Activision Blizzard, Inc., formerly Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) is the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. The company is the result of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, announced on December 2, 2007, in a deal worth USD$18.8 billion. The deal closed July 9, 2008. The company believed that the merging of the two companies would create "the world’s largest and most profitable pure-play video game publisher". It believes that it is the only publisher that has "leading market positions across all categories" of the video game industry.