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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
- zelos 5y agoHere's hoping the Battle.net client doesn't get merged into the abomination that is the XBox gaming app.
- mperham 5y agoAnd now you know why they fired dozens for harassment yesterday. Cleaning house for the new owners.
- Aissen 5y ago> Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog. [Xbox PR] > The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass [MS PR] In case anyone still doubts that Microsoft is all-in on Game Pass.
- freeflight 5y agoIf they want to be all-in on game pass, then they should actually go all in. As somebody who just got game pass, I feel kinda cheated for what I get; All the games offered there are the “f2p” versions, even MS first party titles like Halo only offer the “default” versions to play “for free” when paying a monthly subscription. It’s like those free versions Epic hands out; They are playable, but they usually lack any and all of the “extra DLC content” that too often are needed to make a game actually fully fleshed out.
- mynameisvlad 5y agoThis “f2p” versions cost 60 dollars. You’re getting the “standard” edition of the game. Sure, you’re not getting the expansion packs or other cosmetics, but neither is any other person that doesn’t buy the deluxe editions.
- freeflight 5y agoAnd the deluxe version gives you everything? No, what they usually give you is actual customization options because in the full-priced standard edition those do not exist anymore. As character customization has by now been apparently redefined as being wholesale "cosmetic" and thus locked behind an deluxe version up sale, MTX spending and FOMO season pass grinding. It's a sorry state for AAA and increasingly even mid-tier developed games. Often enough it directly affects gameplay, instead of playing with/against individual other people, which in many games used to be recognizable by their character customization choices, too often multiplayer now ends up looking like the clone wars. As the only people that stick out with their customization are those that spend money on having any choice other but the one default choice.
- boppo1 5y agoWhat is Halo missing? MCC and infinite have all the relevant content, unless you wanted a dress-up game instead of an FPS.
- freeflight 5y agoPretty much all meaningful multiplayer customization. Past Halo titles let you unlock a variety of different armor styles, and colors, by just playing trough the singleplayer. Now pretty much all of that is either locked behind "Deluxe edition", MTX or dozens of levels of season pass for a single item. Which is particularly cynical considering how they advertised this Halo as the "most customizable ever, no two Spartans will look alike!" [0], when the only way not to look alike is to spend at least 10 bucks for a new armor core. Want that new armor core in a different color? Enjoy spending another 8 bucks [1] because color schemes are now armor core specific. This is objectively worse than what people used to get when they bought the "standard" version, as effectively all meaningful multiplayer customization is now paywalled behind a ton of MTX and not just the "nice extras". Halo isn't the only offender on that front, pretty much all the games that nowadays get released with a "standard" 50-60 bucks version, and then a 100+ bucks deluxe version follow this very same MO. Which would be okay if those "deluxe version" actually offered the full package, but they don't, what they offer is the same extend of customization options that used to be included with games out of the box, while getting "everything" has by now come an exercise of unlimited spending [2] because creating unlimited new color swaps, with every new "season", is the new most profitable business model, not releasing a fully functional and fleshed out game out of the box, that's by now the absolute rare exception in the "AAA" sector. This is also exactly what many people have been warning about where MTX will ultimately takes us for literally decades, game pass is the ultimate manifestation of it; You subscribe to "games as a service" with a monthly fee, then you are supposed to spend money on those rented games to upgrade them to proper fully fleshed out versions, and then you are locked into the subscription because not paying for it now also means losing access to all the content for the games you purchased on-top of your subscriptions. Anybody who looks at this and goes; "This is great for consumers!" must not be a consumer and must have completely missed all the relevant discourse about these developments during the last decades. [0] https://gamerant.com/halo-infinite-armor-customization-millions-of-options/ https://gamerant.com/halo-infinite-armor-customization-milli... [1] https://gamerant.com/halo-infinite-charges-8-color-blue/ https://gamerant.com/halo-infinite-charges-8-color-blue/ [2] https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/xbox-halo-infinite-shop-costs-nearly-1000-for-every-single-item-20211124 https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/xbox-halo-infinite-shop-c...
- emdowling 5y agoYou've got to be kidding. The version offered on Game Pass is the "Standard" edition, that isn't just a "free to play", "stripped down" version of the game. It is 95% of the game! The remaining 5% is almost always cosmetic items, like skins or cars, that really do not impact the core experience. There are some exceptions, like Destiny 2 I believe, where the meaningful DLC is excluded, but that is not the rule. Game Pass is an incredible deal.
- simlevesque 5y agoThat is not at all the case. I've played over 20 games, full games, on Game Pass.
- aaronsimpson 5y agoDiablo 4 on Game Pass definitely makes for an interesting value proposition. Maybe login will actually work this time at launch :p
- viktorcode 5y agoAre you sure everything that Activision / Blizzard publishes will be on GamePass day one?
- thirdsun 5y agoI think that's pretty much a given.
- ramoz 5y agoIf anyone has a chance at a legit “metaverse experience” it’s a tech giant who develops video games.
- jmiskovic 5y agoI don't think so. Microsoft development is too entrenched to pull off something that requires so much synergy. Currently I'd say Fortnite and Roblox are serious metaverse contenders, but one that takes the cake will probably be some new viral product made by fresh blood. Microsoft might buy them, though.
- Jcowell 5y agoIf VR/AR is believed to be the forefront of the Metaverse than Microsoft is in the best position to do so with Work into HoloLens (AR) + kinect , numerous IP’s to use to build meta worlds, and the capital to burn. What’s left to really show they’re going this direction is to release a VR that works on Xbox.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- glanzwulf 5y agoThis is a megaton deal for Microsoft. Some of the biggest franchises, exclusive to their console/gamepass. I wonder what will Sony do now?
- mandis 5y agoI wonder how much of this was driven by Nadella. MS has made some brilliant purchases recently.
- LinuxBender 5y agoThere is some discussion on the Blizzard forums as well by the gamers. [1] Likely on EU forums as well. [1] - https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/microsoft-buying-activision/1169668/90 https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/microsoft-buying-act...
- juanani 5y ago
- haunter 5y agoHonest question, how much longer until they try and buy Valve to get Steam? I mean at this point that's the next logical step
- anticensor 5y agoShould we expect a Steam Xbox?
- ThalesX 5y agoAs long as they're on a shopping spree, might get Epic also while they're young.
- rvz 5y agoWell if you can't buy Nintendo, then go and buy out everyone else. After all, this is all how the metaverse is going to become a reality and that is how Microsoft is going to create it.
- 5350-uiop-1130 5y agowould have preferred if m$ invested that money into new IP's instead of purchasing bloated franchises so that it can sandbox them behind it's paywall.
- jrockway 5y agoDoes this mean that Blizzard engineers get a FAANG salary now?
- giorgioz 5y agoHow will the company/person receiving the 68.7billions dollars protect them from INFLATION? Will they use the capital immediately to buy assets like ETFs?
- giorgioz 5y agoCan anyone educate me on why I have been -1?
- acheron 5y agoEveryone talking about Blizzard, meanwhile, Activision is one of the original game publishers (1979). (Supposedly picked their name so that it would come alphabetically before "Atari".) That's older than EA. When's Microsoft going to bring back Pitfall?
- monkeydust 5y agoWhat's the general view on the medium to long term value of Unreal 5 vs Unity? We have exposure in our team to Unity (for VR apps) but equally very impressed with Unreal 5.
- Bayart 5y agoLike many here I'm a former Blizzard enthusiast, and frankly I can't see how MSFT can fuck Blizzard any worse than Activision did. It's a net positive.
- alexshendi 5y agoDoes that mean that MSFT now owns Infocom IP?
- curiousllama 5y agoIt's wild how Microsoft has been able to vertically integrate gaming. They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway. That's a heck of a moat.
- zitterbewegung 5y agoActivision-Blizzard was the worst performing gaming companies during COVID so it stands to reason that this would be the best gaming developer considering how well Bungie did as an acquisition for Halo and the acquisition of mojang. There is so much IP that is tied up with Activision-Blizzard that it seems like a good deal.
- nightski 5y agoSure... If $2B in profit up 46% YoY is worst performing I'll take it.
- skinnymuch 5y agoBethesda/Zenimax massive $8B acquisition hasn’t appeared to have any issues yet though it is very new. Decent chance this acquisition doesn’t happen, but it does mean Microsoft can go after another 1-2 medium sized gaming companies with success.
- anaganisk 5y agoGuess this was what Steve Balmer meant when he said, DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS.
- pdpi 5y agoFor how bizarre that moment was, he was 100% correct. Developers are the lifeblood of a hardware platform like this.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
- marcus_holmes 5y agoStill not going to buy anything from the dumpster fire that used to be Blizzard
- lemoncookiechip 5y agoThis is great for XBOX (Microsoft), but terrible for the industry and us consumers. Less competition isn't good for us. First Bethesda, now Activision Blizzard... One has to wonder what they'll acquire next, and they have the money to throw around comparatively to the other big players in the market (Take 2, EA, Ubisoft, Warner, and more importantly, SONY).
- phgn 5y ago> Mobile is the largest segment in gaming, with nearly 95% of all players globally enjoying games on mobile. Through great teams and great technology, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will empower players to enjoy the most-immersive franchises, like “Halo” and “Warcraft,” virtually anywhere they want. So long for immersive PC and console games.
