Activision, who make loads of money from Guitar Hero and stuff, have merged with Blizzard, who make loads of money from World of Warcraft and stuff and were in 1999 bought by Vivendi, a massive French media conglomerate who own loads of game licenses and stuff.

The new company will be called, wait for it, 'Activision Blizzard', a name which I'm sure you'll agree rolls off the tongue like something that rolls really fast in a game e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog. Vivendi will control a 52% stake and will be throwing a lot of money at it.

The deal, which involves shifting around a lot of very expensive shares, will make Activision Blizzard the most profitable video game publisher, and raises questions about other mergers which could potentially take place between the industry's largest companies such as EA and Ubisoft given the new climate of increasing massiveness.

In 2004, EA purchased 19.9% of Ubisoft's shares which Ubisoft fear could be the beginnings of an acquisition attempt, and in 2005 Bandai purchased Namco to form Namco-Bandai.