I'm a little surprised that they weren't able to grab up more of their stock, but I'm even more surprised that they planned on financing the entire buy up with cash on hand. Am I the only one who thinks that the BlizzAct folks walk around with life-sized, solid-gold avatars that they dress up for fun. Wasteful! I'd spend all my WoW loot on monkeys and monkey training. And maybe monkey diapers... maybe.

Activision Blizzard Announces Final Results of Self-Tender Offer
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the final results of its tender offer to purchase up to 146,500,000 shares of its outstanding common stock at a price of $27.50 per share, net to the tendering stockholders in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest. The tender offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York time, on Wednesday, August 13, 2008.
Pursuant to the tender offer, Activision Blizzard has purchased 85,916 shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $27.50 per share for a total cost of approximately $2.3 million, excluding fees and expenses relating to the tender offer. Activision Blizzard is funding the purchase of shares in the tender offer with available cash on hand.
The tender offer was agreed to be made in connection with the business combination between Activision, Inc., now known as Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business — which includes Blizzard Entertainment's(R) World of Warcraft(R). In accordance with the business combination agreement, the purchase price per share for the tender offer was equal to the price per share that Vivendi paid for the stock it purchased from Activision.
About Activision Blizzard
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online, PC and console game publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry.
Activision Blizzard maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia, Chile, India, Japan, China, South Korea and the region of Taiwan. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products can be found on the company's website, http://www.activisionblizzard.com.

The good news is that Blizzard plans to unveil the opening cinematic movie for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King at the big show. They also will be hosting a Q&A session following the airing on Thursday. Blizzard also plans to have more hands on time with StarCraft II and Lich King as well as other Q&A sessions with members of the StarCraft II and Diablo III teams.

Make sure to check back here starting Wednesday for our in-depth and live coverage of the biggest and best public gaming show in Europe (personally, i think the world).

On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. As a result of this week's events, the excitement that many of you felt about the show has turned into dissatisfaction and disappointment.

Due to these circumstances, we've reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend. To avoid the issues many of you faced this week, we'll be selling these 3,000 via a lottery. We'll post further details once our plans are finalized. Please note that the lottery will only be open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12, the time that the “Sold Out” notice was posted.

I, and everyone else at Blizzard, share the frustration and disappointment that many of you have expressed as a result of this process. We'll do what it takes to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

Not sure if 3,000 more tickets will meet the demand, but whaddayagonnado. Nice of him to apologize. I guess.

Statement from Mike Morhaime [WoW Forums Thanks, None None!]

Full release after the jump:

Activision Blizzard Announces Preliminary Results of Self-Tender Offer

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug 13, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the preliminary results of its tender offer to purchase up to 146,500,000 shares of its outstanding common stock at a price of $27.50 per share, net to the tendering stockholders in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest. The tender offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York time, on Wednesday, August 13, 2008.

Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, the depositary for the tender offer, has advised Activision Blizzard on a preliminary basis that approximately 86,000 shares of common stock were properly tendered and not properly withdrawn in the tender offer, including shares that were tendered pursuant to notices of guaranteed delivery. Based on this preliminary count by the depositary, Activision Blizzard expects to purchase approximately 86,000 shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $27.50 per share for a total cost of approximately $2.37 million, excluding fees and expenses relating to the tender offer. Given that the preliminary number of shares tendered is less than the number of shares that Activision Blizzard offered to purchase, no proration will be required.

The results announced today are preliminary and subject to verification by the depositary. The final number of shares to be purchased will be announced as soon as practicable following completion of the verification process and confirmation by the depositary of the proper delivery of all shares tendered, including shares tendered pursuant to notices of guaranteed delivery. Payment for the shares accepted for purchase in the tender offer will occur promptly thereafter. Activision Blizzard intends to fund the purchase of shares in the tender offer with available cash on hand.

The tender offer was agreed to be made in connection with the business combination between Activision, Inc., now known as Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Vivendi Games, Vivendi's interactive entertainment business — which includes Blizzard Entertainment's(R) World of Warcraft(R). Under the terms of the business combination agreement, Activision Blizzard agreed to commence the tender offer within five business days after the closing of the business combination, which occurred on July 9, 2008. In accordance with the business combination agreement, the purchase price per share for the tender offer was equal to the price per share that Vivendi paid for the stock it purchased from Activision.

Questions regarding the tender offer should be directed to Morrow & Co., LLC, the information agent for the tender offer, at (800) 245-1502 (toll- free).

After throwing out 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, The Bourne franchise and Brutal Legend, the company has seemingly let the sequel to Scarface: The World is Yours slip down the back of the development sofa as well.

