Gaming
Activision Blizzard is a lot more than just Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Before the Microsoft acquisition, the Irvine-based company was a conglomerate all on its own.
Activision Blizzard (AB) contains Activision and Blizzard, obviously, but it also owns mobile game company King and other game development studios like Raven Software, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch and Vicarious Visions are all a part of AB.
Activision, a portmanteau of “active” and “television,” was founded in 1979 by a few former Atari employees and Jim Levy, a music executive who became its first CEO. Today, it’s CEO is Bobby Kotick.
From 1997 until 2008, Activision acquired seven gaming companies before merging with Vivendi Games, which owned Blizzard.