be something none of us cares anymore?

Baseless accusations. My company is owned by a holding company. They bought us because we showed promise and did things right. There was no reason for them to intervene, they just wanted us to do our thing so they can take our profits and sell us at a higher price in time. Blizzard has said that Activision that they are not a part of game development, and I believe them. But there are some people on this forum that feel betrayed by Blizzard, because they don't agree with game design decisions in latter years, and when they think back at the purchase of Blizzard by Activision, the think that this deal is the cause of it all. Seems like desperate attempt at Blizzard has been corrupted by an outside force rather than a natural development for the company.