Startup Addict Musings

When I watched Take-Two interactive bounce 44% in one day on the Grand Theft Auto news, I remember thinking how difficult a nose-bleed valuation like that would be sustainable. Apparently not so difficult, according to NYTimes, 3.6 million units were sold on the first day and $500 million in sales in the first week for Grand Theft Auto. Statistics like these are the very head of the long-tail curve.

Tags: Gaming by Startup Addict

Vivendi known for the wildly popular World of Warcraft purchased a 52 percent controlling stake in Activision in a equity and cash deal totaling 9.8 billion.

Activision has a long list of hits running from Guitar hero to theTony Hawk Series. The combination of Vivendi’s 9.3 million World of Warcraft subscribers and Activision’s console lineup will be a force to reckon with. Activision should get a nice stock bump (ATVI) on an already beautiful stock run. This will certainly give EA Games some healthy competition although EA doesn’t seem all that nervous.

Jean-Bernard Levy, chairman and chief executive officer of Vivendi, pledged the deal “will unlock the value of Blizzard.”

Jeff Brown, spokesman for Electronic Arts: “We wish them luck. We look forward to the competition and believe that EA still has the strongest portfolio of perennial game franchises.”

Yahoo Finance for full story.

Tags: Gaming by Startup Addict