It isn't a huge loss, it has to be said — there isn't exactly a shortage of a gangster-themed games around at the moment — but it still seems a shame that we haven't yet seen a version of Tony Montana on the latest console hardware. Chainsaws may be old hat, but I'll bet the PS3 could really render the living heck out of a line of blow.

There is still some hope — Ghostbusters managed to slime its way back in, after all.

Scarface 2... another Sierra game killed by Activision Blizzard [Variety's The Cut Scene]

While you might think developer panels are dry stuff, the descriptions indicate otherwise. One Diablo III panel, for example, hints strongly that we'll get a look at new classes beyond the Barbarian and Witch Doctor.

The Diablo III Game Design session promises "new and exciting features the upcoming sequel", which we find attractive because new and exciting things are what we live for, and one StarCraft II panel is listed as hosting a developer led live demo. A similar session last year spelled out a host of new features and unit details.

On the World of Warcraft side, BlizzCon will give players a peek into "current and future plans" for WoW PvP in one panel, a "unique opportunity to glimpse future dungeons currently in development" in another.

Here's the full list, so you can pick and choose which sessions you'd like to attend, you lucky ticket holder, you.

- Diablo III Class Design
- Diablo III Game Design
- Diablo III – Lore and Art
- StarCraft II Gameplay
- StarCraft Lore
- StarCraft II Art
- World of Warcraft Class Design
- World of Warcraft PvP
- World of Warcraft Art
- World of Warcraft Dungeons & Raids
- World of Warcraft UI and Mods
- Blizzard Cinematics
- Blizzard Sound and Music

Panels [BlizzCon 2008]

Last night they released a final batch of tickets around 11:00 PM Eastern, and I once again had the tickets in my cart before the website timed out, coming back minutes later to let me know the items in my shopping cart were now sold out, causing me to wake the neighbors with the very loud shouting of a word that rhymes with duck.

To say the ticket launch was handled badly is an understatement. While I can understand how a game with so many millions of players is going to stress a system when only 14,000 or so tickets go on sale, but this was completely ridiculous. Thousands of people spent Monday refreshing the website, hoping that their sale would go through, putting tickets into your shopping cart didn't reserve tickets for you for even a minute, customer service reps at the Blizzard phone support line were telling fans on Tuesday that tickets were being released in batches, which didn't seem to be the case...it was just a total mess.

Meanwhile the forums are filled with players threatening to leave the game (they won't), trolls making fun of the people complaining, and the odd person gloating that they actually received one of the coveted tickets. Don't even get me started about the assholes on eBay.

The whole situation stinks, and while I am still planning on attending, most of the people I was going to catch up with while I was there won't be. Perhaps next year Blizzard could hold some sort of lottery, giving random players a chance to purchase tickets, rather than expose their inability to properly handle a flood of website traffic.

NetEase has been a leader in the Chinese game market, and we look forward to working with them to deliver high-quality entertainment to Chinese gamers. This partnership is a sign of our continued commitment to our players in China and to the local industry.

The license will be on a three-year term and have a mutual one-year renewal period. Full details in the release after the jump.

Blizzard Entertainment(R) and NetEase to Introduce StarCraft(R) II and Battle.net(R) Platform into Mainland China

SHANGHAI, China, Aug 12, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and NetEase.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTES) today announced an agreement to license Blizzard Entertainment(R)'s StarCraft(R) II, Warcraft(R) III: Reign of Chaos(TM), Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne(TM), and Battle.net(R) platform, which provides online multiplayer services for these games, to Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology Limited, an affiliated company of NetEase.com, Inc. Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase have also established a joint venture, which will provide support for the operation of the licensed games and Battle.net platform in China.

"NetEase has been a leader in the Chinese game market, and we look forward to working with them to deliver high-quality entertainment to Chinese gamers," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "This partnership is a sign of our continued commitment to our players in China and to the local industry."

William Ding, CEO of NetEase, stated, "We're excited to be partnering with Blizzard Entertainment to bring StarCraft II and Battle.net to China. We hope to combine Blizzard Entertainment's expertise in developing world-class games with NetEase's strength in online-game operation in China to bring the best gaming experiences to our players."

The term of the license will be three years, with a mutual one-year renewal period, commencing from the commercial release of StarCraft II in the PRC. Under the agreements, Shanghai EaseNet will pay a revenue-based royalty over the license period, while NetEase will pay a milestone-based license fee and fund and guarantee certain additional payments and operating expenses in connection with the joint venture.

We’re not saying this is the end of the ‘Diablo’ universe, but we are trying to bring this story line to a close. It’s not just Diablo III -— we’ve got plans beyond.

Is anyone really surprised? Anyone? No?

Designer: ‘Diablo III’ Rounds Out Trilogy, But Not The End Of ‘Diablo’ [Multiplayer]

That's the bad news. The good news is that Blizzard has "a small reserve of tickets left" which will be going up for grabs tonight, August 12 at 8:00 PM PDT. Even with the larger crowd accommodation and the $100 ticket prices, expect whatever's left to sell out at lightning speed.

