Blizzard were owned by Vivendi for quite a while before. Now they are owned by Vivendi with a different corporate structure.Dexter111 said:Or try thinking for yourself... so Bobby paid 7 billion $ in a deal or a "merger" and was made boss of the game division, a company called "Activision Blizzard", upon which he closed one of the "game branches" Vivendi had (SIERRA) and letting most of the games under that brand fall.
He just kept the name cause it is a too powerful marketing tool/brand to let go xD
And of course Blizzard has leeway and can make decisions as long as they rake in cash (kinda the same with Bioware and EA) but just wait till something goes wrong
Aside of that, I think noone in his right mind can argue that the Blizzard after WoW and the Activision "merger" is the same Blizzard from before those events and will make the same games and decisions it would have before...
I'm sure that Bobby Kotick owns a lot of shares in Activision-Blizzard and he would like to have bought them cheaper. I'm sure he is proud that Blizzard are under his management but by all accounts they are run as a separate business and the board is controlled by Vivendi. Bobby Kotick runs Activision-Blizzard but it does not follow to say that he directly runs Blizzard or that he "controls" Activision-Blizzard.