...PURPOSE Recently, Activision Blizzard, Inc. successfully purchased shares from its parent conglomerate, Vivendi, in order to gain more control as a subsidiary. The reasons for the split will be examined in this report, as well as the current shareholders’ reaction to these significant changes. In addition, there will be an analysis of the negative effects for Activision Blizzard, Inc. that results from the deal between the two companies. The report will then discuss the main issue of the low amount of cash on hand. The final stages of the report will provide strategic recommendations for a plan of action to help the company overcome this obstacle, while remaining the top developer and publisher in the interactive gaming industry. There are several goals that the report hopes to accomplish. First, it will provide insight into a company that dominates the entertainment software industry. Second, the study will illustrate the drastic change in a company’s cash on hand after the purchase of shares. Third, it will propose new ways for the company to continue its momentum and match its past success. Finally, the goal of the report is to establish Activision Blizzard, Inc. as a company that has broken free from its parent conglomerate. PROBLEM STATEMENT The Deal The announcement that Activision Blizzard, Inc. and Vivendi would engage in a deal that would make Activision Blizzard, Inc. majority shareholder left the minority shareholders in the dust. As of June 30, 2013...
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... 1. Introduction Activision Blizzard is an American video game developer and publisher who is held by the French Vivendi group. It is the largest game developers and game publishers, and the first third-party game publishers in the world . Activision Blizzard was made by Activision and the U.S. Department of Vivendi, Blizzard Entertainment, on December 2, 2007, and Entertainment in July 9, 2008. The total operating funds is $ 18.9 billion . In November 2009 , Activision Blizzard 's first -person shooter "Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2" 4.5 million the number of pre-sale , and $ 400 million sales in the first day, what break the highest first day sales in the Guinness World record. Another major business of Activision Blizzard Blizzard Entertainment is a popular online role -playing game "World of Warcraft " and " Warcraft " series. From the market price, Activision Blizzard is the largest independent video game publishers in the world, because before the merger , the Activision is the second largest third-party game producers and publishers, and the EA Inc. is the biggest at that time. After merged, Activision Blizzard is not only more than EA, became the first major third-party publisher of the game , but more than Nintendo, became the first major game production and distribution company . 2. Industry Structure and Global Markets In their market, Activision Blizzard is facing competition, and they have two major competitors...
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...While we continue to enjoy a fairly mild winter and ease our way into spring with warmer temperatures; this was not the case almost 60 years ago. On March 14, 1957, a five-state blizzard shut down most of Minnesota. Stearns County was the center of a storm that brought 8 to 10 inches of snow and 60 miles an hour winds. The St. Cloud Times reported that many veteran observers believed it to be the worst storm since the infamous Armistice Day Blizzard of November 11, 1940. Around the state five people were killed in highway traffic accidents. And throughout Stearns County, nine people were injured in traffic accidents. The drifting snow and poor visibilities made travel almost impossible. Plows were pulled off the roads and many towns and rural...
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...Activision Blizzard Analysis Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is a leading international publisher of interactive software products and downloadable content. Being a main player in the video games industry, the company has acquired several essential business strengths that made it succeed for a number of years. From making products carrying popular brand names, the company also takes pride of its product lines and innovative staff. Despite their strengths, Activision Blizzard has also encountered different problems that need to be addressed. These include the reduced slate of titles on a going-forward basis as well as the growing competition in the industry. To address these business concerns, it has been recommended that the company should consider limiting its product portfolio as well as conducting its target markets. This should help the company stabilize its financial status through sales generation and cost reduction. Company structure: Activision Blizzard organizational structure is base on 3 business segments. Activision Publishing, Inc. develops and publishes video games on various consoles handheld platforms and the PC platform. Activision also develop digital downloads to their game titles through retail channels with certain third-party publishers. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is well know to online gamer through Battle.net. Battle.net. host all Blizzard develops multiple award winning titles online such as Diablo, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft. The World...