- pradn 5y agoThere's still plenty of money in PC and console games, especially AAA ones. It's a good thing that games expand to mobile. My little cousins in India have no consoles or PCs to play on, but they happily play PUBG or Minecraft with their friends on their parents' phones. Of course, for every wholesome mobile game, there's a 100 slot machine games with no merit.
- schleck8 5y agoMost likely via xCloud, cooperations will always opt for subscriptions.
- smileybarry 5y agoThat's probably a reference to Xbox Cloud Gaming, though.
- kizer 5y agoI agree. They worded that poorly, conflating mobile gaming and cloud gaming on mobile.
- rytill 5y agoI’m excited for what this could mean for undervalued IP like StarCraft and Diablo.
- bob1029 5y agoI feel like the larger a developer/publisher becomes, the more mundane their titles are (because they are trying to saturate more global markets). Diablo 4 being pushed back until Microsoft could oversee its development and release is pretty much a death sentence in my book.
- pingsl 5y agoActivision Blizzard is finally being acquired?! Yeah, no wonder, they are not doing well these years. Wait, it's an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion?! So at least Microsoft believes they are doing well...
- obayesshelton 5y agoAll we need now is a Microsoft VR / Metaverse platform and FB/Meta can finally sink into oblivion.
- pixel_tracing 5y agoI think it’s a good thing with all the recent crap happening at Blizzard, this is a shake up. Management that’s incompetent will be shuffled out, and replaced with management focused on building great games. Phil Spencer is like the Kevin Feige of the gaming world at this point.
- Vixel 5y agoWow, this is great for Blizzard games. Bliz has had the hardest time getting out of their own way for the last decade or so. The industry has moved from the "pay for the game + subscription" model but bliz has never been able to come to terms with that as a company. Hopefully Microsoft reverses this on day one and makes their games and content available with either Game pass or retail + Gold for multiplayer.
- revel 5y agoThis makes a lot of sense for both companies. Activision need to clear out large swaths of their board and executive suite. Microsoft has consistently lost console market share to Sony with each console generation. They are also ceding ground in the computer gaming sector.
- agar 5y agoEven if blockbusters like CoD aren't Microsoft (PC+Xbox) exclusive, the power of "play it first on GamePass" or "Plays best on Series X" is extremely compelling. Streamers, influencers, and competitive players whose livelihoods are based on some of these games will almost be forced into playing on the platform that gives them an advantage, whether that's an extra couple weeks of access or slight optimizations.
- pjerem 5y agoHey, at least, all planets are aligned for the Banjo-Kazooie remake by Toys For Bob.
- tempestn 5y agoI'd love if they might breathe some life back into Starcraft 2, or even start working on 3. Normally I'd be worried when the company that owns my favorite game gets acquired, but it'd hardly be possible to do less with it than they already were.
- advael 5y agoI continue to be very uncomfortable with gigantic companies becoming more gigantic for any reason, even though all involved players are already ones I've been carefully avoiding even accidentally giving money to for several years
- baud147258 5y agoNow I'm seeing (elsewhere) people bandying around the idea that Microsoft engineered the harassment reports and subsequent lawsuits to drop Activision-Blizzard's share price and push the shareholders to sell. I'm not saying that the harassment reports were false, just that Microsoft could have helped people talking to the press/organize the lawsuits, pushing up the stories in the medias and so on.
- nathias 5y agoToo bad two evils don't cancel each other out.
- kar1181 5y agoBobby Kotick really wanted to retire.
- alexshendi 5y agoDoes this mean that Microsoft now owns Infocom IP?
- 1_player 5y agoThe most important question I have is: will they replace Bobby Kotick? EDIT: "Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. [...] he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture." Shame on you, Microsoft.
- mesaframe 5y agoRead the whole paragraph. Once the deal closes Activision will report to Phil.
- mercy_dude 5y agoOr May be the whole woke uprising thing was to drive the market cap down so Microsoft could get a better deal. As usual the media doing the bidding for the big tech.
- maweki 5y agoDismay over Kotick actively hiding sexual abuse and protecting the abusers is a "woke uprising"? That's a shitty take.
- keewee7 5y agoI'm not American but on this side of the pond we expect more proof than twitter allegations before firing people. Hopefully woke culture will take more of a toll on US tech and we will see more US companies opening up in Europe. The US tech centralization is bad for the world (and US consumers).
- JaimeThompson 5y agoAre CEOs who make 100+ million USD per year responsible for the behavior of those under them? What about when they are informed of such behavior and do nothing? Sometimes it seems we hold those working the drive-thru window at a fast food place to a higher standard than major CEOs.
- 5y ago
- ddtaylor 5y agohttps://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/01/18/welcoming-activision-blizzard-to-microsoft-gaming/?ocid=Evergreen_soc_omc_xbo_tw_Photo_lrn_1.18.1 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/01/18/welcoming-activision-...
- sabertoothed 5y agoThe name Blizzard is still magical to me. As the maybe 15-year old playing Warcraft II and drawing strategies on a piece of paper. I don't play computer games anymore. But it was magical.
- speg 5y agoIndeed. I remember drawing my own maps on paper before we had a computer at home. It seems so simple looking back.
- yreg 5y agoThey were good citizens of macOS too. Up until Overwatch.
- donatj 5y agoRight? It came to Switch but not macOS, boggles the mind. Larger install base I guess. I’d been waiting for the Mac version for years and am surprised it never came.
- akmarinov 5y agoThey've now fallen so low, it's like it's a completely different company.
- hooby 5y agoNot just "like" - they are a completely different company. It's well known that in the wake of the huge success of WoW they had to completely re-organize the company in order to be able to properly support a game with an active audience of that size. Their size, their structure, their culture, everything changed.
- redisman 5y agoAll the original creators of the magical IPs left a long time ago.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
- krelian 5y agoApparently the price tag is $68.7 billion. How long until they recoup the investment? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-buy-activision-blizzard-mega-133100552.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-buy-activision-bliz...
- martini333 5y agoThat's not how it works.
- Asmod4n 5y agoI’m awaiting the inclusion of Diablo and StarCraft as Easter eggs in Excel and the like. Or Warcraft Minesweepers.
- ece 5y agoMicrosoft Mahjong has Halo backgrounds, so let's get on with the tie-ins.. I'll take SC2 Mahjong tiles.
- salamandersauce 5y agoWow. No wonder Microsoft wasn't willing to shame Activision like Sony and others, they were in talks to buy it. Ridiculous.
- pdpi 5y agoIf they were already in talks to buy, how much of it is a case of "wasn't willing", and how much is it "wasn't allowed"? For all the flak ActiBlizzard deserves for this situation, I'd be happier if it were illegal for Microsoft to publicly give them shit about while already in talks to buy. There's just way too many ways to abuse that for leverage.
- user-the-name 5y agoNobody was forcing them to buy them. They were allowed, they chose not to.
- rad_gruchalski 5y agoWhat about this is ridiculous, exactly?
- croon 5y agohttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/xbox-chief-says-he-s-evaluating-relationship-with-activision https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/xbox-chie...
- martini333 5y agoNot shaming is not the same as condoning. Imagine actually expecting a company to comment on every story.
- raxxorrax 5y agoI guess the price had already been settled but they probably wanted to distance themselves from the accusations against the company.
- danso 5y agoI think it’d be problematic for a buyer to take public actions in devaluing its target amid takeover talks. Not just for Activision — but it’d be impossible to see Microsoft’s denunciations as principled rather than profit-motivated
- freeflight 5y agoWow, has MS gotten that profitable or has Acti/Blizz been doing that badly to be considered a „good deal“? Tho, it certainly fits what MS has been going for with its gaming division; Game pass ultimate has a weird lack of „third party aaa” titles in certain genres. For example EA Play is included in game pass ultimate, but by now all the new EA stuff is locked behind “EA Play pro”. Having the whole Acti/Blizz lineup in there would be quite the offering. Particularly all the Call of Duties were never really sold in a “get all of them!” way. Now all of them might end up for “free” on game pass.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoNadella transformed a company that was at risk of turning into the next IBM into the 2nd most valuable company in the world. Where have you been the past 9 years of his tenure?
- lvl100 5y agoI am betting this is not going to last. Their core products are losing customers.
- tester756 5y agowhich one? Azure? Windows? Office? Xbox? Bing? SQL Server? VS / VS Code / .NET / C#? GitHub?
- Iolaum 5y agoAzure?
- humanlion87 5y agoWhat core products are you talking about here? I don't see office going anywhere. Azure only seems to be gaining market share, not losing it.
- s3r3nity 5y agoCongratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position. Oh, and he now leads the third biggest gaming company on the planet: > When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. It will be interesting to see in the medium-term if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. But for now it's wild to think about the fact that Microsoft owns the Call of Duty franchise.
- madeofpalk 5y agoI think there should be more (gaming) companies, and (gaming) companies should not be owned by the platforms, so I see this as a pretty big negative for the industry and customers. Congrats to Phil on his resume bump I guess.
- brightball 5y agoOddly, the way things had been going with Blizzard over the last few years makes me feel a lot better about MS taking them over.
- vintermann 5y agoIt's hard to imagine they will be much worse than the holding company they bought it from. Microsoft have been a lot better custodians of Minecraft than most people thought they would be. Same with github or a number of other acquisitions. But I agree the concentration is still a problem in itself, even if the owners are OK.
