SANTHI R

In 1979, a group of disgruntled Atari employees decided to quit and create their own company. Activision was the world’s first “third-party” game development company, producing and publishing titles for other companies’ platforms. Fast-forward 43 years and the company that is now Activision Blizzard has been bought by one of the major platform owners in the industry, Microsoft, for a blistering US$68.7 billion dollars (around A$95.6 billion) – the largest sale in the history of the video game industry. This sale is also massive in terms of the game franchises Microsoft now has control over; it now owns blockbuster franchises such as Call of Duty, Diablo, Starcraft, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft. And tens of millions of fans of these titles will now be wondering: what does this change in ownership mean for them?