Activision-Vivendi merger motivated by WoW, says Kotick
CEO Bobby Kotick says the deal was motivated by a desire to aquire Blizzard and buy into the MMO market.
Activision boss Bobby Kotick has admitted that the company's merger with Vivendi was inspired by the massive success of World of Warcraft.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference in California, Kotick said: "We kept looking at it, and realizing that even if we put hundreds of millions of dollars of capital towards [making an MMO], and had the very best intellectual property, we still would very likely be unsuccessful."
"So the merger was really our mechanism to get access to Blizzard's talent, Blizzard's capability, their infrastructure, from the multiplayer matchup standpoint, from a multiplayer gaming standpoint, but also in areas we would never have had an opportunity to participate," added Kotick .
Source: Gamasutra.