And expect even more grumbling and griping in the official Blizzard forums when they do.

Update: 9:40 PM PDT - We have appreciated everyone’s patience as we've worked to address issues with the BlizzCon ticket sales today. To avoid having people stay up into the early hours attempting to make ticket purchases, we will take ticket sales down and continue implementing optimizations through tonight and tomorrow morning.

There are still plenty of tickets available, so if you weren't able to purchase tickets today, please check back tomorrow. We'll continue to provide updates on the World of Warcraft forums here.

I haven't checked yet, but in theory purchasing your BlizzCon tickets today should be a much smoother experience.

BlizzCon Ticket Sales Resume Today [Blue's News]

Likewise, if a chap wants to master the power of sorcery then that chap shouldn't feel as though wearing a revealing dress is his only option.

Good news, then, that Blizzard has decided to move the Diablo franchise into the 21st century and make any Diablo III character class playable by either sex. Granted, it just means doubling the number of character models but it is stiill a nice gesture towards sort-of-realism.

For my money, though, it doesn't go far enough. Where are all the transgendered Necromancers? Don't oppress us, Blizzard!

Designer: ‘Diablo III’ Gender Choice A ‘Big Debate’ [MTV Multiplayer]

I'd urge everyone to keep trying, but that's not what I really want. I need everyone to stop trying for about 15 minutes so I can get a pair of tickets, and then continue your regularly scheduled Blizzard store onslaught.

Order Your BlizzCon 2008 Tickets Here [Blizzard Store]

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Sierra's sad swan song [Variety]

Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup company "outside the game industry", which is why we posted about the open position. That change won't impact the game...we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring aboard will work with other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.

So don't worry - Diablo III isn't going to go all goth on us.

Art Director
Blizzard Entertainment is currently looking for a talented, motivated, and experienced art director to lead the Diablo III art team. For this position, you must be highly organized with outstanding communication skills and proven experience in management. We're looking for a proven track record of shipping AAA products in an art director role. Experience modeling and texturing assets for a diverse visual range of environments and a solid grasp of form, color, and light for both 2D and 3D art assets are also essential. You must be experienced at mentoring a team, able to work well in an environment of artists who are passionate about making great games, skilled in another art task (illustration, modeling, texturing, animation, or concept drawing), and well-versed in related tools (Maya, Photoshop, etc.).

The fact that the position, which hit the site on Tuesday, is specifically Art Director and that it spells out that the person will be leading and mentoring the Diablo III art team leads me to believe that perhaps something's up with Brian Morrisroe, who last we heard was the game's art director. Of course it could be that he just lay the ground work for the game and they want to bring someone else in to wrap things up. It could also mean that they're taking a new direction, but given how adamant Blizzard's been about not changing the game's look, that seems like a pretty slim bet.

We've contacted Blizzard to see if Morrisroe is still the art director for Diablo III and whether he is still at Blizzard. We're also trying to nail down whether this new job listing means the game's art direction is undergoing a change. I'll be sure to update once we hear back.

[Thanks Sedako]

Update: Morrisroe did indeed quit.

We retroactively track any quest Achievements or any Achievement for an item which is either on your character or in your bank... There are a lot of Achievements based on stuff like honorable kills or reputations. We have all that tracked.

Very cool. There are some gray area Achievements that won't be retroactive. Kaplan explains: "There's a quest associated with killing Onyxia, like the turn-in-her-head quest... We know if you've done that, but the problem is, not everybody who's killed Onyxia has necessarily gotten the head and turned it in. So there's a fairness issue. It's like, 'Well, I raided with these guys but Bob got the head and then he turned it in.' And then when the Achievement goes live, his Achievement will be filled out but mine won't. So there might be understandability issues there like, 'Well, how come he got it but I didn't?' So that's something we're actually feeling out in the beta. I'm torn on that right now." Man, I hate when Bob hogs all the credit.

Kaplan Talks Achievements [Multiplayer via 1Up]

‘Diablo III’ Designer Turns Tables, Judges Fans’ Screenshots [MTV]

Kotick said that the publisher will "leapfrog" studios, which we'll assume to mean that, since Treyarch is hard at work on Call of Duty: World At War, that Call of Duty 4 developer Infinity Ward will be taking the reins on this one.

The Infinity Ward team has one unspecified project in the works for Activision, whom it just re-signed with, rumored to possibly have a sci-fi bent to it. Space marines? It's just crazy enough to work.

“Your ‘WoW’ score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW. That sort of thing.”

