Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[lukaszek]

consolidate moar to reduce number of game launchers

 

[Jaedar]

consolidate moar to reduce number of game launchers

It will be interesting to see if this will lead to actiblizz dropping their atrocious launcher.

But yeah, I'd be worried if I was Sony. Nintendo will probably be fine because they're basically their own silo isolated from gaming in general, but the amount of big name windows/xbox exclusives MS has now is going to be pretty crazy.

Hopefully Ms will buy Sony and force them to release bloodborne on pc.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Internal or external, Microsoft will rate success by playtime manhours.

Person-hours.

The oxygen you breathe was once breathed by the snakewomanish, the snowblowish, the kickapoo and the flipityfloo.


Apparently.

 

[Dycedarg]

Star Wars sold for way fucking less than it was worth, that's why it sold for $4 Billion. The merchandising right alone for just Star Wars could've probably been sold for more. Star Wars makes billions every year from merchandise.

Are you sure about that? From what I've heard, Disney actually paid too much for Star Wars. Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies. I'd also like to see how much they actually make with merchandise, since the MCU seems to be eating their lunch when it comes to toys.

 

[Storyfag]

Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies.

Well, that's because they made shit movies. It's completely on them, and has nothing to do with the value of the company/IP they bought.

 

[Alex]

the sad thing abiut this is, that people are actually looking at Microsoft as a savior (of sorts) of Blizzard and their Portfolio.
blizzard has sunken so low, that Microsoft, yes Microsoft!!, is seen as this good company that's about to turn the whole thing around and cater to gamers.

To be honest, I think people posting that are just being sarcastic.

If Valve and Microsoft had a friendly relationship they wouldn't have spent the past 5 years doing everything they can to create a backup plan & deterrence for Microsoft shitting on them.

I think that is as "friendly" as you can be with microsoft.

 

[Delterius]

Star Wars sold for way fucking less than it was worth, that's why it sold for $4 Billion. The merchandising right alone for just Star Wars could've probably been sold for more. Star Wars makes billions every year from merchandise.

Are you sure about that? From what I've heard, Disney actually paid too much for Star Wars. Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies. I'd also like to see how much they actually make with merchandise, since the MCU seems to be eating their lunch when it comes to toys.

I think they make like 5 billion a year from star wars merchandising alone. Movies are just a marketing ploy for Continued Landlording of A Significant Portion of the World's Culture. By owning star wars it's that many american kids buying toys and that many american manchildren making a pilgrimage to Disney Mecca.

And it's not like the movie themselves don't make money.

 

[R@tmaster]

I wonder how you can effectively manage such a monstrosity? It probably takes few huge departments, working 24/7, just to coordinate effort.

 

[Dycedarg]

I think they make like 5 billion a year from star wars merchandising alone. Movies are just a marketing ploy for Continued Landlording of A Significant Portion of the World's Culture. By owning star wars it's that many american kids buying toys and that many american manchildren making a pilgrimage to Disney Mecca.

And it's not like the movie themselves don't make money.

That seems to be revenue, not profit.

https://entertainmentstrategyguy.co...Well, it wasn't.,sales for Disney every year.

Second, toys (and lots of merchandise) aren’t as lucrative as the headlines usually suggest. Take those retail sales I just mentioned. Those become the “revenue” line for retailers. The toy companies only get the “wholesale” line, which is about half the retail take. Disney, on the other hand, only books 5-10% of the wholesale total. Which is still a lot! But an order of magnitude less than the total retail numbers suggest.

That's still a healthy 250 to 500 million every year. But there's no way Lucas would have sold them a 5 billion a year business for only 4 billion. I still have to admit that earning more than 300 million to do absolutely nothing is a pretty sweet deal.

 

[Delterius]

That seems to be revenue, not profit.

let me put it this way

when you have more money than god you can a) pay taxes or b) expand your estate. those non profits rich people set up don't have to be at the heart of cosmic conspiracies. they are simply new dependencies of their demesne. and the Magic Kingdom shall forever grow.

Disney doesn't want to be good at producing entertainment. That's a plus. The sort of thing they needed when the US was out of the war and the world made sense. Disney wants to own a large fiefdom in a worldwide stagnant culture that they help create. They want to remain forever relevant. And the landlord who owns ten million apartment might not even make a whole lot of money. But damn, is he a powerful dude.

