[HN Gopher] Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard ___________________________________________________________________ Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard Author : totablebanjo Score : 1809 points Date : 2022-01-18 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (news.microsoft.com) (TXT) w3m dump (news.microsoft.com) | haunter wrote: | Honest 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 wrote: | Should we expect a Steam Xbox? | zelos wrote: | Here's hoping the Battle.net client doesn't get merged into the | abomination that is the XBox gaming app. | kar1181 wrote: | Bobby Kotick really wanted to retire. | mandis wrote: | I wonder how much of this was driven by Nadella. MS has made some | brilliant purchases recently. | giantg2 wrote: | I wish I owned that stock... | atlgator wrote: | I 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. | mperham wrote: | And now you know why they fired dozens for harassment yesterday. | Cleaning house for the new owners. | rvz wrote: | Well 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. | Tiktaalik wrote: | Feels 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 wrote: | Free? Game pass was never free. | sergiotapia wrote: | This just solidified my position as a hardcore Sony fan. How can | I support a gigantic megacorp merger like this? | everyone wrote: | They deserve each other | awill wrote: | Microsoft 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). | taf2 wrote: | I don't know age of empires 4 seems pretty good to me... | benlumen wrote: | > 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. | | Torn on this. On the one hand I completely agree. I doubt | there'll be any anti-trust action, first because that doesn't | seem to be a thing anymore and second because I can't imagine | the American authorities getting in the way of Microsoft's | competition with what are, at the end of the day, Japanese | companies. | | As a gamer who's loved Activision's franchises since childhood, | they've run them all into the ground and if Microsoft can do | better with them then let them try. | | Side thought - maybe Nintendo and Sony will finally join forces | to compete, as they almost did in the 90s. | peanuty1 wrote: | Xbox and Nintendo actually joined forces recently to make | cross-play happen. | ghostly_s wrote: | Of what? | amyjess wrote: | The purpose of antitrust law is to prevent monopolies, not to | prevent industry consolidation. Consolidation is fine in the | eyes of the law, but monopolistic behavior isn't. | | No antitrust action will be taken because even after all | these acquisitions, Microsoft still competes with Take-Two, | EA, Nintendo, Square Enix, Sony, Tencent, etc., plus a vast | number of smaller players (Paradox, Sega, the sixteen | gazillion indie developers on Steam...). | rndphs wrote: | > The purpose of antitrust law is to prevent monopolies, | not to prevent industry consolidation. Consolidation is | fine in the eyes of the law, but monopolistic behavior | isn't. | | The purpose of antitrust law is to prevent anticompetitive | behaviour by limiting the accumulation of market power. The | most extreme case of this is monopolies. | | I agree that no action will be taken, though. The current | status quo is so full of market power abuse that this | acquisition looks normal. | lopis wrote: | I'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 wrote: | Here my kids prefers the Java edition, for its mods. | torginus wrote: | It's crazy to think that _the_ no.1 best selling video game | of all time (by copies sold) derives a large part of it 's | values from the free work of volunteers. | redisman wrote: | Meh that's how things worked in the 90s and the 2000s. | Counter strike was a mod as were many other household | names | Spivak wrote: | Yeah, I don't know many people who are playing bedrock | because of the spotty mod support and the weird redstone | differences making complicated designs harder for no user- | visible reason -- I'm sure the code is nicer. | beart wrote: | My kids play bedrock because it's cross platform (mostly) | and they can play on the switch, PC, tablets, etc. | | I wish they could use the Java version to do that, | because bedrock is awful in a lot of ways. Microsoft | seems entirely focused on merchandising, paid DLC, and | driving users toward their paid server offerings. The | game itself feels like it has been largely in maintenance | mode for a long time, other than the recent caverns | update. | | It blows my mind when I think about how much money | Minecraft must be worth, and how big MS is. Compare that | to an indie game like Terraria, Stardew Valley, or | Factorio and the difference in quality is night and day. | raxxorrax wrote: | Also 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. | no_wizard wrote: | Doesn't Sony have an insurance / financial business subsidizing | their operations[0]? Not to mention a movie studio that rakes | in the cash, especially since riding the backs of Disney with | Marvel[1] | | The interesting one here for me has always been Nintendo, they | are a still a pure gamers play, and have managed to thrive in a | world of shifting sands, sometimes bucking entire trends in the | industry with success, like going all in on the Nintendo Switch | form factor (a lot of the industry people thought mobile gaming | consoles were dead in the water) | | I think there's a lot of competition in this space still, and | while I don't like consolidation either, its also hard to say | Activision Blizzard is a well managed company at this point | | [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/business/global/sonys- | bre... | | [1]: https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-no-way-home-sony-most- | profita... | screye wrote: | Microsoft just purchased a bunch of has-been IPs that still | have great amount of nostalgia. | | When Zenimax was acquired, it was coming off a couple of failed | fallout games, a meh ESO and delayed Elder scrolls 6. | Similarly, Activision-Blizzard has been in the midst of COD and | Overwatch losing their gaming monopoly to Fortnite, Blizzard | failing to create a good game for about 5 years and the big | workplace lawsuit. | | It feels like Microsoft is taking on the challenge of reviving | these companies back to being the powerhouses of old. In that | sense it is a big challenge and not as simple as just buying | the future of gaming. | | If they wanted to do that, they'd probably try to buy Naughty | Dog or Fortnite. | | It's like acquiring Fiat Chrysler or General motors. Still big | names, but clearly not the 'brands of the decade'. You wouldn't | buy them to form a monopoly. You'd buy them to revive the | brand. | WillPostForFood wrote: | >Microsoft just purchased a bunch of has-been IPs that still | have great amount of nostalgia | | The #1 and #2 titles of 2021 are has-beens? And they also had | the #1 and #2 of 2020. | | https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/18/npd-the-top-20-best- | selli... | | https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/15/npd-reveals-the-best- | sell... | screye wrote: | Call of duty makes most of its income through sales. So, | the revenue seems a lot higher than it actually is. | Relatively speaking COD sales have stagnated for a decade | [1] while the gaming industry has exploded. In terms of | revenue, Fortnite and PUBG eclipse COD's annual revenue | [2], while having lower development costs. | | COD is admittedly not a has been, but it is like a top | athlete in the twilight of their career. Still performing | at the top, but no more #1 and the trends aren't looking | great. | | [1] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Call_of_Duty | | [2] https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_highest- | grossing_vid... | k12sosse wrote: | Microsoft didn't invent (video game) platform exclusivity, they | merely have perfected it. Thank Sony and rockstar games or | Activision, ironically, for this, going all the way back to.. | GTA San Andreas, or Tony Hawk franchise. | phendrenad2 wrote: | Any 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? | shadowgovt wrote: | Honestly, there are so _many_ games these days, I no longer | notice when something goes exclusive. | | I hear Horizon: Zero Dawn was great. Didn't play it. Didn't | pick it up when it stopped being an exclusive because it was no | longer new by the time it hit PC. | | My dance card is so full of Steam Early Access that I don't | even have time for exclusives these days. | mdoms wrote: | > Seeing a bunch of excellent third-party cross-platform games | become xbox-exclusive is really sad for gamers | | What are you talking about? Microsoft is embracing PC and cross | play more than ever. | Macha wrote: | > PC | | Specifically Windows, it has to be pointed out these days. | skohan wrote: | They will be MS exclusive. It's fine if you're a _windows_ | gamer, but this is bad news for anyone who plays games on | Playstation, Linux /Steam/Proton, or Nintendo platforms. | | It also really _should_ be the target of anti-trust action if | that was a thing anymore. It 's going to be a reality fairly | soon that anyone who wants to play all the latest AAA titles | will have to own _at least_ two gaming devices. | | That's not only annoying from a consumer