- enkid 5y agoThere actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. The indie game space seems to be much healthier and accessible than say, the indie movie business. I hardly buy AAA titles anymore because you can get so many good games for under $20 dollars made by independent studios. Of course, this is based on mostly staying on PC and Steam. I would suspect consoles are not as indie friendly, but it does seem like they have some market access
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoSuddenly, the reason for the recent employee purge seems more clear. They never fired anybody for bad behavior before, and now, just soon to be aquired, they do.
- mzs 5y agohttps://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-blizzard-pushes-out-dozens-of-employees-over-workplace-misconduct-11642428001 https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-blizzard-pushes-out-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29966958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29966958
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- koheripbal 5y ago20 employees out of 9500 employees is not significant. You are reading too much from too little.
- exikyut 5y agoThat answers the question "could there be enough groundswell to form a blowback," then :(
- tommiegannert 5y agoIt could be that the introduction of a process was part of the deal. That it only affected 20 might be a reason the deal was finalized.
- exikyut 5y agoFrom the link in the sibling comment: > A summary of those personnel actions was scheduled to be released by Activision before the winter holidays, but Chief Executive Bobby Kotick held it back, telling some people it could make the company’s workplace problems seem bigger than is already known, the people familiar with the situation said. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- somehnacct3757 5y agoSo now I'm boycotting Microsoft products? What a weird purchase to make. Did they not know this company is the current star of the gaming industry's long-standing workplace harassment issues?
- Aissen 5y agoIMHO they new and it probably drove the acquisition. Kotick gets to cash-in an insane amount of money and retire in 6 months - 2 years, MS gets the biggest independent game company out there and sends Sony a(nother) message they won't forget.
- zamalek 5y agoMicrosoft tries to have an inclusive culture, and generally succeeds far more than their peers. Once Kotick is out I may well end my Blizzard boycott.
- user-the-name 5y ago"Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture and accelerate business growth."
- zamalek 5y agoI'm expecting/hoping for Microsoft employees to protest his involvement. They have successfully steered Microsoft in the past.
- Duralias 5y agoIf they fire him after taking over can't they give him less in severance for the many reasons why he is hated? However, they could also be withholding that until next week so they can get more news out of this acquisition, saying that he (and hopefully a lot of management) is stepping down would make a lot of news on its own, doing it now would muddle it.
- 5y ago
- lysecret 5y agoI mean it can only get better right?
- lvass 5y agoThere is nothing so bad that it couldn't be made worse.
- Dave3of5 5y agoOh dear more consolidation in the gaming space. Not good for the consumer.
- Kelteseth 5y agoCan somebody please explain to me, why is it allowed for a company like MS to buy all of their (indirect) competitors?
- sbarre 5y agoEven after this purchase, Microsoft's gaming division is still smaller than Sony by revenue.. There are still lots of other large publishers out there.. EA, Take Two, Embracer, Tencent, Epic, etc... I'm sure I'm forgetting some big obvious ones even. They are definitely not "buying all their competitors" as you put it.
- Kelteseth 5y agoValve/Steam would be the biggest competitor on desktop, with nearly 30 million active users.
- syshum 5y ago>>Tencent, Epic, You said Tencent twice ;)
- ohgodplsno 5y agoTim Sweeney maintains more than 50% ownership of Epic.
- dmonitor 5y agoSmaller than Sony or smaller than Playstation? Sony does a lot more than just vidya
- akmarinov 5y agoOverwatch 2 PC/Xbox exclusive in 2030??
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoI wonder if this will trigger any antitrust lawsuits. I know Microsoft isn't that of the 90's but it seems like the political situation is ripe for politicians to go after "big tech" and this is a pretty major acquisition that will help Xbox be the dominant player in terms of content.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoNo way. The politicians are also bagholders now.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoThey always were. Worth noting the bags are larger now and there are fewer options to hold.
- ddtaylor 5y agoI doubt it. There are much bigger monopolies in the webspace / ecommerce space than the gaming space.
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoI know there are but I've been doing research on a ton of gov officials (starting a new gig in DC in tech policy) and wow, so many of them are taking a hardline stance on anything "big tech" now, so the political calculus may have changed since previous acquisitions went through.
- glanzwulf 5y agoNothing will happen as we live in the post-Disney/Fox merger.
- Mindwipe 5y agoTBF the mood music has changed on mergers and I'm not sure that would have gone through today.
- poetril 5y agoIt's an absolute shame Bobby Kotick will continue to function as CEO.
- coldpie 5y agoThese acquisitions are ridiculous. How long till Disney buys Microsoft? Why even bother having more than one company in the US?
- micromacrofoot 5y agohow do you think the laws should be changed to prevent this?
- coldpie 5y agoI'm not a business law type person. Something like, any business with a valuation above, say, $100B (number pulled from ass) should be broken up.
- smk_ 5y agoVertical integration can be a win for consumers. Also, a law like that (and any law infringing a free market) disincentivizes growth and innovation.
- coldpie 5y ago> Vertical integration can be a win for consumers. I'm not convinced. > Also, a law like that (and any law infringing a free market) You don't have a market without competition, which is what acquisitions accomplish. There is no such thing as a free market, by the way, that's a fantasy. There have always been laws governing markets. > disincentivizes growth Yes, that's exactly what I want to accomplish. These companies are too big & powerful. > and innovation. Huge companies use acquisitions to squash innovation.
- judge2020 5y ago> I'm not convinced. It might be bad for 3p developers, but it's pretty hard to argue that iOS is bad for consumers despite continuing to gain marketshare in the US. > I'm not convinced.
- no_time 5y agoThey are long overdue for a break-up. I guess the US elite thinks otherwise.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoIf you want them to break up you'd first need to get the law changed. There are larger game companies still.
- drannex 5y agoMy god I hate monopolies, MS has been on a buying spree and someone needs to stop them, but it will likely never happen.
- fourseventy 5y agoThis acquisition makes Microsoft the third biggest gaming company in the world... Not even the biggest, and far from a monopoly...
- sofixa 5y agoDon't get hung up on "monopoly". Their games are only available on their own vertically integrated platforms. They're abusing their dominant market position and should be slapped hard ( full break up and multi billion fines).
- smileybarry 5y agoTheir games are available on PC, sold on Steam, and can run on Linux via Steam Proton. Just because they aren't available on one console doesn't make it that bad.
- sofixa 5y agoThey can't run on PlayStation, they can't run on macOS, on Linux is thanks to a compatibility layer they have no relation to ( it's not their desire for the games to run there). Furthermore the games aren't available in any of the cloud gaming platforms bar their own ( Xcloud gaming? Xbox Cloud gaming? Who knows, Microsoft probably don't). They're artificially limiting competitors to the detriment of consumers.
- smileybarry 5y ago“Artificially limiting” by choosing not to port games to those platforms? Would you say the same of studios who don’t port games to PC? Do you believe 98% of the industry is “artificially limiting competitors to the detriment of consumers” by not porting to macOS or Linux? > it's not their desire for the games to run there And yet they can prevent their games from running on Proton like some devs have done by anti-cheat measures. IIRC Overwatch refuses to run on Linux and risks a ban because of the Vulkan translation layer.
- agd 5y agoWith these kind of acquisitions, other companies are going to find it very hard to compete with Game Pass. I think we'll look back in 10 years and wonder why antitrust regulators did nothing, but it may be too late by then.
- 999900000999 5y agoAs a GamePass subscriber, I mildly disagree. Saw an indie game last night and felt like buying it. Steam Deck is Valve opening up an alternative to Microsoft land. Although I will admit I'm tempted to cancel my pre order since I'm worried it won't run well.
- izacus 5y agoI don't quite understand what you're trying to say here? If Microsoft starts subsidizing Game Pass games from their other businesses (like Amazon, Google and Apple do for their other services), it'll make the business model of actually selling games unviable by pure race to the bottom. As a result, you'll lose independent development and market diversity because everyone will need to beg Microsoft (and maybe Sony and Apple as other megacorps) for money scraps. This is very similar what actually happened in mobile games market - a race to the bottom that only left a few winners filled with exploitative anti-patterns that feed on peoples addiction to recoup their costs instead of selling the product. It'll of course be amazing for users - games will be cheap! And free! Just like views on YouTube are, where creators are getting more and more burned out fighting against the algorithm which decides how much they deserve to be paid.
- cloogshicer 5y agoI don't think it'll be amazing for users. The mobile market is just awful. It's almost impossible to find any good games that don't use these exploitative methods.
- izacus 5y agoYeah, I should really add "At least in the beginning" part - those systems are very great at the start as they try to siphon as much use as possible and trap them into the walled garden.
- throw_m239339 5y agoThis is... unexpected. Wow and COD on Gamepass?
- h2odragon 5y agoSo was all the bad press Activision got recently in spite of, or driven by, acquisition plans? What better way to put pressure on a company to give up its independence than public shame and infamy? Prolly knocked a few bucks off the price at least.
- koheripbal 5y agoIt might have made it cheaper, but I still think it's a bad deal for MS. Activision doesn't create very much new IP these days, and that's where the talent is that brings new games and gamers to your platform.
- palijer 5y agoI don't think creating new IP correlates that much with profitability these days. Taking a look at box offices, TV, and gaming as well shows that existing IP is plenty profitable on its own.
