Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[Caim]

Looking forward to Super Microsoft Brothers.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

So now that Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard does this mean that they now owns the rights to Arcanum? And they've got Tim Cain! It would be interesting seeing a sequel for it after all these years, even though it will end up being undoubtedly decline.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Activision can now publish the next Quake again.

 

[Suicidal]

Buying modern day Blizzard is like buying a disease-ridden rat that shits everywhere.

 

[Delterius]

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.

EGS doesn't have infinite money to burn, just lots of it. And they never tried to literally buy the entire industry, they just offered old style incentives for 2009 tier console war platform exclusivity. Such a model is a thing of the past. What Microsoft is doing is no different from investment funds who buy literally every house and apartment on the market on a premium to ensure a monopoly over the livelihoods of generations to come. Except that this might not even be a play towards monopoly after all. Maybe Microsoft just makes so much money from their 'hard earned' already monopoly status on personal computers, tax returns and subsidies that they simply need to buy themselves some treats from time to time. It's just another way to inflate stock prices.

 

[The_Mask]

Is it true Bobby's gone?

 

[Naraya]

Is it true Bobby's gone?

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ed-to-leave-once-microsoft-deal-closes-report

 

[DemonKing]

With the sexual harassment scandals the Activsion share price apparently dropped 40% this year which probably made it an attractive target for acquisition, although at $70 billion I did have to check if it was April Fool's Day or not when I woke up this morning.

Kotick will get one big final payday before he rides off into the sunset and dodges any responsibility for his company's woeful culture.

MS are definitely playing a different ball game to Sony at the moment. Playstation will either become a niche product living off its exclusives or eventually bow to the inevitable and let MS have an app on their platform. In any case, this will likely accelerate the movement of games to the cloud meaning we may not even have consoles in the near future just TV apps.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Microsoft will save StarCraft

 

[J1M]

Upside: they can release an official DLC for Doom where you shoot orcs and night elves.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Not liking this,monopolies are never good and this wil be as good to a monopoly as it gets

I wonder what happened with anti-trust lawsuits. Microsoft and other companies were the subject of many in the 90s and early 00s, but now it's like "bah, who cares?". Allowed to acquire and expand without oversight.

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

The anti-trust lawsuits were all about bringing rogue elements into the fold, so they wouldn't throw any unwelcome spanners into the works. "You pay us protection money, and we'll give you massive opportunities!"

Note how all of them bought into that game, and how they've benefitted since then.

 

[Lizard]

https://nichegamer.com/xbox-boss-wants-cross-platform-bans/

“Something I would love us to be able to do–this is a hard one as an industry–is when somebody gets banned in one of our networks, is there a way for us to ban them across other networks?” Spencer said.
......
“I’d love to be able to bring them to other networks where I play. So this is the group of people that I choose not to play with,” he said. “Because I don’t want to have to recreate that in every platform that I play video games on.”

Hey Valve do you still want us to release our games on your store? Fall in line.

Valve has been kowtowing too, but the urinalists act like they are doing nothing.

They have been projecting this for years.
https://www.wired.com/story/valve-steam-adl-white-supremacy-extremism/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/9/18296864/gamer-gaming-white-supremacist-recruit
https://www.smh.com.au/business/con...-video-games-giant-steam-20190320-p515wr.html

I remember there being older ones too, they always come out in waves at around the same time. Just like with the gamers are dead articles. First they plant the idea, then push push push, force it and normalize it.

 

[purupuru]

 

[lycanwarrior]

Wondering if Steam's Deck might in part be a reaction to fears of possible MSFT monopolization. From a post on WCCFTECh (https://wccftech.com/microsoft-activision-blizzard-games-on-playstation-xbox-exclusive/):

Bruce ReallyBigMistake • 2 hours ago


Sony doesn't have a clue. They have no idea who they are dealing with. They don't know about Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and their own people probably sold them out. They NEVER should have made their games Direct X on PC and should have made PS NOW run on alternative OS's.

