Search Results

Activision has announced that the late, great Jimi Hendrix will be appearing in the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour. Yes, it looks like rather than just ripping off his image through the character of Xavier Stone, they’ve decided to just bite the bullet and put Hendrix himself in the game. Along with the famed guitarist, the game will contain two of Hendrix’s most famous tracks: “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” More tracks will be released as DLC later on.

“Guitar Hero games have become the virtual rock stage for the industry’s most beloved artists and Guitar Hero World Tour continues that tradition by honoring the great Jimi Hendrix and celebrating some of his greatest work,” said Tim Riley, Vice President of Music Affairs for Activision Blizzard. “His presence in the game will serve to satisfy multiple generations of his fans and Guitar Hero devotees, as well as create new fans by reintroducing his genre-defining guitar style through the unique Guitar Hero experience.”

Meanwhile, Rock Band 2 is still looking ten times better, while Rock Revolution continues to beg the big boys to let him inside from out in the cold.

Via Press Release

If you found this story interesting, why not subscribe to our RSS feed to get your daily fix of gaming news?

With the ink barely dry on the paperwork for Activision’s merger with Vivendi and Blizzard, the company is already planning on taking advantage of Vivendi owning Universal Music.

Activision plans on developing an online music platform that according to the Financial Times, could rival iTunes. That is a bold assumption if I ever heard one, but I will save judgment until I know more about it.

Speaking to chief executive Bobby Kotick, the Fiancial Times learned that the creation of a Guitar Hero online music platform was “the natural evolution” for the franchise.

“I don’t think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential.”

Oh boy. iTunes gets enough money from me as it is. I would hate to think how much I would blow should Acivision offer an alternate that might be better or be able to integrate with the Guitar Hero franchise.

You can read the rest of the Financial Times article here.

Thanks: Shacknews

During a recent interview with MMORPG.com, Mark Jacobs, VP and General Manager of EA Mythic, dished about the highly anticipated Warhammer Online: AoR. In doing so, he announced that EA Mythic will be dropping the “EA” from its moniker and going back to just plain old Mythic Entertainment.

For those who do not know, or cannot remember, Mythic was originally the company’s name before being purchased by EA. While he emphasized that the change back to the original name had nothing to do with any changes within the company, he explained that it was due to EA’s recent attitude regarding its development studios. EA’s change of heart must have something to do with John Riccitiello because he seems to be much more open and approachable since coming back to EA in 2007 as CEO.

According to Jacobs:

“We’re still part of EA this is a name change and both Mythic Entertainment and EA are well represented in the game[s], on the box[s], etc. but the developer is going to be officially Mythic Entertainment. I’ve always been a believer of separate branding. I think that this is a wonderful example of how things at EA are changing. Both John [Riccitiello] and Frank [Gibeau] have spoken multiple times about city states, more freedom, that sort of thing, and I think this is an obvious example. ”

Great. Now I feel horrible for comparing EA to a bloodthirsty warlord.

For more on MMORPG’s interview with Jacobs, you can hit the link below. They are promising to post part two of the interview later where Jacobs announces three more interesting things concerning WH Online. If you are a fan of the franchise or are just looking forward to this new MMO from Mythic Entertainment, you won’t want to miss it.

Via: MMORPG.com

Analysts have been throwing their two-cents into the wind since EA decided to pursue Take-Two seven months ago, so it is no surprise that Janco Partners’ Mike Hickey would have to have his say in the matter as well. He feels that Activision Blizzard might be considering making a move on Take-Two themselves.

Speaking to the The Deal.com, Hickey explained:

“We absolutely believe Activision will take a look at Take-Two. If a competitor is for sale, you take a look, and if EA is your real rival, why wouldn’t you stir the pot a little bit?”

UBS Securities’ Ben Schachter though, feels that Activision Blizzard is too busy at the moment to consider further acquisitions since they only finalized their merger yesterday and have loads of work stacked on their plates to content with for the time being.