- Miner49er 5y agoMaybe not profitability, but I'd say it does with revenue growth. Activation's revenue has been mostly flat for a few years.
- pcdoodle 5y agoMy name is Grom Hellscream, He/Him.
- MrJagil 5y agoThe old Blizzard always seemed much closer to Apple than Microsoft in culture. An incredible attention to detail and the onboarding experience, clean, fun and friendly design and a slightly rebellious attitude expressed through their willingness to enter new markets. The "new" Microsoft though, really is different than the old and might actually do quite well in stewarding this supposedly sinking ship into fairer waters. But as a die hard Apple user with an active WoW subscription I can't help but feel slightly dismayed that the Apple x Blizzard deal never will (or probably could have) happen(ed).
- animanoir 5y agoThe Apple of gaming is Rockstar Games.
- cuham_1754 5y agoEver heard of EA?
- criley2 5y agoThe Apple of gaming is Valve/Steam. They make hardware and run a leading app distribution service while overall operating as a pricier minority of the industry.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- EtienneK 5y agoCan you imagine Call of Duty becoming an Xbox exclusive? Big hit to Sony!
- bombcar 5y agohttps://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP4433-CUSA00744_00-MINECRAFTPS40001 https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP4433-CUSA00744...
- privalove 5y ago
- privalou 5y ago
- sunnyque 5y agoI hope incoming reorganization will not kill D4
- stephc_int13 5y agoBlizzard has been on a downward slope for years, I don't know if they can rebound. In the grand scheme of things I prefer seeing them absorbed by Microsoft than by Tencent.
- United857 5y agoWill Activision drop support for Sony and Nintendo platforms eventually?
- dageshi 5y agoGame by Game basis I expect. I doubt they'll pull CoD from Playstation, it would be terrible PR and they can sell a positive in having it for free in GamePass.
- belinder 5y agoI wonder if this means XBox game pass will at some point include a WOW subscription
- seanalltogether 5y agoBlizzard was the one game company that I bought all of their games no questions asked. Part of me is sad that this day has come, but the other part of me is kinda hopeful that this will allow for more dedicated focus on traditional Blizzard IP.
- sovnade 5y agoBack in the day sure, but the blizzard of 20 years ago is long gone. Diablo 3 is an abysmal followup to D2, every CoD is just an annual rehash, hearthstone is an absolute moneygrab, and HotS is the most watered down moba I've ever played. Overwatch is cool though. edit: and oh my god, let's not forget the absolute dumpster fire of warcraft 3 reforged.
- dmerrick 5y agoDiablo 2 Resurrected turned out awesome CoD was never Blizzard WoW (vanilla) was so good it had a second successful launch 10 years later Starcraft 2 remains immensely popular
- adamkittelson 5y agoD2:R was mostly Vicarious Visions (but it absolutely did turn out awesome). WoW (retail) has had 3 of its last 4 expansions ultimately perceived as failures and is (justifiably, belatedly, finally) having its lunch eaten by the vastly superior Final Fantasy XIV. Immensely is probably overstating Starcraft 2's popularity, but what popularity it still has is in spite of anything Blizzard has done for it recently rather than because of it. They've essentially abandoned the franchise to wither on the vine at this point. This is the first acquisition, possibly ever, that I view as potentially a positive for the customers of the company being acquired, if only because Microsoft can't possibly mishandle Blizzard's IP and staff any worse than Activision and Blizzard already have.
- shudza 5y agoWoW vanilla - best mmo ever created HotS - simple but actually very competitive and had a huge esport potential war3/SC - top 2 rts to this day
- sidcool 5y agoWould there be a anti-competitive angle?
- blondie9x 5y agoDude. Antitrust please stop this.
- bobberkarl 5y agoCan't wait for cloud gaming.
- usrbinbash 5y agoThis makes me even more glad I quit Blizzard Games long ago.
- boringg 5y agoThe more I think about this - the more I hope that Microsoft does another starcraft and gets it in the works. That way my young children will get to play starcraft in their teens (10 year dev cycle imho). That would be a small win for me :)
- zkid18 5y agoExcellent job, MSFT M&A team.
- megumax 5y agoI don't really understand these acquisitions made by Microsoft, first Mojang, then Bethesda and now Activision. Is Microsoft trying to revive these companies or it's just trying to leech of the market? At this moment, Activision is living out of in-game purchases, not making good games. Bethesda was almost dead when they bought it. >Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise accelerate growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud. I wonder what this "cloud" means. Is Microsoft planing an alternative to Google Stadia?
- sofixa 5y ago> I wonder what this "cloud" means. Is Microsoft planing an alternative to Google Stadia? They already have it, Xbox Cloud Gaming. It's mostly a steaming pile of crap that can't handle billing or multi-language users without cryptic useless errors. Quality and latency are pretty bad too, and the games are meh and console versions only ( so it's poor for strategy games for instance).
- fullstop 5y ago>I wonder what this "cloud" means. Is Microsoft planing an alternative to Google Stadia? This already exists [1]. I sometimes play Sea of Thieves with my kids on a Linux laptop through a browser. The only thing missing is haptic feedback / controller vibration, which makes both steering the ship and fishing difficult. 1. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/cloud-gaming https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/cloud-gaming
- gfd 5y agoMojang turned out to be a brilliant acquisition compared to what roblox is valued at nowadays.
- aaronsimpson 5y agoMojang owned Minecraft, one of the best-selling video games of all time, even when it was in a "downtrend" because of Fortnite. Microsoft didn't just acquire Bethesda. They acquired the entirety of ZeniMax, so Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout Shelter, Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored. Clearly not dead by any stretch of the imagination. Activision Blizzard, despite the sexual harassment allegations, has Overwatch, World of Warcraft (still a profitable title), Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 launching Soon™. From a business standpoint, I'd say they've made the acquisitions of a lifetime.
- rockbruno 5y agoCurious if WoW's business model will change after this. The whole monthly game time thing is really outdated.
- AlexandrB 5y agoWhat does this mean? It's outdated if you mean modern games ditch it in favour or more predatory methods such as gambling and pay-2-win micro transactions. It's pretty nice if you're the customer and you want to know up-front what the experience is going to cost (unless the publisher double-dips like Blizzard has started to). Notably FFXIV still uses a monthly subscription.
- bstar77 5y agoAnother development that's pushing me to indy-only pc gaming. The AAA gaming space has been such a bore for the past 5-10 years.
- natural20s 5y agoI hope they bring back Battlezone - Activision rebooted it in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game)) A great single player and co-op "real time strategy" game that ran on a simple protocol called ANET (http://www.kegel.com/anet/ http://www.kegel.com/anet/) (http://www.strickleton.com/anet/ http://www.strickleton.com/anet/) Most servers are dark now but there's still a great community keeping this game alive. It had very robust tools for building and sharing your own maps for deathmatch and strategy campaigns. One of the first games I ever fell in love with.
- AlexandrB 5y agoMy read on this: a lot of the key talent at Blizzard has left or been let go - if Activision stuck it out another year you would see their stock dip lower on bad news around Overwatch 2/Diablo 4/WoW. This is a great way for the shareholders to cash out before that happens and leave Microsoft to deal with it.
- mrkramer 5y agoAll cash deal. Yup. Inflation is going to eat all of your cash pile Microsoft so you better spend it fast. But my thinking is that they should've acquired Valve which controls digital PC gaming distribution not big gaming studios like Zenimax and Activision Blizzard.
- bombcar 5y agoValve is 50% owned by Gabe; you can't buy it without working with him. AB was publicly traded, much easier to buy (up to and including a hostile purchase if necessary).
- Ekaros 5y agoI don't think Gaben will sell... And why would he, he has company he build over the years to do what ever he wants. With very robust income streams just by existing and occasionally releasing crap for Dota 2 and CSGO... Or continuing to sell other peoples games and taking 20-30% cut in process... Already personally likely making more than enough money for him. I can kinda see point of selling when you want to do something for your dreams, but if company is doing your dreams what is the point.
- mrkramer 5y ago>I don't think Gaben will sell He is ex long time employee of Microsoft and if the price is right he would probably sell. But Microsoft's mind is on Xbox/PC, cloud gaming, Xbox pass etc.
- giorgioz 5y agoI was also thinking about inflation! How will the company/person receiving the 68.7 billions dollars protect them from inflation? Will they get swapped immediately for ETFs?
- giorgioz 5y agoCan anyone educate me on why I have been -1?
- gfd 5y agoBlizzard defined my childhood with diablo 2, starcraft, and warcraft 3, wow. But even the sequels (SC2, D3) and remakes (D2:R) never recaptured that magic. Is the blizzard IP actually worth that much these days?
- parkingrift 5y agoNo acquisition of this size should ever be allowed. This is way too much consolidation. Microsoft is buying their way to becoming the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. They should have to innovate and compete their way to the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. Who is going to be able to compete with Xbox Game Pass?
- bombcar 5y agoDisney already owns some huge percentage of all entertainment, we just need to wait for them to buy Microsoft's gaming division now.
- me_me_me 5y agoWow, thats the future i am looking forward to. 'You have a choice, you can pick Microsoft or Disney. More options would only confuse you'
- Slartie 5y agoBased on current market valuations, it seems more likely for Microsoft to be able to buy Disney than the other way round.
- Balero 5y agoOr Microsoft to buy Disney, which is probably more likely.
