Sad thing is this will likey but AB into debt, hope blizzard don't abondon their "done when it's done" attitude. But on the plus side there is now one less cook in the kitchen.
They were going into debt anyways with Vivendi at the helm and piling debt onto them. At least this way, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Nope Actiblizz will retain 3 Billion, That's Billion with a "B", in cash reserves.
Nope. $1.2B will be drained from the reserve with a new debt $4.6B added to facilitate for the deal. That means a net of +$1.8B cash will be saved from Vivendi's $3B special dividend proposal.
Still, a lot of working capital will be drained from ATVI's balance sheet and current and future projects will be affected.
One point of note is now ATVI is in the good hands of venture capitalists including Tencent. That should buy them a some time from going under.
Nope. Blizzard has more than enough cash reserves. Most of it was sitting there doing nothing which is why Vivendi made a grab for it. The reason it was just sitting there should be obvious. They have more than enough income to not only pay off the loans but keep operating even if they didn't have any cash reserves. More importantly with the stock buyback they'll be paying out less in dividends even if they go to a higher rate. Activision-Blizzard just got a whole lot stronger as a Corporation.
ROFL. That cash is not going to sit there doing nothing. They have plans to use it, or else a new $4.6B debt will not be issued since they can use the $3B "sitting there collecting dust" toward the LBO.
Sad thing is this will likey but AB into debt, hope blizzard don't abondon their "done when it's done" attitude. But on the plus side there is now one less cook in the kitchen.
They were going into debt anyways with Vivendi at the helm and piling debt onto them. At least this way, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Nope Actiblizz will retain 3 Billion, That's Billion with a "B", in cash reserves.
Nope. $1.2B will be drained from the reserve with a new debt $4.6B added to facilitate for the deal. That means a net of +$1.8B cash will be saved from Vivendi's $3B special dividend proposal.
Still, a lot of working capital will be drained from ATVI's balance sheet and current and future projects will be affected.
One point of note is now ATVI is in the good hands of venture capitalists including Tencent. That should buy them a some time from going under.
Nope. Blizzard has more than enough cash reserves. Most of it was sitting there doing nothing which is why Vivendi made a grab for it. The reason it was just sitting there should be obvious. They have more than enough income to not only pay off the loans but keep operating even if they didn't have any cash reserves. More importantly with the stock buyback they'll be paying out less in dividends even if they go to a higher rate. Activision-Blizzard just got a whole lot stronger as a Corporation.
ROFL. That cash is not going to sit there doing nothing. They have plans to use it, or else a new $4.6B debt will not be issued since they can use the $3B "sitting there collecting dust" toward the LBO.
It was sitting. It was a warchest. Now it's down to operating capital and reserves. Once they're done digesting this deal expect both more acquisitions and more stock buybacks.
Venture capitalists won't spend billions of dollars buying into companies without vision. I can't give out anything specifics now but you better believe there are global plans (hint... hint... in the East...). Stay tuned and happy speculating.
Some good news for Blizzard at last even if it was on the back of the announcement that a further 600k subs were lost this quarter, at least Vivendi wont sink them.
How in hell did he manage to save the day when Vivendi's grasping fingers had almost closed around ActiBlizz's entire cash reserve ? Did he have someone killed ?
The devil may be in the details though. I'm wondering just how much influence Tencent have bought with this deal...
shareholders? stakeholders? when did making video games get so effin retarded? This industry used to be about nerds making worlds for other nerds, now we have business suits, briefcases and financial advisors... lame. Sad part is that dudes suit probably costs more then the creation cost of mists of pandaria.
Originally posted by Datastar shareholders? stakeholders? when did making video games get so effin retarded? This industry used to be about nerds making worlds for other nerds, now we have business suits, briefcases and financial advisors... lame. Sad part is that dudes suit probably costs more then the creation cost of mists of pandaria.
Video games are made by groups of people.
Large video games are made by large groups of people.
You don't get any bigger than a game made for millions across the globe.
Big groups of people require bureaucracy to remain functional.
Paying for bureaucracy requires shareholders, stakeholders, etc.
There are still PLENTY of people making video games in their basements.
Welcome to reality, sometimes it sucks, but naivete will get you nowhere.
Originally posted by Datastar shareholders? stakeholders? when did making video games get so effin retarded? This industry used to be about nerds making worlds for other nerds, now we have business suits, briefcases and financial advisors... lame. Sad part is that dudes suit probably costs more then the creation cost of mists of pandaria.
Video games are made by groups of people.
Large video games are made by large groups of people.
You don't get any bigger than a game made for millions across the globe.
Big groups of people require bureaucracy to remain functional.
Paying for bureaucracy requires shareholders, stakeholders, etc.
There are still PLENTY of people making video games in their basements.
Welcome to reality, sometimes it sucks, but naivete will get you nowhere.
Good for them I guess but tired of big companies and their bulldrek effecting our games.
The posts quoted both represent how I feel on the matter mostly.
the new investors want to make money off blizzard. vavindi just wanted to suck on their neck till they went dry. It may not be our perfect sunday but it's better than the way it was going.