With Electronic Arts still pursuing Take-Two and extending their offer until August 21, it is highly likely that EA will eventually - but unfortunately - acquire the company. If indeed Take-Two were to be bought by a massive publishing/development conglomerate, it would be in the gaming industry’s best interest if Activision Blizzard were to purchase them instead. EA is basically nothing more than a conqueror riding in on horseback to rape and pillage anything of value and then force their heavy hand upon the survivors.

Via: GI.biz

The merger of Activision and Vivendi has finally come to fruition, and is now the “world’s most profitable pure-play online and console game publisher,” Activision Blizzard.

You may recall that yesterday, 92% of the shareholders voted a resounding “yes” to the melding of the two giants.

Here are some lovely quotes regarding the merger:

Robert Kotick, CEO: “The completion of this transaction marks the beginning of an important new chapter in the history of interactive entertainment.”

“By combining leaders in mass-market entertainment and subscription-based online games, Activision Blizzard has leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry.”

“With more than 10.7 million subscribers on World of Warcraft, and with tens of millions of people playing Guitar Hero, Activision Blizzard’s games are transcending the traditional stereotypes and are more popular as a form of entertainment than ever before. We look forward to building upon our brands to create value for our shareholders, customers and consumers.”

Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaine: “From the beginning, our goal has been to make the best games in the world, and this transaction strengthens our ability to do just that. As part of Activision Blizzard we’ll have the reach and resources to share our games with an even wider audience - while maintaining the same approach as always to providing high-quality entertainment and services to our players.”

If you are now confused as to who will retain what titles, Neil Long with MCV has been working hard to keep you up to date with information on Activision-Blizzard’s towering mass of news. I have posted the new roster for you below, and you can view the rest of it after the jump.

The new structure is as follows:

• Robert Kotick: President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard
• Mike Griffith: President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Publishing, which includes the Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile divisions in addition to the Activision business.
• Bruce Hack: Vice-Chairman and Chief Corporate Officer of Activision Blizzard, accountable for leading the merger integration and the finance, human resources and legal functions.
• Mike Morhaime: President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard Entertainment.
• Thomas Tippl: Chief Financial Officer of Activision Blizzard
• Jean-François Grollemund: Chief Merger Officer of Activision Blizzard.

Via: MCV

Read the full article

When Activision announced it was leaving the ESA — soon followed by other companies like LucasArts and id — naturally, the rumors began to fly. Many suspected the departure stemmed from some disagreements with new ESA prez Mike Gallagher or from the increased fees the association put in place. As it turns out, those kind of were the reasons, just from a different angle. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (pictured right) explains:

“With the combined companies [Blizzard and Activision], the dues went up enough that I said for it to make sense [to spend that money], we have to make a strategic plan,” he explained. “We don’t have that because nobody owns it for us right now…We have our own issues that are not the industry’s issues,” he went on, citing Blizzard’s reliance on subscription revenue and the company’s substantial business in China as examples. “Our challenges are sufficiently different from other publishers’ issues that we need our own point person.”

In other words, Activision is so big now that it needs its own representatives working with government legislators. Kotick did however state that they weren’t leaving the ESA altogether so much as taking some “time off.” They may rejoin the ESA later on, but if at the rate they’ve been raking in cash these days, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Via Variety

We have not heard much regarding Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend lately, but it looks like we will be hearing something soon, although not as soon as E3 since Activision will not be attending - nor will we hear anything at Activision’s event planned for next Tuesday.

However, the good news is that more information on Brutal Legend will be forthcoming, according to Tim Schafer:

“As soon as the dust settles from this whole [Activision Blizzard] merger thing we should be able to talk about the game a lot more.”

The last bit of anything that was heard regarding the game came from star of the game, Jack Black, at the MTV Movie Awards last month. During the festivities, he wore a Brutal Legend t-shirt and told MTV News’ Kim Stolz that his new game was “coming someday.”

