A controlling interest has been bought by Vivendi in Activision, entitled  Activision Blizzard. This deal creates a rival to Electronic Arts as the world’s largest independent video game publisher and combines Activision and Vivendi Games, companies with different areas of strength in the booming video game business.

Activision has the best-known video game brand in the new company and one of the most known and successful online games, namely  World of Warcraft, is produced by  Blizzard Entertainment. This independent video game company has chances to become the largest in the world.
This is certainly the goal of the company and of Vivendi, who agreed to make this $18.9 billion transaction. But it remains to be seen whether the company will manage to become the world's most famous video game company.

It is a fact that EA has not been avoided by issues over the last year, given the fact that some of its employees were fired and that it has been questioned if the company has the possibility to create its own original ans successful games. Furthermore, the company's stock price has dropped a lot over the last year. However, the company is still at the top and it is still known as the most successful brand in the business.

Among its most famous and played games can be mentioned  Madden, The Sims, Harry Potter, Need for Speed, and many others. But the competition stays open, as Electronic Arts, Activision, Vivendi, and Blizzard are all successful and powerful names in the video game industry.
However, EA has marked its territory for a long time in the United States.

In addition, Activision's brand name is not yet fully associated to its top games, such as  Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, whereas EA's brand is strongly connected to the games it presents. But it's just a marketing strategy after all and things can still change.

Robert A. Kotick, the chief executive of Activision, said in an interview that he thought his company needed to add such a component in an industry that is being transformed by the Internet. He said that after exploring ways to develop such expertise within Activision, he decided that the better, if not only way, was to merge with another company.

He stated: “We looked every which way to figure out how to participate in what Blizzard had created. We couldn’t find a way to duplicate it, but we could acquire the expertise.”