perspective, but | it's counter-productive from the perspective of how much | redundant hardware it means in the midst of a chip shortage. | doikor wrote: | > but this is bad news for anyone who plays games on | Playstation, Linux/Steam/Proton, or Nintendo platforms. | | Microsoft has been releasing their PC games on Steam the | same day they do on their own store for a few years now. | awill wrote: | I'm hopeful this continues. I'm sure it's deliberate to | make GamePass seem like a killer deal. Hey, it worked for | Netflix. Spend $100 on a dvd boxset of your favourite TV | series, or stream it all for $10/mo | skohan wrote: | Do you really expect them to continue this practice if | they own a dominant share of exclusive new games? With | Minecraft they did the opposite: they made bedrock a | windows exclusive, and required going through the MS | storefront to access it. | | MS's track record seems to be only to be pro-consumer so | long as it helps their bottom line. | Rebelgecko wrote: | Why is it bad for Linux users? Does gamepass not work under | Proton? | awill wrote: | >>That's not only annoying from a consumer perspective, but | it's counter-productive from the perspective of how much | redundant hardware it means in the midst of a chip | shortage. | | This is an excellent point. You can argue that the Switch | is so different, it can make sense to own a Switch plus a | PS5. But the PS5 and Xbox Series X are so similar it is | wasteful to be arbitrarily requiring you to buy both if you | want 2 sets of exclusives. | | That's ultimately why Microsoft did this. Previously it | made sense to just get a PS4/PS5. You get the excellent | Sony exclusives, and all the cross-platform games. You | missed out on very few good Xbox exclusives. Not anymore. | | I'm hopeful this stuff will still come to steam. I'm done | having multiple consoles. I have a PS5 and a PC. I'm | hopeful that's enough to not miss out on too much. | torbital wrote: | sounds like AWS funding everything else Amazon does that isn't | profitable, this isn't a new strategy | [deleted] | Server6 wrote: | Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st party | studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take 20 more | years. They don't have the time for that and acquisition is | really their only option. I don't like it either, but that's | the reality of it. | torginus wrote: | The weird thing I remember some of the best games from my | childhood were made by Microsoft Studios - Freelancer, | Midtown Madness, Flight Simulator, Age of Empires etc. | benlumen wrote: | It's not like Microsoft couldn't have done that from the | start. They were the software company, after all, so they | probably should have done. They're both over 20 years into | the game, now. | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | Didn't it come out recently that they _tried_ to buy Sega | 20 years ago, when they were just getting into the business | with the XBOX? | | EDIT: They tried to buy Nintendo, too: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672443 | jayd16 wrote: | MS HAS owned and operated game studios for 20 years. This | acquisition doesn't fundamentally change how MS approaches | game development. | benlumen wrote: | You're right - but when you look at the list of | Playstation exclusives vs Xbox exclusives, you'd hardly | know it. A lot of people buy Playstations because there's | nothing of interest on Xbox that they can't have. | doikor wrote: | Playstation has also bought (and closed) a lot of studios | (and one publisher) over the years. A lot of the Playstation | 1st party studios were not built from ground up but instead | bought. | Drew_ wrote: | The difference is that Sony was the original publisher | behind many of the studios they have acquired. Presumably | these studios wouldn't have gotten traction without Sony | backing to begin with. | nixass wrote: | Yeah for MS is easier to dump cash (you don't have to be | creative for that) and outright buy whole studios with their | IPs, rather than using brains and actually create something | new. Sony is way ahead in that regard, so sad to see money | dumping on the other side | phendrenad2 wrote: | Why is it sad? Presumably you work as a software developer. | Are you sad that your boss didn't do the programming his or | her self, and instead "dumped money" into your bank | account? | awill wrote: | He's obviously speaking as a consumer. If I was CEO of | Activision/Blizzard, and I was getting millions or | billions from the buyout, obviously my opinion would be | different to that of the consumer that's affected by | this. | awill wrote: | Agree. If I were in charge at MS, I might have done this too. | I can't blame them. | | But I imagine Sony execs are struggling to comprehend what's | going on. They've done so much right in the last few years. | They've built some of the best studios in the world. They've | delivered the best exclusive AAA content. Just in the last | few years: The Last of us Part 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of | War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted.... And despite that, they | still might not come out on top. Life isn't fair :). | | >> Sony spent 20+ years building up and planning their 1st | party studios. Microsoft could do that too, but it would take | 20 more years. | | Ironically, the Xbox (OG) was released 20 years ago. | indigochill wrote: | Sony's also been historically resistant to letting their | exclusives reach PC. That's slowly changing (God of War | just hit PC in the past few days and Horizon's been out for | a while), but I don't think this really did them any | favors. Sure, they need to sell hardware, but there's a | long tail on PC sales that can outlive generations of | consoles. Microsoft, meanwhile, probably more than any | other tech giant today, is the master of the long tail. | tyfon wrote: | I don't think microsoft will be successful here. | | First, the price they are paying is insane. The investors | will be demanding the results eventually. | | Also, buying studios won't fix the culture in Microsoft. | They've had so many years and still can't make consistently | good games. There are some gems in between but they are | usually form partnerships or newly bought studios. Their | in-house development seems like actual hell (Halo). | | I also suspect that game pass will make them focus on GAS | games (service games) with microtransactions, optimised for | profit instead of fun. | mrtranscendence wrote: | > I also suspect that game pass will make them focus on | GAS games (service games) with microtransactions, | optimised for profit instead of fun. | | If they want to go that route, charging by the month | isn't the way to do it. There's a reason exploitative | mobile games are free at point of sale. I predict that MS | stays the course of putting decent first and third party | titles on Game Pass and chooses to raise prices rather | than mandate that Game Pass games be more exploitative. | agar wrote: | > The investors will be demanding the results eventually. | | I wish I had time to dig into Activision's financials to | get a better feel on this. | | They earned $2B last quarter, with over $500m going to | Cost of Revenue. For a software company, I'm guessing a | lot of this is in multiplayer gaming infrastructure. Cost | of Revenue is another $716m, with half going to R&D | (engineering) and half going to G&A (rent, | administration, etc.). | | In other words, if Microsoft can absorb the Cost of | Revenue into Azure and optimize the G&A a bit, they can | increase quarterly revenue by almost 33%. That's | $10B/year. Plus, putting Activision's back catalog on | GamePass might drive up GamePass subscriber | count/retention and back catalog sales (see the first | article linked below). | | It would be tough to show this as hugely profitable over | the short term, but I think they could model out a 5 year | ROI very very easily. | | > I also suspect that game pass will make them focus on | GAS games (service games) with microtransactions, | optimised for profit instead of fun. | | I'm not a subscriber, but as a casual follower of | GamePass I haven't seen it drive more MTX. On the | contrary, it seems to have opened the door to more | niche-y games that would have a hard time finding an | audience elsewhere. | | These two articles give developer quotes that are very | interesting insights into both gamer behavior and the | economics of putting a game on GamePass: | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2021/03/19/game- | pass... | | https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/03/24/deathloop-dev- | opens-... | | Yes, these are probably MSFT sponsored and it's not all | roses, but even if there's a core of truth to them it's | encouraging. | cutenewt wrote: | Microsoft 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. | salamandersauce wrote: | Wow. No wonder Microsoft wasn't willing to shame Activision like | Sony and others, they were in talks to buy it. Ridiculous. | danso wrote: | I 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 | martini333 wrote: | Not shaming is not the same as condoning. Imagine actually | expecting a company to comment on every story. | pdpi wrote: | If 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 wrote: | Nobody was forcing them to buy them. They were allowed, they | chose not to. | belltaco wrote: | Huh? They did. | | https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/18/22789881/microsoft-xbox-... | | https://www.gameinformer.com/2022/01/11/phil-spencer-discuss... | vkou wrote: | They weren't shaming them publicly, they were shaming them | privately to drive the purchase price down. | | It's self-serving, but more effective, as it actually got | Blizzard to do another round of cleaning house. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | What about this is ridiculous, exactly? | raxxorrax wrote: | I guess the price had already been settled but they probably | wanted to distance themselves from the accusations against the | company. | croon wrote: | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/xbox-chie... | Rebelgecko wrote: | Lose-lose situation. If Microsoft talked shit about ATVI in the | months leading up to the acquisition, people would accuse them | of doing it in bad faith to hurt the share price and make the | acquisition cheaper. | benlumen wrote: | I'm just glad I didn't buy a PS5. I'd be worried if I were Sony. | Unsurprisingly, their stock is off by 6%... | blooalien wrote: | Gotta 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 wrote: | I 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. | EtienneK wrote: | Can you imagine Call of Duty becoming an Xbox exclusive? Big hit | to Sony! | bombcar wrote: | https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP4433-CUSA00744... | freeflight wrote: | Wow, 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 wrote: | Nadella 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 wrote: | I am betting this is not going to last. Their core products | are losing customers. | Iolaum wrote: | Azure? | humanlion87 wrote: | What 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. | tester756 wrote: | which one? Azure? Windows? Office? Xbox? Bing? SQL Server? | VS / VS Code / .NET / C#? GitHub? | s3r3nity wrote: | Congratulations 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. | raxxorrax wrote: | I think for gaming this is pretty negative that everything is | consolidated under large developers. I also don't think that | the atmosphere under Microsoft will be better than under | Activision. | | I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible | to be honest. | tonmoy wrote: | I would think women employees would be harassed less under | Microsoft | Wurdan wrote: | One thing we can say fairly certainly is Bobby Kotick's | days are numbered. Everything I've read about the guy | indicates to me that he won't do well in the Microsoft | corporate culture. | sascha_sl wrote: | It seems very likely, based on comments Phil Spencer made | just 3 months ago, when the acquisition was likely already | on the table. | | https://www.engadget.com/xbox-phil-spencer-activision- | blizza... | schmorptron wrote: | Hopefully, that'd probably the best outcome in this whole | thing. | matt_s wrote: | Games are software. Changing the upper management/ownership | isn't going to change deliverables. If anything, it could | delay releases even further out with new overlords. Certainly | they can clean house of the former companies HR department as | well as any senior leaders that did nothing with previous | issues. | | It will take a long time before anything material comes from | this from a games perspective. I would assume legal | agreements are in place for cash-cow games like Call Of Duty | on other platforms so that should alleviate any anti- | competitive investigation. | stephbu wrote: | I agree with your view point - however it's hard to see any | other outcome for the AAA franchises. Player expectations of | a modern title are increasing - as are the time, human, and | fiscal capital required to ship a modern title - years of | engineering, hundreds of people, hundreds of millions of | dollars. The risks are huge - missing your date, or game | experience can sink a company - consider what Cyberpunk | almost did to Projekt CD RED - to ship they cut to the bone | very late in the day. The economics of the AAA business is | optimizing towards managing and distributing that risk thru | supply-chain and scale. I don't see a better way on this | current trajectory. | yoyohello13 wrote: | Do players really prefer the current AAA space right now | though? There are many indie games out there made by a | small team (or even one person) that are very popular and | successful (e.g. Stardew Valley, Outer Wilds). For me | personally, I haven't really enjoyed a AAA game in years. I | tend to stick to indie or more niche experiences. I think | AAA studios might do well if they split up their massive | teams to create many, more focused games instead of one big | blockbuster that primarily serve as a vehicle for | microtransactions. | mariusmg wrote: | >Do players really prefer the current AAA space right now | though? | | God of War, a 4 years old PS4 title, was just released on | PC and sold very well. That should tell you everything | you need to know... | bmhin wrote: | I don't know what the 5th highest reviewed title of all | time that was made available on a popular platform | selling well tells me about the state of AAA as a whole | to be honest. One data point, for a game considered a | masterpiece of the last generation (so the decade), | doesn't say a whole lot. | | The Avengers was a large AAA game from the world's most | popular media franchise and it recently tanked. "That | should tell you everything you need to know..." | Godel_unicode wrote: | In general people don't care whether a game is a "AAA" or | "indie" when they buy it, they look at reviews and | whether their friends are playing it. | | There are good AAA games and bad AAA games. The good ones | do very well, the bad ones don't do as well. If we move | the goalposts to say that the high-grossing/well-reviewed | AAA games don't count then of course we're going to end | up with a skewed picture of what the market looks like. | kayoone wrote: | Because the Avengers game wasn't very good. On the other | hand the recent Guardians of the Galaxy game sold much | better and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. | brendoelfrendo wrote: | If you look at best-selling console games by year, [0, | only goes up to 2019] you can see that the list since | about 2001 is dominated by sports games and Call of Duty, | with the odd exception (usually a Rockstar game). While | the gaming discourse has turned against these titles, | they are consistently the most popular. If anything, I'm | actually flabbergasted that Rockstar was able to turn a | Wild West drama into the best selling game of 2018, as it | feels so different (that is, less cartoonish) to anything | else on the list. | | The fact of the matter is that the people who talk about | games make up a small portion of the total group of | people who play games. AAA still exists because it still | rakes in cash, year over year. | | [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-video- | game-ever... | hydrok9 wrote: | The success of Red Dead Redemption, and Rockstar in | general, is proof that you gamers will appreciate more | substantial than sports games (which barely update | between editions, and sometimes actually have LESS | content than previous editions), and shooters, which have | rapidly turned into Skinner's Boxes themselves with all | the unlockables and achievements (which hijack the whole | point of a shooter from competition between individuals' | skill, into a competition between the player and a list | of arbitrary "achievements"). | | But clearly the AAA studios have the market figured out, | it's just easier, less risky, and more profitable to make | shallow "product" than a rewarding and interesting | "game." | brendoelfrendo wrote: | I guess my point, and my issue with this take, is that | "you gamers" is kind of a useless identifier. Most people | who play games are going to stick to the blockbusters, | like most people who go to the movies stick to the | blockbusters. | | And the same complaints hold true in film, where people | argue that studios are just taking the safer, more | profitable path. But the people who make those complaints | _aren 't the audience that the studios/publishers are | targeting_, and they are a minority in the larger market | as a whole. | | I mean, don't get me wrong, there are indie games or | whatever that break out or break the mold; Stardew Valley | has sold 15 million copies since it launched in early | access in 2016, and though I think the CoD game from that | year sold more, I guarantee you there are more people | still playing SV than CoD: Infinite Warfare. But | Activision made their buck and moved on, and that | strategy continues to work for them. | hydrok9 wrote: | Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the consumer. I'm | just saying that AAA studios have "the market" figured | out. They know how to, forgive the use of the phrase, | "game the system," to make profit at the expense of | quality. They didn't invent it and they sure as hell | won't be the last to use it, but they certainly got good | at it. | | I'm just saying that there is definitely an appetite | among the general game consumer for a more complex and | cerebral type of game! And that it's sad to see