It's an interesting system from a community standpoint, but simply brilliant from a sales point-of-view. We already know the gamer score thing helps move crappy 360 games. A WoW gamer who isn't a big RTS fan might have skipped out on StarCraft II, but if it were tied into an overall Blizzard level system? Fantastic.

Blizzard Plans To Track Gamer Achievements Across ‘WoW,’ ‘Starcraft’ And ‘Diablo’ [MTV Multiplayer]

We have said that it will be coming out this year. I can tell you it's not coming in the July to September quarter.

Awfully kind of him to narrow it down like that. Mike's nice like that, you know.

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Releasing Between October and December [Shacknews]

"I don't believe that WoW is untouchable," he said. "I completely believe that a game could come out and be more successful than WoW. I'm hoping that we're working on it right now."

Designing and developing any MMO, Kaplan said, simply distills down to a series of choices. "I think a lot of other companies have had great opportunities to do what WoW has done... usually for whatever reason, they miss the mark."

"I actually feel really bad, a lot of times, when new MMOs come out and don't do really well, because I'm not thinking of it from a business perspective. I know what it's like to be a developer on a team that you believe in on a game that you just love, and for some reason, you don't get enough time, or someone makes a bad decision... everybody's making a lot of small choices, and when those go wrong, your game ends up not successful."

Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson believes that one can really focus on one MMO at a time, because of the time demand. He said he played Age of Conan for a couple of months, played Lord of the Rings Online a lot, and still goes back to City of Heroes every now and then. He thinks the key to MMO success is "not making choices based upon being different, but making choices based upon what's good for your game."

"If there was an MMO out there that had a tone different from WoW but was executed as well, I actually think there could be a huge audience for that. When I get disappointed, it's because I don't see that level of execution."

Another key factor for global success, said Blizzard's associate PR manager Bob Colayco, is that it takes a lot of time to develop the infrastructure to support a global audience. Players in any country around the world can receive service and support on WoW in their native language and the localizations are meticulous, he said, which contributes to the retention of a broad userbase.

But will Blizzard's next project be the game that finally tops WoW's global success?

"I believe it can be," Kaplan said. "The same challenge is on us. Are we going to make the right decisions? I don't believe that just because we made WoW, we're guaranteed on the next MMO that we make to have the same success." He also said that at launch, WoW was not what it is today — it's taken the game a five to six-year development cycle, plus two years on Burning Crusade and a year and a half on Lich King. Similarly, StarCraft 2 is renowned, he said, for its "perfect game balance" — but it didn't launch that way, the team recalled.

"I really believe you're only as good as your last game. I really think you gave to prove it every time," said Kaplan.

And is the bar especially high for Blizzard? "Yeah, for sure."

Said Wilson, "The only thing we get for free is faith that we'll follow up on any problems. Anything else, we have to earn."

I didn't need to say any more, of course, because Wilson already knew about the fan-fit I was referring to. "It's a complex issue," he said. "It's been a big issue online, but for the most part, the response we've gotten has been very positive. We've got petitions, a few people on forums [who are] very loud, but it's really more of the 'squeaky wheel' syndrome."

"Certainly, internally there's no doubt. I would tell people who don't like the art style that probably, getting the art style was the hardest thing."

But there's a careful method to all of it, Wilson explained:

Wilson said that what we see now is the third iteration on the Diablo III design. As with many of the decisions the developer makes, much of the art design issue was based in gameplay principles.

"Diablo is a game you play for, hopefully, hundreds of hours, and one of the rewards is a variety of different-looking environments." People looking back on old Diablo, he said, may have a selective memory. "People remember the Act I dungeons... but they kind of conveniently forget the green fields of Act I, and all of Act II... and it's palaces, its bright deserts."

Actually, Wilson said the team originally shot for a "very desaturated, very dark" gameworld. "We had all kinds of problems with identification of units... combat wasn't very good, and the worlds got homogeneous very quickly. As we played through it, we didn't like it, or think it was very much fun."

Diablo II, said Wilson, was actually "very saturated, very bright."

What about the complaint, then, that Diablo III may be "too much like WoW" in style and vibe?

"There's a philosophy that goes across all of our games, and that philosophy stays true from game to game... so it probably draws some comparisons," Wilson said. "One philosophy is that our artists feel like if they're just using photorealism, not creating a unique look for the game, not stylizing so that it's uniquely Blizzard, then they're not doing their jobs."

Color choices, he said, promote telling units apart and telling players apart from monsters, philosophies that cross all of Blizzard's titles. "If you do follow those rules, there's going to be some similarities."

And what's so bad about drawing some comparisons to the hugely-successful WoW, anyway? "We definitely learn from all our games," said Wilson. "We don't say, 'oh, we don't want to do anything those games did' — it's all Blizzard, we're all a family. WoW pulled stuff from Diablo II... if we think it's a smart choice, we try to pull stuff from them. We don't really worry about whether it's different. What matters is, does it make the gameplay better? That always wins."

