Activision, Inc. was founded in 1979. Before Activision was founded, video games were distributed directly through game design companies. For example, Atari was the publisher of the Atari 2600. This sales method brings a lot of trouble to game developers, who are not rewarded by those blockbuster games. After seeing those vendors making millions of dollars into their pockets every year, some programmers decided to set up a company to publish games. In this context, the world's first third-party game publisher-Activision (Activision) was born.
In 1979, Activision was founded by Jim Levy and Atari founders David Crane, Larry Kaplan, and Alan Mills. Founded by Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead. Soon, due to the departure of four top programmers, most of Atari's organization and work were on the verge of collapse, which also triggered a long-running lawsuit between the two companies, which did not end until 1982. Since then, Activision has taken over the publishing of home games.
In 1982, Activision released "Pitfal!", which is considered the first platform game and the best-selling game on the 2600 console platform. Although the development team's technical prowess had already been demonstrated, this game took their success to the next level. This game and subsequent versions became one of the most popular games of the 1980s.
In 1985, Activision merged with Infocom, a pioneer in text adventure games. Jim used to be a loyal fan of games produced by Infocom, and he hoped to make Infocom exert greater power. But things backfired, and six months later, Bruce Davis replaced him as CEO of Activision USA. David opposed the merger and forced Infocom to change its marketing strategy, resulting in product sales plummeting. It laid the foundation for Activision’s ten-year bankruptcy crisis.
In 1988, Activision changed its name to Mediagenic and later released "Cornerstone" (a relational database program developed by Infocom), but the market response was lackluster. Soon, Mediagenic initiated bankruptcy protection proceedings. In 1989, Mediagenic's failure led to its merger with The Disc Company (its CEO was Bobby Kotick, now the CEO of Activision Blizzard). After going through bankruptcy, the company changed its name back to Activision, and it continued to publish games while under bankruptcy protection. After years of poor management, Activision closed Infocom's studio in Cambridge, leaving only 11 of the 26 employees at the studio in Massachusetts, USA.
In 1991, Activision released 20 games originally developed by Infocom as CDs called "Infocom's Lost Treasures". The collection was so successful that 11 more games were released in subsequent editions. During this period, police officers continued to take away company belongings to mortgage debts, and Bobby Kautik had to save money and sell off his property. After that, Activision gradually emerged from bankruptcy crisis and entered its heyday.
In 1997, acquired reaven software, cenfresoft and NBG dirstribution. This year, Activision reached its peak.
In 1999, it acquired neversoft and 3D software design company Expert Software.
In 2000, he invested in gray matterinteractive.
In 2001, Treyarch was acquired, the developer that developed Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010.
In 2002, Z-axis and Lyxoflux were acquired.
In 2003, Activision and other game publishers were investigated for possible "withdrawal protection" practices. In the same year, Infinity Ward and shaba games were acquired.
In 2004, Activision celebrated its 25th anniversary and achieved its 12th consecutive year of revenue growth.
In 2005, Vicarious visions, beennox and radical entertainment were acquired.
In 2006, redoctane was acquired.
In 2007, it acquired bizarre and multiplayer game technology developer demonware. On December 2, 2007, Activision and Vivendi Games announced their merger. After the merger, it was renamed Activision Blizzard. It was completed on July 9, 2008, with a total capital operation of approximately US$18.9 billion.
Many people are concerned about whether Blizzard's operations after the merger will be affected by Activision's management. In this regard, Blizzard Entertainment executives have assured players that there will be no changes in Blizzard's management after the merger, and there will not be any influence from Activision's leadership. So far, there is no conclusive evidence that Blizzard was influenced by Activision. Players are still concerned about this. Although they are dissatisfied with Blizzard's slow development pace and frequent ticket delays, what is more difficult to accept is that Blizzard sacrifices quality to speed up development to meet the development deadline.
After the merger, Blizzard Entertainment will still operate as an independent division of the company. There are the following facts: 1. Activision and Blizzard have never appeared at major international exhibitions such as E3 (except Gamescom) as Activision Blizzard. 2. Whether it is Activision or Blizzard Entertainment, any games released are mainly under their respective trademarks. 3. After the merger, the top executives of Activision and Blizzard Entertainment almost never appeared together in public. 4. After the merger, BlizzCon has always been only Blizzard Entertainment, and has never had the words Activision, Inc. or Activision Blizzard, Inc..