such few | of those titles come from the big studios (while at the | same time they nickel-and-dime everyone with their dlc's | and other schemes). | hydrok9 wrote: | >Player expectations of a modern title are increasing | | Unfortunately this is not true. Modern AAA franchises do | not innovate. They are just shinier. You can find the same | systems, and often more complex or creative ones, in games | from the nineties and 2000's as you can today. Modern | gamers either become jaded, seek out indie games, or, more | often, simply buy what is offered. | | Remember when the big question used to be "are video games | art? CAN they ever be art?" I remember publications like PC | Gamer spending a lot of time and energy wrestling with | these questions. It wasn't lip service; it was a real goal | that game creators at the time pushed towards, because | gaming was trying to find acceptance and respect alongside | other forms of media. I think that has mostly been lost, | now. There is and will always be indie creators pushing | their own creations that are inspired, but the AAA market | is totally lost, imo, if you are interested in games as | more than just a mindless bit of fun. That overarching | sense of progressing towards something that could be | considered true "art", is gone, for the time being. | | edit: didn't mean to sound like I wasn't giving credit to | all the fine indie games and game creators out there. | There's still artistic and interesting things being | created, just not by AAA studios :) | MattRix wrote: | AAA games are about art as much as big budget films | are... which is to say: not a lot. You're never going to | see as much risk taken when each game costs hundreds of | millions of dollars. There are however tons of "mid tier" | studio, what some might call "triple I" big indie studios | that put out all kinds of innovative games. | | Even Minecraft and Fortnite, two of the most popular | games in the world, are systemically quite interesting | compared to games 20 years ago. (yes really, Fortnite is | much more interesting than you might think looking at it | superficially) | | Defining "art" when it comes to games is of course | subjective. Some would say The Witness is much closer to | art than The Last of Us 2, while others would say the | opposite... but does it matter? Either way they're both | fantastic games. The medium is still being pushed | forward, you just have to know where to look. | hydrok9 wrote: | Like I said, there will always be innovative indie games. | But the AAA studios used to be important in driving | artistic and systemic innovation in games, because they | had the most money and visibility. | | Games like: Elite 2: Frontier, Star Control 2, Heroes of | Might and Magic, KOTOR 1 and 2, all had strong writing, | narrative, complex and difficult systems to manage, and | were innovative in their time. And none were "indie" | games (though at the time, some of these games could be | made by 1 or 2 people). This is a real difference. Just | look at the difference in Blizzard. Warcraft 2, | Starcraft, and Diablo 1 & 2 made them hugely influential | and successful because of their commitment to quality. | Now, they're a joke. But somehow, still one of the | biggest gaming companies in the world! | | It's not about defining art. It's about a push to create | games that can stand up to works of literature and cinema | which are considered to be important artistic | achievements. I'm happy to hear that there are titles out | their which are striving for that, but AAA studios aren't | doing that. In fact they actively push new titles as | being cutting edge while they retain or dumb down systems | that were created decades ago. | | Disagree hard on Fortnite. It is very shallow. The | building system seems interesting but is superficial. Yes | it's integral to winning the match, but its not very | strategic...just like Fortnite's shooting and physics are | quite cartoony and not very tactical. It is a VERY poor | "shooter," but a fun "battle royale game." There is a | difference these days. | | Minecraft was not a AAA game, it was just purchased by a | AAA studio. | | Again, I'm not saying that there aren't any games that | are artistic or interesting. In fact that's the opposite | of what I said in my original post! I'm saying that "The | Industry" (which will ALWAYS have the most market share, | visibility, and resources) is not creating those games. | They are not interested. And that is a sad change from | what used to be. | MattRix wrote: | My point was that the kind of budgets of AAA games have | now completely dwarf the "AAA" games from 20 years ago. | There are still innovative games being made with the | equivalent budgets and team sizes of those older games | (2-50 people, $10 million or less). | | On top of that, there are still massive budget AAA games | that are willing to take risks for artistic integrity. | Obvious examples of this are things like Death Stranding | or The Last of Us 2. | | Blizzard's quality hasn't actually fallen. They've | clearly had some internal culture issues but their games | have always been stellar. They just operate on glacial | timescales which everyone seems to forget. Their last | release was in 2016, which was Overwatch, a fantastic | game. | | And re: Fortnite, if you don't think the building is | strategic, you need to watch some high end competitive | matches. It's incredibly tactical. Each player acts like | a real time map designer trying to give themselves the | biggest positional advantage (while balancing resource | usage etc). I would argue that it uses the full | 3-dimensions more than any other competitive game out | there. | vanilla_nut wrote: | It's annoying that MS will probably pull the same crap they | did when they purchased Bethesda a couple of years ago: we | won't see releases of most Activision/Blizzard games on Sony | consoles going forward. | | This exclusivity game has to stop. I understand MS's | motivations -- they want people to buy their console, after | all. But it's awful that you can make an educated console | decision, and then two years later have a good chunk of games | stolen from you because of a merger. | | I concur that I'd really like to see Linux take the PC gaming | space over. Personally I feel that we should focus on indie | games and low-level platform compatibilty -- if enough users | switch to Linux, AAA studios will have to follow. Except the | MS-owned studios who have a standing order to ignore Linux, | of course... | Ilikeruby wrote: | The issue is a bit more than that. To make gamers and | normal users switch to linux we need to make more GUI apps | for linux and increase the accessability of linux GUI / DE. | | Just watch the LTT videos about gaming on Linux. Linux is a | Cluster** of an OS to troubleshoot and configure. | | I'm a dev myself I love my Arch and everything but this OS | is NOT meant for normal people. | | Its 2022, people don't want to fiddle around with a | terminal. | | Until Linux and its users don't fix the core problem of | linux and thats usability, I don't see people switching to | it. | | Maybe steam changes this.. but we will see.. | hajile wrote: | > Its 2022, people don't want to fiddle around with a | terminal. | | Is this a good thing though? | | Computer illiteracy seems to be at a new high-water mark | with the upcoming generation. They generally know how to | punch some buttons to make a few things work, but nothing | more. | | If anything, I think we should be teaching the basics of | the UNIX command line starting around 5th or 6th grade. | Get those kids playing around and learning a bit more | about their systems. Maybe teach a few little python or | Javascript one-liners to automate some stuff. Not | everyone will pick everything up, but a lot of overlooked | kids would find a new skill that will help them no matter | which direction their lives take them. | Ilikeruby wrote: | Just no. | | I love the terminal and everything but we should not | teach people how to use it. The terminal is not the most | user friendly thing out there is it? (maybe its harsh | saying "should not teach" but lets say make them aware | there is a terminal but there should be alterantives) | | I would not get rid of it.. ever, but I would love to see | alternatives to it. People are too fixated on working | from the terminal and using the terminal that they don't | see that its literally the thing that gate keeps people | away from trying Linux. | JAlexoid wrote: | I don't know about you, but I have to tinker with Windows | way more than I have to with Ubuntu. | | My terminal usage on MacOSX and Ubuntu is equal - only | running git commands and AWS CLI. And I play Steam games | on my Ubuntu Thinkpad P1. | Ilikeruby wrote: | Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Windows or Macs are | better, I do have a windows machine where I game and do | ocasionally some work, but they are miles better when | compared to Linux and its ecosystem. | | Have you ever tried running an old App on linux compared | to windows lets say? Windows compatibility is unmatched. | I can effortlessly run old programs and games. | | If a linux project is abandoned for a few years, good | luck making it run. (and I know you can always recompile | etc, but thats besides the point, no "normal" user will | compile