Activision Blizzard’s former Europe leaders have created a new publisher

Former leaders of Activision Blizzard’s European operation have formed a new publisher, New Tales.

Situated in Paris, France, the company is helmed by chief executive officer Cédric Maréchal, who was formerly Activision Blizzard’s senior VP of International.

He’s joined by other European Activision Blizzard veterans including former VP of international business operations Benoit Dufour (who will serve as COO), former senior director EMEA at Blizzard Delphine Le Corre, and former EMEA director at Blizzard Emmanuel Obert.

They are supported by three senior advisers of game development; Kim Gresko, former composite artist at LucasArts and cofounder of Blue Silver Studios; Ray Gresko, previously global chief development officer at Blizzard and co-founder of Blue Silver Studios, and Julia Humphreys, former Overwatch production director at Blizzard and senior producer at Seven Studios.

Activision Blizzard closed down its office in Versailles, France in 2020. The office was mostly responsible for marketing, customer support, and localization of games.

In an announcement published on Monday, New Tales said it would create original IPs through its own internal studios and provide publishing services to other game developers through “fair partnerships”.

“We have formed a team of passionate gamers with an unrivalled degree of experience, having grown some of the biggest IPs and player communities” said CEO Cédric Maréchal.

“Gaming has rarely seen such an exciting time, fuelled by tons of innovation and creativity. However, the frequency of new releases keeps rising rapidly, reinforcing the need for great international publishing. New Tales is a one-stop-shop publishing solution where we’re going to work with developers, as one united team, dedicated to maximizing success.

“We are also building our internal production capabilities to develop our own games and IPs. We are looking forward to joining forces with people who share our values and passion!”