There are many things a company can do to drive up stock prices, thus providing a good product for their shareholders:
Cut operating costs
Removal of toxic elements within the organization (Vivendi, bad management, etc)
positive marketing
The biggest one though, by far is to earn money. To do that, they need people to buy their products. In order to get people to buy their products, they need to produce a quality product people find value in. It's in their shareholder's interest to make good games for us to play. D3 might not have been for everybody, but it was by no means a bad product, just not the product that the D2 diehards (myself being one of them) wanted. A win for the shareholders hinges on a win for the consumer.
Originally posted by MondoA2J Good for them I guess but tired of big companies and their bulldrek effecting our games.The posts quoted both represent how I feel on the matter mostly.
And how else do you think these $50 million to $100 million MMOs are going to get made?
Some guy in his basement?
Nerds making games for other nerds dont have that kind of money. Who does? Oh yeah, big companies.
You want huge MMOs like Everquest Next but you dont want what it takes to make a huge MMO like Everquest Next.
Originally posted by Aldous.Huxley This picture makes my "e-peen" shrivel.
He uses the same K-Mart photography studio that Smed does, apparently.
Backdrops from the mullet era, still showing up regularly in portraits today.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by coretex666 Great news for Blizzard. I was worried about their future considering the plans of their current owners.
Kotick's pretty much Satan himself so I doubt it'll get any better from here on out.
I'm always amused at the amount of airbrushing it requires to conceal his horns... ^^ ActiBlizzard will be better off out on their own. It remains to be seen what impact project Titan will have in the future.
Game companies started expanding when gamers started wanting better games. They needed more people to make bigger games and more money for research and development as well as advertising. People wanted games bigger, faster, and polished. Those demands take more than just a little dedication while working a 9 to 5. It takes the game becoming your 9 to 5 and then some. Fast, quality, and/or cheap, choose two.
I'm not really interested in Blizzard's future really. I'm just merely giving my opinion on when games became big business and why. We have transitioned to the age of indulgence and instant gratification. We can get things faster now than we could in the past and we can get more now than in the past. That's what people expect and that's the demands companies must provide. Granted if you could do something to make a profit, ethically of course, I imagine you would.
When I want to play a game designed gamers for people that want to play games, I play Tabletop RPG's.
Vivendi has an outstanding debth of more than 10B dollars, they wanted the reserves of Activision Blizzard (4.3 B in cash) by grabbing the non US part and just take it to recover their debts.
It would have been a total disaster to see your savings go up just to fill a hole in French bad management.
Bahm... Bobby enters: invests 100 million dollars of its own capitol, asks a huge Chinese group to invest for 22% of the stock and buys back ATVI while Vivendi is reduced from 61% stocks to 12%, in which they have really nothing to say anymore.
Capitol Market Value of Activision Blizzard is 19 Billion dollars, with a yearly turnover of around 4.5 to 5 billion dollars and it is back to the control where it belongs with a mere loan of 1.2 B dollars.
Chapeau Mr Kotic. ATVI stocks going up in one day for 15% shows something, but 30% LESS stocks is even more power.
----
As to those stating Kotick has a bad influence, on contrary, the man saved a reknown Activision from going bankrupt back in the early 90's. Activision was THE gaming software company of the 80's. He now saved a LOT of studios asses on the line, including Blizzard now.
It is time these silly pubers start realising something: ATVI is NOT EA which absorbs and closes dozens of studios just to grab the cash. The next HUGE project of Activision is with Bungy and their project Destiny.
And Blizzard should be glad to be lined up within a healthy financial group, because they gain time and can savely built other games without much time pressure to beat "the stocks deadlines" even with a declining WOW in revenue.
SC2, D3, Hearthstone: their production timing were postponed for months/ With EA it would have been published each time 3 days before XMas.
And btw ... Hearthstone will be a hell of a game, you already knew that IF you would follow its pre production status. Kiss my ass Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone is much more focused in on line gaming and will rule digital CCG's in no time.
The same goes for that next Bungie game Destiny btw. (or as I would call it "the next big thing in online gaming").
Blizzard used the last of their good name to pre-sell millions of copies of Diablo 3, which turned out to be unfinished crap designed to rip off their fan base.
No-one cares about Blizz anymore, they burnt their bridges and now they can burn in hell.
If D3 was anywhere near as terrible as the internet has deemed it to be then why did it account for more than 1/3 as much revenue as WoW last quarter? A year after release and still bringing in more than a hundred million every quarter? I would love to make a game that shitty.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
Originally posted by jimdandy26 If D3 was anywhere near as terrible as the internet has deemed it to be then why did it account for more than 1/3 as much revenue as WoW last quarter? A year after release and still bringing in more than a hundred million every quarter? I would love to make a game that shitty.
Because they used the great Diablo name to sell a garbage sequel. If you put horseshit in that D3 box it still would have sold millions. Consumers wont be burnt again though.
Comments
ROFL. That cash is not going to sit there doing nothing. They have plans to use it, or else a new $4.6B debt will not be issued since they can use the $3B "sitting there collecting dust" toward the LBO.
