In 2016, AT&T announced their intention to buy Time-Warner for $85.4 billion, but this was challenged by the US Department of Justice in 2017 when they did their best to block the acquisition. While this was being settled, another company was raising money and was ready to swoop in and buy Time-Warner itself if the deal was stopped.
This company was Activision Blizzard. This would have effectively more than doubled them in size, and it is not entirely clear why they would have been interested. In an interview with Variety, Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick revealed the story, saying:
“We raised all the capital and were ready to go in case AT&T couldn’t get the deal done.”
He also explained the idea behind this:
“We would take their IP and make games out of it. They would take our IP and make film and television out of it, and we would have an extraordinary company.”
Time-Warner (now known as Warner Bros. Discovery) owns an incredible amount of franchises, including all of DC, as well as video games like Mortal Kombat, meaning they would have become Activision Blizzard brands instead. It’s almost hard to imagine how different things would have been in this scenario.
Today, things still want to change for the company, as Microsoft is now trying to buy Activision Blizzard. So far, 38 countries have approved this, with the UK being the only one that refused, which Microsoft will try to challenge. Getting the deal through the US Federal Trade Commission is also expected to be quite a struggle.
