Leresistant's Blog

This is the big news this week, Activision and Vivendi have officially announced their merger this morning. The amount of the transaction is valued at some $ 18.9 billion.

Vivendi acquired 52% of Activision, becoming majority shareholder. Then, in some time (period not determined) Vivendi will launch a takeover, and attempt to return to 68% in the capital of Activision.

On Blizzard, the studio will retain its independence. They projected that 2007 report about 1.1 billion dollars with the MMO World of Warcraft. This studio is one of the most profitable group, which is why this strategy.

The new group will have major licenses in the world of video games: Diablo, Tony Hawk, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, and so on. Operating margins will be among the highest in the world of game publishers. This will also allow them to go to China, and thus have new opportunities for profit.

The issues that can arise is how EA will react, which took great pains to retain its monopoly, and Ubisoft, but also whether this lack of diversity of publishers does he not affect the creativity of small studios.

PS: Ironically enough, EA CEO John Riccitello, announced Nov. 30 that the video game industry would have more big mergers, which are all already done. The only mergers that the industry would see consolidation, not the formation of large groups like that just happened today. Like what everyone can make mistakes! Source: Next Gen

PPS: This merger could have positive aspects for Guitar Hero, the soft and could benefit from the vast catalog of Universal, owned partly by Vivendi. It should also be noted that negotiations concerning the transaction would have started a year ago.

Ubisoft becomes gradually more and more American. Electronic Arts announced on August 3 last now have more than 20% of the voting rights in French society (24.86% to be exact), which enables it to influence significantly on the strategy for Ubisoft.

EA has not increased its capital in the company, but just had the opportunity to receive a "double voting right," because it has only 15.37% of the capital, against 13.4% for the Guillemot family, which owns 19.2% of the voting rights.

EA has not wanted to impose its staff to the board of directors of Ubisoft, leaving it a certain autonomy.

Here is a post by Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, which explains why the DirectX 10 will be operated as well when the new generation of consoles will emerge.

Everything is a question of cost: it is not very advisable, financially speaking, to create a game on a bigger PC (thus a significant technological achievement) that can not be operated on consoles. He said: "consoles define what will be PC games during the next five years." It honestly believe that we will not see game more beautiful than before Crysis so the new generation of consoles.

Finally he concluded by saying that publishers generally put the money where the return is highest, as was the case in the past, and this is the case today. But how do you make money if we create a game truly innovative, if you can not wear it on PS3 or Xbox 360 (not even talking about the Wii)?

Here is a short review of costs that spends a player to indulge in his favorite pleasure for Xbox 360. I wish to clarify that the sources take into account prices in the United States, and they can change in France.

First, a player can connect to online gaming with Xbox Live, he must pay $ 50 per year. About 3 million people are subscribers. You should know that games usually have optional content, such as maps, new characters, new missions and so on. Most large content (especially packs of cards) cost about $ 10 each. Next games, a player can spend in all, Thursday and optional content from 80 to 100 dollars. "They (the packs of cards) are very profitable for us," said Tony Key, vice president of marketing at Ubisoft. Remember that games Rainbow Six Vegas and GRAW 2 are from the top 10 most played games on Xbox Live. Key then adds: "If you're an avid Rainbow and you do not have maps, you can not play (in speaking competitions)," I doubt that there is now a game without Tom Clancy mode Xbox Live. It is now a major component of the heart of the game. "

Rainbox games like Ubisoft Six Vegas or Call of Duty 3 from Activision can cost up to $ 25 million in development. However, the cards are really not expensive to produce compared to the final game. They require only 10 people from the development team in the game

It turns out that the cards are also very beneficial to Microsoft. An analyst with Wedbush Morgan, Michael Patcher, said that Microsoft takes 30% for most downloads. Therefore, a content charged $ 10 to the end user, Microsoft charges $ 3, and the publisher 7. The analyst believes that the market for downloaded content amounts to nearly $ 200 million last year, against 19 billion dollars for global sales of video games.

This practice of billing may take action against the publishers. For example, the game Gears of War, which sold more than 3.7 million copies in the world, has benefited from several cards, all for free. This pack was downloaded more than 1.5 million copies on Xbox Live. But there shortly, a new pack made its appearance on Xbox Live, including maps and new game modes. Unlike the first pack, which was free, this one is paying players to pay no less than $ 10 to download. Mark Rein, the president of Epic Games, developer of Gears of War, has said it will make this package public, but that Microsoft opposed it, preferring the charge for a while, then make it free in September.

The product manager of Xbox Live group, Aaron Greeberg said that the players were disappointed that this package does is not free, but these servaint are available to develop games and maintain a very expensive Xbox Live , But quality: "We are like the complaints department, we mean the small minority who is not happy" he says.

Note that the income of the third quarter of the entertainment division of Microsoft fell by 18.7% to 947 million, with an operating deficit of $ 330 million, compared with $ 438 million of the year earlier. Robbie Bach said that the division would be in the green at the next fiscal year.

Hoping that you will have a little information about the downloadable content!

The E3, now called E3 Media and Business, may have suffered a severe weight loss, it remains a living inescapable, with each year of memorable ads in the key. Officials of the show have decided to release the dates of lectures presented by key market players, and it is with joy that I convey to you my turn. All times are local times. You will need to add to 9am GMT.

July 10:
20h30-21h30: Microsoft conference.

July 11:
9:00: Conference Nintendo.
11:30: Sony Conference
1400: Electronic Arts Conference
15h15: Conference Activision
16h30: Midway Conference
17h45: Conference Konami

July 12:
8h00: Conference Take Two
9:15: Conference THQ
10:30: Ubisoft Conference
13h00: Conference Namco Bandai Games
15h30: Disney Interactive Conference