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Well, as I'm sure you've heard, Activision and Vivendi are merging to form Activision Blizzard.  So, I figured I'd throw out some good and bad things that might come of this merger.  Activision Blizzard will be the largest game company in the world... at least it's not EA anymore.

Good Things:

• More music as DLC for Guitar Hero 3.  Vivendi is tied to Universal Music Group and Activision currently publishes Gutiar Hero 3, so this may be likely.
• Larger budgets for future games.
• Possible revitalization of old franchises by using new developers.  Tony Hawk MMO by Blizzard?  Balckthorn remade by Neversoft?  A new Sierra adventure game? Those would be sweet.
• Better cross platform support.  With a larger pool of developers to pull from, I can see better cross platform support as a result of the merger.  Look at how EA let a totally seperate dev team do the Orange Box for PS3 with what seem to be good results.  (1UP is being ignored for now as others have said they're full of shit.)
• Umm... ok... this list is pretty short, but I didn't won't this to be a one note post.  So yeah, maybe some cross promotion stuff?  WoW characters in Tony Hawk or GH?  Who knows!

Now for the part that everybody on the internet is theorizing about.

Bad Things:

• Less Rock Band DLC, Harmonix denied access to artists under Universal Music Group.  Honestly, seen this on a number of forums and blogs.  It's not terribly likely thanks to antitrust laws.
• More in game ads.  This is definitely a possibility.  Given Activisions annoying and extensive use of ads in Guitar Hero 3.  WoW is now brought to you by Pontiac and Axe body spray?  Ugh.
• Crappier games.  Well, if they follow the EA model you can expect some real stinkers down the pipeline.
• Death of devs.  I can see this, I don't think that all of the development companeis under both corporate umbrellas will be kept.
• Lack of innovation.  Again, the EA model.  Granted, have these guys done any serious innovation lately?  I mean, WoW is the closest, but it's an old game.

In my opinion, very little of these will happen.  It will likely be the same old, same old for at least a year or two.  But, I could be wrong.  Here's hoping they don't turn into the soul sucking, company buying, crapfest that EA became.

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