Actvision Blizzard: reportedly all hurt about the UK 🇬🇧 blocking the Microsoft acquisition, but as ex-Industry, did they ever invest much here anyway?
> vowing to “reassess our growth plans for the UK”, adding: “Innovators large and small will take note that – despite all its rhetoric – the UK is clearly closed for business.” (source: The Guardian today by :mastodon: @alexhern)
Yet AB has never really invested much in the UK and if anything, they've been consolidating here - given the switch to digital sales
UK Studios:
KING, acquired for 'Candy Crush' and a mobile presence in 2016, a great strategic move (but they didn't build it, it was pure M&A at $5.9B)
BIZARRE CREATIONS, bought and closed (2011) who made 'Blur' (AB then decided the racing genre was too crowded)
BLAST FURNACE, a small mobile studio in Leeds, closed (2016)
... anything else?
Interested in others' views too, but that "empty threat" seems pretty spot on to me
THIS WEEK IN 1988: Activision, the one-time Atari 2600 game developer which had recently entered the Macintosh business software market, admitted there was a critical flaw in its HyperCard application "REPORTS!" that caused the Macintosh to "roll over and die," according to the developer who discovered the bug. The developer said he informed Activision about the bug earlier "but they decided to ship the product anyway."
At least 9,500 bugged copies made it onto store shelves. Activision tried to remedy the problem by providing an online patch through BBSes and services like CompuServe.
A few weeks later, Activision changed its name to Mediagenic, again as part of its diversification into business software. The name changed back to Activision after Bobby Kotick bought the company out of bankruptcy in 1991.
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