Activision merged with Vivendi's games arm mainly to get World of Warcraft
By the mid-2000s, Activision had hit franchises but was missing the most lucrative kind of game: an online world that players pay for month after month. Rather than build one, its boss went after Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and the price was handing a French media group majority control.
Activision began in 1979 making games for the Atari console. A 1988 lurch into non-gaming software under the name Mediagenic ran up heavy losses, and in 1991 investors led by Bobby Kotick bought the company, restored its name, moved it to Santa Monica and cut its debts. It was profitable again by 1997, and over the next decade Kotick bought around 25 studios, yielding Tony Hawk's, Call of Duty and Guitar Hero.
Still, single-purchase games were losing ground to massively multiplayer ones that produce steady revenue, and no Activision studio could build one quickly. Around 2006 Kotick approached Jean-Bernard Levy of Vivendi, whose games division owned Blizzard. Levy countered with a full merger, on condition that Vivendi keep a majority. Kotick hesitated at losing control, until Blizzard's chief Mike Morhaime convinced him the partnership could open doors into China. The deal closed in July 2008 at an estimated 18.9 billion dollars, with Vivendi holding 54 percent. Blizzard kept its independence, while Sierra was shut down, though Crash Bandicoot and Spyro survived.
The combined company quickly became the world's largest games publisher. Call of Duty broke the biggest-launch record three years running, with Modern Warfare 3 taking 400 million dollars in the US and UK in its first day in 2011. Skylanders, launched that year, was credited with inventing the toys-to-life category. In 2013 Activision Blizzard bought back most of Vivendi's shares for 5.83 billion dollars and became independent, then in 2015 acquired King, maker of Candy Crush Saga, for 5.9 billion.
The story ended inside a bigger fish. Microsoft announced a 68.7 billion dollar bid in January 2022 and completed it in October 2023, placing Activision Blizzard under Xbox.
Source: Activision Blizzard
