Activision Shares Barely React To Elon Musk Endorsement, Facebook Partnership

Activision Blizzard, Inc. ATVI shares traded slightly lower on the day at $37.76/share, which came as a bit of a surprise. The video game publisher has had quite the endorsement, coupled with a very notable partnership. On Sunday, Elon Musk tweeted: Highly recommend @PlayOverwatch by the good people of @Blizzard_Ent if you like ultrafast team FPS action As a CEO of 3 companies, you wonder how the enigmatic entrepreneur has time to fit in video games to his busy schedule. However, his recommendation might not be that far off as Blizzard's team FPS has garnered fantastic ratings:

• Metacritic: 4.5/5
• IGN.com: 9.4/10
• GameSpot: 9/10

Following this glowing endorsement, the company announced a live streaming partnership with Facebook Inc FB. This would allow users to integrate Blizzard games with Facebook Login and Live API to create streaming functionality for fans of titles like Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Warcraft and StarCraft franchises. Despite these interesting developments, it might not be as impactful as some may imagine. Wedbush Securities Managing Director Michael Pachter told Benzinga that he's not surprised a Silicon Valley heavyweights like Elon Musk play Overwatch, as it's a 'pretty good' game. However he followed up both items saying this, "Neither is particularly important. It isn't hard to use Google Chrome to remember login IDs, so the Facebook partnership is not that important, but it's always good to have Facebook support." The market agreed with Pachter, as shares ended the day fairly flat. Watch next week for more news in the video game industry as E3 takes place in Los Angeles next week June 14th-16th.