http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2012/07/activision-blizzard-is-up-for-sale.html?m=1

 

Not sure what this all means, but apparently Vivendi is going to get rid of 61% stake in Activision Blizzard.

 

Would this effect anything to do with IP?

Seems like almost anyone new controlling that 61% stake in Activision could bring a reassessment of the IP, or policies concerning them.

 

But it's probably unlikely that anyone other than another Vivendi-like super-conglomerate is going to jump at the $many-billions pricetag.

 

 

It probably wouldn't hurt if a few hundred people bought stock and wrote a group letter, though -- I don't know whether gamers have attempted campaigns of that kind before.

What it hopefully could mean is that voices get to talk into a new ear, and we can talk to them and get the old IP licenced for fangames like SQ7, as one example.

Hopefully it'll also be easier for the Guys to get a deal in licencing the SQ IP/Jane for GK, Coles for QFG etc.

 

I wonder what this means for projects who had an agreement with Acti, like LSL1 remake, and "Guys From Andromeda" LLC.

Whoa.

 

Well, what's will happen can't be any worse than what's happening now. The Sierra IPs sure haven't lasted very long in anyone's hands in the past decade.

I'm guessing that anyone who wants to buy the company would want a broad portfolio of different games imo. Activision/Blizzard are not well known for their wide amount of IP's, really there are only a few (blizzard especially).

 

You can forget about writing Activision a letter in its current form, they basically stated in an interview that they are only interested in game series that they can milk to death (cant remember the link tho)

I wonder what this means for projects who had an agreement with Acti, like LSL1 remake, and "Guys From Andromeda" LLC.

 

Codemasters owns and is the one licensing out the rights to Leisure Suit Larry, so that situation wouldn't change with this.

 

 

You can forget about writing Activision a letter in its current form, they basically stated in an interview that they are only interested in game series that they can milk to death (cant remember the link tho)

Well, there's likely methods of getting attention on an issue if a number of actual shareholders are involved in an effort -- I'm sort of surprised the WoW/Diablo folks haven't gone this way through the years... If they do end up going public with that 61% stake, it'd be encouraging to see these Kickstarter energies directed at actually "investing" in something [pending a rather lot of research].

Whatever happens with selling off the stock I really can't see the management changing, i.e. Robert Kotick. He's been running Activision in some form for years, and is going to be the main obstacle to any change, or licencing of IP.