There are some cases, though, where the sharing of art philosophy doesn't always work — WoW game director Jeffrey Kaplan said that the team takes care not to make the gravestones in WoW's pivotal cemeteries too Gothic-looking — those tombstones belong in Diablo.

"Diablo can do a lot of things WoW can't even do," Kaplan said. "We can't do the level of violence that they can do in Diablo III; we would lose our rating if we do the things that Diablo III does. They have a much darker vibe."

In other words, said Wilson, the Blizzard team won't pass over a good idea just because it's not brand-new. "If we're actually making the game worse with no other reason than to be different from WoW, then it's a bad choice. We don't think, when people play, that they'll have any problem telling that it's a different game."

The preliminary art we've seen so far, Wilson said, is from early on in the game. "We want to generate the feeling of everything getting worse... it's part of our narrative. It makes the more gloomy part of the game a place where the stakes get higher."

"If you start out at the apocalypse, and then move to more apocalypse, it's not going to have much of an impression on players."

"We've wanted to add them for a long time," WoW game director Jeffrey Kaplan, who is as enthusiastic in person as he appears in this picture, told Kotaku. "I'm a huge fan of achievement systems in other games; I love Xbox's system, and I also think Steam did a really good job in introducing achievements. We always talked about it for WoW... [since] players are always measuring themselves against other players."

Why the decision to include achievements, then, with such a heavily status-based leveling system at the core of WoWs mechanics? Big difference, said Kaplan: "With levels, you're gaining tremendous character power... skills, abilities, access to more items and areas... with the achievement system, we really wanted it to be a history of your accomplishments. Not gaining character power through it... we wanted it to be a reflection of your character's power."

So how does it work? Squirrels ensue:

Blizzard says it's built a really expandable system, resembling a character "score," as a reflection of the things you've done in the game. The rewards are largely cosmetic, playing into the player's desire to "show people their trophy case."

"The greatest example is the Xbox gamerscore, which is for absolutely nothing," Kaplan said, adding that despite the uselessness of achievements from the perspective of game mechanics, it's still a great way to create further engagement. He told us about a friend of his who meticulously played the Avatar: The Last Airbender game strictly for the amount of points he could accrue.

Over 500 achievements are ready as of now, said Kaplan. "I think by the time we ship we'll have close to 700 achievements. We have 500 in the beta right now, and that number grows by 10 to 20 a day at this point. we're really getting a lot of content in there, kind of crossing all the different aspects of the game."

Among the achievements are what Kaplan called "fluff flavor" accomplishments. Like what? An NPC called "Haris Pilton" sells an item called the Gigantique Sack for 1200 gold. Buy it and earn the achievement, "My Sack Is Gigantique."

Some are fairly light, like "Kill 15 Turkeys In Three Minutes." Kaplan admitted that not every achievement has a super-clever name — with the aim of 700 different achievements, that's understandable. Another one? "To All The Squirrels I've Loved Before." Address a certain number of in-game squirrels with the "/love" emote, and be credited toward the achievement.

One thing that's bugged Kaplan in general about achievements in the past is that there's no gauge of how far you're progressing toward the available unlockables. With WoW, that won't be the case — you'll see, for example, how many squirrels you have left to love before you hit sweet success.

"A whole slew" of the achievements will also still apply to the base game and to the Burning Crusade expansion.

World of Warcraft game director Jeff Kaplan has a different perspective, though. When we spoke to him today, he said, "I don't want to undervalue innovation, but there's sometimes the wrong focus on innovation. I think you innovate when you need to... and I also think the best innovations are things that people overlook and don't even recognize as being innovative."

Though WoW can be recognized as an innovator by introducing formulae years ago that brought new life into the MMO space, it's largely hailed today for having solid core mechanics, not for drastic self-reinvention. Blizzard's priority, Kaplan said, is to "execute on all systems well — whether they're innovative or not."

So while Blizzard would rather be great than be brand-new, there is one key game mechanic that Kaplan thinks was revolutionary:

"WoW's rest system was the first of its kind, and people don't stop and think about its effects on people psychologically... [that there is] actually a bonus for coming back to the game, but playing for a long time is not a great thing," said Kaplan.

"It's a subtle system, and displayed well. So although when people talk about WoW it's the last system on anyone's mind... every single MMO that's come out since WoW, they have all added that exact same system."

Just two days after word hit that Activision was taking inventory of future Sierra titles, including Ghostbusters The Video Game and Brutal Legend, and trying to decide which to publish and which to mothball, I received this in the mail.

That's right, a preview copy of Ghostbusters The Video Game. The letter, written by the Evil PR Ninja Monkey (that's actually his title) at Activision Blizzard says that the hands-on preview code is not embargoed and that I can write about it as soon as I'd like to.

