Two of the world’s biggest manufacturers and distributors of video games are merging in a deal that will make the new company larger than Electronic Arts, the current largest gaming company in the world. French software titan Vivendi SA will combine with Activision Inc., the Sunnyvale, CA. company to create Activision Blizzard. (The Blizzard part of the new film’s name comes from Vivendi’s ownership of Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes the world’s number one massive multiplayer online game “World of Warcraft”.)

Vivendi’s stock will be converted into Activision common stock which will give the former a 52 percent share in the new company. Activision Blizzard will be worth $18.9 billion in assets and give it claim as the largest gaming company in the world. What this means for gamers is that popular titles like the “Call of Duty”, “Guitar Hero” and “Warcraft” series will now be released by a single entity. How the rest of the gaming industry will react to news of this super-merger will be spelled out in the coming months.

By the end of Monday’s trading session Activision’s stock had gone up 12 percent.