Activision Cleans Vivendi Games House

Activision Publishing announced today its plans for much of the Vivendi Games line-up it inherited when it merged with the company earlier this month. First the company confirmed plans to keep some of Vivendi Games’ key franchises including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro.

The company will also retain two original IPs: Prototype and another “to be announced” title. Activision Publishing will also continue to support The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon - probably because it was too late to dump the franchise at the time of the merger.

However, the real provocative question is what happens to the games the company has not talked about in today’s release: games like Double Fine’s Brutal Legend, the new 50 Cent game, Ghostbusters, and the next Riddick title.

While we wait to hear the fate of those games, Activision says that it is rolling some of its operations into other operations. The company plans to “realign” Prototype developers Radical Entertainment and Bourne developer High Moon Studios into its studio system. The company is also looking closely at
Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict developer) and Swordfish Studios (50 Cent game developer), but is talking about a possible plans to divest both. Finally, Activision is looking closely at Vivendi Games Mobile and Sierra Online, two units it calls “non-strategic,” which it may sell at a later date. That’s four units within the company that it may dump at a at some point for some quick cash, which is very bad news for anyone that works there.

Activision did not disclose whether or not there would be any layoffs at any of these studios in North America. Some European operations have seen a reduction in staff already. More when we have it.

Update: According to Variety’s Cut Scene blog, Activision will be unloading Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, The Bourne license, and the 50 Cent sequel. One would imagine that the company will shop these projects around to publishers - possibly at a bargain. We’ll see.

Done Deal: Activision Blizzard

Vivendi and Activision have officially completed the transaction to merge both companies together. The mega publisher will be called Activision Blizzard. In addition to having World of Warcraft, the #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, under its umbrella, the new company brings together some of the top franchises in gaming including Diablo, Starcraft, Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, Cabela’s, Shrek and Madagascar, and companies like Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Red Octane, Raven, Nerve, VU Games, Sierra and a number of other wqholly owned development studios.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vivendi Games merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. The Board of Directors of Activision Blizzard consists of eleven members: six directors designated by Vivendi, two Activision management directors and three independent directors from Activision’s board of directors. René Pénisson, a member of the Management Board of Vivendi and Chairman of Vivendi Games, will serve as Chairman of Activision Blizzard. Brian Kelly, Co-Chairman of Activision, will serve as Co-Chairman of Activision Blizzard. The three independent directors are Richard Sarnoff, Robert J. Corti and Robert Morgado. Other Activision Blizzard directors will be Robert Kotick (President and Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard), Bruce Hack (Vice-Chairman and Chief Corporate Officer of Activision Blizzard), Jean-Bernard Lévy (Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi), Doug Morris (Member of the Management Board of Vivendi and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Universal Music Group), Philippe Capron (Member of the Management Board and Chief Financial Officer of Vivendi), and Frédéric Crépin (Senior Vice President, Head of Legal Department of Vivendi).

Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing Activision Blizzard

Get used to the name Activision Blizzard, because it is official. At a special meeting of stockholders Tuesday, Activision received stockholder approval to consummate the company’s agreement with Vivendi to combine Vivendi Games with Activision’s businesses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spyro and Cynder Return

Sierra Entertainment today announced The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, the third chapter in the Legend of Spyro trilogy. Developed by Etranges Libellules, the game will be released this fall for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS. Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Gary Oldman (Sirius Black from the Harry Potter films) will reprise their roles as the characters of Spyro and his mentor Ignitus. Joining the Spyro roster this year are Christina Ricci, Blair Underwood, Mark Hamill and Wayne Brady. In the final chapter of the trilogy, players find Sypro teaming up with an unlikely ally - Cynder, his former enemy, to face the Dark Master (voiced by Mark Hamill).

The game introduces two new elements into the Spyro universe: Spyro can now fly at any time and players can drop-in/drop-out with the new cooperative feature. The co-op feature allows players to have the option of completing the game as either Spyro or Cynder, giving them freedom to explore Spyro’s world.

More details can be found at www.spyrothedragon.com.

Barry Pepper Joins Prototype Cast

Sierra Entertainment’’s Prototype will feature voice work from Barry Pepper, Gordon Clap and Paul Guilfoyle among others. Pepper (Flags of Our Fathers, The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan) headlines will be the voice of Prototype’s main character Alex Mercer — the genetically mutated shape-shifter on a mission to uncover his past by any means necessary as he explores the heavily populated streets of New York City. Gordon Clap (NYPD Blue, Rules of Engagement) and Paul Guilfoyle (CSI, L.A. Confidential) will play supporting roles within the game, though Sierra did not give details on what those roles will be in today’’s announcement.

Prototype is billed as an open-world third-person action game that gives players the power to absorb the powers, appearance and abilities of anyone. The game, which is being developed by wholly owned Radical Entertainment, also borrows some of the best elements from its other game, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Prototype is being developed for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Games for Windows. The game is scheduled for a Q3 2008 release.

WoW Dominates Vivendi’’s 2007 Sales

In what can only be described as the most obvious news story of the century, Vivendi announced that World of Warcraft has helped drive its games division to sales of $1.51 billion for the year. While the number is mighty impressive, it’’s no shock when Blizzard’’s game moves mountains and occasionally gives heaven and earth the shakes. Vivendi Games saw its full-year sales climb by more than 26.6 percent to 1.02 billion euros (that’’s $1.51 billion) in 2007 on sales of World of Warcraft-related products, mobile stuff and Sierra titles.

All on its lonesome, Blizzard saw its sales rise by 58 percent over the same period last year, raking in $814 million euros ($1.20 billion USD) and covering up declines in Vivendi’’s other game divisions like mobile Sierra and Sierra Online (Collectively these divisions fell 29 percent to $204 million euros [$301 million]).

For the fourth quarter, Vivendi’’s games division saw sales take a 7.4-percent dip to 302 million euros (or $446 million), but Blizzard managed to raise sales by 19 percent to 186 million euros (or $275 million) during that time period.

Leisure Suit Larry Goes Hollywood

Sierra Entertainment and developer Team 17 are teaming up to create a new Leisure Suit Larry game called Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust. Team 17 (best known for the Worms series) is developing the new game with the help of Happy Madison Productions writer Allen Covert and voice work by Jay Mohr, Dave Attell, Shannon Elizabeth, Carmen Electra, Artie Lange, Patrick Warburton, Jeffrey Tambor, Nikki Cox, Peter Graves and Jane Lynch. Josh Keaton will star as the voice of Larry Loveage.

This third-person adventure game sees Larry Loveage (the nephew of Larry Laffer, and the star of the previous Leisure Suit Larry game from High Voltage Software) take a summer job working on his uncle Larry’’s movie lot doing odd jobs and trying to uncover a mole from another studio who threatens to air the studio’’s dirty laundry in the tabloids.

The game promises to lampoon all things Hollywood using the trademark Leisure Suit Larry humor combined with gameplay that includes exploration, platforming, racing and puzzle-solving. Al Lowe, the creator of the original games, is not attached to this project, for the record.

Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust is rated M (Mature) by the ESRB and will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3, mobile phones and PC this fall.