- SahAssar 5y agoMicrosofts market cap is 10x disneys. It's more likely that microsoft would buy disney (and perhaps spin off theme parks and cruises).
- MangoCoffee 5y agoDisney? it own all the media and franchise IPs like Star Wars, Marvel...etc.
- parkingrift 5y ago
- franzwong 5y agoI wish Apple can also acquire some game studios to produce games on MacOS...
- michaelbuckbee 5y agoI think that Microsoft's Game Pass has really changed the gaming ecosystem. If you're not familiar it's basically "Netflix of Videogames" where for a low monthly price (compared to buying a game at full retail) you get access to whole downloadable/streamable library of games. It's such an outsized value that it's a big reason to choose an Xbox console over a PlayStation and it's pretty clearly the driving force behind these acquisitions. More games in the library -> More Game Pass subscribers -> More Profit.
- minerva23 5y agoCan you imagine if they make it so Game Pass covers your WoW subscription? WoW could see a comeback.
- trymas 5y agoI guess it's just business at the end of the day, but IMHO this model in the end could not be the best for consumer after all. For example tv streaming, where if your favorite movies/tv series maybe spread over dozen services and you need to pay subscription to all of them. Or it could happen that copyrights get bought by different providers and thus migrate from service to service. I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series. So with gaming it will either be the same (too many providers to choose from), or reverse - if you'd like to play AAA title, you will be locked in with Microsoft.
- baud147258 5y ago> I will not be surprised if piracy will have a comeback for movies or tv-series. I'm pretty sure piracy numbers for movies and series went up with the number of streaming services
- milkytron 5y agoI don't think we'll see a bunch of equivalent game passes like we see in video streaming, mostly because Microsoft can act as a de facto gatekeeper for what "passes" can be used, and they'd realistically limit it to only theirs, at least on Xbox. On PC something similar may arise, but there would be much more competition and PC gamers may be more reluctant to use these services because there are more options when choosing where and how to buy/download/play games on PC.
- hanselot 5y ago
- major505 5y agoWell after all the shit Blizzard have done in the last years, I can imagine it was a bargain.
- yalogin 5y agoWill the DoJ jump in? Only two gaming consoles in the world and one of it is buying one of the biggest game developer for both platforms. Very good reason for DoJ to jump in
- Saturdays 5y agoNintendo would like to have a word
- EtienneK 5y agoThe Nintendo Switch waves hi...
- yalogin 5y agoDoes Nintendo compete with Sony and Microsoft? Their segments are different. They compete with Xbox and PS just like Apple TV and the iPhone apps do, not head on. So yeah only two console companies in that segment of the market.
- Narishma 5y agoThis is the second big publisher they're buying recently, after Bethesda.
- dmonitor 5y agoBethesda is an order of magnitude smaller
- fasteddie 5y agoAs much as the HN crowd dislikes to hear it, the biggest gaming console in the world is the smartphone. PC Gaming is almost as big as the entire console market, bigger than any individual platform. Any publisher-focused antitruster would have microsoft leaning very hard into those facts.
- xbar 5y agoI think Natella's execution for Microsoft has been scary smart. This one feels shocking and obvious at the same time, similar to Github.
- mushufasa 5y ago> Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash Dayum. Such cash.
- throwawaysea 5y agoCool. Now let’s update anti trust laws so they can be applied much more readily and start enforcing it. A healthy, competitive market that encourages entrepreneurial innovation has no room for these trillion dollar anti-competitive conglomerates.
- nemacol 5y agoI dread the day they switch the Blizzard app launcher to a MS account. You just know it is going to be a nightmare to sort out. Beyond petty nonsense - Sure wish we had some antitrust laws in this country. The consolidation of every industry gross.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoMaybe it actually works
- brailsafe 5y agomaybe you're talking about account issues, but I find that the battle.net launcher has been pretty great.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoIt doesn't actually launch the game for me. I'm not a windows user so I could be using it wrong, but when a game asks if I want the shortcut on my screen (in this case Warzone) then I double click it, and it just opens the blizzard launcher instead of the game. Also just in general, it'd be nice if the game itself worked as well as the in-game store which never has any issues.
- duckmysick 5y agoI always wondered, what are the exact steps between announcing to acquire and actually acquiring. Especially this: > Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. What exactly happens between now and "when the transaction closes"? How long does it take? Is there anything that would make it not close?
- sofixa 5y agoThey need approval from shareholders and regulators in every country they operate in, and then do a bunch of legal work. It's not unusual for such big acquisitions to take years to be finalised ( for instance a regulator might impose divestment or limitations), or even to fall through ( e.g. Boeing-Embraer, Alstom-Siemens, Nvidia-ARM).
- raldi 5y agoThe main one is that the shareholders get to review the terms, and if more than 50% of either company’s don’t like them, the deal is off.
- _ph_ 5y agoI wonder what this means for the classic IPs of Blizzard, like WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo. Especially StarCraft could use an update - I would immediately buy a SC III for the Mac. Unfortunately, there was no update since SC II was ported to Metal some years ago.
- sovnade 5y agoThere's not likely to be any more mac x86 development from anyone going forward, and I think M1 is enough of a branch that it makes it difficult to justify it.
- _ph_ 5y agoI can understand the difficulty of Mac ports, if a game doesn't support Metal yet, but that is the case with StarCraft. In theory, a recompile might do.
- cuham_1754 5y agoMy very first thought after seeing the headline: There is NO WAY antitrust regulators would approve such a deal, considering this is the biggest game acquisition ever. But hey, at least better than being acquired by Tencent, eh?
- diogenescynic 5y agoI hope they invest more in the Diablo franchise. It's been a lot of fun on the new Xbox.
- peakaboo 5y agoI just deleted my blizzard accounts last week. Looks like perfect timing!
- hmate9 5y agoSounds like an amazing deal for Microsoft. Activision shares had it rough recently so the price isn’t that bad and ITS AN ALL CASH DEAL. With inflation probably coming in a big way it sounds like a great idea to spend all that money now.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y agoExcited to see what this will mean for some of the gaming franchises. Overwatch has been on shaky grounds due to uncertainty surrounding the league and the release of the sequel. Heroes of the Storm is still my favorite MOBA even though it's clearly on life support. I'd love to see Microsoft try reviving it once more by doing a big Heroes 3.0 push.
- p0wn 5y agoWe gotta break up the monopolies again. These companies are getting tooooo big.
- crecker 5y agoLol look at the URL funny :) "__trashed"
- etempleton 5y agoI think Game Pass is a great service at a great price and I think Microsoft's overall direction for gaming has been really positive and forward looking; however, I do worry about the consolidation of gaming. Activision Blizzard was fairly user hostile in their business practices, so I don't think this will be a net loss for consumers. What I am starting to worry about is Microsoft squeezing Sony out of gaming entirely. For a lot of casual gamers Call of Duty was the game or one of a few games they play and have played for years. A lot of those casual gamers own a Playstation. While Microsoft hasn't announced if Call of Duty will be exclusive or not, making the game PC/XBOX exclusive would be doctrine. The only example I can think of where they don't do that is Minecraft, so it is possible.
- KTallguy 5y agoI can’t imagine a scenario where Sony gets to have COD on their platforms in say… 2-3 years. Bethesda is also now only PC and Xbox. Microsoft is playing hardball because other than the fantastic deal that is Gamepass, they don’t really have a lot of hype building titles (Halo launched to a very mixed reception). I personally prefer more companies rather than fewer. I also anticipate a large brain drain at Activision studios, like what has already happened at Blizzard. But the Activision brands are established enough (and formulaic enough) that it probably won’t matter either way.
- MangoCoffee 5y agoa lot of comments seem to be concern about the antitrust. Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard just put them in number 3 slot. Tencent and Sony are far bigger in gaming. if Apple lawsuit didn't take down Apple store just forced Apple to allows third party payment option. i don't think Microsoft will get slap with a antitrust. Microsoft isn't even number 1 in gaming.
- Tiktaalik 5y agoIn terms of the "console war" competitive landscape, Tencent is not relevant as they're not a significant stakeholder in that market. The evaluation is between Sony and Microsoft and this shifts things pretty significantly toward Microsoft.
- cestith 5y agoTencent doesn't have one of the major consoles nor the vast majority of desktop operating system installations. If someone was going to encourage the government to stop the merger I'd expect them to try defining the market along terms different from just "size of gaming revenues". They'd target more the synergies that could be used to anticompetitive advantage and limit customer choice. Not to say that will happen. Just that if it does, it wouldn't be on dollar size in game sales alone.
- giantg2 5y agoI wish I owned that stock...
- nottorp 5y agoI'd shed a tear for Blizzard, but Blizzard died years ago. First it started dying slowly when they figured out they can print money with world of warcraft, then they ruined that like 3 expansions in. So no loss for the gamers here, move along...
- throaway46546 5y agoIt can really only get better. I almost want to hope it will, but I'm tired of getting burned.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoaside: what's with the shared URL on this post? dated 1/14 something "_trashed" and redirects to today's release
- nixass 5y agoMicrosoft continues brute force drive into gaming industry, with zero creativity but outright buying whole gaming companies, and probably locking out competitor out of IPs
- awestroke 5y agoThis is a good thing. Fools run Activision Blizzard; let MS go in and take over.
