The merger between Vivendi's games division and Activision is a big deal in the videogame business. The industry's Davids now have not one but two Goliaths to sling stones at. More importantly, console makers have two equal-sized publishers to play against each other. But it wasn't Activision CEO Robert Kotick's dream of forming a company to rival Electronic Arts that convinced him to form Activision Blizzard with Vivendi — it was World of Warcraft. According to accounts in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Kotick was "eager" to get into online games — multiplayer online worlds are all the rage right now.

Vivendi is forking over $1.7 billion to take a controlling stake in videogame publisher Activision. With their powers combined, they'll create a new game-publishing goliath, Activision Blizzard, ostensibly worth $18.9 billion. In size, it will rival longstanding industry leader Electronic Arts. The deal pairs Vivendi-owned Vivendi Games and Blizzard, the folks behind online multiplayer game World of Warcraft, with Activision's portfolio of Tony Hawk-licensed skateboarding games and Guitar Hero.