ACTIVISION BLIZZARD: ‘Business as usual’, says WoW publisher

Following the news of

Vivendi’s surprise purchase of a majority stake in former rival Activision

, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has assured the company’s MMO fans that the deal will have no impact on the future of its globally popular World of Warcraft.

In an interview with 1UP, Morhaime stated: The Blizzard brand will continue as you’ve always known it, there will be no changes to that, and will still be under the same operating structure.

The Activision Blizzard brand will not appear anywhere as a consumer-facing brand. Basically it is a corporate brand for the overall company. If you want to buy stock in the company, the stock is called Activision Blizzard. But Blizzard Entertainment will continue to be a publishing label.

Blizzard has been part of public entities for a very long time. There is nothing about this transaction that changes any of our philosophies or commitments to quality or how we intend to continue developing, publishing, or servicing our games.

In fact I spent quite a log time talking to Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly and others, to make sure they understood Blizzard’s development philosophies, our core values, the things that we hold very important, which are very much in line with the things our players expect of us, and there was a great deal of understanding.”