According to an exclusive interview in February’s issue of Game Informer, Bobby Kotick, CEO & president of Activision had the chance to buy Blizzard for a mere 7 million dollars back when they were a small, one-hit company in 1995. Considering the 2007 merger between Vivendi Games and Activision (that formed Activision Blizzard) was worth somewhere around 18 billion, that’s quite a missed opportunity. And even that 7 million dollar price tag was laughable to Kotick back then, as he thought it was “insane” that anyone would spend that for Blizzard, saying “they have Warcraft but what else do they have?”
Oh, Bobby. It warms my heart to see you even a little bit regretful about this, even though I know in the financial scheme of things it probably wouldn’t have made much difference. I am happy, however, that this didn’t happen, because we all have heard some of the–how should I say it?–questionable remarks you have made about not only your games but the gaming industry as a whole. I can only assume that if you had taken over Blizzard when they were still young and strapped-for-cash, with little power, that your management would have somehow negatively affected the Diablo, StarCraft, and WarCraft franchises.
In the interview, Kotick relays one interesting exchange with Blizzard President Mike Morhaime:
I don’t know Mike Morhaime and the only exposure I have to him are his words in interviews, videos, and his epic bass-playing at BlizzCon, but I like to pretend that he fantasizes about inflicting bodily harm on Kotick any time he has to deal with him in person.
“I was talking to Mike Morhaime the other day and I said, ‘You know, I could have bought you for seven million and instead it was seven billion.’ He said, ‘Yeah, could you imagine if I had just held out for the seven billion instead of the seven million?’”
Just a thought.
Source: Game Informer
