Blizzard buyout worth $7 million in '95, $7 billion in '07
$7 million seemed like an "insane" amount to pay, says Kotick
Activision boss Bobby Kotick has admitted that in 1995, when he heard that Davidson & Associates had bought Blizzard for USD 7 million, he thought they were "insane".
"That year Activision probably had USD 60 million in revenues," he told Game Informer. "They said they paid seven million dollars for Blizzard. I'm like 'Are you out of your minds? They're like a contract developer! They have Warcraft but what else do they have? You paid seven million? That's insane!"
A short 12 years later, Activision paid USD 7 billion for the War of Warcraft studio - which now generates an estimated USD 100 million a month in revenues.
"I was talking to [Blizzard founder] Mike Morhaime the other day and I said, 'You know, I could have bought you for seven million and instead it was seven billion'," Kotick added.
"He said, 'Yeah, could you imagine if I had just held out for the seven billion instead of the seven million?'"