Blizzard Entertainment President: Future will set up a war network server in China

Vivendi and Activision announced earlier this month that they would create a 18.9 billion dollar video game distributor to challenge the longtime industry leader, EA. Through this transaction, two of the business focus of the game companies in different areas of the video game business will be integrated.　　Activision has been dedicated to developing games for game consoles, including Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, and Vivendi's dominant area is online gaming. Under the agreement, Vivendi will trade its gaming business and 1.7 billion of dollars in cash to Activision 52% of its shares, creating a new company--activision Blizzard.　　Within four days of the deal's completion, Activision Blizzard will buy up $4 billion worth of shares at $27.50 a share, up 24% from the Friday closing price of the Activision, and Vivendi's stake will increase to 68% per cent. As a subsidiary of Vivendi, Blizzard Entertainment has developed a variety of outstanding games, including StarCraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft, among others. So far, World of Warcraft has 9.3 million users worldwide. According to Vivendi, Blizzard Entertainment's annual revenue is as high as $1.1 billion, operating at $520 million trillion.　　From these figures, Blizzard Entertainment is undoubtedly a "cash cow" for Vivendi.　　The following are the main elements of the Mohami interview: What do you think are the terms of this transaction that are important to you? A: There are many things that are important, including retaining control over Blizzard Entertainment products and preserving the culture and values that help us succeed.　　In addition, our brand and the products we are developing are also important.　　Q: Have you been looking forward to such a deal? A: Not so, I am very satisfied with the original environment.　　Of course, the deal will bring us more opportunities and excitement.　　Q: In other words, such a deal is not within your expectation, but Vivendi wants to release the value of Blizzard Entertainment through this transaction? A: The catalyst for the deal was Robert Cotic, Robert Kotick, chief executive of Activision, who one day telephoned Vivendi chief executive, Nader Levi Jean-bernard, to have lunch together,　　began to explore the possibility of cooperation.　　Q: Your view of quality is different from most companies, right?　　A: maybe so.　　Q: "StarCraft" and "StarCraft 2" may be between 11 years, I think most companies will not do so, how do you think about this? A: We are not using all of our time to develop StarCraft 2, we are also developing other products.　　It can even be said that we have been focusing on other products, we do not want to pursue multiple opportunities at the same time. Q: In order to develop excellent products, you always invest long enough, is not thisSample？　　A: Yes, for example, "World of Warcraft" was developed for five years. Q: I'm interested in your performance.　　Your annual revenue of 1.1 billion dollars, operating profit of 520 million dollars, looks like a good result, you think?　　A: It was a really good year.　　Q: Why have such data not been disclosed before?　　A: We are a subsidiary of Vivendi, Vivendi did not disclose our performance.　　Q: I think online gaming is expected to be the best business in video games, do you see that? A: We do think so.　　However, Microsoft certainly also believes that the "Halo" series game is a good business.　　Q: Is your competitor an EA? A: In fact we have a lot of competitors, EA is undoubtedly one of them.　　I don't think any company has a monopolistic position in this area. Q: Why did you spend so much time in Blizzard Entertainment?　　Many people with similar qualifications have already traded four or five companies. A: I was asked this question before. Where do I go when I leave blizzard? I don't know how to answer this question. We started out as a small company with only three people, and now we are developing into a business with a revenue exceeding 1 billion dollars. I think Blizzard still has huge growth potential.　　In the Asian market, we are the only one of the most influential Western game distributors, which is a big advantage.　　Q: What do you think about the future prospects of the Asian market? A: I think the Chinese market is very attractive. China's urban population is growing rapidly, the economy has been growing at a high rate, and consumer spending on interactive entertainment is increasing. This is a very important market for us.　　China has 150,000 to 200,000 internet cafes and only 30,000 McDonald's in the world.　　Q: Does working with Activision help you launch new games faster? A: After the Vivendi game and Activision Integration, we will have a sales, distribution and operation of all-Star team, which helps us to further consolidate the position in the North American and European markets.　　In the short term, this is the biggest benefit we have. Q: Will you enter other platforms?　　For now, you're too focused on the PC platform. A: We will continue to focus on the PC platform. We like to play video games, Blizzard Entertainment also has a lot of video game fans.　　Therefore, we do not rule out the possibility of developing other platform games in the future.　　Q: How many employees are there in Blizzard Entertainment?　　Answer: More than 2300 people.　　Q: A large part of this is technical support? A: indeed.　　We have a 1700-person gaming customer service team.　　Q: Are you optimistic about the future of PC games? A: For now, the number of players in World of Warcraft is still growing. We have achieved good results in the past year.　　So far this year, World of Warcraft has been rated as the best-selling PC game for three consecutive years.　　Q: Will you cut or increase your staff? A: We will continue to increase our staff. CurrentlyWe have no plans to cut down our employees.　　Q: Will you hire more people in Asia? A: We have an office in Korea, a total of 200 employees, mainly for "World of Warcraft" to provide support. We also have offices in Shanghai, mainly with the local partners in the nine cities to work together.　　We will launch the StarCraft 2 and Battle Network Server (Battle.net) in China, when we will expand the size of the Shanghai office. Q: What is the progress of StarCraft 2?　　At what stage? A: StarCraft 2 is progressing well and is currently preparing for alpha testing. No one has ever played the game outside of Blizzard Entertainment. We're going to do alpha testing of the game for the entire company, and then we'll do the external beta test. (Meng Fan)