Late last year, Activision and Vivendi announced a merger that would see the spawning of a new company, Activision Blizzard. Seven months later that deal is getting finalized, with Activision approving the merger and preparing to wrap things up this week. Overall the financial backers of Activision supported the merger. The fact that some investors were displeased with the merger enough to sue has not stopped it from going forward.

It's hard to say how this will change the direction of either company or what the new company will do. A lot of people are seeing the merger as a way for the two companies to take on EA as one of the world's largest game publishers. Whether or not anything like that happens remains to be seen. Personally, mass consolidation doesn't seem like a good thing for the game industry – the number of companies responsible for the “big” titles released year after year is dwindling.