Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[Gerrard]

Weren't you paying attention?

 

[IDtenT]

Amazon is slowly releasing their own storefront. Currently only free games that come with Prime subscription is in it, but that will change.

Amazon's might realize their store can't compete and will either buy Steam to get their infrastructure and customer base, swallow a big player, or both.

Amazon already has the infrastructure (AWS, not to be confused with Anonymous Wife Scholar) and already have Prime subscribers. They don't have the catalogue, either to sell or already sold. So the idea is interesting, but Amazon doesn't need Steam.

 

[vortex]

They bought ActiBlizz to get the Arcanum IP. Smart.

Microsoft paid $68 billion to Drog Black Tooth for his Arcanum mod contribution and the rest went to lawyers.

 

[Vincente]

They actually paid them $68.7 billion, just to they can give Kotick his 300 mil and round it up to $69 billion.

Heh.

 

[hello friend]

Strongly disagree: 10 years ago people were saying that every game would be a mobile game and while mobile games grew well for a time those pesky "core gamers" still exist and still buy proper games. 3 years later the same hype machine was saying that everything would be streamed but streaming doesn't work (for latency reasons) for the huge fraction of game genres. 3 years after that the idea was the individual games would be subscription services lasting forever - this was the plan for Anthem (and for Halo Infinite) but the cracks are already starting to show: these games aren't as successful as planned.

These are all just short-lived boardroom memes. Game Pass is a better idea than most of these previous ones and will be a big thing but the suggestion that it will utterly displace the existing way is a fantasy. They're just making the common mistake of assuming that the future will displace the past completely but that only happens for a very small number of innovations.

The Kindle exists but people still read normal books. That's just how it will be with Game Pass.

These big corporations will try every trick in the book except make good games

 

[Artyoan]

I would not take a hands off approach here if I were Microsoft. Lots of firing and restructuring to do. I would also reboot every single IP on Blizzard's side. This strikes me as a very poor acquisition.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

 

[IDtenT]

I would not take a hands off approach here if I were Microsoft. Lots of firing and restructuring to do. I would also reboot every single IP on Blizzard's side. This strikes me as a very poor acquisition.

Yeah, at that price I hope they're ready to get hands on. Activision has been on the cliff for what feels like decades.

However, their IP catalogue is huge. It's almost like buying an EA.

 

[Gerrard]

Some people here need some reminders about the times when Microsoft tried pushing people to get Vista with DX10 exclusive games, and pushing people to use their shitty Windows Store with exclusive games.
Those attempts worked out great. So great that Forza Horizon 5 launched on Steam at the same time.

 

[IDtenT]

Out of all the big corps I do like Microsoft the most. Maybe it's because I've been using their software since I was in diapers?

 

[vonAchdorf]

Microsoft is more woke than any of the big companies. Apple is outright conservative compared to them.

 

[BruceVC]

Microsoft paid $68 billion for Activision !!!
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment...blizzard-68-141047397.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

 

[whydoibother]

Sigh... if only my WoW epics and Hearthstone cards were NFTs.......

 

[vonAchdorf]

I don't play Actiblizz games, but I earned a lot of money today.

 

[Anthedon]

How are Activision's finances looking these days?

 

[whydoibother]

I don't play Actiblizz games, but I earned a lot of money today.

I can't congratulate you out of principle. Holding Acti-Blizz during these lawsuits, with all the talent leeching away, with their esports failing, with China penalizing video games, everything going wrong.... its just retarded. But hey, a lot of retards also made money in this market, I guess.

How are Activision's finances looking these days?

Best they've ever been, probably. Thing is it looks they are peaking, there isn't anything lined up for the next few years, plus lawsuits, etc, as I wrote above. Microsoft is buying the top, and I think they just want to waste dollars before inflation. They are talking about a "metaverse" play, and they could use Battlenet as their front to customers, and just to steal some games away from Sony by forcing exclusivity.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I can't congratulate you out of principle. Holding Acti-Blizz during these lawsuits, with all the talent leeching away, with their esports failing, with China penalizing video games, everything going wrong.... its just retarded. But hey, a lot of retards also made money in this market, I guess.