So keep your fingers crossed that something, anything, will be revealed sometime soon, because Brutal Legend looks like it is going to be one cool game.

Via: MTV Multiplayer

Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activison made an interesting comment recently when asked by a staffer for The Times if the new merger with Blizzard will create more games with violent content. In reply, Kotick stated:

“I don’t think that you need to have gratuitously violent products. But no company can afford to turn its back on a $45 billion section of the market. They are as important to the business as R-rated movies [restricted to 17 and older] are to films.”

Well, of course. Mature rated games give the adults something more meaty and more defined to the age demographic. I mean, seriously, who wants to play fluffy bunny rainbow garden when you can be shagging hot alien broads, slashing your enemy across the face with a scimitar, gazing down at your dead enemy’s body riddled with bullet holes, and ripping people from their cars and taking off in them? ‘

In the same way that adults want to see movies aimed at more adult themed situations, we also want it in our games. Entertainment is entertainment period, no matter what type of outlet it is, so as long as developers cater to all demographics while at the same time not shortchanging the adults, everyone should be happy.

Via: CVG

Rob Pardo not only announced at the GDC this morning that Saturday we would be getting a very special announcement regarding a new game from Blizzard, but he also dropped an interesting little tidbit of information regarding World of Warcraft.

Apparently, during the keynote Q&A Pardo revealed that World of Warcraft was originally planned as a free-to-play title and advertising supported.

Speaking at the D: All Things Digital conference this week, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick painted a clearer picture of exactly what motivated the merger between his company and Vivendi. As you might have guessed, the motivation was precisely what seems to be driving a large chunk of the industry: World of Warcraft.

“We kept looking at it, and realizing that even if we put hundreds of millions of dollars of capital towards it, and had the very best intellectual property, we still would very likely be unsuccessful,” Kotick explained.

“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.”

It’s certainly a smart investment, in my opinion. As Ron recently talked about, even Age of Conan — with as successful a start as it’s off to — isn’t much of a threat to WoW’s market dominance. So while it might have taken quite a lot of capital for Activision to make this happen, at least they can feel fairly safe in believing they’ll be #1 for the foreseeable future.

via Gamasutra

Blizzard has announced the next BlizzCon will be held this October in Anaheim, California. This will mark the third such convention, which has now expanded to two convention halls in order to accommodate more attendees. As usual, the whole event will celebrate all things Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo-related:

“Whenever we’ve been able to meet and interact with Blizzard gamers from around the world, it’s been a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re looking forward to seeing even more of our players at this year’s BlizzCon and delivering another entertaining and informative event for them.”

The event will rake place in the Anaheim Convention Center from Oct. 10-11.Tickets are expected to go on sale for $100 each in the next few weeks through www.blizzcon.com. Last year’s BlizzCon sold out quick, so if you’re planning to go, you’ll want to snag your tickets soon. And since Activision pulled out of E3, this will probably be the place where we can finally sit down and play Starcraft II (or possibly Diablo 3, if the signs are to be believed).

Via Press Release

The fourth annual Games for Health Conference will be showcasing the expanding role of video games in the Health profession. Video game technology is being applied in the field for rehabilitation, training and to encourage exercise.

Some highlights of the conference will be familiar to most gamers. A new version of Activision’s Guitar Hero is being introduced, which will be used in the rehabilitation of arm amputees. The results of studies based on the “Corrupted Blood Syndrome” form Blizzard’s World of Warcraft are also being presented.

Attendees will have the chance to play training games like 3DiTeams and the K.I.C.K. (Kid’s Interactive Creation Kiosk). 3DiTeams offers emergency health care training to medical professionals in virtual worlds. The full press release follows the break.

Read the full article

Activision has published results for the company’s 2008 financial year and the numbers are pretty impressive. Raking in over $2.9 billion in net earnings gave them a 92% increase in monetary gains over last year’s figures. Activision’s net income stands at $344.9 million, up from $85.8 million last year and kudos goes out to Guitar Hero III and CoD4 helping them out by bringing in one billion dollars each in sales.