- rvz 5y agoI mean with everyone jumping for joy on this news, this is Microsoft's 2022 definition of "Extinguish". It's clever but a reheated version in the 1990s, with a new twist: 1. Buyout the company / developers and they now report to Microsoft. 2. Use a subscription model (game pass) to reduce and undercut the game, SaSS price close to free. 3. Sell the game on other platforms for the RRP. In the case of software like GitHub, the best tools are now free forever on a near unlimited scalable cloud which many competitors cannot compete with, especially free. Squeezing the competitors to reduce prices and exit entirely. (Extinguish) OpenAI is next up on this.
- ChildOfChaos 5y agoThere is something that amuses me about 'Call of duty, World of Warcraft, overwatch, Diablo, Candy crush'
- phgn 5y agoNow, that's curious. Microsoft can't allow itself [0] the kinds of culture scandals Blizzard still seems like it doesn't care about. [0] At least if they want to maintain all the government work they do.
- brailsafe 5y agoAs if a former CEO of Microsoft hasn't engaged in similar behavior
- 999900000999 5y agoAs someone who spent a good time in gaming, I'm perplexed and sad. Consolidation always leads to job loss, the industry is very very small. At the same time, legacy publishers have a very different role now. If I'm an indie dev, I don't need you to print the discs or box things up. The only 2 things publishers really do are QA and Marketing. QA, for projects with a good community, can be free or very cheap. Marketing, with again a good community,can be free or cheap. I think about the hikikomori game Pull Stay. Nothing stops that game from selling millions. The big publishers are much weaker now. One could argue that Apple's actually the world's biggest game publisher. They have the final say as to if your game reaches the masses
- f6v 5y ago> QA, for projects with a good community, can be free or very cheap. Battlefield 2042, GTA Definitive Edition, Warcraft Reforged, and Cyberpunk 2077 beg to differ.
- 999900000999 5y agoI'm thinking the one person passion project. At the same time, the best QA team on earth won't help if you rush the games.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- KiDD 5y agoShould have bought EA
- tosh 5y agoMicrosoft now runs two of the apps I spend a lot of time in: Visual Studio Code and StarCraft II :)
- kybernetyk 5y agoGood. Maybe they can fix WoW.
- gigatexal 5y agoholy smokes! now maybe the personnel and HR and abuse can be handled since this is going to be run by a company with adults in the room and we can focus on not abusing people and instead focus on games! Here's to Diablo 4 and maybe a Starcraft 3?!
- atlgator 5y agoI hope they don't ruin cross-platform COD. It's not without it's quirks but getting friends on PS, PC, and Xbox in the same game has been incredible.
- sergiotapia 5y agoThis just solidified my position as a hardcore Sony fan. How can I support a gigantic megacorp merger like this?
- DynamicStatic 5y agoEven after this acquisition Sony is still the bigger fish in terms of games.
- shp0ngle 5y agoFinally, Candy Crush can be fully integrated into Windows.
- KaoruAoiShiho 5y agoHow does the exclusive game work now? It's okay to have exclusives to compete with the big boys but surely the rules are different once you get to this scale. When you get close to a monopolistic position using exclusives to lock out competitors is abusive. Though MS is still not quite in a monopolistic position yet... they're getting close.
- smileybarry 5y agoSony already locks out competitors with exclusives, whether via studios they acquired or games they pay to make exclusive. Not to mention that ATVI is a behemoth but their catalog isn't the same "everything-store" as 2000s ATVI (or current EA), it's a few (big) franchises. Hell, the Bethesda deal had more franchises involved.
- joshstrange 5y agoAfter the initial promo Game Pass price (and using the Xbox Gold -> Game Pass "hack") I got my first bill for $45 for the quarter. I started to go cancel it as I play my xbox in fits and spurts but I've got to say $15/mo for the massive catalogue available (and this was before Bethesda or today's news obviously) is a really good deal for me. I easily get at least 1 game a quarter of play out of it and that would normally cost $60 and require a lot of though/research before purchasing, instead I can try games with reckless abandon and only play the ones I like. That said, I couldn't care less about cloud gaming, the controls feel "soft" and/or laggy to me still (I'm on fiber symmetrical and I've tried on Mac, Xbox One/Series X, iPhone, and iPad, all with an official Xbox controller and wired for all but the iPhone/iPad).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- unobatbayar 5y agoDeeply regretful news.
- officeplant 5y agoOne of those Rare (rip Rare) moments where I want the old Microsoft back that killed off studios left and right. Blizzard needs to be put out of their misery.
- smaryjerry 5y agoOn one hand I feel that consolidation is bad for gaming when a platform is buying IP for exclusivity but on the other hand this was a great decision by Microsoft. Activation Blizzard has been is a slump and has been stuck in releasing or should I say re-releasing the same games for a while now but they could have done it much better. Any half decent version of World of Warcraft 2 will be worth more than 70 billion by itself. Seems to me Activision Blizzard did not realize just how much value in IP they had in their games and are selling based on their current cash flow only.
- coding123 5y agoDamn, Zenimax and Blizzard under the same roof. Might as well try to sell your PS(whatever) now before there are no games. However with the DOJ taking more shots at large companies, MS should be worried about this one.
- jhoelzel 5y agooh boy. I am happy and crying at the same time. I have an idea where this is going and "vendor lock in" is going to be a hashtag for a long time now. I am Team X-Box because I just like it much more than the Playstation, buuut at some point we will all pay our MS-Fees like the powerbill.
- Tiktaalik 5y agoFeels like we're getting to the point where this could be anti-competitive. Even if CoD remains cross platform, if it's free on GamePass well that's a pretty severe competitive edge to the Xbox platform.
- k8sToGo 5y agoFree? Game pass was never free.
- aetch 5y agoLove the article header image. One of these games is not like the others.
- gigel82 5y agoC'mon Microsoft, do a Starcraft 3. Pretty please! Starcraft 2 is one of the last game I still play with my ("old timer") friends for social interaction in the Covid era.
- ho_schi 5y agoCompetition oversight? Probably dead since Regan? After they stopped controlling AT&T the UNIX-Wars happened, impcompatiblity, lawsuits, closed-source has become a normal thing and proprietary software locked users in and competitors out. What platform will Microsoft support? Likely not: * Linux * BSD * MacOS * Nintendo * Sony Does anyone miss id Software? Native ports on Linux, incredible source-code and impressive games? I use this opportunity to thank Gabe Newell and Valve and the people there for their work :)
- lowbloodsugar 5y agoI will miss Starcraft on macos, but I guess I already gave that up with my M1 purchase. Couldn't give two shits about any of their other games.
- xahrepap 5y agoBlizzard's (not sure about Activision games) ongoing support for most of those platforms has been pretty crap recently anyway. Diablo2 Resurrected removed mac support but they did add consoles. OW only support Windows. I guess SC2 and D3 had support for many platforms, but not Linux. It's a crap situation that I don't think is being improved or worsened here.
- simlevesque 5y agoWhat platform does Nintendo support ? It has always been like that.
- haunter 5y agoiOS and Android, they have some gacha games there https://www.nintendo.com/sg/games/smartphone/index.html https://www.nintendo.com/sg/games/smartphone/index.html
- baud147258 5y agoI wouldn't exactly call super mario run a gacha game. (I don't argue with the others, though)
- faisal_ksa 5y agoI hate to see a monopoly in the gaming industry. Controlling the content will prevent any competition both in gaming consoles and in PC gaming. Forget about gaming on Linux or any new platform. Forget about sony's PlayStation and Nintendo. We are going to see the real face of Microsoft. What do you think Microsoft will do next? Buy unreal engine and unity and have control over the content and the tools to make them? We NEED open source game engines (Godot, Bevy) more than ever.
- nivenkos 5y agoSeems they're more likely to target the games than the engines though? They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.
- oneoff786 5y agoI think no chance that Tim Sweeney sells Epic. Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.
- faisal_ksa 5y agoEverything is for sale for the right price. And what is good for Unity does not mean it's good for the consumers.
- oneoff786 5y agoWell unity is dropping the ball hard for consumers so something different would likely be an improvement
- kizer 5y agoI made this point in another comment thread, but I think MS would make a competitor to Unreal/Unity instead. Think of all the game engine talent they now have. The IW engine for CoD, Halo’s slipspace, WoW. They could readily assemble a team to build an engine on par with Unreal.
- obmelvin 5y agoI hope they clean up Blizzard. It's been sad to hear everything - my best friend growing up got a dream job there a few years ago, and it's sad to hear how his childhood dream got crushed by a toxic management team (he loved just about everyone he directly worked with, including his boss).
- ur-whale 5y agoBut is it a good deal? Wrt Blizzard specifically, where is the amazing company that designed Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW, ... I find their recent offering ... bland.
- miiiiiike 5y agoCan't wait for an Overwatch 2 Developer Update that starts with "Hi, I'm Jeff from the Microsoft team."
- dagaci 5y agoI guess this is what you call Microsoft buying the dip, Activision's price fell by half since Feb 2021 until today! https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NASDAQ-ATVI/ https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NASDAQ-ATVI/
- kizer 5y agoWait… WHAT?! Wow. Incredible to follow up the Zenimax acquisition with this. Was just playing a game via cloud gaming yesterday and thinking about how smooth it was and how MS was set for the future with GamePass. Congratulations to the Xbox org and MS in general. Hope to move back out to Redmond soon… ;)
- datavirtue 5y agoBye bye Bobby!!