According to the included fact sheet the game has a Fall 2008 release date, but of course since the sheet isn't dated I have no way of knowing how accurate it is.

Sounds like someone is trying to reassure the gaming public. Now about that Brutal Legend code?

In fact, Blizzard sees an upside to being hitched to the Activision star. "They have a lot of expertise in the console area, where we're very-headed in addition to PC and online," Kaplan said.

"Activision's point of view is, there's a lot of trust in Blizzard and what we do. Activision's just trying to figure out how we work and try to learn from us."

But Activision's an ambitious company. CEO Bobby Kotick has talked in the past about monetizing massively multiplayer environments, competing with iTunes, even evolving pricing models for consoles. Does Activision have the power to change the way Blizzard monetizes WoW, if it wants to?

"Theoretically they could, if they wanted to," Kaplan said.

Blizzard has always staunchly bucked the trend in online games that seems to be considering microtransactions, ad-supported freebies, and other alternate revenue streams as opposed to the subscription model, which many people theorize is going the way of the dinosaur. Blizzard has always said it favors balanced gameplay as opposed to alternate biz models, and according to Kaplan, this is still the case.

"We would always do whatever's coolest for the game," he said. "A great example of this is our paid character transfer service, which in its own way is sort of a microtransaction within WoW. The reason we introduced that service was because we thought it was a benefit that wow players needed, and the pricing model was put there as a barrier to entry, not a source of revenue."

Free transfers for everybody, Kaplan said, would do bad things to the community and realm populations, but Blizzard still wanted to provide the service as an option for legitimate cases where players do need to transfer realms.

"We would look towards other microtransactions, or services we would charge for, but not with the intention of 'oh, here's this great source of revenue,'" he said.

Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo III, summed up the developer's policy on the microtransactions issue: "I think we always look to make the game we want to make, and then figure out the kind of financial model that works with that game."

But business-savvy Activision, aiming for top-tier publisher, does have the power to change that financial model. So is Blizzard worried?

"I'm not concerned at this point at all," said Kaplan. "What's important to note about Blizzard is that we've had many owners over the years. Our executive staff, sort of the first thing they do whenever we get bought by somebody else, is to go through this big training process of, 'this is what makes us successful. If you mess with this, you're going to mess with your own revenue at this point.'

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime and COO Paul Sams are "extremely talented," Kaplan said, at working with publishers to communicate Blizzard's philosophy.

"Our track record has been pretty golden over the years," said Kaplan. "With Burning Crusade, we could have put it out in the Fall and gotten all of the Christmas revenue — who wouldn't have wanted that? But everyone agreed that if we worked on it for two more months... it was a better long term decision."

"And short term decision," added Blizzard associate PR manager Bob Colayco, pointing out that the expansion helped keep WoW at the top of the charts since it launched.

Kaplan said, as someone who's "very much a gamer, and into games first and foremost," he was excited by the Activision news. "I'm excited because of the games they're making right now," he said. "I thought Call of Duty 4 kicked ass. I had that in my top five games of last year. I thought it was brilliant — the way Infinity Ward executed on CoD4 reminded me of what Blizzard values."

"It wasn't about innovation... it was all about execution, and how well they executed on every single idea, and the level of polish was just awesome. Knowing we're partnered with people who have some of the same values... that's really exciting."

Today, Kotaku spoke to WoW game director Jeffrey Kaplan, who was able to offer some clarification.

"That is our goal, and sometimes it gets taken in a weird direction," he said. "Like you're failing [if] you're not releasing an expansion each year. It's probably going to be a long time before we get to the point where we are releasing an expansion each year."

Kaplan explained what the team would rather focus on:

"Our goal is to make an awesome experience, and obviously we felt that Lich King needed more time to get to where it needed to go," he said.

So while Blizzard is still aiming for annual expansions, "We're never going to slim down the content in order to make an annual date."

Kaplan told us that the developers who work on content and patches are the same team members who work on expansions. Those developers, he said, are "core to the quality of both the patches and expansions, and we aren't going to sacrifice the quality of one or the other just to get an expansion out."

"Our colleagues at Vivendi Games did a tremendous job of capturing the spirit and allure of Robert Ludlum's writing with The Bourne Conspiracy and the gaming community's strong response is clear indication that future Ludlum games will deliver both popularity and profitability for years to come," commented Jeffrey Weiner, CEO of Ludlum Entertainment.

Weiner went on to say that the company looked forward to working with other partners in the future.

Ludlum estate reacquires Bourne game rights from Vivendi [GamesIndustry.biz]

“The launch of the Russian-language version reflects our continuing commitment to make World of Warcraft even more accessible for gamers throughout the world,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We also hope that providing a fully localized version of the game will further enhance the gameplay experience for our enthusiastic Russian community.”