Remember: there's 'owns their own plane' rich and then there's 'own the airports' rich. At that point it doesn't even matter if the airport loses money. You can report that as losses, gain money from tax rebates, and then be bailed out anyways. You can call the senators and tell them what to do. You own the world.

 

[lycanwarrior]

Activision Blizzard Misconduct Fallout Led to Microsoft Sale, Kotick Approached Meta First

https://wccftech.com/activision-blizzard-misconduct-led-to-microsoft-sale-meta-approached/

"Meta" what a fukkin retarted ass name LMAO!

 

[Dycedarg]

Disney doesn't want to be good at producing entertainment. That's a plus. The sort of thing they needed when the US was out of the war and the world made sense. Disney wants to own a large fiefdom in a worldwide stagnant culture that they help create. They want to remain forever relevant. And the landlord who owns ten million apartment might not even make a whole lot of money. But damn, is he a powerful dude.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with that part. And Microsoft seems to be doing the same in the gaming market, or at least trying to. I don't care about any product Activision Blizzard owns, and the same goes for Bethesda. But if that deal goes through, it might trigger another wave of fusions that will certainly affect properties I care about.

And if anybody thinks things can't get worse in gaming, just take a look at the state of movies, for example. Not only we have the MCU, but every company not named Disney are looking for an IP they can turn into the next 'cinematic universe'.

 

[Divine Blessing]

the never-ending saga of corporate fortunes and unlimited growth welcomes the final chapter of gaming cultures New World Order: the corporate wars 2.0.

neocons like Tencent, Sony, FB etc. r aggressively competing for market control, be it lawsuits, acquisitions or tech. the result is the ever-same since capitalisms introduction: the unification of a market by corporate infrastructure, where the audience (and esp. their expectations) is controlled via political narratives.

MS acquisition of ActiBlizz is optimal damagecontrol and will not only marginalise the Unionisation efforts of ActiBlizz workforce, but rebrand WoW, MS and gaming culture as a whole. as those corporate wars r simply a proxy of Klassenkampf. where gaming culture once was a broad field of indies, studios and companies competing for the audience attention its now stagnating into a stock market index and thus being controlled by too-big-to-fail money like Blackrock, State-Street Corp and Vanguard Group (whose investments exclusively project the current index, while having invested in each other. this is real market control, when the big players dont need to directly coordinate (insider trade), but all have the same portfolio). whenver those join a market the competition is over. as they not only represent, but r the globalized and interconnected capital.

where once democratic processes featured transparency, discourse and market competition, corporate wars will replace them with PR. cuz their market control has already grown beyond any state authority (reason for Chinas assault on national gaming), neocons control the production, the distribution and the wage-dependent workforce, the supply and hence the audience, aka the market.
this audience will chose any side without further impact than a legitimation for this scheme, corporate wars like the Apple/Epic/Google lawsuits r just PR, as no company would risk a potentially economically devastating trial, even in their worst case scenarios profit is the supreme directive - they have already won, no matter how the courts ruling may be.

on a systemic perspective these r all just smoke bombs to diffuse the actual state of wealth distribution into a faux-competition, which isnt competition at all, but the capital exploiting the users, aka workforce. this process is going to escalate over the next years with the prognosed result of increased user engagement, the audience will now not only experience but finance corporate wars 2.0. gaming is already abused as a channel for political engagement, as long as gamers discuss online on workplace conditions, Koticks salary and LGBQT, they might as well buy some rainbows as NFTs with a personal signature of Bill Gates, cuz that wont change anything.

the singular approach to a substantial change is to collectively claim the means of production and revert exploitation into a dignified (re)distribution of power, wealth and security.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Interplay IP

In before Microsoft purchases Interplay solely for the Battle Chess IP.

The best-selling game ever developed or published by Interplay.

 

[Delterius]

Activision Blizzard Misconduct Fallout Led to Microsoft Sale, Kotick Approached Meta First

https://wccftech.com/activision-blizzard-misconduct-led-to-microsoft-sale-meta-approached/

"Meta" what a fukkin retarted ass name LMAO!

oh no we won't be able to buy warcraft figurines in the meta walmart

 

[RobotSquirrel]

And I'm here to talk to you about something... I forgot.

