Two of the most promising game publishers are inches closer to completing the biggest merger of the industry. We can’t believe it’s really going to happen and we can’t wait for the games they will come up with in the future.

Today, the European Commission (as part of the European Union), has approved the $9.8 billion merger between Activision and Vivendi Games.

Just a brief history on the two companies:

Activision is an American video game developer founded on October 1, 1979. It is the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Currently, Activision is the top video game publisher in the United States. Their published titles include: Quake, Doom, Tony Hawk, Star Wars Jedi Knight, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero.

Vivendi Games is a global developer under Vivendi of France. One of its divisions is Blizzard Entertainment who published Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft.

The commission has come to a conclusion that the forthcoming union “would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it.”

According to the European Commission report, the merger’s possible effect was measured on both a horizontal and vertical scale.

In terms of horizontal competition, the commission agreed that the union will still see healthy competition. They say that Activision Blizzard will “continue to face several strong, effective competitors, such as Electronic Arts, and the game console manufacturers, such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.”

As for the vertical aspect, the commission agreed that Vivendi’s ownership of Universal Music Group will definitely give Activision an advantage in licensing music for its games and projects, but concluded that other publishers will not be left behind and can still get their hands on “sufficiently large portfolio of music rights from alternative suppliers.” Titles like Activision’s own Guitar Hero and Electronic Art’s Rock Band are two of the top-selling titles this year; both games rely heavily on licensed music.

Activision Blizzard will definitely be a force to reckon with in the gaming industry, possibly closing in on industry leader Electronic Arts. On its own, Activision has developed into an industry power with recent top-selling games like Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Vivendi (who acquired Blizzard in 1999) on the other hand, is the publisher of the biggest massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft (over 10 million subscribers). Activision Blizzard is not just going to be a merger of companies but a union of both console and online gaming development.

With prospected annual revenue of $3.8 billion, Activision Blizzard is actually going to be the largest console game publisher in the world (sorry Electronic Arts) – in terms of yearly income. But it’s definitely going to be close, especially when Electronic Arts releases the third installment of their biggest title, Sims 3.

To secure its 52 percent controlling stake, Vivendi has already secured loans amounting to around $6.3 billion in January. They also have an additional $1.4 billion from this month by issuing corporate bonds to various banking institutions. Vivendi chairman Rene Penisson will be taking the position of chairman in the new gaming industry power. Activision chairman and CEO Bobby Kotick will become president and CEO.

Kotick said that the merger, which was announced December of last year, was progressing as anticipated. He expects all the processes completed by June of this year.