Activision Blizzard, Inc.

Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company headquartered in Santa Monica, California, formed in 2008 through the merger of Activision, one of the earliest independent game publishers, founded in 1979, and Vivendi Games' Blizzard Entertainment division. The company built its position on long-running franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, and it added the mobile hit Candy Crush Saga through its 2016 acquisition of King Digital Entertainment; its three operating units are Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King. In October 2023 Microsoft completed an acquisition of Activision Blizzard valued at roughly 69 billion dollars, one of the largest deals in video game industry history, making the company a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft's gaming division while its Activision Blizzard corporate name and operating units continued publishing under their existing brands.