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...INVESTMENT GROUP 12/04/2009 Technology Activision Blizzard, Inc. RECOMMENDATION: HOLD Stock Data Price (52 weeks) Symbol/Exchange Beta (Regression) Shares Outstanding Average daily volume (3 month average) Current market cap Current Price Dividend Dividend Yield Valuation (per share) DCF Analysis Comparables Analysis Target Price Current Price Summary Financials Revenue Net Income 2008A $3,026,000,000 -$107,000,000 $8.14 - $13.14 ATVI / NASDAQ 0.625 1,271,000,000 16,067,500 14,476,690,000 $11.39 N/A N/A $15.25 $4.74 $12.10 $11.39 Covering Analyst: Sean Golin Email: sgolin@uoregon.edu The University of Oregon Investment Group (UOIG) is a student run organization whose purpose is strictly educational. Member students are not certified or licensed to give investment advice or analyze securities, nor do they purport to be. Members of UOIG may have clerked, interned or held various employment positions with firms held in UOIG’s portfolio. In addition, members of UOIG may attempt to obtain employment positions with firms held in UOIG’s portfolio. Activision Blizzard, Inc. BUSINESS OVERVIEW university of oregon investment group http://uoig.uoregon.edu Activision Blizzard, Inc. is located in Santa Monica, CA. They are responsible for creating and publishing video games and accessories. These games are distributed and available on a wide range of platforms across the globe. Additionally, Activision Blizzard maintains and operates Battle.net, a online-game service...
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...Geographies of Transnational Corporations Paper I. Origin: Activision Blizzard Inc. is a “worldwide online, PC, console handheld and mobile game publisher” (Activisionblizzard.com/About-Us). Activision Blizzard Inc. ranks among the top game developers and distributors in the ever increasing world market of entertainment software. With top titles including “Call of Duty® as well as Spider-Man™, X-Men™, James Bond™ and TRANSFORMERS™, leading franchises such as Spyro™ and Blizzard Entertainment's® StarCraft®, Diablo®, and Warcraft® franchises including the global #1 subscription-based massively multi-player online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®” (Activisionblizzard.com/About-Us), Activision Blizzard has become one of the more well-known publishers in the world. Activision Blizzard Inc. maintains operations on four continents while providing coverage for online games throughout the entire connected world. The original company, Activision, encompassed by the holding company known as Activision Blizzard was founded in October 1979 in, Northern California, as the “first independent developer and distributor of entertainment software.” (Timeline) Activision was founded by disgruntled programmers that were not being recognized or appropriately compensated by Atari for their hand in the game creation that was accounting for millions of dollars of annual revenue for the company. David Crane, Alan Miller, Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead were known as the “Gang of Four,”...
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...In this passage: Death on the Prairies: The Murderous Blizzard of 1888 two stories were the most compelling and memorable. The first story took place on January 12, 1888. The blizzard that took place on this day was known as "the Schoolchildren's Blizzard" due to the multiple deaths of children that were caught out on their way home from school. This was surprising because today a lot of children walk to and from school. Just imagine sending a child off to school, expecting their return, and to not get a result as such would leave one questioning. Not to mention more than just one child died in this blizzard, but "an estimate between 250 and 500". "The School Children's Blizzard" got its name because the victims were young, and things were just out of hand through out the while pioneer period. Unpaid children were the hands of the unwanted work. This era may be the reason for the laws against labor for minors in today's time. Another sad fact stated in the article is, "The outpouring of grief after scores of children were found frozen to death among the cattle on Friday, January 13, was at least in part an expression of remorse for what children were subjected to every day - remorse for the fact that most children had no childhood" (p. 47). The next story that was mind boggling was the story of Lois Royce. The article states, "... a young teacher from Nebraska country school, huddled on the open prairie all night with three of her pupils: two nine-year-old boys and a six-year-old...
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...Save as Many as You Ruin by Simon Van Booy. It is a shorts story from 2007. It jumps a lot between present and past tense, which makes the story more exiting for the reader, it also starts in medias res. The story is about Gerard who lives in Manhattan. Gerard want’s to stand out from the crowd, like when he wonders about his life is extraordinary (line 9). Or when he sees the mannequins who are still (line 28-30). Is maybe because he is afraid of ending up like them, still and boring, and not feel anything, like he does with his women. Gerard has an 8-year-old daughter, which he loves a lot. He do not let other women in that Lucy and Laurel, who is the only woman he ever loved, but when she got to close, he still found something else to ruin it, like Issy, who is Lucy’s mother. He cheated on Laurel with Issy. Gerard mood get shown by the weather when he is thinking about Lucy, she is always warm, and when he is thinking about his life, and all the women there is snow, and when he gets Laurel again, there is candles in her apartment and when he sees her, he says the memories spill over him like a faucet left running (line 62.) like the snow is melting, like his cold and snowy heart. Issy was like fire to him, and he burns himself when he ruins his relationship whit Laurel, it is also why she is killed in a pool, because water kills fire. The Title which is “Save as Many as You Ruin”, maybe means that he saved Lucy, when he ruined his relationship with Laurel, so...
