Quote (Goomshill @ Apr 22 2018 03:52am)
Well I was close... it was Vivendi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_BlizzardQuote
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 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.[25] The European Commission permitted the merger to take place in April 2008, approving that there weren't any antitrust issues in the merger deal.[26] 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.[27]
Vivendi was the majority shareholder, with a 52% stake in the company.[27][28] 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 (Activision's stock ticker). At this point, Jean-Bernard Levy replaced René Penisson as chairman of Activision Blizzard.[11] The merger made Activision Blizzard the parent company of Vivendi Games' former divisions.[29] While Blizzard retained its autonomy and corporate leadership in the merger, other Vivendi Games divisions such as Sierra ceased operation.[30] With the merger, Kotick was quoted stating if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they "won't likely be retained."[30] However, a number of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Prototype were retained and are now published by Activision.[31]
/e I guess I got my Vivxxdis mixed up.
/ee More...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_EntertainmentQuote
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and is a subsidiary of the American company Activision Blizzard. The company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles:[4] Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce, and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994 the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., then Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates.
Shortly thereafter, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Blizzard created several other video games, including Warcraft sequels, the Diablo series, the StarCraft series, and in 2004 the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. Their most recent projects include the first expansion for Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, the online collectible card game Hearthstone, the sixth expansion for World of Warcraft, Legion, the multiplayer online battle arena Heroes of the Storm, the third and final expansion for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Legacy of the Void, and the multiplayer first-person hero shooter Overwatch.
On July 9, 2008, Activision merged with Vivendi Games, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company.[5] On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi. As a result, Activision Blizzard became a completely independent company.[6]
This post was edited by Ghot on Apr 22 2018 02:11am