- albertopv 5y agoAm I the only one thinking they paid really too much?
- ouid 5y agoI feel like this buries the lede a little, Microsoft is acquiring Blizzard for 70 billion dollars.
- Jyaif 5y ago> Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 And yet the stock stabilized at $83, meaning a lot of people are not sure the purchase will actually go through.
- awill 5y agoMicrosoft is not building the future of gaming, they're buying it. Seeing a bunch of excellent third-party cross-platform games become xbox-exclusive is really sad for gamers. Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money. I get Sony has acquired studios too, but by comparison they seem carefully planned. They're usually studios already making (mostly) playstation exclusives (e.g. devs of Returnal, Spider-Man and Dark Souls).
- raxxorrax 5y agoAlso the tactic to use scandals for a drop in market cap before acquisition is quite common in IT. Last year they were valued for 30bn more. Activision/Blizzard certainly had a big sales tag on their forehead.
- NavinF 5y ago> Last year they were valued for 30bn more On what day? Looks like they dropped from 70bn last year same time to ~50bn at the start of the year and then sold for 69bn.
- phendrenad2 5y agoAny economic statement can be turned around and stated in the reverse way. Maybe it's the gamers who are unwilling to pay enough for games, so the only companies that can afford to make games are console vendors?
- lopis 5y agoI'm still surprised that to this day Minecraft Java was allowed to survive (albeit just so slightly behind Minecraft Bedrock, but still with some extra features).
- erwincoumans 5y agoHere my kids prefers the Java edition, for its mods.
- benlumen 5y agoI'm just glad I didn't buy a PS5. I'd be worried if I were Sony. Unsurprisingly, their stock is off by 6%...
- telxosser 5y agoPower law going to power law. I am sure this will result in better games than if not, lol.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoAnother big boy move. Satya Nadella is a proper CEO. Warms my heart to see someone competent up top at Microsoft again
- beebeepka 5y agoNot happy about this but Blizzard is pretty much done for the foreseeable future. I sure MS money would help revitalise the company on half a decade or so. All I want is StarCraft 3
- everyone 5y agoThey deserve each other
- seattle_spring 5y agoIs this going to mean huge pay bumps for ATVI employees more in line with what Microsoft pays tech employees?
- karaterobot 5y ago> Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. Not for long, I bet!
- Tempest1981 5y ago> This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse. Just like that -- they're in the metaverse!
- viktorcode 5y agoCan't wait until metaverse will fail to lure gamers. The hype is on par with NFTs, in both vitality and lack of substance.
- ThalesX 5y agoDon't forget Microsoft also has metaverse for Business and business has a lot of free floating money. This is also also a pie Meta wants a slice of.
- jgon 5y agoIt really feels like Microsoft is trying to basically create the "Netflix" of gaming here, and I think that just like Netflix they're going to see a lot of success as basically being the first to market to do so, and other companies are going to be left scrambling. The acquisition email mentioned that activision has 400 million "monthly active players", mimicing the language of MAU that is the current trend right now. The goal is to get 1/2 a billion people giving them $10 a month on gamepass, not to get 1 time purchases for $60 every 5 years when a new Elder Scrolls title ships. I think that this should really put some fear in Valve and I'm not sure what their play is from here. I know that Steam has a lot of goodwill built up but it feels like they've just coasted on Steam for so long, and it was inevitable that the larger players would look at their fat 30% cut for so little work and decide that wasn't going to last. A lot of people thought that Bethesda games would keep coming out for Playstation when the acquisition was first announced, and after it closed MS confirmed that going forward future title would be exclusive to them. I can't see any reason to this this will different, and especially just making these titles available through gamepass alone, not in a launcher or as a separate purchase. Do people think that Microsoft is spending tens of billions just to make sure that Valve can get a 30% cut on sales of COD and Fallout? It's like saying that Netflix is going to let Disney+ carry Stranger Things, because hey, Disney would pay them money to do so. Valve is like the cable company right now, someone else makes the content and they provide the delivery of it and skim off the top. Now that you have competing and more convenient delivery services, its going to be a lot harder to exist. Where do they go from here?
- xhrpost 5y agoI have to wonder how much investing in some of today's tech behemoths comes down to viewing them more as a holding company / investment firm and less about their original core products. Microsoft has lost tons of desktop share over the last decade, this should have been a death signal for them but instead amazing acquisitions like Mojang, GitHub, ActBliz have pushed them to an amazing market cap. Similar with FB loosing use as a social media platform but staying in business with Instagram/WeChat etc.
- Nbox9 5y agoI hold Microsoft shares because I think they have a special talent for doubling down on a good investment. Microsoft has no problems investing $$$ into risky but plausible product lines. They bombed Windows Phone, but their sass offerings were in a perfect place to take advantage of 2020.
- kristjansson 5y agoOnce you have billions and billions in profits to reinvest there's hardly a choice, is there? At some point, the firm has to invest in new product lines to support or supplant its tentpoles, and restricting the space of investment opportunities to those generated internally unnecesarily limits its options (viz. AAPL with more cash that it can spend)
- gogopuppygogo 5y agoLosing market share on the desktop is by design to shrug off regulators while they flex into new growing markets. Their cloud has been a boon to their bottom line extending their reach into government/corporate clients while Xbox has kept Sony from dominating the living room/home. Diversification is good for any large entity not just an investment firm.
- shadowgovt 5y agoIn a rapidly-changing marketplace, a certain level of diversification helps increase the odds of survival (it can be overdone; too much diversification, and a company finds itself in charge of a host of projects in industries it doesn't know enough about to compete, which is what put Marvel on the rocks so badly that Disney was able to snap them up back in the day). Not unlike in nature, a monoculture corporation lives and dies by their business being at all relevant in general, and the market (especially in the entertainment sector) is fickle.
- brobdingnagians 5y agoActivision Blizzard has been seriously mismanaged. They have very nice IP and a fanbase that is still somewhat loyal because of the glories of the past, but Microsoft would need to revitalize the management and the creativity. - Overwatch hit the ground running to massive success, but hasn't materialized Overwatch 2 and has stagnated. - Warcraft III Reforged is a total disaster and abandoned. - WoW has a wide following of people in its vanilla form (i.e. taking things awy from what it has become), and the extensions aren't bringing a lot of value. There is speculation on whether it has hit its peak and is in decline. - The Starcraft Remaster is basically the same game but with a bit nicer graphics. - Diablo 3 seems to have done well. I do hope it gets revitalized and the IP gets new life with better management, but Blizzard has been struggling.
- birdyrooster 5y agolol how was the Diablo 2 re-release. Seriously has been upsetting to watch their fall.
- ThatPlayer 5y ago>The Starcraft Remaster is basically the same game but with a bit nicer graphics. At least with that, I think that's exactly what the audience wanted. Anyone who wanted a different (and mechanically easier) game has Starcraft II.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThe conspiracy theorist in me suspects this acquisition is a way for a disgraced ownership and upper-level management to golden-parachute out of the company without having to just quit. Simply quitting would be seen as a sign of failure and would leave a lot of their performance-based compensation behind... But getting bought, that's a different story.
- airstrike 5y agoWhy would Microsoft want to participate in that scheme, though?
- andrewstuart 5y ago>> "to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone, across every device" Should say "to bring the joy and community of gaming to XBOX AND WINDOWS USERS, across every MICROSOFT device".
- doikor 5y agoIf your device runs a somewhat modern browser and you have a reliable internet connection you can just stream from the cloud.
- NullByteDelight 5y ago
- javajosh 5y agoPurely from the perspective of the job market, this move sucks. Before you could get Activision to bid against Blizzard to bid against Microsoft.
- prophesi 5y agoWhat upsets me is that this news totally overshadows the news that Activision literally just fired 30+ more people for sexual misconduct. And now the metaverse is solidified as a new buzzword for venture capitalists to pour money into despite collaborative VR being a thing for almost a decade already. Won't be long until they combine it with NFTs and use an inefficient & expensive blockchain to handle the marketplace of avatars and the like.
- jprd 5y ago== MS acquires formerly preeminent corporation for 30% discount == MS announced today that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI). This news comes on the heels of a year filled with government lawsuits, internal leaks, low morale and poor performance. Many analysts have commented that years of failing to invest in their IP and a string of poorly-received sequels have diluted customer and stockholder faith. The past year has seen ATVI stock plummet after it was made public that the company was not being managed or governed in any meaningful way, down approx. 30% prior to today's announcement.
- blooalien 5y agoGotta love that headline including the phrase "to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone, across every device"… I'ma have to cry "bullshit" on that "every device" part. They mean "every device Microsoft can control" or "every device Microsoft approves of".
- andrewxdiamond 5y agoI don’t this is as likely as many people in these comments seems to. MS will still profit hand-over-fist on games sold on the Switch and the PS5. Many people even buy the same title multiple times across platforms happily! They have no reason to pull out of those markets.
- cronix 5y agoI anticipate some curious bugs for playstation versions.
- cutenewt 5y agoMicrosoft also got Kotick to leave. The cultural integration will be a lot easier than other M&A integrations; everyone at Activision is probably ready to move on from their current culture.