So, in 2010, EA Vice President of Public Relations Jeff Brown responded to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s blatant provocation in the media: “His company mainly relies on three Game series: One is an online fantasy world that has nothing to do with him (referring to World of Warcraft), the other is in rapid decline (referring to Guitar Hero), and the third is being destroyed by Bobby Kotick's own arrogance (referring to Call of Duty) "On July 26, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced that Activision management, including Activision CEO, and ASAS II LP investment group will repurchase most of the equity from Vivendi for a total investment of nearly US$8.2 billion. , the company is independent.
French entertainment group Vivendi previously held 61% of Activision Blizzard's shares and has sought to sell it many times, but has never found a suitable buyer. Activision Blizzard repurchased nearly 430 million shares on its own for US$5.83 billion. At the same time, the ASAS II LP investment group led by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Vice Chairman Brian Kelly purchased Activision Blizzard's US$172 million from Vivendi for US$2.34 billion. shares, currently accounting for 24.9% of the latter’s shares. After the transaction is completed, Vivendi holds only 12% of Activision Blizzard's shares. The group directly withdraws from the Activision Blizzard board of directors. Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly will serve as Activision Blizzard's president and board chairman respectively.
In May 2014, Vivendi Group once again publicly sold 41.5 million shares of Activision Blizzard it held, accounting for half of its shares in Activision Blizzard at the time. Based on the stock price at the time, the shares were worth approximately $866 million. After the sell-off, its stake in Activision Blizzard was reduced to less than 6%, or about 5.8%. 1. Filming of the "Warcraft" movie started
On January 13, 2014, the "World of Warcraft" movie (actually the Chinese name of the movie should be "Warcraft", because the English name of the movie is "Warcraft". ) has officially started filming, but there is no news that Activision plans to build its own film studio.
On November 8, 2014 (Beijing time), at the BlizzCon held in Anaheim, USA, Blizzard announced the latest status of the movie "Warcraft". Among them, Chinese actor Daniel Wu will play Gul'dan of the tribe.
Key points announced at the meeting include: The crew initially tried to use a different way to produce this epic masterpiece, but they always felt something was wrong during the actual operation. The film will closely follow the "World of Warcraft" plot. The film will balance the two camps. Blizzard recognized the efforts and achievements of the crew. Many Blizzard employees contributed to the production of the film. There was a scene where the camp was burned down by fire and everything was reduced to ashes. Durotan and his wife Della The visual special effects of this film will be extremely real. The crew used the most advanced motion capture technology. They cooperated with the well-known film studio ILM. In order to make the movements more realistic and natural, the crew built a large number of sets, and many details are very detailed. For example, the main street cameramen in Stormwind City can see the real images of actors dressed as orcs in the lens. The film will be released in March 2016. 2. Resurrection of the Snow Mountain brand
August 7, 2014 , the official website of Snow Mountain, which has not been updated for many years, was reactivated by Vision. A new Snow Mountain logo and a sentence appeared on the page: More to be revealed at Gamescom 2014.
The two new games of Snow Mountain have been released It is determined to be the new work of Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions and King's Quest. Among them, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is developed by Lucid Games, and the new work of King's Quest is developed by The Odd Gentlemen.
3. Preparing to build a movie studio and preparing a "Call of Duty" movie
In August 2014, foreign media said that Activision Blizzard, the world's top game developer, was in the process of preparing to build its own movie In the early stages of the studio, this means that well-known game series such as "Call of Duty" and "Sparrow" may have movie versions in the future to meet the majority of game enthusiasts. In the case of Call of Duty, the series has sold close to 140 million copies worldwide so far, so Activision Blizzard didn't want to risk handing over the production of the movie version to a film that wasn't up to its standards. Processed by third party agencies.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said: "Movies based on game titles rarely really resonate with passionate fans, and it's possible that It hurts our brand reputation."