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...next month Authorities have warned drivers and pedestrians to be aware of black ice Freezing weather conditions are continuing to cause disruption today as forecasters predicted that icy temperatures and snow showers could last right up until Easter Day. Many roads across Britain remain impassable and thousands of homes are still without power after heavy snow and blizzard conditions deluged the UK over the weekend. Authorities have warned drivers and pedestrians to be aware of the possibility of black ice during the morning commute. Forecasters have also warned that there is no immediate end to the icy conditions in sight with the cold weather and snow expected to last into the weekend. Despite an end to the heavy snow, forecasters say the severe weather could return on Good Friday. The current forecast suggests that Britain could experience its first white Easter in five years. Several thousand households in Scotland remain without electricity today, down from a peak of about 18,000. The isle of Arran and parts of the south-west mainland of Scotland were particularly badly hit by power cuts on Friday. Blizzard conditions also lashed Northern Ireland, where emergency oxygen supplies had to be airlifted to an elderly man who was trapped by heavy snow. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland customers were warned that it could be days before electricity was restored to homes, as the bad weather looked set to continue. Hundreds of people in Cumbria also remain...
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...James Higgins Project 2 1. Activision Blizzard is a video game publisher. It is one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world. One of today’s most popular games, Call of Duty, was created and produced by Activision Blizzard. It is said to be the only publisher that has leading market positions across all categories. Activision is the worlds second largest gaming company behind Nintendo. Best Buy is a consumer electronics distributor. It is one of the largest electronics distributors in the world. Best Buy accounts for 19 percent of the consumer electronic market in the United States. Best Buy announced they are closing 50 stores around the country this year. 2. a. Activision’s Beta over 9 years is 0.797853835 Activision’s Beta over 5 year is 0.603021178 Activision’s Beta over 3 year is 0.393789458 Best Buy’s Beta over 9 year is 1.338458503 Best Buy’s Beta over 5 year is 1.234938399 Best Buy’s Beta over 3 year i1.01586673 b. Google finance has Best Buy’s beta at 1.30 and Google finance has Activision blizzard’s beta at .54 Yahoo finance has Best Buy’s beta at 1.48, and Yahoo finance has Activision Blizzards Beta at .79 Neither of these sites told us how they came across these betas. c. With a significance level of 5% we fail to reject that alpha is not zero. The T statistic we got was -0.650050239 and it is not greater than 1.96. 3. c) i. The geometric average return for the value line is 6.0259%. I got this percentage by...
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...GRADO EN PUBLICIDAD Y RELACIONES PÚBLICAS TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO AUDITORÍA DE IMAGEN Y COMUNICACIÓN Activision | Blizzard Spain, S.L. Trabajo realizado por los alumnos: María Belén Aboud, Víctor Barahona Izquierdo y Ornella Grandjean Sáez. Tutor: Jorge Conde López Curso académico: 2014/2015 Fecha de entrega: Junio de 2015 1 Resumen del trabajo Esto documento desarrolla una auditoría de comunicación de la empresa Activision | Blizzard. Se trata de una empresa asentada en el sector de la producción y distribución de videojuegos, contando con grandes éxitos como Call of Duty o Guitar Hero. Activision | Blizzard cuenta con una estructura internacional debido a su presencia en múltiples países. Este carácter internacional afecta enormemente a los procesos comunicativos que sigue, pudiendo corregir algunos de estos...
