Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed that the gaming giant nearly acquired Time Warner at one point. Activision is already a mega-giant gaming publisher thanks to the fact it owns Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Crash Bandicoot, and much more. It was arguably a bit bigger in terms of the IP it had at its disposal 15 years ago when it still had Spider-Man, James Bond, and numerous other IPs that have now lapsed into the hands of other publishers. Now, Activision may get much bigger as Microsoft plans to acquire them should it be approved by all of the necessary regulators. However, there was a time where Activision almost took a completely different path.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick revealed to Variety that the company had aspirations to acquire Time Warner at one point. Kotick noted that AT&T was already lined up to make the deal, but due to various legal issues, there was a chance that it could fall apart. So, Activision put together the capital and plan needed to try and secure the company for itself. According to Kotick, the plan was to leverage the company’s various IPs (Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, etc.) and make new video games for them under Activision and then go on to turn Activision’s properties such as Call of Duty into a movie. Activision was working on a Call of Duty movie at one point, but that never came to pass. Of course, if this had all happened, it’s likely Microsoft would not be in a position to acquire Activision.
It would likely raise the value of Activision tremendously and cause all kinds of regulatory concerns if Microsoft wanted to front the money. Given Activision is already costing Microsoft nearly $70 billion should this deal go through, it’s hard to imagine that happening, though. As of right now, the jury is still out on whether Microsoft will be allowed to swallow up Activision or not.
What do you think of Activision almost having the chance to acquire Time Warner? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
