Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video games publishing company headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Current subsidiaries include Activision and Blizzard Entertainment. Intellectual property published by Activision Blizzard include the multi-million dollar video game franchises of Call of Duty, StarCraft, and Warcraft. Formed in 2008, in 2014, Activision Blizzard was the fifth largest gaming company by revenue. As of 2016, it is the third video game publisher in North America on the S&P 500 Component.

History

Merger into Activision Blizzard (2007–08)

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. Robert Kotick of Activision was announced as the new president and CEO, while René Penisson of Vivendi was appointed chairman. The European Commission permitted the merger to take place in April 2008, approving that there weren't any antitrust issues in the merger deal. 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.