G'Day folks and welcome back to another episode of Logo Bunch! Today, I got a request from DoubleVisions2016 on Deviantart to talk about the 2 similar Video Game companies that made their time. And for this episode, I'm going to do it like my Namco/Bandai episode that I did with  Thrasher. Yep, we are going to talk about another merged video game company. A company called Activision Blizzard. First, let's start off with the first half of the merger, Activision. In the late 1970s, Activision Publishing, inc. started out as an independent developer for Atari by making games on the Atari 2600. The market for game consoles started to decline, but Activision won't let that happen. So, in 1982, Activision released their first IP hit, Pitfall! for the Atari 2600. It became a major success that it saved the Atari 2600 from going defunct. Activision went on to a great start, but as soon as the NES came out, they started to become less known then the rest. I mean they did put out some great hits on the system like The Adventures of Rad Gravity and Die Hard, but most people remember them as the publishers of the USA Ghostbusters games and The Three Stooges. However, starting in the 1990s, Activision is starting to become well-known again and soon they started to become the 3rd largest third-party video game publishers leading above Electronic Arts and behind Sony and Microsoft. For the IPs, the made Mechwarrior, the Tony Hawk's series, Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, brought the right of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon from Sony and Universal Interactive, and Skylanders. In terms of licensed games, the 2 notable license games they got permission to make was from Marvel to make the Spider-Man movie games and the X-Men movie games and from DreamWorks Animation starting with Shrek 2. In December 2007, Activision announced that they're going to merge with Vivendi, which were the holders of the next company I'm going to talk about, Blizzard Entertainment. Started in 1994, Blizzard started out as a video game developer for 16-bit systems like The Death & Return of Superman and Justice League Task Force for SNES. They also started to work together with Interplay Productions to make Rock 'n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. But their venture won't start until the late 1990s when Blizzard decided to enter into the realm of PC gaming by producing IPs including Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Starcraft, and their most popluar franchise and possibly  Thrasher's favorite PC game, World of Warcraft, which even got a movie adaptation made by Universal Pictures in 2016. Even though, Blizzard made their mark in the late 1990s and the 2000s, Blizzard agreed to merge with Activision in 2007 to become Activision Blizzard, and the rest was history. And that was their story. I like to thank Doublevisions2016 for request this and I'll see you all next time! If you love this episode and Logo Bunch in general, make sure you give it a thumbs up, leave a comment in the comments section down below, and follow my adventures in Deviantart and FurAffinity.

Requested by DoubleVisions2016 on DA

© Blue Macaw Productions, inc.
Activision - © Activision Publishing, inc.
Blizzard Entertainment - © Blizzard Entertainment, inc.
© Activision Blizzard, inc.