an app) | JAlexoid wrote: | Which is not the argument that you originally posted. | | You repeated an old cliche(which is false) and now you | moved goalposts. | | PS: I've tried to run multiple Windows apps that wouldn't | run on Windows 11. I have an older In System Programming | software, that I have to run in a virtualized Windows XP. | So... | pjmlp wrote: | AAA studios already target Linux via Android and Stadia, | guess why they don't bother with GNU/Linux. | GreenWatermelon wrote: | Thankfully, Proton exists, which is what makes Linux gaming | something other than a pipedream. | lunfard000 wrote: | MS dont care you buying their console, barely make a dollar | out of it. It is all about gamepass | rileyphone wrote: | I'm really excited for the Steam deck sometime this year, | especially given GPU prices are what they are. | Interestingly, Valve's work on Proton/Wine has created a | situation where smaller developers are almost less likely | to target Linux first class, as the game can just run on | the compatability layer and save the dev the work of | obscure Linux issues that effect 1% of players. | wongarsu wrote: | > I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as | possible to be honest | | In what way is PC gaming attached to Microsoft? Microsoft | Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share in PC games | besides Minecraft, and the industry is very diverse. Most | games happen to run on Windows, but apart from DirectX they | have resisted every attempt from Microsoft to use that in any | way. | | If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve, but even that | is slowly changing. | WHA8m wrote: | > Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share | in PC games besides Minecraft | | You could see it coming that this is controversial. | | 1. Microsofts share in publishing video games isn't exactly | what you'd call small. They acquired Zenimax Media [1] last | year, which is kind of big. That said, Microsoft can't be | seen as a dominator in the publishing market. | | 2. But the argument wasn't necessarily about who owns the | most studios. Microsoft absolutely dominates in the | platform market on PC. Games are developed for Windows. | Period. Everything else is either niche or an extra. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_Media | wongarsu wrote: | I think my think my argument is mostly based on the | precise wording. Make it slightly broader and it would no | longer hold. | | 1) Microsoft holds a very respectable share of the video | game market (especially if you ignore mobile). But their | share of the _PC game market_ specifically is much | smaller. | | 2) Microsoft is the dominant platform of PC gaming | without question. But that doesn't make the market | attached to them. Being without alternative or having | high switching costs is what makes you attached, not | merely using it. Most games are inherently multi- | platform, either because they are built in an engine that | is or because they are also sold on other platforms | (mostly consoles). Not having Linux, Mac or SteamOS | builds is usually a business decision, not a technical | one. You could argue that they are attached to Microsoft | because that's where the consumers are, and that's true | in a sense. But that limits what kind of benefit | Microsoft can get out of the attachment and what kind of | damage they can do - at most as much as it takes to get | enough consumers to switch (dual boot, some SteamOS | device, etc). In a world where games sell platforms the | attachment isn't very strong | nathanaldensr wrote: | It's not either-or, it's both. Both Microsoft and Valve | play pivotal roles in PC gaming. | houseofzeus wrote: | > Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share | in PC games besides Minecraft | | Wow, that sucks. They should acquire someone with a bigger | catalogue! | wongarsu wrote: | They really should, but is Activision-Blizzard that | company? Of the 7 Activision releases in 2020 to now 4 | are Call of Duty, a game that's _much_ more popular on | consoles than on PC. Blizzard is the PC side of the | company, but they are mostly games that are slowly dying | due to mismanagement. The IP is very valuable, but | current PC sales alone wouldn 't make Microsoft dominant | by a long shot. | sascha_sl wrote: | They also acquired ZeniMax, which includes Arkane, id | Software, Bethesda Games Studios and MachineGames. | | And Obsidian Entertainment. And inXile. | robertlagrant wrote: | Microsoft are using their platform positions to sell games | on Xbox and PC in one, which others can't compete with | (because Xbox is a closed market), and their deep pockets | to fund Xbox Pass mean it is a little combative rather than | genuinely competitive. | ekianjo wrote: | > If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve | | PC Gaming runs on Windows, not on Valve's OS (while valve | is intending to change that progressively). | smileybarry wrote: | Which doesn't mean much as long as Windows runs on | anything x86 and costs OEMs (relative) peanuts. | | It's not like you have to pay royalties to Microsoft if | you sell a PC game (but you do have to pay MS/Sony if | it's a Xbox/PS game). | contravariant wrote: | I don't really share your impression that everything is | consolidated under large developers. Most of the games I've | bought over the last few years have all been from relatively | small studios (as far as I know anyway, it can be hard to | tell). | bogwog wrote: | Very impressive indeed. He was backed by a multibillion dollar | behemoth and, against all odds, and despite the commercial | failure of the Xbox One (something that would've bankrupted any | other company), he managed to keep the company afloat long | enough to launch another product. | | Spending ~$70bn to acquire another company is also impressive. | Sure, Microsoft has limitless resources, and using acquisitions | to hurt the competition is something they love to do, but | still.. He did it. This is his win. | jonny_eh wrote: | > Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at | Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" | | According to Wikipedia[0]: | | > Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios | EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios | such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008 | | He came to be in charge of Xbox via his experience managing | their internal studios. How's Lionhead doing these days btw? | | [0] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executi... | jahlove wrote: | The series Microsoft recently put out on Youtube about the | history of Xbox is surprisingly good: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60 | intended wrote: | I would hope so, I dont see activision blizzard being a great | acquistion. | ethbr0 wrote: | Hopefully they fire most of the management, retain what | technical talent they decide, and effectively reboot the | entire company. | islon wrote: | They already decide to keep Kotick... not a very good | start. | stephbu wrote: | Think of what you acquire when you acquire a company. You | acquire intellectual property - products & ideas, you | acquire people - future ideas, you acquire customer base | - players. If you behead the company you certainly will | lose critical people with it risking the products and | customer base too. This isn't Microsoft's first | acquisition, they'll manage realignment of the new | organization differently than just wholesale ejections. | I'm sure Bobby's new schedule has time for rest while he | vests. | hatch_q wrote: | All technical talent already left Blizzard - also the | reason why they didn't produce anything (of value) in last | 5 years. | NineStarPoint wrote: | They have plenty of technical talent, it's the artistic | vision that left. | raxxorrax wrote: | At least on the side of Blizzard, almost all of the | original creators and developers are gone by now, surely | some will follow after the merge. | ethbr0 wrote: | The video game development industry has a lot of | financial similarities to pharmaceutical development. | | As a major, why should I take the (large) risk to develop | novel product? When I can outsource that function to a | large number of smaller companies, who either go bankrupt | or produce something of value, which I can then afford to | pay a premium to acquire, after its value is known? I.e. | if I can substitute money for risk, why wouldn't I? | trey-jones wrote: | The IP is the real value here, so this seems likely. | d3ckard wrote: | Phil Spencer is my favorite executive. His work since he had | taken over has been splendid and I like his calm manner of | discussing competition. He doesn't make it into war. He seems | like a genuinely nice guy and I am happy to see him succeed. | madeofpalk wrote: | I 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. | JohnHaugeland wrote: | Yeah, because Activision Blizzard was doing so well on its | own | baby wrote: | Have you seen all the indie companies? | enkid wrote: | There 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 $20 | dollars made by independent studios. Of course, this is based | on mostly staying on PC and Steam. I would suspect consoles | are not as indie friendly, but it does seem like they have | some market access | phkahler wrote: | >> There actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. | | Yeah, but from TFA: | | >> Upon close, Microsoft will have 30 internal game | development studios, along with additional publishing and | esports production capabilities. | | I don't see a need for this and agree with the notion that | companies should not buy companies. There are cases where | it makes sense, but I think another mechanism needs to be | created because buying and selling companies is often too | much like buying and selling people in addition to being | anti-competitive. | tempest_ wrote: | The Nintendo Switch has a pretty healthy indie offering. | | Though there is the switch tax where games that are 10$ on | steam are 30 on switch. | bluescrn wrote: | A wide range of indie games being available doesn't mean | it's a viable business for the indies. Many are loss- | making passion projects. | JAlexoid wrote: | Passion projects cannot be described as "loss making". | | When passion projects become "loss making", then people | loose their passion for it. | The-Bus wrote: | Stadia also has a lot of indie games but thanks to their | sales, you end up with a comparable price to Steam sales. | Disco Elysium, for example, went on sale for US$18 vs. | ~$23 on Switch. Steam's sale price was ~$20. | docmars wrote: | This is the sole reason why I don't play Switch games | unless I can get them on sale, or they're exclusive like | BotW. | | I have a 14" gaming notebook (ASUS G14 2021) that's | portable enough and offers decent battery life especially | for lighter games with access to my Steam library | offline, and plenty of key shops to find games for uber | cheap when there's no demo available for me to vet the | value of a title first. | | Win-wins all around! | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Unfortunately, physical copies of games are not | depreciating; BotW, despite being five years old, is | still selling at full price. | | Good for them though, I mean it's a great game, and it | means the games don't depreciate much on the secondhand | market either. Although I'm confident people don't want | to sell physical Switch games, a lot of them have a lot | of life in them and become prized possessions. | fnord123 wrote: | > Win-wins all around! | | Do devs get more money from Steam than Switch on a per | unit basis? If not, using Steam means the dev is not | winning as much as they could. | cinntaile wrote: | You assume that the Steam users are willing to pay the | same price as Switch users, but that's not necessarily | the case. Volume matters as well, maybe the number of | Steam users is way more than the number of Switch users | so they can make up for the lower price by selling more. | docmars wrote: | Exactly this -- and devs selling on Steam have the choice | to participate in sales or not. | mcphage wrote: | Or how many $5/month (for all of them) Apple arcade games | are $15+ on the Switch. | ryanbrunner wrote: | The economics of game passes are like this with nearly | all of them. The XBox game pass has several games (on | both PC and XBox) where their price is multiples of the | monthly price. | [deleted] | jbverschoor wrote: | I hear nobody complaining about nintendotax | johnchristopher wrote: | Well, I complain about it by not buying a switch. Game | prices on the switch is why I haven't gave in to the | temptation yet. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | You say that like games aren't already kind of absurdly | cheap for how much work goes into them. People used to | pay $60 of 1980s money for, frankly, pretty shit[0] NES | games. That's ~$150 worth of money today. $30 games are | downright cheap and I'm continually impressed by how | entitled gamers can be when they complain about modern | game prices. People pay $30 for a decent meal at a | restaurant FFS. | | Which isn't to say that you _should_ by a switch. If you | don 't think it's a good value then obviously you | shouldn't. I'm just saying that not buying it because | 'the games are too expensive' seems like a pretty | unjustified complaint to me. | | [0] Not all of them were shit of course, but the | catalogue is 90% shit and people did buy a lot of shit | games. | lnxg33k1 wrote: | Well, consider that you could buy any kind of game first | hand for $60, then after finishing it, you could be able | to sell if and get some money back. | | Today you pay $30 (for some games, but a lot are still | $60, $80, etc.) Plus the DLC, credits, extensions, | registration to an account no ability to sell it or buy | second hand. | | Game industry got pretty bad, I've enjoyed it in the | past, and I have the ability to just move on and ignore | anything game related, what I am upset about is that | today's kids are squeezed and coerced in order to play | anything, and that is why I wish we had governments | trying to put a stop to the current gaming companies | greed | eropple wrote: | $60 was also worth quite a bit more in the heyday of | GameStop et al. | | What you characterize as "greed" is more reflective of | general consumer desires (physical media is pretty dead, | and I say this having a paper library of around 500 | books) and that games are ever-more-expensive to make. | | For the preposterous number of person-hours that go into | an AAA title, $100 isn't unrealistic. But there's price | anchoring dating back to the nineties now, and that as | much as anything is why games upsell the way they do. | (The "complete edition" prices are probably more | representative of what a sustainable price for a player | really is.) | | Or we can do microtransactions until our souls bleed and | go back to single-use codes in the game case. That's a | thing too. | krageon wrote: | > What you characterize as "greed" is more reflective of | general consumer desires | | While it is hilarious that you imply that vendor lockin, | half finished games, arbitrary difficulty curves meant to | stimulate mtx and a lack of ownership is a "general | consumer desire" I think it is more reasonable to say | that the consumer has no choice. They (or we) clearly | still desire to buy videogames, so folks end up buying | what is essentially trash. | eropple wrote: | The dichotomy isn't "buy AAA games" or "don't buy games". | It's never been a better time to buy indie games, many of | which these days are _super_ polished and rewarding | experiences. But the thing is? _If you want an AAA game | with AAA affordances_ , the cost of production is going | to have to come from somewhere. And--well--it certainly | seems like a lot of the market wants those games and | those affordances, so yeah, if the player is prioritizing | AAA games, then yes, they're expensive, and yes, they're | going to get more expensive, and you can either pay it at | the front door or once you're inside. | | You pay your money and you take your choice. I agree that | it's silly, and that's why I _don 't buy those games_. I | buy and play a lot of games, but it's been at least five | years since I bought a game (that didn't show up from | Humble Choice or whatever and is languishing in my game | keys spreadsheet) from Activision, EA, or Ubisoft. | | I have gotten more enjoyment out of Starsector[0], a game | that isn't even on Steam yet, than I've ever gotten out | of any AAA game I've ever played. It cost me $15. (I have | since bought it repeatedly for friends.) | | [0] - https://fractalsoftworks.com | lnxg33k1 wrote: | Yes i forgot about half finished games, that's another | perk of modern gaming world | lnxg33k1 wrote: | For the amount of person hours having a game sold for | $100 is a bit of nonsense, they sell in million worldwide | and the people working on it are laid off as soon the | production is over, so it's just shared holders and CEO | pocketing blood, are we really still thinking that people | doing the work are getting anything off the production | tata71 wrote: | Looking forward to trading used games and game assets on | ETH L2 (Loopring?). | bcrosby95 wrote: | A lot more than just inflation changed since the '80s. | Off the top of my head: massively larger market, better | tooling, better hardware, better distribution networks. | | Gaming companies aren't entitled to my money. They're | allowed to offer games for the prices they want, and the | market is allowed to buy them or not. | [deleted] | johnchristopher wrote: | > I'm continually impressed by how entitled gamers can be | when they complain about modern game prices | | > I'm just saying that not buying it because 'the games | are too expensive' seems like a pretty unjustified | complaint to me. | | That's because on this topic you are quick on making | judgements on people and don't (want to?) realize their | reasons for not buying a switch can be valid and these | reasons are not attack or counter arguments to the | reasons for why you would buy switch games. | | I am not an entitled gamer. | | edit: and FWIW I was checking the switch page for Disco | Elysium and I see that the price tag is the same as Gog's | (39.99) but now I don't care anymore about discussing | this topic here and now. Nintendotax gone ? Just checked | Life is stange:true colours, same price tags as steam. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | I guess the difference I'm trying to make is between "it | personally isn't worth that to me", which is of course | entirely valid, and a more objective-sounding statement | of "games cost too much", which I think any objective | analysis would say is ridiculous. | johnchristopher wrote: | I wrote: | | > Game prices on the switch is why I haven't gave in to | the temptation yet. | | Not: | | > Game prices on the switch is why it's not worth gave in | to the temptation yet. | | > I guess the difference I'm trying to make is between | "it personally isn't worth that to me", which is of | course entirely valid, and a more objective-sounding | statement of "games cost too much", which I think any | objective analysis would say is ridiculous. | | No, you built a straw man argument. | | Do I go around asking for a refund because The Witness | has been given for free and I paid for it in full upon | release ? That would be entitlement. Not buying a switch | because switch games are too expensive for me is not | being entitled. I also think not buying a switch because | I may think switch games are too expensive is not being | entitled. | | > [..] , which I think any objective analysis would say | is ridiculous. | | Yeah, way to go. First you suggest in a reply to me that | people who think like you think I do are entitled and | then you state your opinion is objective and then throw a | blanket statement about something no one said and suggest | this position is objectively ridiculous. | | Fitting username. | bitofhope wrote: | If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how | come are the game companies getting bigger and making | record profits year after year? Not that the median game | developer seems to be much better off for it, though. | | Besides, many of those $10 games that are $30 on the | Switch are made by smaller teams or even solo creators. | Just because some video game properties have grown into | giant franchises with multimedia companies pouring tens | and hundreds of millions dollars and armies of people | into them, that doesn't mean the majority of video game | titles around are like that. | | Come to think of it, in the light of the countless recent | stories of overwork and abuse in the games industry and | the scandalous quality issues plaguing high-profile | releases in recent years, I'm not even sure if we should | be incentivizing games having a lot of work go into them. | | How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost | more than you think they are worth, anyway? Expensive | things don't become cheap just because they're cheaper | than four decades ago nor because they happen to be | created and marketed by large corporations with lots of | employees. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfyxWaeGCE | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | > If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, | how come are the game companies getting bigger and making | record profits year after year? Not that the median game | developer seems to be much better off for it, though. | | That's a fair point. My first guess is lootboxes and | microtransactions being used to make up the difference, | as well as underpaying employees. For big studios it is | common to lay off developers immediately after a big | release. | | Regardless, I don't think that same logic applies to | smaller studios. | | > How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost | more than you think they are worth, anyway? | | That isn't what I was saying, though I admit I didn't | make it very clear. If you don't want to buy something | because the cost isn't worth it to you, that's perfectly | fair. What I am annoyed by and think is entitled is any | kind of objective-sounding judgement that 'games are too | expensive'. | adgjlsfhk1 wrote: | there are some major differences that mean inflation | isn't the best indication for price | | the biggest is market size. in 1980, there were very few | people buying games compared to today. | | also, for non-aaa games, the difficulty of making a game | has in many ways gone down significantly. NES era games | were at the absolute limit of hardware capabilities, and | required a ton of wizardry to fit within size | constraints. now graphics expectations are higher, but | modern computers are so much more powerful that you can | afford a lot more sloppiness. | mastax wrote: | That may be true, but the switch exists in a market where | games are extremely cheap. High quality free to play | games, cheap indie games I play for weeks, steam sales, | huge numbers of games given away by Epic Games, "free" | games with prime gaming, and the insane value of Game | Pass. It feels like every time I spend money on a game | its free on the Epic Store or "free" on Game Pass within | a few months. There's never been a cheaper time to be a | PC gamer... assuming you already have a PC. | | I still play $60 for games because it's not a big deal | for me but it's weird when I already have so much | entertainment available for almost nothing. Playnite says | I have 1050 games available to play, about 50 are | duplicates and about 350 are from Game pass. I've | apparently spent less than $600 on steam and much less | than that on all other stores. Seems like the market | value of the average game is about $1. (Hands waving | furiously) | krumpet wrote: | Consider the total hours games like BotW offer and divide | that into the price. That might alter your feelings that | game prices are too high. I know it did for me. | jbverschoor wrote: | It was about the nintendotax, not the games.. Just like | 'AppleTax' of 30%. | erikpukinskis wrote: | It's better than the Apple tax where devs have to | silently pay whatever fee Apple demands because of the | gag order. | jbverschoor wrote: | Do you really think Nintendo doesn't require an NDA? And | that they take less than the 30% from Apple? | mcphage wrote: | I grumble about it, but I buy them anyway, because | they're worth it. | yaomtc wrote: | Don't you have to continue paying the subscription to | continue to be able to access those games? | mcphage wrote: | You do--so if I like a game enough, I'll pick it up | elsewhere, too. But digital games as a whole get harder | to play over time. I've moved my DSi games to my 3DS, and | I've got a Wii with a whole bunch of titles. | toyg wrote: | But one is forever and one is only for as long as you | maintain indentured servitude to the richest company on | the planet. | the_other wrote: | > maintain indentured servitude | | The "lock-in" and the lack of ownership/copyright | extension for media provided by their service is | absolutely a problem, but it's not "servitude". There's a | couple of other members of FAANG where the relationship | with users is much more like servitude. | toyg wrote: | The fact that one lord is more benevolent than another | doesn't mean that the feudal system, as a whole, is just | fine. | erikpukinskis wrote: | I will maintain servitude to Apple for the rest of my | life because of iMessage: if I leave they can subtly | "break" my access to messaging with people I care about | (and have done so.) | oarsinsync wrote: | > because of iMessage: if I leave they can subtly "break" | my access to messaging with people I care about (and have | done so.) | | Even if you made sure to unregister your phone number and | email addresses from iMessage first? You can do this | while still using an iPhone to validate that it's worked | before you give it up. | kergonath wrote: | > Even if you made sure to unregister your phone number | and email addresses from iMessage first? You can do this | while still using an iPhone to validate that it's worked | before you give it up. | | You are right, of course. And you can also do it | afterwards if you forgot. There is no nefarious plan to | void your messages when you change phone. | monkey_monkey wrote: | Ideological language like this just makes it easy to | dismiss you and your arguments. | toyg wrote: | And despite that, you still failed to do it. | bzzzt wrote: | Forever seems like a stretch. When Switch is succeeded, | how long before Nintendo shuts the Switch shop down? You | can't legally move downloaded games between consoles. | colejohnson66 wrote: | This was a big issue with WiiWare when Nintendo shut down | the Wii Shop. People could keep what they had downloaded, | but once the Shop shut down, you couldn't redownload | anything. | mcphage wrote: | > People could keep what they had downloaded, but once | the Shop shut down, you couldn't redownload anything | | You can still redownload things. Nintendo says at some | point they'll turn that off, but they haven't said when | yet. | colejohnson66 wrote: | Ah. My mistake. My point still stands: you're at the | whims of Nintendo. | toyg wrote: | Download is only one way to buy Switch games, and at | least I'll still be able to use one console - compared to | zero as soon as I stop paying my feudal obligations to | Apple. | colejohnson66 wrote: | Not every game on the Switch Store is available on | cartridge | toyg wrote: | Still more than the zero available for iOS. | nottorp wrote: | Also most indie games require more brainpower than what | Apple Arcade offers. Apple wouldn't know a complex game | if a pile of discs with them fell on their heads. | spiderice wrote: | That's kind of the point. What's an Apple Arcade game | doing on the switch at all? It's just a money grab to | sell a mobile