Venture capitalists won't spend billions of dollars buying into companies without vision. I can't give out anything specifics now but you better believe there are global plans (hint... hint... in the East...). Stay tuned and happy speculating.
Some good news for Blizzard at last even if it was on the back of the announcement that a further 600k subs were lost this quarter, at least Vivendi wont sink them.
+1
Kotick deserves a triple bonus for this deal !
How in hell did he manage to save the day when Vivendi's grasping fingers had almost closed around ActiBlizz's entire cash reserve ? Did he have someone killed ?
The devil may be in the details though. I'm wondering just how much influence Tencent have bought with this deal...
so very true.
Video games are made by groups of people.
Large video games are made by large groups of people.
You don't get any bigger than a game made for millions across the globe.
Big groups of people require bureaucracy to remain functional.
Paying for bureaucracy requires shareholders, stakeholders, etc.
There are still PLENTY of people making video games in their basements.
Welcome to reality, sometimes it sucks, but naivete will get you nowhere.
When people noticed you can earn money with them, I guess.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
Good for them I guess but tired of big companies and their bulldrek effecting our games.
The posts quoted both represent how I feel on the matter mostly.
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
There are many things a company can do to drive up stock prices, thus providing a good product for their shareholders:
Some guy in his basement?
Nerds making games for other nerds dont have that kind of money. Who does? Oh yeah, big companies.
You want huge MMOs like Everquest Next but you dont want what it takes to make a huge MMO like Everquest Next.
He uses the same K-Mart photography studio that Smed does, apparently.
Backdrops from the mullet era, still showing up regularly in portraits today.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
I'm always amused at the amount of airbrushing it requires to conceal his horns... ^^ ActiBlizzard will be better off out on their own. It remains to be seen what impact project Titan will have in the future.
Game companies started expanding when gamers started wanting better games. They needed more people to make bigger games and more money for research and development as well as advertising. People wanted games bigger, faster, and polished. Those demands take more than just a little dedication while working a 9 to 5. It takes the game becoming your 9 to 5 and then some. Fast, quality, and/or cheap, choose two.
I'm not really interested in Blizzard's future really. I'm just merely giving my opinion on when games became big business and why. We have transitioned to the age of indulgence and instant gratification. We can get things faster now than we could in the past and we can get more now than in the past. That's what people expect and that's the demands companies must provide. Granted if you could do something to make a profit, ethically of course, I imagine you would.
When I want to play a game designed gamers for people that want to play games, I play Tabletop RPG's.
Well this won't end well. It effectively puts Kotick in direct control of Blizzard Entertainment with ZERO oversight (aka answering to Vivendi)
[unless things have changed]
Tippl is Morhaime's boss
Kotick is Tippl's boss.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.
Kotick deserves a statue for pulling this off.
Vivendi has an outstanding debth of more than 10B dollars, they wanted the reserves of Activision Blizzard (4.3 B in cash) by grabbing the non US part and just take it to recover their debts.
It would have been a total disaster to see your savings go up just to fill a hole in French bad management.
Bahm... Bobby enters: invests 100 million dollars of its own capitol, asks a huge Chinese group to invest for 22% of the stock and buys back ATVI while Vivendi is reduced from 61% stocks to 12%, in which they have really nothing to say anymore.
Capitol Market Value of Activision Blizzard is 19 Billion dollars, with a yearly turnover of around 4.5 to 5 billion dollars and it is back to the control where it belongs with a mere loan of 1.2 B dollars.
Chapeau Mr Kotic. ATVI stocks going up in one day for 15% shows something, but 30% LESS stocks is even more power.
----
As to those stating Kotick has a bad influence, on contrary, the man saved a reknown Activision from going bankrupt back in the early 90's. Activision was THE gaming software company of the 80's. He now saved a LOT of studios asses on the line, including Blizzard now.
It is time these silly pubers start realising something: ATVI is NOT EA which absorbs and closes dozens of studios just to grab the cash. The next HUGE project of Activision is with Bungy and their project Destiny.
And Blizzard should be glad to be lined up within a healthy financial group, because they gain time and can savely built other games without much time pressure to beat "the stocks deadlines" even with a declining WOW in revenue.
SC2, D3, Hearthstone: their production timing were postponed for months/ With EA it would have been published each time 3 days before XMas.
And btw ... Hearthstone will be a hell of a game, you already knew that IF you would follow its pre production status. Kiss my ass Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone is much more focused in on line gaming and will rule digital CCG's in no time.
The same goes for that next Bungie game Destiny btw. (or as I would call it "the next big thing in online gaming").
Blizzard used the last of their good name to pre-sell millions of copies of Diablo 3, which turned out to be unfinished crap designed to rip off their fan base.
No-one cares about Blizz anymore, they burnt their bridges and now they can burn in hell.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
Because they used the great Diablo name to sell a garbage sequel. If you put horseshit in that D3 box it still would have sold millions. Consumers wont be burnt again though.
GW2 the future of MMO gaming
It won't reform the greatness that is Blizzard North, though, sadly.
RIP REAL Blizzard