The Russian version will also feature a reduced subscription rate based of 359 rubles per month, proving once again that rubles is really fun to say. Ruuuubles. Russian persons on Euro servers will be able to convert their accounts to Russian accounts, with free character transfers available for a limited time.

Blizzard Entertainment® Announces Launch Date for Russian-Language Version of World of Warcraft®

PARIS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the Russian-language version of World of Warcraft®, its award-winning, subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, will be available on the 6th of August, 2008. On that date, European players will be able to purchase a version of the game and its expansion, The Burning Crusade®, fully localised for Russia, and begin playing on dedicated realms with the benefit of a Russian-language customer-support team. This will be the fifth European-language version of World of Warcraft, complementing the existing English, French, German, and Spanish versions.

“The launch of the Russian-language version reflects our continuing commitment to make World of Warcraft even more accessible for gamers throughout the world,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We also hope that providing a fully localised version of the game will further enhance the gameplay experience for our enthusiastic Russian community.”

The Russian version of World of Warcraft will be available for Windows® XP/Vista and Mac® OS X 10.3.9 or higher. The retail DVD boxed version will include a one-month subscription to the game, while the retail CD boxed version will be available at a lower price and will include a 14-day subscription.

Russian players will have the option to subscribe to a dedicated Russian account, which has a reduced subscription-rate structure for the Russian market priced in rubles, and which allows players to access and create characters on Russian realms only. The available subscription options are a month-to-month plan for 359 rubles per month, a three-month plan for 329 rubles per month, and a six-month plan for 299 rubles per month.

Current European World of Warcraft players will be able to download a Russian-language pack from the official Russian website at www.warcraft.ru, which will let them access and create characters on the new Russian realms. Beginning on the launch date, free character transfers to specific Russian realms will also be available for a limited period of time. Additionally, existing European accounts have the option of being converted to Russian accounts.

For more information on World of Warcraft, visit the game’s official website at www.wow-europe.com. To keep pace with the multilingual European growth of World of Warcraft and development of other games, Blizzard Entertainment is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities at Blizzard Europe, including positions on the Russian-language World of Warcraft team, can be found at http://eu.blizzard.com/en/jobs.

Earlier we reported that Sierra's Crash and Spyro titles would be hauled up for publishing under the new label, leaving a question mark hanging around titles like Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters. Earlier today, Double Fine's Tim Schafer assured fans that "Brütal Legend is fine," and we've contacted Terminal Reality on the fate of Ghostbusters and will update with any response we receive.

Meanwhile, however, Activision Blizzard has released a statement that sheds some light on where it's looking to make changes:

The company intends to adapt the Vivendi Games' studio operations to better align the studio structure against the new product slate. We will realign staffing at Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios to support our resulting slate. We are also exploring options regarding Massive Entertainment and Swordfish Studios, including the possibility of divestiture.

Additionally, we are evaluating options regarding two non-strategic business units Vivendi Games Mobile and Sierra Online, which provides casual games for the PC and Xbox® Live® Marketplace, including the possibility of divesting these business units.

The company declined to comment further.

In the latest post on Double Fine's site, though, Schafer admits people have been hounding him for more details — and he complies, providing a full-size closeup of the dead weevil. Hover over the image with the mouse, though, and get the answer to the question we really want to know:

"Brütal Legend is fine," says a simple sentence.

We've contacted Double Fine in the hopes of gaining more details, and will update with any comment we receive.

MORE INFORMATION [Double Fine Action News, pic credit too]

“Meeting and interacting with our players at BlizzCon is always a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re also pleased to be working with DIRECTV this year to bring the show, for the first time, to those players who are unable to attend.”

Yes, Blizzard and DirecTV are joining forces to broadcast highlights of the show via pay per view. Don't have DirecTV? New subscribers in August will get the BlizzCon pay per view for free with their order. I cannot think of a more ridiculous reason to change your cable television provider.

BlizzCon™ 2008 Tickets on Sale August 11
Unprecedented event coverage also available exclusively on DIRECTV

IRVINE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that tickets for its third BlizzCon™ gaming convention will go on sale August 11 and that live coverage of the event will be available as an exclusive DIRECTV pay per view event. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment®’s Warcraft®, Diablo®, and StarCraft® game universes. The event will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on October 10 and 11.

“Meeting and interacting with our players at BlizzCon is always a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re also pleased to be working with DIRECTV this year to bring the show, for the first time, to those players who are unable to attend.”

In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon will offer an array of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming games, tournaments, contests, and more. Tickets to the convention will be priced at $100 USD each, and will be available for purchase directly from the official BlizzCon website at www.blizzcon.com.

