Electronic Arts could have bought Activision and Blizzard but decided not to
, by Thibaut
The video game landscape could have been very different if what we just heard of came true. Bobby Kotick (former CEO of Activision Blizzard) and Bing Gordon (former Creative Director at EA) recently took part in the "Grit" podcast, and the two businessmen dropped a few bombs.
During the interview, Kotick revealed that EA tried to buy Activision and Blizzard several times.
They tried to buy us a bunch of times, we had merger conversations a bunch of times," said the former CEO. Of course, this never materialized, and it was ultimately Microsoft that ended up going for the big prize in October 2023.
Gordon also pointed out that, prior to Activision's takeover of Blizzard in July 2008, EA was among the publishers approached to acquire the studio behind WarCraft and Diablo, but that Electronic Arts ended up declining the offer.
Finally, Bobby Kotick also revealed that Activision made a mistake in buying "the company that was in Manchester that did the driving game for Xbox". He seems to be referring here to Bizarre Creations, the studio behind Project Gotham Racing which was, however, based in Liverpool and not Manchester, and cost Activision $80 million back in 2007. The British firm ended up being closed in 2011 after the poor sales of both Blur and Blood Stone 007.