Acquirer: Microsoft
Headquarters: California, USA
Date: January 18th, 2022
Valuation: $68.7 billion
American online game holding comapny Activision Blizzard was first based in 2008, following a merger between Activision and Vivendi Video games.
Because the merger, Activision Blizzard has continued to increase its portfolio of colossal franchises, together with Name of Obligation, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and extra.
As seen on this checklist because the fifth largest acquisition of all time, Activision Blizzard acquired King in 2016, offering the agency with a powerful grasp of the cell video games business with titles resembling Sweet Crush Saga and its subsequent comply with up video games.
Simply because the mud was starting to settle from the prior acquisition on the checklist, Microsoft revealed that it had entered an settlement to accumulate Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, making it the most important video video games acquisition of all time. The tech big paid a premium of 69 per cent per share over the agency’s closing worth the day earlier than.
In the same transfer to Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga, Microsoft are hoping that by means of its acquistion of Activision Blizzard will probably be capable of increase its attain into “mobile-first” communities, an space that it has beforehand did not efficiently faucet into.
The previous decade has seen Microsoft make key acquisitions, resembling Mojang Studios and ZeniMax Media (each on this checklist), however its buy of Activision Blizzard shadows all different online game acquisitions to this point. Whether or not this has set a precedent for bigger video games business acquisitions sooner or later, solely time can inform.
Earlier this yr, Activision Blizzard launched Diablo Immortal, which shortly proved to be an enormous hit, incomes a milestone $100 million inside two months of launch.
The acquisition has nonetheless but to be closed, nonetheless final month Saudi Arabia grew to become the primary nation to approve the deal, with Brazil following in October. Nevertheless, the UK have referred to as for a evaluate of the acquisition, and Sony CEO Jim Ryan has allegedly requested the EU to analyze the acquisition with claims that the the deal might have an effect on PlayStaion customers’ entry to the favored Name of Obligation franchise.
