Vivendi unit, Activision complete merger

Activision Blizzard will be world’s largest games publisher

By Danny King -- Video Business, 7/10/2008

JULY 10 | Vivendi’s games unit completed its $9.85 billion acquisition of Activision, creating Activision Blizzard, the world’s largest videogames publisher, the companies said today.

Paris-based Vivendi completed the acquisition of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Activision seven months after it was announced and three months after the European Union approved the transaction.

The merger creates a publisher whose titles include World of Warcraft, the world’s biggest multi-player online game, and the Guitar Hero franchise. With annual revenue approaching $4 billion, Activision Blizzard will unseat Electronic Arts as the world’s largest games publisher.

EA has been rebuffed in its continued efforts to acquire Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive in a proposed $2 billion transaction.

Vivendi’s Blizzard unit produces World of Warcraft, which has about 10 million active subscribers, making up almost two-thirds of the worldwide multi-player online game market, according to Web site Mmogchart.com. Vivendi will release the next version of the franchise later this year.

In May, Activision said it had a fiscal fourth-quarter profit, compared to a loss in the year-earlier period, as revenue almost doubled on its latest versions of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty.