The joke is on Activision. What they don't know is that 5 years to Blizzard is like 1/4 of a game. This just means the head honcho's are gonna quit halfway through the WoW expansion after WotLK.

Graham

Hey look, big faceless game publishers have realized that the talent is where the money is.

Poor one out for Westwood.

skewt

As long as they don't cheap out on us later, I will still be happy :)

MetaKz

@thejakeman: visit my site!: cept that already kinda happened.....

Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: or, you know, consoles, what with the ps3 xbox and wii thing

thejakeman: visit my site!

The giant companies with huge titles under their belt really scare me into what that could and will result in.

I really don't want videogames to go the way of Operating systems. Apple/Microsoft/Linux kinda thing

Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.

@Heliophage: Hell with Duke Nukem, Megaman 9, AND Too Human. It better be.

NessD12

@BoringJob: It damn well better.

Go Blizz-vision!

Bardiel18

Am I the only one that thinks this may force EA to get their act together?

Competition only brings out the best.

BoringJob

EA has been at this for years, though. And, just like that, they get pushed aside. With so little effort.

Excellent.

08/09 is going to be fun.

Heliophage

I hear EA drooling instead.

Berith

Step aside EA, lol.

Br00klyn-Grenade

We are witnessing the Birth of a New EA! I hate hearing from Kotick talking about blizzard like he owns them. oh well.

BryanGuitarDude

I sense a disturbance in the Force.

Archaotic

I think it's safe to say that Activision now has a license to print money.

TrjnRabbit

@Atheist Jew: - "Yeah, how about offering the people that deserve the job security those 5 year deals, not just the douche bag suits that reap the benefits of the developer's hard work.

Fuck I'm sick of this shit."

You and me both. Truly, as more time goes by ... these video game companies are turning into your typical run of the mill corporations who don't give a shit about anything other then filling their deep pockets with more cash than they can spend. I'm talking about suits, and not developers by the way.

dead_red_eyes

I find it absolutely amazing (and very very sad) that the people that do the least amount of work on these incredibly successful games, the executives get signed on for 5 years of guaranteed work, while the developers, who do ALL the work, have to flounder about beneath the heels of this massive corporation, with no job security at all and lousy salaries in relation to the amount of profit their hard work generates.

Yeah, how about offering the people that deserve the job security those 5 year deals, not just the douche bag suits that reap the benefits of the developer's hard work.

Fuck I'm sick of this shit.

Atheist Jew

@Atheist Jew: I bet you none of the developers would leave the company though. Why aren't their picket lines?, where are the unions?. Why don't they all just pick up and leave their desk so these CEO's could suffer?. Wah wah wah...

Right, because the developers know that they are getting paid enough and love the job.

PsycheE

@thejakeman: visit my site!:

Actually that's exactly how I'd want consoles to go. If we had as many consoles as we had developers we'd need 3 jobs just to be able to purchase all the systems.

NeoAkira

@Atheist Jew: Do you honestly consider Blizzard's president, Mike Morhaime, to be one of the people that has done the least amount of work towards WoW's success? The guy was a programmer/designer credited on 8 game titles before founding Blizzard.

Consider this! Some poor, underappreciated Blizzard designer could very well be thinking of launching his own studio at this very moment. Ironically, if he ever does as well as Mike Morhaime has then he can look forward to you and others denying him credit for his success.

godot

I really can't care about blizzard anymore. I think the influx of money from WoW has killed their senses of creativity. Sure, Starcraft 2 looks fun (Diablo bores me to tears) but everyone of their upcoming games are more like expansions with nicer graphics than new games. Simply adding new maps and a few units without any substantial improvement doesn't seem that impressive to me. Lastly, class development in WoW is terribly unbalanced and I don't feel that Wrath will fix any of the games flaws.

ifalldownstairs

Empoyers --> employees

Aeryss

I would not think of Blizzards employers as poor bastards. Blizz is famous for taking care of their talent. However I am not sure how much influence Activision has over Blizz decisions after the merge. I just hope it will stay the same with just more cash into the development and advertising.
The only big misstake was to let Bill Roper leave (that is partly his fault too) and start his own thing.

Aeryss

@Atheist Jew:

Developers come and go from Blizzard all the time. Yet the company is doing better than ever - so who are the people making Blizzard a successful story then?

exeprime

This is bad O_O
I see the future:
Blizzard is shut down due to an "Artistic dispute".

Shinkan

@dead_red_eyes: Hear fucking hear.@godot: Just because a blanket statement has a couple of strands missing doesn't make it any less of a blanket.@PsycheE: Games make 3 times as much as movies. Developers are paid more than 3x less than movie crews are. But, that being said, you have a valid point about unionization. Devs, QA, Producers, Writers, and Artists definitely need to unionize. I hope that they'll be able to and still be able to eat.

masterdingo

I still prefer the name "Blactivizzion".

sadaye

@Shinkan: That would suck. They wouldn't be able to make anymore......well, it would force them to finally make a new IP, afterall, I doubt they'd break apart. :/

Yofu

Well, lets hope it wont be for worst. :)

Gambly

I'm so happy to have daytraded ATVI stock for the last 3 1/2 years. It's paid for all my gaming needs & then some.

Those fatcat bosses who signed new deals do a hella lot of work. Success in any business just dosen't happen. Ask Midway. Even Take-Two hasn't been been profitable.

If anything, it's daytraders like me who do nothing for all the free money that comes my way cos of this great hobby I love.

This merger & all this solid news makes me wanna pinch myself. Kaching!

DayTrade

I should've seen this coming...*remembers the Guitar Hero-reference in WoW's April Fool's joke*

Odie20XX