- flashgordon 5y agoAs I just finish my binging of HBO's Succession, I do wonder what the inside conversations leading upto this (+ Blizzards "/cultural issues) would have really liked looked like!
- beders 5y agoCan't wait for the SC2 servers to run on a single slow VM in the MS cloud...
- justicezyx 5y agoA bit interesting to see that not much mentioned about blizzard's declining and Activision being a low grade money grabbing game studio, which collectively Activision Blizzard is heading to irrelevancy. Or I might get the wrong impression. Or its just blizzard is going into oblivion. Most comments are about monopoly. But is A & B really that good? Or its just more of a optimization of financial strength between A &B and MSFT?
- taurath 5y agoIt’s interesting to me how indie gaming has started to really pop off at the same time there’s massive consolidation throughout the gaming industry. The ecosystem is really turning into blade runner, with these giant zaibatsu corps and a big wave of individuals.
- shmerl 5y agoBeing DRM-free and Linux gamer, this has no impact on me, but MS still gobbled companies like inXile and Obsidian in the past. So I don't see it as a good trend. MS feels like a black hole in this sense. It swallows everything. Nothing comes out. At least they didn't mess up Minecraft on Linux so far.
- alsaaro 5y agoThis move is a hedge against Apple and is not about gaming as much as it is about maintaining Windows client side hegemony. Apple is almost certainly planning to release AR/VR headset in the near future, this raises the question; what hardware is going to be used to power this headset; I'd bet Apple is working on a console like iDevice, or probably more likely an external GPU, that can be used with any Apple device. Now imagine if Apple decides, admittingly in a very un-Apple like fashion, to allow anyone to run MacOS on their iPads, and iPhones; what that would do to consumer Windows market share. This primarily establishes a moat against Apple, not Sony, and protects consumer Windows, not Xbox.
- LanceH 5y agoI can't imagine anyone losing any sleep over an AR/VR powerplay.
- goldcd 5y agoI'm not sure how good a deal this really is. I can definitely see why MS bought up publishers and developers to add to their stable - they can now, like Netflix, sell a monthly recurrent service that will keep their customers entertained with 'free' releases available on day#1, plus a leased library. But (to me at least), they were already there. I'm there on PC and think the sell is even easier on Xbox. Buying Activision seems a bit pointless. Sure they can now fold in wavering CoD lovers, but the franchise is already looking a little wobbly - but they're paying for a company that's valued as selling a game every year for $50 to lure in the subset of customers who now think game pass is now worth it with CoD. (That's a shitload of new subs they need, or the price is going up) My larger concern is that when they bought Zenimax or even minecraft, they'd paid well for 'good bones' they could build on. Activision is really just a pile of slightly rusty franchises (https://www.denofgeek.com/games/activision-blizzard-microsoft-xbox-deal-figure-games-list/ https://www.denofgeek.com/games/activision-blizzard-microsof...) Now maybe they can revive some of those - Doublefine knocking out episodic Gabriel Knight makes me moist, or simply Guitar Hero with new weekly tunes - but MS could have done similar for a lot cheaper. If I'd had the money in my bank account, I'd have maybe just had a slush fund to pick up and promote new talent/IP. If they really wanted infra, Steam is still out there. If they wanted IP, Sega.
- jaimex2 5y agoIt's basically an IP sell off. None of the good game designers are left which the only thing that matters.
- ThalesX 5y agoMicrosoft has all the pieces in place to make the great next gen MMORPG. They now have the IP to do whatever they want with our mind, they have the distribution channels, they have the capacity to run servers and also the technology to create truly immersive worlds; their planetary rendering engine, GPT-3 for NPCs, Minecraft, for example. There is a market for it, the latest awesome release in the space has been World of Warcraft, Amazon's New World is turning out to be a major flop and there's also free publicity in terms of Meta's metaverse.. I'm rooting for Microsoft to create the next gen gaming entertainment experience, however that might look.
- oneepic 5y agoThey'll certainly market their titles as the next great gaming experiences. I am skeptical that it will come out that way. I personally predict there will be some elements of a great product but not entirely. the ultimate focus is on money and business value, not the product. At least we have the xbox game pass which is absurdly underpriced.
- ThalesX 5y ago> I personally predict there will be some elements of a great product but not entirely. the ultimate focus is on money and business value, not the product. Ultimately, it will depend on the team building it. Microsoft, the entity, couldn't give a rat's ass about the product, but the people building it might. At this point, technology has advanced to a point where some truly innovative gameplay mechanics could be employed with relative ease. We're living in a summer of AI and game ones are still dumb as bricks. With the power of cloud and current AI research papers, I think a world could really feel alive with today's technology.
- JosephHatfield 5y agoI've played World of Warcraft since the first Beta and it's been a great ride, at least up until the last expansion. The news of Microsoft's acquisition has me hopeful for great new MMORPG.
- 015a 5y agoEveryone here is talking about how this is great for gaming, or bad, or how they're becoming a monopoly... The only emotion I can feel is disgust. Disgust that Microsoft would tacitly approve of Kotick's decades of harboring, encouraging, and protecting sexual assault within his companies. The man allegedly, and settled out of court, for telling his secretary he was "going to have her killed". He hid internal sexual assault allegations from the board. They threw parties with strippers & DJs telling the women to drink more so their male coworkers could have more fun. They passed around a nude picture of a female coworker, leading to her suicide. An awesome person was promoted to be head of Blizzard, before leaving just months later, telling the board that she had experienced years of sexual misconduct working there, and there was no hope for them to ever change their frat-boy culture. This isn't old information. It came to light just weeks before Halo Infinite was released. Phil Spencer & Microsoft had to be well into discussions at this point; and it didn't phase them. They didn't stipulate that he would have to leave; they instead leave him in charge of the company post-acquisition. They fire, what, a couple dozen people? In a company of tens of thousands? Just... disgust. Maybe a little hope that Microsoft can improve their culture, but without signaling a fundamental change in leadership, that hope is dim. But at least they'll make some money. https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kotick-sexual-misconduct-allegations-11637075680 https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby-kot...
- Laremere 5y agoEverything I've read is he's only still in charge until the merger completes. Big sales like this don't happen overnight. ABK is keeping him in charge because MS doesn't own them yet. Once they do, it sounds like it's going to get split up into individual segments directly reporting to MS' gaming CEO.
- majormajor 5y agoI think it's a lot more likely that the culture gets overhauled under MS than without an acquisition. This is likely good for current employees who might otherwise be likely future victims.
- kooshball 5y ago> Phil Spencer & Microsoft had to be well into discussions at this point; and it didn't phase them. They didn't stipulate that he would have to leave; they instead leave him in charge of the company post-acquisition. You're getting worked up for no reason. Maybe wait until Kotick actually sticks around before the outage?
- xyst 5y agoSay goodbye to originality in games
- RandomBK 5y agoWe see here another example of why Valve is investing so heavily into Linux and Steam Deck. * Sony is focused on their PlayStation walled garden. * Microsoft is consolidating more resources around Game Pass and the Xbox store. * Mobile is a large and rapidly growing segment, which Steam isn't able to capture. * Epic is pouring money into its own store. Valve needs a backup plan to stay relevant in the 5-10yr time horizon. If the Steam Deck can take off, that might serve as enough incentive to keep games available on Steam and away from Windows exclusivity where MS might start building a walled garden.
- saladuh 5y ago1. MS buys many game studios (especially those with popular IPs) 2. Puts these titles on Game Pass. Now in the long run, they don't need to sign deals for these IPs to be on Game Pass because they own them, they get their return on investment. 3. More and more games on Game Pass, MS is able to keep its ridiculously good value because they aren't forking out as much to put games on there (because they own the titles). Game Pass subs increase at an even higher rate. 4. Game Pass exclusives, even on PC. More people subbing just for exclusives. At this stage Game Pass is so popular fewer people care that this happens. 5. Other studios feel pressured that their games aren't on the most popular platform, which is no longer Steam on PC, and no longer the digital stores on consoles, it's Game Pass everywhere. They sign deals with MS to get their games on Game Pass. 6. Indie games are losing their ability to be seen on traditional stores due to loss of marketshare. At this point, MS makes it even easier to publish games to Game Pass and indie games take advantage of this. Simple timeline of what will happen. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft embraced gaming, including the openness of the PC platform, and now are in the process of extending it with Game Pass and its value. They will eventually turn to the final E. They probably won't be a pure monopoly, competitors will pop up, but it'll be an all subscription world and Game Pass will be the Steam of this world, except not just for PC and Xbox but for most platforms they can get their service to work on. We will no longer own our games. Eventually Game Pass will be cloud only and the files won't even sit on our devices. And the worst part is no one cares, not now or in the future. Everyone just wants access to the latest games at the cheapest cost. And clearly the US government (I'm not a US citizen nor do I live there fyi) does not care to lift a finger against something in this sector. I hate to suck up to another company, who itself does many bad things, but I hope Valve is able to keep the PC platform open for at least as long as I care to play video games. It's out of their own self interest, but they've done wonders for the Linux community and contract some great people to improve linux gaming for everyone, not just them. And they're releasing hardware that isn't locked down. Honestly, I hate to feel good about what a big company like Valve is doing, but I'm greatful.
- joedoejr 5y agoYou can now waste your time and money in Windows, Office, Azure and xbox games all with single Live account! Waiting for microsoft to buy junkfood chain and pfizer to complete the experience.