MS has them by their balls. They are going to be reliant on DX versions, MS OS versions, locked into their walled guardian, locked into their servers. Then they will be extinguished. Gaben KNEW what MS was about, because Gaben worked there. He didn't panic and push for things like Vulkan API without reason. He knew what was eventually coming. It's worse than he could have imagined. MS has their hardware chips now being installed on third party CPU's from the same manufacturer that makes Sony's PS.

MS has multiple illegal monopolies in the works, this acquisition was fast tracked and evaded laws and they avoids fines due to government contracts and being the first to sell out to the PRISM program. Sony is finished. The choices from here on out is to die a slow death or a fast one.

 

[mediocrepoet]

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

From participation awards to participation cash awards. I looked up who this guy is and what his company is, guess I'll send him an invoice for my time. Fucking dipshit.

 

[DemonKing]

VS

PS obviously can't compete with regards to the sheer number of studios it owns. Will be interesting to see how they respond. Losing CoD will be a huge blow to them as that will see a lot of casuals depart + a drop in PS+ subscribers paying for multiplayer access.

 

[Ebonsword]

I don't even know what a quarter of the shit in those pictures are, so I guess AAA gaming has already declined enough for this to barely affect me.

VS

PS obviously can't compete with regards to the sheer number of studios it owns. Will be interesting to see how they respond.

 

[Dodo1610]

Sony is fucked now most consoles are sold to casuals who only play FIFA, COD and GTA. And I doubt Sony can afford to buy either EA or Take Two.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Wondering if Steam's Deck might in part be a reaction to fears of possible MSFT monopolization. From a post on WCCFTECh (https://wccftech.com/microsoft-activision-blizzard-games-on-playstation-xbox-exclusive/):

Bruce ReallyBigMistake • 2 hours ago


Sony doesn't have a clue. They have no idea who they are dealing with. They don't know about Embrace, Extend, Extinguish .

Awww, the pure, innocent Sony has to swim amongst all these sharks.

 

[prengle]

 

[DemonKing]

Sony is fucked now most consoles are sold to casuals who only play FIFA, COD and GTA. And I doubt Sony can afford to buy either EA or Take Two.

Yeah Nintendo do ok doing their own thing but not sure Sony will survive without access to a lot of big third party titles even though their first party titles are usually fairly high quality. Even if they allow Gamepass on their platform and take a cut it probably doesn't make sense to develop hardware only to give the majority of the profit to another company.

 

[deuxhero]

I wish the IPs went on firesale and someone who cared got Arcanum and Interstate 76, but I guess MS is marginally better than China.

With the sexual harassment scandals the Activsion share price apparently dropped 40% this year which probably made it an attractive target for acquisition, although at $70 billion I did have to check if it was April Fool's Day or not when I woke up this morning.

CoD, Overwatch, and the Blizzard IPs I could see being worth a few dozen billion. Maybe not 70, but I've never looked over Activison's finances.

 

[perfectslumbers]

CoD, Overwatch, and the Blizzard IPs I could see being worth a few dozen billion. Maybe not 70, but I've never looked over Activison's finances.

Behind COD I believe the biggest one financially is Candy Crush.

 

[deuxhero]

CoD, Overwatch, and the Blizzard IPs I could see being worth a few dozen billion. Maybe not 70, but I've never looked over Activison's finances.

Behind COD I believe the biggest one financially is Candy Crush.

My scale is that Star Wars was worth 4 billion. Theres been horrible inflation since, but I don't see it being over 16 times as big a prize.

 

[DemonKing]

My scale is that Star Wars was worth 4 billion. Theres been horrible inflation since, but I don't see it being over 16 times as big a prize.

I agree - I thought $7 billion for Zenimax was a lot on the same basis but this seems crazy. I guess it gives some context to gaming really being bigger than any other form of entertainment these days.