Project Lore

In early December 2007 Blizzard Entertainment was part of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games.  The deal was essentially brokered to offload debt France's Vivendi SA had acquired, and give Activision something it severely lacked, a successful MMORPG.  It worked, creating a total (estimated) transaction of almost $19 billion.  In perhaps the most expensive example of monday quarterbacking, Robert Kotick, Activision's President and CEO, admitted to Game Informer that he believed Davidson & Associates was "insane" to pay $7 million, that's with an 'm,' for Blizzard back in 1995.

“That year Activision probably had 60 million in revenues. They said they paid seven million dollars for Blizzard. I’m like 'Are you out of your minds? They’re like a contract developer! They have Warcraft but what else do they have? You paid SEVEN million! That’s insane!

"I was talking to [Blizzard founder] Mike Morhaime the other day and I said, 'You know, I could have bought you for seven million and instead it was seven billion.' [Laughs]
He said, 'Yeah, could you imagine if I had just held out for the seven billion instead of the seven million?'”

You've got to hand it to Davidson & Associates for spotting this diamond in the rough.  With only a couple of quality titles before Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (they were released under a different company name, no less) Blizzard was largely unheard of, let alone highly respected.  Buy Blizzard it did, and D&A reaped the benefits for years to come.

Could you imagine if Blizzard wasn't given the proper time to execute on Warcraft II, Diablo, StarCraft or Battle.net.  Or how meh StarCraft: Ghost would have been when it was forced to ship.  I highly doubt BlizzCon would have ever of happened.  Who knows if WoW would have even been created.  And without WoW it's doubtful ProjectLore would exist!

My brain hurts.  Time to stop contemplating the mass implications to our space time continuum.  Let's just hope things remains solid going forward.

Like the pic?  Then buy the shirt.

The biggest news in recent memory is WoW.com's hat eating guarantee over the next expansion's details.  According to sources for the lucky domain squatters, the third expansion is indeed called WoW: Cataclysm, and the previously rumored Goblins and the Worgen are the upcoming playable classes.  The news, that was likely going to be one of BlizzCon's big reveals, has overshadowed all else the past few days, but I am here to put an end to that. Below you will find stories that were lost in the shuffle, abandoned to the fates, and pushed down the stairs.  Some are gems, others are mix-ups, but they were all passed over thanks to the assertions of Cataclysm and our excitement around it.

• Ozzy Ozzborne at BlizzCon - The Ozzy @ BlizzCon 2009 rumor has been around the block.  It first appeared in early July, and I didn't really take it that seriously then.  Sure, he was in a (damn fine) commercial for WoW, but that doesn't mean he's going to perform.  Well, with VideoGamesLive out of the picture this year it does!  Blizzard has confirmed that the junior "Prince of  F&*^ing Darkness" (since 1979) will be rocking out Anaheim in just over a week.  The concert will also be viewable as part of the DirecTV package.  What are the odds that Ozzy actually plays?
• Icecrown to have 31 bosses - "Promising" 31 bosses in a raid for a PvE content junky like myself is more than a pony, Ghostcrawler.  Everyone knows the ratio of boss fights to ponies is 10:1, and here you promise 31:0.  How dare you sir!  And how dare you quip later on that you were joking...maybe.  Damn your brain teasers!  Who do you think you are J.J. Abrams?  /shakesfist
• Battle.net v2.0 news - StarCraft II was "delayed" to 2010 earlier this month, and you can at least partially blame Blizzard's matchmaking, login and purchasing platform known as Battle.net for that.  According to the bigwigs at Activision Blizzard the service is still in the infant stages of re-development with "social networking features, cross-game communication, unified account management" and more being added to the service.  Bobby Kotick stated that the service would be "similar to Xbox Live".  Hopefully the term was used for that service's perceived quality, and not the monetary fee associated with it.  Either way, it appears that BNet 2.0 will be just another gaming service to keep track of.  Sigh.
• Collegehumor WoW video - My friend turned me on to this World of Warcraft-based video last night, and it is absolutely hilarious.  He claims that "that's what it will be like in five years" and although I wish it were true, I just don't believe it.  Thankfully, the laughs it gets are on purpose.  The video is safe for work.

Nothing earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless.  Hope you enjoyed the little recap of the last week or so.  If I missed anything major feel free to leave a comment with the details and the source.

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