If you thought the whole Gerstman-gate scandal over at Gamespot was a black eye for the industry, things just got worse. Activision, who just over took EA as the biggest publisher in existence, has merged with the also massive Vivendi Games. The name of the company? Actvision Blizzard.
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This is bad on so many levels. A company this large has control of many, many titles, assets and developers, and it isn’t hard to believe that they are going to get less attention and respect than they did before. A company this size can take any IP and any developer and mush them together until a product rolls out and cash rolls in. In addition, not only are they using the Blizzard name to try and trick gamers into believing this is going to be a new era of quality, but if the Shacknews article is any indication, Blizzard is completely complacent in all of this, and perhaps downright happy.
The only silver lining that some have theorized is that Blizzard’s involvement might mean that Activision’s major franchises will have some more thought and effort put into them, resulting in some better games, but I for one remain skeptical. While Vivendi has become slightly better over the years, they still aren’t excellent at giving people what they want, and I have always had the unpopular view that Blizzard is merely a company that is very good at duping people out of their money in return for games that only look high quality. It also means that all the rumors of an EA/Ubisoft merger might now come true, in order that the two mega companies can duke it out for supremacy.
Throw your thoughts out in the comments section. Let’s see what we all think.
I’m just waiting until we’re all buying games from EA Squarenixnamcolizzard.
The majority of games I’ve played from Blizzard have been good… but I still don’t see this as a good thing. I doubt Blizzard will have the internal clout to affect how games are made in other divisions.
I have zero problems with this. This is actually a merger that benefits gamers. For instance, Guitar Hero now gets access to UMG’s entire catalog.
Interesting, re: guitar hero.
However, do the contracts that UMG have with artists include alternative forms, like video games? Is this the reason we had so many issues with ringtones and such?