Activision Blizzard seriously considered buying Time Warner –

Back in 2016, AT&T announced its intention to buy Time-Warner for $85.4 billion, but that was challenged by the US Department of Justice in 2017, which did its best to block the acquisition. While this was happening, another company was raising money and was willing to step in and buy Time-Warner themselves if the deal fell through.

As you already found out (perhaps not too hard given the title), that company was Activision Blizzard. This would have doubled their size, and it’s not entirely clear why they should care. In an interview with diverse Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed the story, saying:

“We had raised all the capital and were ready to go in the event that AT&T couldn’t close the deal.”

He also explained the thinking behind this:

“We’d take their IP and turn it into games. They’d take our IP and turn it into film and TV, and we’d have an extraordinary company.”

Time-Warner (known today as Warner Bros. Discovery) owns an incredible number of brands, including not only DC, but also video games like Mortal Kombat, which means it will become the property of Activision Blizzard instead. It’s almost hard to imagine how different things would be in this scenario.

Today, things are still going well for the company as Microsoft is now looking to buy Activision Blizzard. So far, 38 countries have agreed to it, with the UK being the only exception, which Microsoft is now trying to appeal. Getting the deal through the US Federal Trade Commission is also expected to be a struggle.