 

[AscendedFlames]

and if the Japanese company culture remained the same, most Japanese developer will not let themselves be bought by a foreign/gaijin company, they'd continue to support their own, Nintendo and Sony.

Sony is a globohomo company, it's nothing like nintendo.

You're right, I hadn't even realized that they are now fully pozzed and for some amazing reason they moved their headquarters to California of all places. You just can't make this shit up.

This acquisition means nothing, a garbage company buying another garbage company that has produced utter shit.

well I mean it does mean something. Look at what it did to Lionhead, expect disgruntled talent to be more likely to walk.
If anyone was already sick of corporate attitudes they're about to get a billion times worse. I can't wait till they start haemorrhaging what little talent they have left.

Good, let them bleed those talents, it would be better for us if those people started new companies.

The problem I see is gaypass/subs overtaking every other store by such a large margin that now Microsoft is the customer. Which will affect the development of indie and small studios, because instead of thinking of how to make a game for their customer/audience they are making one for Microsoft.
Oh, did you hear?
-The execs over at gaymepass like the game characters to meet these racial/sexuality quotas
-they like this specific trend in game design
-they don't like games where you conquer or exert your will over another kingdom
-they want all blacks the be portrayed as genius scientist doctor hackers
-you need these accessibility options
-you need easy/story mode
-you need non-combat options
-your player base must be strictly policed
-so on and so forth.
Then maybe they will accept your game! Maybe you will even get some free advertising in the main carousel!
They don't even need to explicitly come out and say it, the implication is enough.

I think this is probably already happening with who Microsoft/Sony lets release games for their consoles, and gives front page/free ad space to. It's not a coincidence that all the major "indie" pubs are lock step in pushing the agenda, there seems to be a "in good graces" clique in the indie scene. Certain devs are certainly already self-censoring since Sony's censorship/guidelines started. Steam isn't perfect, but it is open enough that some games can exist that otherwise would have to be heavily changed to appease Microsoft/Sony.

This has been going on for a while. I've said it many times and I've also criticized many cRPGs, in that they just have a liberal undertone within them even if some writers came from the old school of separating politics from art. It just seeps through. Unfortunately independent developers aren't any different on this front as they like to copy, in most instances, many of the practices of triple A.

Gotta love the diversity with only two black people in the image, and I'm not even sure about the guy in the front and left, who might just be an American. The other guy's left of the black D&D shirt guy in the back.

Who cares about them being all white at that point when they all inherently have the mind virus. We all know what these cretins will produce. The same, boring politically correct trite with [INSERT CURRENT YEAR] issue that their masters tell them to be mad about.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Interplay IP

In before Microsoft purchases Interplay solely for the Battle Chess IP.

The best-selling game ever developed or published by Interplay.

 

[The_Mask]

Do you think that since Microsoft also own Nuance, that they'll make games where you can voice your commands?

 

[Dexter]

This acquisition means nothing, a garbage company buying another garbage company that has produced utter shit.

IPs, especially big recognizable ones aren't "nothing", this isn't like when they bought trash studios on their last legs like Obsidian/InXile/Double Fine that didn't really own any worthwhile ones. WarCraft alone is popular enough that it wasn't only the largest MMO for almost two decades, but got a Blockbuster movie made and has its own Chinese Theme Park. It's basically the Disney corporate strategy, they also come with a back catalogue that can be exploited. This acquisition spree, especially after Zenimax and now with Activision Blizzard feels markedly different from their usual fire & forget buying sprees when they need some new titles for their catalogue for a new console launch.
With big companies though a lot of shit gets forgotten or falls through the cracks as their leadership forgets what they've got laying around in their content vaults, but they're also only one leadership change away from deciding again that gaming (or PC/console gaming) isn't a focus anymore or otherwise losing interest and restructuring/reorienting into becoming mainly a Cloud Blockchain NFT SaaS IoT Metaverse company.

Activision has never made anything of value.

Jedi Knight Series? Quake III: Arena? Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines? Return to Castle Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory? Earthworm Jim? Hexen/Heretic Series? All those Star Trek games like Bridge Commander/Voyager: Elite Force/Armada/Away Team etc.? Simon the Sorcerer? Soldier of Fortune? Tony Hawk Series?
I'm sure you would be able to find plenty here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_video_games

 

[JamesDixon]

Star Wars sold for way fucking less than it was worth, that's why it sold for $4 Billion. The merchandising right alone for just Star Wars could've probably been sold for more. Star Wars makes billions every year from merchandise.