Head honcho Robert Kotick stated during a conference call following the published figures:

“During the fiscal year, we were the number one US console and handheld publisher in dollars for the first time ever, according to The NPD Group, and we grew our worldwide share of the console, handheld and PC markets year over year.”

Also mentioned during the conference call was the confirmation of a fifth Call of Duty game, the reinvention of the Tony Hawk series, the announcement of a new Marvel: Ultimate Alliance title and discussions relating to Guitar Hero 4 and its holiday release date.

This means that Activison will be another contender for number one publisher next year, especially considering that they have merged with Blizzard. Just think of the money they will earn when Wrath of the Lich King is unleashed upon the world.

Via: Eurogamer

If, like me, you were wondering why Activision, Blizzard and the rest of Vivendi weren’t on the list of exhibitors at E3 2008, the answer is in.

According to Kotaku, the Entertainment Software Association has confirmed to them that both Vivendi and Activision are no longer a part of the trade organization. In a statement, Senior Vice President of Communications and Research Rich Taylor said

“While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership. The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry’s objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unchanged.”

This departure is a big surprise, at least to me. I think we’d all grown used to Blizzard holding their big announcements for Blizzcon, but to see an E3 without them will be more than just odd, it’ll be downright bizarre. One has to wonder what effect this split will have on the ESA and E3. After all, it’s not just Blizzard, but Activision and Sierra as well.

Another step towards the formation of Activision Blizzard was made this week when the European Commission gave its permission for the merger to move ahead with the nearly $10 billion deal. Vivendi would have a 52% stake in the new company, which would have annual revenue of $3.8 billion. Be scared, EA.

The Commission determined that the new company wouldn’t have a monopoly on the industry. They said ” the combined firm would continue to face several strong, effective competitors, such as Electronic Arts, and the game console manufacturers, such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft,” according to Reuters.

It doesn’t look like there’s much left in the way of this deal going through, so get ready for that Activision Blizzard logo to start appearing everywhere.

I just wish they could have picked a slightly less craptacular name for the company.

With all the talk of Activision-Blizzard and EA’s attempts to acquire Take-Two, I had nearly forgotten about the perennial takeover target, SCi. According to The Guardian (via GamesIndustry.biz), takeover talks are likely continuing to take place as share prices rose 20.4% yesterday.

Back in January, rumor had it that Midway and SCi were talking about a merger. Despite a denial of interest in SCi back in October, Ubisoft may be one of several potential bidders for the company, alongside Infogrames and Time Warner. Time Warner purchased a 10% stake in the company a year ago, but SCi has seen major changes since then. In late February, 14 projects were cancelled as 25% of jobs were cut.

SCi is the parent company of Eidos, so Lara Croft and friends have a vested interest in seeing how this turns out.

Gaming behemoths Electronic Arts and Activision might see acquisitions as a necessary move to keep up with each other, but THQ doesn’t necessarily feel that it needs to follow suit – although they did purchase Big Huge Games in January. CEO Brian Farrell spoke with Reuters about how opportunities are arising as a result of the respective moves of Activision and EA.

“We are seeing some opportunities in the marketplace given the two transactions going on,” Farrell explained. “It’s going to create some opportunities because we are actively looking at every developer, every license out there and with our size now we can be more aggressive than larger, slower firms.”

And while opportunities might present themselves, that doesn’t necessarily force THQ’s hand. Farrell said, “M&A is not a required or necessary thing in order to grow.”

According to Reuters, THQ’s stock has risen 23% in the last month, but is still down 35% from a year ago. Farrell declined to comment on any specifics on the subject.

I think THQ has a fairly good spot in the industry currently, and if they were to go out and make major acquisitions, it would only put more pressure on them to outperform companies like EA. And at this point, that just doesn’t seem possible. Unless your name is Activision-Blizzard, of course.

via GamesIndustry.biz

Trion World Network CEO Dr. Lars Buttler has responded to Activision’s Bobby Kotick who recently claimed a company would have to invest USD 500 million to USD 1 billion to compete with blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Buttler is calling Koticks bluff claiming that WoW isn’t the be all end all.

