
Activision Blizzard has some absolutely massive game series' under its belt these days such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, but they weren't always guaranteed to be ABK franchises. Speaking in a new interview on the Grit podcast, former Electronic Arts CCO Bing Gordon claimed that EA passed on some huge gaming IP before Activision picked them up.
Gordon namedrops Call of Duty and Guitar Hero as two series that went to ActiBlizz after EA decided against buying them - and the former EA exec even says the company had the chance to acquire WoW developer Blizzard at one stage as well.
"Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Blizzard, EA saw all those first and passed on all of them,"
Of course, Activision went on to purchase Blizzard in 2008, and that's when the ActiBlizz name was born. Funnily enough, this was also around the time that both COD and GH were going through incredibly successful periods for Activision - Modern Warfare 2 and Guitar Hero 5 both launched the following year.
While EA perhaps regrettably missed out to Activision on these big developers and franchises, in the end, Microsoft ended up playing the long game and coming out on top. In early 2022, the Xbox owner announced its intention to purchase Activision Blizzard - officially merging with the Call of Duty publisher in late 2023.
Do you think EA could have done a better job with any of these purchases? Talk to us about these hypothetical scenarios down below.
[source youtube.com, via gamespot.com]
Comments 7
That would have been a crazy what if. They probably wouldn’t have bought Dice and BioWare then? Activision wouldn’t have probably survived the 360/PS3 generation
@AverageGamer it is a crazy what if situation. Without Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Vivendi/Blizzard, would Activision have instead doubled down on licenced games? Could Tony Hawk's Pro Skater been their key pillar? They wouldn't have had Crash or Spyro, so Skylanders wouldn't have happened either. Wild to think about.
Actiblizz was indeed a nice little bonus when Microsoft bought King.
Good. The only worst company in the gaming industry than Activision-Blizzard is precisely EA, they’ve butchered every studio and franchise except for Respawn who made Titanfall 2 and both Jedi games.
@Markatron84 Doubling down on license game would have been the death of the company. That what killed THQ... License games was at a massive decline during the 360/PS3 gen outside of the evergreen title like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spider-Man... etc.
@AverageGamer true, it probably wouldn't have gone well for Activision. Although, THQ had no IP of its own to speak of under its belt until late in the company's life. Activision at least had IP/games beyond licensed software prior to its focus on Call of Duty. We might have lived in a world where Hexen, Singularity, Pitfall, True Crime and Soldier of Fortune set the world on fir... No, sorry, can't finish that sentence with a straight face 🤣
Man could you imagine how different the gaming landscape would have been.
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