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...Company: Activision Blizzard, INC. (ATVI) PESTLE 1. Political Pg. 10 – Our products are sold internationally on a direct-to-retail basis, through third-party distribution and licensing arrangements, and through our wholly-owned European distribution subsidiaries. We conduct our international publishing activities through offices in the United Kingdom ("U.K."), Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Ireland. • Activision Blizzard Inc. is an internationally traded company and most of its revenue is generated from foreign trade. Therefore it is subject to various foreign and domestic laws. Fluctuations in these laws such as increased tariffs, duties, transportation costs and instabilities in the currency exchange rates can adversely impact company’s operations in the foreign market. 2. Economic Pg. 13 – Our products involve discretionary spending on the part of consumers. Consumers are generally more willing to make discretionary purchases, including purchases of products like ours, during periods in which favorable economic conditions prevail. • Consumers purchasing trends have a direct relationship with economic condition. Therefore, current economic condition and global recession is likely to reduce consumer spending on the products which can have a negative impact on company’s operations and financial position. 3. Socio-cultural Pg. 10 –We often seek to maximize our worldwide revenues and profits by releasing high-quality...
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...Activision Blizzard, Fiscal Year 2010 Lance Kilpatrick Barbara McGuire Accounting 100 19 August 2011 Activision Blizzard is a video game publisher with a large customer base because of its record shattering sales numbers, as well as, its online gaming division that is the most recognizable brand in the industry. It was a small LLC from 1982 until 2001, at which time it began public trading for FY 2002. The annual fiscal report to the stockholders for Activision Blizzard begins with a list recent achievements gained in the past five years followed by a letter from both the current CEO and co-chairman of the board. In that letter both men explained the vision for future developments, and also explained the success of the company in the form of the company's first ever dividend, and gave detailed information concerning the multiple records broken in sales, digital sales, first time online subscriptions, and online users. The second part discusses in detail using graphs and charts the actual numbers of sales made. This portion includes digital and physical sales, along with, subscription sales. Because of the nature of the product the company will experience an increase in sales into the foreseeable future. The third part of the financial report discusses a ten year summary of financial data and trends of the industry. While sales did dip in FY 2003 sales skyrocketed with the introduction of World of Warcraft, the number one selling online game of all time....
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...CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Defense of the Ancients (commonly known as DotA) is a real-time online or LAN strategy computer game composing of two to ten or twelve players where you can choose from over ninety unique characters you can play on. It requires focus, strategy, quick hands and quick thinking when you are in difficult situations. The objective of the scenario is to destroy the opponents' "Ancient". The two teams' ancients are heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. The game is popular in many parts of the world; in the Philippines and Thailand. It is also one of the most well-known computer games being played in Sweden and other Northern European countries. By these reasons, the popularity of this game has increased over time not only with these countries being mentioned but it has been getting more popular all over the world. As DotA arises, many issues also arise. It may be about on relationships, peers, foes, and most especially, education. Many critics worldwide are arguing about the real effects of playing DotA considering that many people especially teenagers are getting addicted on this computer game. They said, this is a mind numbing entertainment for everyone and produces a socially isolated people and promotes violent behaviors. Some of these criticisms may or may not be true. In the Philippines, DotA is being played not only by teenager but also by the kids that made this as a big concern for parents. At their young age they are more prone...
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...World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Dawnette Polland ENG 325 Intermediate Composition Jessica Ruddick October 22, 2012 World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Blizzard Entertainment’s (Blizzard) World of Warcraft games are a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was reported by Craig Glenday (2009), in the Guinness World Records 2009 as having the “most-subscribed MMORPG players” numbering at 9.1 million (p. 245). Although I have not played the fantasy game of World of Warcraft (WoW) since its inception in 1994, I have, however, played three of the WoW expansions with each leading into the next game’s storyline. The first expansion was The Burning Crusade, which led into The Wrath of the Lich King, followed by Cataclysm where the endboss, Deathwing, was destroyed. I also participated in the beta testing for the anticipated fourth expansion of Mists of Pandaria (Mists) which has recently been launched for world play. Mists could quite possibly indicate Blizzard is at the end of the storyline in the series of WoW, thereby causing the loss of its mainstream worldwide gaming subscribers—adults. In order to play MMORPG games, a subscription fee is paid monthly that allows the player access to a company’s server. After the launch of Cataclysm in December 2010, the WoW subscribers had globally reached 12 million. The number of subscribers started to decline over the last year and a half when a majority of disgruntle gamers had exhausted...
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