I dont think it'd work. Having stock isnt too dandy for creativity in companies and a computer game company certainly needs creativity
@ ijffdrie: unless im very mistaken, they are already on the stock market Clarification: Do any of you own Activision Blizzard stock? Do you think buying any would be a good investment?
Ah, stock. Don't think they even need it. Most companies do it to gain money for investments and stuff, if I understand it correctly. I doubt that Activision Blizzard needs that. Still, even Ubisoft and EA do it. It shows in their games, though. I hope Blizzard never lets it happen. Imagine this: "Blizzard: it's in the game!" Blizzard is a registered Trademark of EA games. Or: "Blizzard: we luv elves!" Blizzard is a registered trademark bought by ubernerd WoW fans such as the Bradster. Diablo 3 and SC2 are cancelled, njah njah. Scary.
I've taken a look at activision blizzard stock recently and i'm a little concerned the market has already factored in MW2 and SC2 since the price rebounded so well from the GFC. And yes ijff and Aurora they are listed on the NASDAQ. I think they'd need billions of dollars to get that level of control over the company...investors really aren't concerned about running parts of the company they just want to rip off the guy who sells/buys their tiny tiny chunk of the company. I personally would wait for the market overall to dip a bit then jump on them since Acti has a pretty good line up of games over the next year and are still undervalued (In my Opinion). I would buy them but as i live in Australia there's less incentive. In no way is anything i'm saying to be taken as advice as you should base all investment decisions on your current circumstances (Don't sue me if i'm wrong)
Companies like blizzard aren't good for long term investments. Usually the best time would be to invest when their just about ready to release some kind of product on the market. For example if you were to buy a ton of stocks in Activision Blizzard right before SC2 hit the markets and it sold really well. Then you would turn around and sell your stocks because they'd be worth a lot more. The thing is if the companies product does very bad and they lose money your stocks lose their value and you have to either keep with it till they go up again or sell the stocks to just get out while you can.
Fenix has a point. If I had to buy some shares, it would be in Epic. Gears of War 3 isn't coming on the 360 anyway, so their stock shouldn't change much at the moment. Also: I should've known that they were listed. Studid me. How else did Activision get enough of Blizzard to merge the two? *facenuke*
Assuming I am remembering the hype from when it happened correctly, I think what happened was Vivendi bought a bunch of Activision shares and merged it with its Vivendi games department (which Blizzard was a part of) and renamed the new company Activision Blizzard (which Vivendi kept a controlling stake in).