The pay per view event will deliver a minimum of eight hours of live HD coverage from the show floor on each day of the convention, including exclusive interviews, demos, and more. Beginning in August, DIRECTV will run a promotion offering the BlizzCon pay per view event free to new DIRECTV subscribers. Pricing for existing DIRECTV customers and programming details will be available in the coming weeks from Blizzard Entertainment and DIRECTV.

“BlizzCon is one of the most highly anticipated gaming conventions of the year, and we are excited to partner with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver coverage of the show to gamers nationwide,” said Steven Roberts, senior vice president, new media and business development, DIRECTV. “With our BlizzCon pay per view package, members of Blizzard’s gaming communities who are not attending the event can now experience it in crystal-clear HD.”

As the event draws closer, further details will be announced at www.blizzcon.com.

It's safe to assume we'll be getting many little updates like this as Blizzard struggles to appease the fans who sit in their chairs hitting F5 all day long.

Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl told MCV that it'd largely be business as usual for Blizzard. "It’s not like we need to go there and fix something," he said. "Blizzard will continue to operate as they have done in the past – fairly independently."

"It would be a big mistake for us to distract them with new ideas."

However, Tippl did mention to MCV one new use the company has in mind for Blizzard:

However, Tippl did drop a big hint that established Activision brands from the West would be introduced to Eastern markets by Blizzard – and would be boosted by the firm’s reputation and expertise.

“There are some opportunities we will be exploring there, especially relating to their expertise in Asia,” he said.

“If you consider that Guitar Hero is not in Asia yet and that the only way to create a business there is figuring out ways to work in internet cafes, etc., we hope to benefit from their expertise.”

‘Activision-Vivendi deal will not affect Blizzard’ [MCV]

As I am writing this I am watching the clock slowly tick down on the Diablo Battlechest for $27.99, wondering whether or not I should just go ahead and make the purchase or spend hours sorting through my collection of over a thousand PC CDs and DVDs, searching for the copies I already own. Today Amazon.com is all about Blizzard's big games, which makes sense considering Blizzard isn't exactly known for their small ones. The Deal of the Day is the World Of Warcraft Battlechest for $26.99, which is nice considering the expansion alone still goes for $30 in most stores.

As of this posting we just missed the Diablo Battlechest, but who wanted to play crappy old Diablo anyway? Everybody? Oh. Whoops. Well now we have The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW for , followed by what? The Frozen Throne expansion to Warcraft III by itself and then the Warcraft III Battlechest? Left up to me it would have been The Lost Vikings all day long, with an ever-rising price to punish latecomers for their lack of urgency.

Amazon's Gold Box Deals [Amazon.com - Thanks Travis!]

Lest anyone missed this little gem among the E3 hubbub, Blizzard has scored a victory against WoW bot maker Glider. Don't remember that whole kerfluffle? Blizzard sued Glider over EULA infringement for copying code, as well as the ancillary issue of pissing WoW users up and gobbling up resources. Glider shot back with 'But grinding your way to level 70 is boooooring.' Probably unsurprisingly, this argument did not go over very well in court and Blizzard won its summary judgment motion. All's well that end's well ... or is it? Over at PlayNoEvil, there's some interesting analysis on what this judgment could mean and why it may not be all that it's cracked up to be:

1. This ruling is very dangerous to any third party utility provider. Especially security companies like Symantec, who load programs and "check them out" to see if they are malicious. Ironically, it would seem that Blizzard's own security program, Warden, would be imperiled by this notion of copyright ....

3. What if Blizzard wins? After a long fight, Blizzard defeated the unauthorized Battle.Net server developers, BnetD, which simply drove the system outside the US where it is still available. It is actually surprising that MDY didn't move its business offshore to a country where this suit could not have been effectively tried or did not have a copyright treat with the US.

4. Legal solutions to business and technical problems are terribly inefficient an expensive. While they may be able to shut MDY down and even bankrupt the company (and perhaps its owners), how much will this have cost Blizzard and how long until another equivalent product is made available. Might MDY simply publish the source code to Glider as a "finger in the eye" gesture at Blizzard? (or "leak" it onto the Internet?)

No doubt this case hasn't been put to bed quite yet — any future developments should be pretty interesting.

Blizzard Wins Key Judgments Against WoW Bot Maker MDY on Copyright and Tortious Interference Claims [Virtually Blind] and A Pyrrhic Victory? Blizzard vs. Glider [PlayNoEvil]

Some achievements will carry rewards such as tabards, pets, and other prizes, and Blizzard promises more with each new content update. Players will be able to compare their achievements with others both in-game and via the Armory.

My girlfriend just got her first character to 70 this week, and asked me what she could do now. If she can be patient it looks like Blizzard has an answer forthcoming.

Wrath of the Lich King Achievements [World of Warcraft]

Activision Blizzard to suffer job cuts [MCV]