Are you sure about that? From what I've heard, Disney actually paid too much for Star Wars. Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies. I'd also like to see how much they actually make with merchandise, since the MCU seems to be eating their lunch when it comes to toys.

What everyone is missing here is that part of the sale to Disknee was a clause in the contract that Disknee had to pay George 25% gross revenue from whatever product they shipped out with his original characters. That's why the Shitquel Trilogy killed off Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie etc... to make room for the new characters. With the movies failing to make a profit, George lost money on the 25% gross and it's intentionally done to remove anything related to him from the franchise. Except, OG fans rebelled and are forcing Disknee to post losses year after year on every Star Wars related project.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Jedi Knight Series? Quake III: Arena? Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines? Return to Castle Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory? Earthworm Jim? Hexen/Heretic Series? All those Star Trek games like Bridge Commander/Voyager: Elite Force/Armada/Away Team etc.? Simon the Sorcerer? Soldier of Fortune? Tony Hawk Series?
I'm sure you would be able to find plenty here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_video_games

Earthworm Jim was made by Shiny and published by Interplay. Hexen/Heretic was made by Raven before they were acquired by Activision. Just because they own the IP now doesn't make them responsible for the game. I can appreciate the fact that Activision played a publisher part in VtmB, but they did bungle even that and had the game's release rushed out.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Star Wars sold for way fucking less than it was worth, that's why it sold for $4 Billion. The merchandising right alone for just Star Wars could've probably been sold for more. Star Wars makes billions every year from merchandise.

Are you sure about that? From what I've heard, Disney actually paid too much for Star Wars. Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies. I'd also like to see how much they actually make with merchandise, since the MCU seems to be eating their lunch when it comes to toys.

What everyone is missing here is that part of the sale to Disknee was a clause in the contract that Disknee had to pay George 25% gross revenue from whatever product they shipped out with his original characters. That's why the Shitquel Trilogy killed off Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie etc... to make room for the new characters. With the movies failing to make a profit, George lost money on the 25% gross and it's intentionally done to remove anything related to him from the franchise. Except, OG fans rebelled and are forcing Disknee to post losses year after year on every Star Wars related project.

Yeah, they made the NuStar Wars suck on purpose. Sure

You're giving them way too much credit I think.

 

[JamesDixon]

Star Wars sold for way fucking less than it was worth, that's why it sold for $4 Billion. The merchandising right alone for just Star Wars could've probably been sold for more. Star Wars makes billions every year from merchandise.

Are you sure about that? From what I've heard, Disney actually paid too much for Star Wars. Not only Lucasarts, unlike Pixar, had no projects on the pipeline, but they weren't able to recoup their investments with the new movies. I'd also like to see how much they actually make with merchandise, since the MCU seems to be eating their lunch when it comes to toys.

What everyone is missing here is that part of the sale to Disknee was a clause in the contract that Disknee had to pay George 25% gross revenue from whatever product they shipped out with his original characters. That's why the Shitquel Trilogy killed off Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie etc... to make room for the new characters. With the movies failing to make a profit, George lost money on the 25% gross and it's intentionally done to remove anything related to him from the franchise. Except, OG fans rebelled and are forcing Disknee to post losses year after year on every Star Wars related project.

Yeah, they made the NuStar Wars suck on purpose. Sure

You're giving them way too much credit I think.

No, I'm stating the facts.

I'm not giving them any credit since the shit they came up with is shit. It's not creative etc...

 

[Dexter]

Earthworm Jim was made by Shiny and published by Interplay. Hexen/Heretic was made by Raven before they were acquired by Activision. Just because they own the IP now doesn't make them responsible for the game. I can appreciate the fact that Activision played a publisher part in VtmB, but they did bungle even that and had the game's release rushed out.

Activision is mainly a games publisher, technically speaking they don't "make" games anymore since the late 90s, they either release games by wholly-owned developers or bankroll the development and do the marketing/distribution for outside developers via publishing deals, which they mostly did before they had the cash to purchase Raven, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Toys for Bob, Blizzard etc. starting around the 00s. If you pay for the development of a game and then market and distribute it you're pretty much "responsible" for it though.