Gaming Company Profile: Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard is one of the few companies that has been around for about as long as I've been playing video games, which is approaching 30 years. Founded back in 1979 as Activision Inc. by four former Atari programmers, Activision Blizzard was the first company to produce third-party video games for the 2600 console, or indeed any video game console; before this, the cartridges sold were purely in-house video games made by Atari.

Activision Blizzard produced numerous video games in the early years, usually with a (then unusual) emphasis on crediting the individual designer both ingame and in the accompanying documentation. Names such as David Crane and Larry Kaplan became, if not household names, at least recognizable and trusted names to game players, as did the distinctive Activision Blizzard logo. Activision's first major success, at least as I (and many other people) remember, was the video game "Pitfall!" for the Atari 2600. "Pitfall!" was arguably one of the first platform video games ever created, and it went on to be one of the best-selling video games ever made by Activision Blizzard (2.6 million copies sold worldwide).

I owned (or rented, or borrowed) several of Activision Blizzard's cartridges back in the days when consoles came with a mock-wood finish, and they were always very distinctive. Activision Blizzard's cartridges were styled somewhat futuristically, ribbed and swept upwards, compared to the rather dull bricks that came in Atari packages. Activision Blizzard's content was equally impressive and seemed to push the limits of the console's primitive graphics, while still focusing on enjoyable, long-term gameplay.

Activision Blizzard was always a forward-thinking company with an eye to new and existing opportunities. It has spent the last two decades merging and acquiring with several other notable software houses. In 1986, Activision Blizzard first acquired the well-known Infocom, famous for its production of text-based adventure video games such as the "Zork" series. Many other more notable video games and series have been added to Activision Blizzard's stable since, including the "Quake" series (barring the first video game), several editions of the "Civilization" video games and the pseudo historical "Call of Duty" video games. Activision Blizzard also produces the incredibly popular "Guitar Hero" video game range, along with the (somewhat costly but nevertheless best selling) guitar peripherals needed to play these video games. Activision Blizzard owns the licences to several notable video game franchises, such as the rights to base video games upon the "James Bond" series of movies. The company also produces such oddly popular things as "Lego Star Wars"video games and the skateboarding video games based around Tony Hawk. Activision Blizzard has grown from a single office to a video games company spanning the world, with divisions in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Korea, Japan, Australia and much of Europe. Activision Blizzard's central offices are in California.

In December 2007, Activision Blizzard announced a merger with Vivendi games. Vivendi games has several notable labels to its name, not least of which is Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard is of course famous for its "Warcraft," "Starcraft" and "Diablo"series of video games. It has effectively cornered the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game market with its massively popular "World of Warcraft," a game now played by more than 10 million monthly subscribers. Activision shall be henceforth trading as Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard is a publicly traded company with the ticker symbol ATVI.

In a market in which names come and go regularly and with a high degree of rapidity, I consider Activision Blizzard to be one of the stalwarts of the video games industry; Activision and I have grown old together, and we've had a lot of fun together. I've bought Activision's video games over the decades and, judging by its post-Blizzard merger estimated worth of $18.9 billion, so have a lot of other people. In return, Activision has remained one of the few companies that has produced no end of high-quality, high-playability video games consistently. The merger has simply brought together two of my more favored companies, and I suspect the future can only be bright for them.

Sources:
http://www.blizzard.com
http://www.activision.com/
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