Update so far:
This is taken from Massive Entertainments own site. (Article posted on Massive Entertainment's site 8/27/08)
Link The selling of Massive has been confirmed. Here are a few paragraphs i found interesting (if you want to read the whole thing just follow the previous link).
“Apparently they didn’t want an RTS studio in Europe, and to be honest we would have loved to have worked with Activision, but we’re pretty confident in our capabilities and there are not many studios that can match our quality.”
Activision Blizzard does not want an RTS studio. I guess now they have World of Warcraft (and the $$$ it makes) they don't care for any other genre except MMORPG. They are letting their largest money making series like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot live on but other than that they do not seem to think/develop outside the box anymore.
“We’re working on the console versions [of World in Conflict] together with Swordfish,” said VP David Polfeldt. “In the past year or so we’ve been increasing our console capabilities, going from PC to having a really good understanding of console as well.”
Activision won’t publish the console titles, however, which are now also on the market."
Swordfish Studios was the other subdivision that was sold besides Massive. Swordfish Studios was porting the World in Conflict game to the consoles (ps3,wii,360, ect). Any one see the problem here with (the now) three separate companies in a legal triangle of Activision Blizzard owning the game/rights, Swordfish with the console porting, and Massive with the original development. This is likely to get ugly as even if Massive wins/buys the rights to World in Conflict, Swordfish is gone and can not port it for Massive. This means that development of the console version has less chance (if any) even if they did resume production on World in Conflict.
"Speaking exclusively to VG247, Massive Entertainment’s senior execs have revealed that they’re already in talks for a potential sale of the World in Conflict developer, following now-confirmed news that Activision is to sell the outfit as a result of its merger with Blizzard."
Alright its official that Massive is being sold so who is offering for the "potential sale" of Massive... EA, Steam, etc this will be interesting news when the unknown buyer is released.
P.S. Looking at all the job openings on Massive's page
Link it looks like they have been "hurt" but will likely recover in time.
P.P.S The studios/subdivisions that did not get sold/axed still took a hit during the merger of Activision Blizzard. As quoted by Thomas Tippl (Activision Blizzard CEO)
Link "But in the short term we will exterminate some of our overlap through redundancy – but we will treat people fairly and respectfully in that process." Nice use of the word exterminate to describe job layoffs. Anyways here are the layoffs "exterminations" so far.
1) Radical Entertainment is laying off about 100 employees -- almost half of its entire staff (Vancouver, Canada)
Link2) High Moon Studios (San Diego, Ca) lost about 60 people but "leaving the majority of the studio's 150 employed staff members intact."
Link3) Activision Blizzard has a few with "The newly-merged company is laying off 53 employees in the Issaquah, Washington area by September 27, 2008."
Link4) Additionally, they are evaluating whether they will keep Vivendi Games Mobile
Link They are also considering killing of Sierra Online as well. No cuts yet for either mobile/online subdivision but if they dont tread lightely they are a good posiblitiy of being on the selling/layoff list.
* if I am counting right there are about 213 employees out of work due to the Activision Blizzard merger so if Massive has the funds i may have an idea on how to fill the large gap in there staff *cough*.
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