Buttler says that the reason no other MMO has been able to go toe to toe with WoW is because there haven’t been any quality releases in the genre.

I think it’s because no one has really launched a great product in the online gaming space yet other than WOW.

Look at all the stuff that has been launched and apply one simple bar - could you sell this at retail if you stripped out all the online components? In other words, is it a good game? I don’t think that any other MMO could then stand…Or very few exceptions.

WOW is a good game. It has ramped up the last ten years of the MMO category and polished it really well and presented it as almost the closing chapter on those last ten years. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t another ten years or another twenty years to come.

Saying WOW is the end of all things would be like saying Mario or The Sims or Madden or any other great franchise are the end of all things in their particular categories. There will always be new and great developments. In the games world, that’s particularly true because technology evolves so much.

Butler expects that one day there will be a game that will topple WoW because part of the problem with success is that it can often curtail future success. Trion plans to compete by offering something different.

I think what the future will hold, and what we are trying to enable, are dynamic game worlds that can always improve and that really use the full capability of server-based architecture that can learn from success and failure after you launch. In other words, we try to entirely step out of the box that has restricted innovation.

I think it is really important to point out that we are not trying to compete with WOW or clone it - in my mind that would be boring and it would be creatively constraining, and I also think it would be massively limiting the amount of risk and innovation we are willing to introduce.

We don’t see this as a zero-sum game where you can only have WOW and nothing else.

Catch the whole Lars Buttler on GamesIndustry.biz.

The other day, CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, made some comments about Starcraft 2 that raised a few eyebrows. Namely, he seemed to imply that the highly-anticipated title would contain in-game ads:

[Blizzard] has been thinking about how StarCraft, because it is a short-session experience, can actually be the model for in-game advertising and sponsorship and tournament play and ladder play for the future.

Luckily though, reps from the company responded to the issue recently to basically debunk these statements:

We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II. We believe Bobby was actually referring to Battle.net, which has always included ads.

Phew. For a minute there, I was thinking I’d be battling the Zerg amongst the ruins of various Subway franchises while using Mountain Dew Packs to boost my soldiers’ abilities.

Via Blizzplanet

It hasn’t been long since the merger between Activision and Vivendi was announced, but Activision CEO Bobby Kotick seems to be excited about what his company has already been able to learn from their new colleagues at Blizzard. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, Kotick detailed just what it is Activision has learned thus far.

One of the nice things about the transaction is we’ve had a lot of opportunity in the integration and planning process, to really understand what is definitely different - but, turns out, complementary - business in Blizzard and make sure that we’re figuring out how to capture the very best resources from all parts of both our business as well as the Vivendi business.

Activision had been long seeking entry into the MMO market, Vivendi was looking to expand in the console and handheld market.

So, after what was a fairly lengthy period of time in trying to figure out what would make the most sense from a transaction standpoint, we ended up getting this deal almost done.

What we realized is that the opportunity of just taking the institutional knowledge that exists at Blizzard…For example, how do we take Guitar Hero - which is the best-selling game that we’ve ever had - and take that to Korea or take that to China and be thoughtful about it? You know, these guys have so much institutional expertise on how you go to market in these territories.

Just the few hours of conversations we’ve had in brainstorming has given us a lot of value in thinking about those markets. And then when you think about other properties that we own and control like Call of Duty, and what would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively multiplayer environment, and how do you monetize that, the same rules apply.

A Call of Duty MMO? That could be interesting if it worked in a similar fashion to PlanetSide, which I’ve always felt was far ahead of its time.

For some reason, I feel like a Tony Hawk MMO is inevitable. That’d certainly be one way of taking things up a notch after EA’s Skate kicked Tony Hawk to the curb last year.

via GamesIndustry.biz