Blizzard and Activision to merge.
 Blizzard the makers of World Of Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® have announced it's merger with Activision the makers of Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty®, and Tony Hawk video games.
This merger will create "ACTIVISION BLIZZARD", which will become the world's largest and most profitable pure play video game publisher.
Activision, one of the world's leading independent publishers of interactive entertainment, is best known for its top- selling franchises, including Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty® and the Tony Hawk series, as well as Spider-Man™, X-Men™, Shrek®, James Bond™ and TRANSFORMERS™.
Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, owns the #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise, World Of Warcraft, which currently has over 9.3 million subscribers worldwide. Blizzard's World Of Warcraft, Warcraft®, StarCraft® and Diablo® games account for four of the top-five best-selling PC game titles of all time. Vivendi Games also owns popular franchises, including Crash Bandicoot™ and Spyro™.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi stated: "This alliance is a major strategic step for Vivendi and is another illustration of our drive to extend our presence in the entertainment sector. By combining Vivendi's games business with Activision, we are creating a worldwide leader in a high-growth industry. We are excited about the opportunities for Activision Blizzard as a broader entertainment software platform. We believe this transaction will create significant value for Activision Blizzard and Vivendi stockholders. In Activision, we have found a partner with a highly complementary business and strong operating team. Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly are industry pioneers, well known for creating shareholder value. The combined strength of the existing management teams at both companies will set the stage for further profitable growth of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to being an active and supportive majority stockholder in a company that is poised to lead the worldwide interactive entertainment industry in the years ahead."
Mike Morhaime, President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard, added: "Blizzard's industry-leading PC games business, with a track record of nine consecutive bestsellers and a global subscriber base of more than 9.3 million World Of Warcraft players, is an exceptional fit for Activision's highly profitable console games business. From our interactions with the Activision team, it is clear we have much in common in terms of our approaches to game development and publishing. Above all, we are looking forward to continue creating great games for Blizzard gamers around the world, and we believe this new partnership will help us to do that even better than before."
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