In recent times, Activision Blizzard seems to be going through a somewhat rough period. With the announcement of the executive Frank Pearce to leave the company and the price of shares constantly falling, speculation is beginning on the idea of the purchase of the company by Walt Disney.
More specifically, Nick Licouris who works for investment company Gerber Kawasaki Inc., said he saw the potential benefits between Activision’s business and Disney’s television networks. As well as an opportunity for Disney to exploit its numerous characters put on the plate of Activision Blizzard. We also remind you that Disney already broadcasts Activision’s Overwatch League on television. So there is already a connection between the two companies. Gerber Kawasaki Inc. owns approximately 90,000 Activision shares, according to Bloomberg.
While Disney has in recent years begun to embrace new developments such as streaming, which led them to create their own service which will offer classic movies and TV shows, the world of video games is one of those that has never been successful. In the past, the company had bought studios like Playdom and created its own IPs such as Club Penguin and Disney Infinity. But, the company accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and decided to abandon the videogame side definitively.
“We have just decided that the best place for us in that space is licensing and not publishing”, said Disney’s current CEO Bob Iger. Nowadays, the company has succeeded in enjoying success in the videogame field, not as a publisher, but allowing other publishers to use its IPs to create original titles. Like the many Star Wars games distributed by Electronic Arts and the popular Square Enix franchise, Kingdom Hearts.
With the global videogame market, which is expected to generate revenue of $152.1 billion this year, Licouris believes the benefits are too high to be overlooked. However, at the time of writing this news, neither Activision nor Disney commented on this aspect. However, there is little chance that Disney will make such a move right now.