1 Company Profile
1.1 General information
Blizzard Entertainment is a game developer and publisher. It was founded in 1991 by three students of the university of California. The company is known for its famous strategy game series of the Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft series. Furthermore it released the now world’s biggest Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) in 2004, called World of Warcraft.
In 2008, Vivendi merged with Blizzard Activision, forming the largest game developer and publisher in the world with an estimated annual revenue of 3.1 billion USD.
1.2 Business statements
Vision
“Our Vision is to be the world's preferred creator and provider of personalized information, entertainment and services to consumers anywhere, at anytime, and across all distribution platforms and devices.” (www.secinfo.com)
Mission
Vivendi separates itself from its competitors by its differentiating strategy, rooting its business operations not only in the music industry and telecommunications, but also in the gaming industry.
Values
Vivendi has setup a code of the so called “values of progress”: Consumer Focus, Cultural Diversity, Value Creation, Creativity, Teamwork, Ethics, Social Responsibility. These values are mainly focused on building consumer loyalty. (www.vivendi.com)
2 Marketing Audit
2.1 Internal analysis (SW)
Table 1 shows the results of the strengths and weaknesses of the factors that are of influence to the company internally.
Table 1 SW-analysis
Factors Notes
Strengths 1. Innovative frequent game updates and upgrades.
2. WoW has a superb market penetration.
3. Blizzard designed WoW to be a single and multiplayer game.
4. WoW is one of the most stable MMORPG’s.
5. WoW ‘polishes’ its games.
6. Widespread marketing network via Vivendi.
7. High level of standardisation in games in the graphics and interface.
8. Large scale diversification strategy.
9. WoW is the world largest MMORPG with 11 mln. subscribers....