Activision is set to merge with Vivendi Games after its shareholders gave the deal the thumbs up.

More than 92 per cent of the shareholders voted in favour at a special meeting that was held on the 8th July. The merger is now expected to be complete tomorrow, 9th July.

Once completed, Vivendi Games will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision and receive around 295.3 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock.

In turn, Vivendi will also buy 62.9 million newly issued shares of Activision common stock at $27.50 per share, which, if you do the maths, tots up to around $1.7 billion in cash, and contribute its Sierra and Blizzard companies to the deal. Vivendi will then own approximately 52% of the newly formed company, Activision Blizzard.

So, lots of cash changing hands, but what does this mean to gamers? Probably not much. It'll be at least six months before the merger is complete, but once it does, the company will certainly knock EA to second place as the largest publisher of video games in the world.

The company now boasts a portfolio bursting with some of the strongest franchises in videogames including World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Tony Hawk.

>> Via - Gamesindustry.biz