French entertainment giant Vivendi's decision to merge its game
unit with Los Angeles-based Activision is expected to reshape the
lucrative video game world, as the two major players team up to
take on industry leader Electronic Arts, analysts said Monday.
Under the deal announced by the two companies Sunday, Vivendi
would buy a controlling stake in Activision in a
18.9-billion-dollar transaction that creates a huge challenger to
Electronic Arts (EA), which is currently the No. 1 company in the
industry.
The new company, which will be called Activision Blizzard with
reference to the Blizzard unit of Vivendi Games, would bring
best-selling games like "World of Warcraft" and "Guitar Hero" under
one corporate roof and knock EA into second place.
Companies in the fast-growing games industry have been racing
since last years to get bigger so they can absorb huge costs in the
high-risk business. With powerful new game consoles like Sony's
PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, development costs for a
major video games have increased to more than 25 million US
dollars.
If approved by regulators in the US and Europe, the
Vivendi-Activision deal would create the biggest company in the
industry, with products in nearly all genres including music
simulation, racing, action, sports and multiplayer on-line
games.
The new company would be positioned to take advantage of what
industry analysts have projected will be double-digit growth in the
40-billion-dollar global games market in the next year.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who will be president and CEO of
the new company, said Sunday that the merger deal would accomplish
what his company has always aspired to be, the No. 1 in the
industry.
For Electronic Arts, the deal creates a new challenger at a
critical time in its history. The Redwood City, California-based
company has been struggling for years amid the transition to a new
generation of game consoles.
And the debate about which company will be the largest in the
computer games industry started as soon as the deal was
announced.
Jeff Brown, an EA spokesman, said in a statement Sunday that "We
wish them luck and welcome the competition. We still believe that
EA has the strongest portfolio of perennial game franchises."
Electronic Arts earlier forecasted it would close with revenue
of 3.35 billion to 3.65 billion dollars in the current fiscal year,
which ends March 31, 2008, while Activision Blizzard now claim it
would get 3.8 billion dollars this year.
The new company also said that it would have higher operating
margins than EA, meaning more profitable. Activision has 2,000
employees and Vivendi Games has 4,000, while Electronic Arts has
7,500.
The combined company would be "No. 1 in revenue, No. 1 in profit
margin, and No. 1 in quality," said the company's CEO Kotick.
(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2007)