I don't think that the lawsuits were a substantial problem, that shit would have passed. The loss of talent is a much bigger risk, but do CoD and CandyCrush really need outstanding talent or rather manager types? Blizzard provided just a nice optionality with D4 on the horizon.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Like I said, a nightmare scenario

Yes mine as well, though I thought it was going to go the otherway and see Tencent buy them.
This was an unfortunate surprise.

 

[Grimlorn]

So, /pol/ was right again.. Not sure if buying such toxic assets is a good investment for Microsoft, but they probably bought everything in bulk to get that sweet battle royale cash

You're assuming Microsoft didn't set them up with the recent negative PR. Probably dropped the price by several billion dollars and increased pressure on Activision to sell out to get rid of the negative brand recognition. I was kind of wondering why that news story broke about Activision. I figured they maybe didn't "donate" enough money to politicians recently, but it was so Microsoft could get this deal to go through.

No one will care about the negative PR and it will disappear now that Activision is under new leadership in Microsoft.

 

[Grauken]

Microsoft: We need to take the Apple approach and make Windows a walled garden. We'll get a cut of all the software sales!
Gaben: Like hell you will! I'll make Linux a viable gaming platform!
Microsoft: Good luck.

*Years pass*

Gaben: Hey Microsoft. Checkout out this Linux-powered console!
Microsoft: Oh yeah? Well how will your little gaming storefront fare if it has no games to sell?
Gaben: ...shit.

Buying the husks of formerly innovative companies that haven't produced anything interesting in years sure isn't a good long-term strategy to own the market. Its easy to throw money around, look at how well EGS has worked to kill Steam, but to actually change something you need more than just money.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Microsoft is buying the top, and I think they just want to waste dollars before inflation. They are talking about a "metaverse" play, and they could use Battlenet as their front to customers, and just to steal some games away from Sony by forcing exclusivity.

Their offer is 10 bucks below the 52 week high. Considering that they won't have to pay before 2023, they get an okay deal.

 

[BruceVC]

I don't play Actiblizz games, but I earned a lot of money today.

Nothing wrong with making money, nice one

Do you have Activision shares because I noticed they increase in value but Microsoft lost some value but the Microsoft shares will rectify. They always do

 

[Catacombs]

Amazon is slowly releasing their own storefront. Currently only free games that come with Prime subscription is in it, but that will change.

Amazon's might realize their store can't compete and will either buy Steam to get their infrastructure and customer base, swallow a big player, or both.

Valve won't be sold as long as Gabe lives. You better pray he has a long life ahead.

And may he live forever.

However, Amazon probably has no problem waiting for Gabe bites the dust, which could never happen or as soon as tomorrow, to make moves to acquire Valve. It's not outside the realm of possibility.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Hey, nice, maybe that means I can play D2R and D4 on game pass eventually. Don't much care about anything else but I love me some Diablo and hate me some Actiblizz.

 

[Mustawd]

I think the biggest challenge for indies is that regardless of some of the quality of their games, they still suffer a bit from price depreciation due to so many market entrants.

So a quality game that could have sold for $20.00 before the Steam boom now has to start at $15.00 before discounts/sales to make the same volume.

At the end of the day the boom-bust model will continue just like all other growth industries. Consolidation is inevitable.

IP-gobbling publisher THQ Nordic announced today that they'd acquired Logic Artist's Expeditions franchise

So we have Obsidian, inXile, Hairbraned Schemes, and now the main IP of Logic Artist being acquired.

I think we can safely say the A.5-AA rpg dev consolidation is well under way.

I guess the questions now are:

1.) Who is left?
2.) Who is next?

Seems I was right, but it wasn’t just A or AA devs….