game on the switch. | scoot wrote: | "Indentured". | toyg wrote: | ta, fixed | salicideblock wrote: | I've noticed :/ | | I'm hoping the Steam Deck will provide a more open | portable console. | Zhyl wrote: | If the Deck takes off, we will see lots of other | handhelds following the same blueprint too. | officeplant wrote: | We already have piles of handheld PC's taking off with or | without the Deck at this point. I'd love an AYA NEO if | the prices weren't so high. | schmorptron wrote: | I wouldn't be too sure to be honest, only companies with | a big game platorm can compete with Valve being able to | subsidize these and sell them at cost or less, because | most game purchases one them will be through steam. | campbel wrote: | The last three games I fell in love with; Hollow Knight, | Ori, Souls Series, have me believing this. You can build | amazing games with a smaller team these days which is | incredibly inspiring. | baby wrote: | A short hike, celeste, katana zero, ... | Cthulhu_ wrote: | I've been playing Control on consoles, great game, | independent studio. Not a small studio either. | | Hollow Knight was great; if I hadn't nearly fully | completed it at the time I probably would have started | another playthrough already. | docmars wrote: | Think of Valheim too -- a team of 5 made one of the best | selling titles of 2021 with a 95% rating on Steam to this | day. That's freaking impressive! | 1_player wrote: | Also Outer Wilds, Subnautica. Small teams that have made | Game of the Year winners. | Hamuko wrote: | Souls is part of Kadokawa Corporation (which has | investment from Tencent). Ori's studio is independent but | they've had pretty close ties to Microsoft. | password54321 wrote: | The indie scene is great for people who like roguelikes and | platformers. If you are looking for much outside of that | space, you won't find much. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | I wonder where do Paradox strategy games fall, Crusader | Kings / Europa Universalis ones. They definitely don't | look AAA, despite offering a very deep gameplay. | muzani wrote: | There's tycoon games and strategy too. Stardew Valley and | Rimworld are at the top of their genres. And games like | Dominions, Telltale games. Horror might be up there. | | Do we count mods? DotA and CS would be indie if so, but | are now quite commercial. | Aunche wrote: | There is no storage of indie RPGs and survival-style | games either (e.g. Disco Elysium, No Man's Sky, Valheim) | bluefirebrand wrote: | You're right that a lot of indie games are metroidvanias | or roguelites. However, AAA games exist on an incredibly | narrow scope these days too. You have shooters, sports, | open-world action games, and that's basically it. Rarely | do you see big studios deviate into unknown or | experimental mechanics. | | Indie studios have produced a lot of games with varied | mechanics that are just a huge breath of fresh air for | me, personally. | | You'd never see a AAA studio making Factorio or | Satisfactory, for instance. Probably unlikely to see them | make a game like Darkest Dungeon, or Don't Starve, or | Stardew Valley or Terraria or Starbound or.. the list | goes on. You just might have to look a bit deeper to dig | through the roguelikes and platformers. | thereddaikon wrote: | That's not true. Microprose is back and have a lot of | indie developed titles coming out this year. They are | almost singlehandedly bringing the wargaming genre back | from the dead. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | All I want from MicroProse is a modern Darklands remake. | pdimitar wrote: | And shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups. It's what I mainly buy | on my Switch when there are sales. | | But yeah, not many games between AAA and indie. :( | enkid wrote: | Roguelike just means you can beat it in one sitting now, | which is a very good niche for indie games if you think | about it. Slay The Spire, FTL, Rogue Legacy, and For the | King are all "roguelike" but fill completely different | niches in terms of actual gameplay and features and all | are awesome. | owalt wrote: | A little reductive I would say? I would add at least: | | * Puzzle (The Witness, Baba is You, Antichamber, Manifold | Garden, ...) | | * Survival/open-world (Minecraft, Terraria, Don't Starve, | Subnautica, The Long Dark, ...) | | * Horror (Amnesia, Outlast, Layers of Fear, Five Nights | at Freddy's ...) | | * Management/simulation (Factorio, Stardew Valley, Kerbal | Space Program, ...) | | * Metroidvanias (Cave Story, Hollow Knight, Ori and the | Blind Forest, ...) | | * "Walking simulators" (The Stanley Parable, Gone Home, | Firewatch, ...) | | Some of these maybe you'd disagree with (Are | Metroidvanias just platformers? Can Minecraft still be | put on a list of indie games?), but I personally think | it's a crime to omit at least puzzle games and survival | games. The offerings from the AAA space for those is not | very impressive compared to the indie space. | emptyfile wrote: | Don't forget 20 survival games per year. | aaronblohowiak wrote: | Donut county, poly bridge, angry goose game.. I'd say | there is way more variation in indie games | spmurrayzzz wrote: | This isn't true, there are plenty of trivial examples to | counter this notion. | | e.g. Annapurna Interactive has been publishing AAA- | quality titles from indie devs for a long time. And most | of those games don't fall into the roguelike or | platformer vertical. | galangalalgol wrote: | What is a good way to discover these? | bocytron wrote: | You can use the indie tag on steam, or search games under | $20, or you can directly ask Google, or Reddit | | https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=Top | Rat... | lelandfe wrote: | I like to follow RPS' reviews page, it introduces me to a | lot of PC indie games I'd generally miss in my filter | bubble: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/wot-i- | think | tootie wrote: | Go browse itch.io for some inspiration. There's thousands | of indie games there. A lot are no more than student | projects and demos, but some are really polished and | inventive. | behnamoh wrote: | I found some of them on Apple Arcade. | jtmetcalfe wrote: | I love indie games but I also wish there was a middle | ground between the current generation of AAA titles (not | typically my cup of tea) and the indie community | Semaphor wrote: | For RPGs, that middle-ground seems pretty healthy. No | idea about shooters and other action games, as I don't | play those. | [deleted] | sixothree wrote: | There does seem to be a void in between the two. It's so | rare I come across one that it's a surprise. Hell Let | Loose was one of those surprises for me. It's definitely | in the space of "AA but not AAA" games. | wodenokoto wrote: | I play almost exclusively Nintendo and indie games on my | switch. | | There is quite a Nintendo tax on indie games though. | soderfoo wrote: | The group of truly indie studios is dwindling | unfortunately. | | Tencent and Microsoft have both spread a lot of money | around. Perhaps for varying reasons, namely MS needs to | make up for the lack of titles developed for the Xbox | Series, and add titles to Game Pass to make it more a more | attractive offering. | skazazes wrote: | Valheim, developed by a new indie studio of 5 people, | just won PC Gamer's GOTY | DrBazza wrote: | I can think of several recent releases without even | searching: Melkhior's Mansion was released this week, | Slipways earlier in the year, and Midnight Fight Express | coming soon. I don't know if that's representative of | indie games or not. | | There's so many platforms to build for, and on some | (xbox/ps5) a high(er) barrier to entry, vs. low on the | PC, or mobile. I'm not surprised that there's much indie | action on the xbox/ps5. | krajzeg wrote: | As the author of Slipways, it warms my heart to see it | mentioned randomly in a HN comment! | | As an indie game developer (hard to get more indie than | me, I think, since I'm doing this mostly solo), I can | attest that it's never been easier to get your game on | Steam or a console platform. On Steam it's mostly a | matter of a $100 fee and filling a form. Consoles are a | bit harder, but still dramatically more open to indie | titles than say a decade ago, and all of them are | possible to get on even for small developers. | | I also wouldn't say that "the group of indie dev studios | is dwindling". It's just a matter of the old indie | studios "growing up" to become bigger enterprises, but | there is tons of other people replacing them on the | lowest rung, with teams of several people and true labor | of love projects. | baby wrote: | Do you have a switch? I can't make sense of your comment | honestly | ianhawes wrote: | > The group of truly indie studios is dwindling | unfortunately. | | This is inaccurate. | | I don't have the stats to back it up, but the power of | Unity Engine and Unreal Engine have effectively created | an indie game developer renaissance. | | One of my favorite games at the moment, Hell Let Loose, | is published by an indie studio that started in 2017 as a | Kickstarter project. They launched their PC version last | summer and successfully launched an Xbox port this past | fall. It is objectively a better (but harder) game than | COD WWII or Battlefield V, both of which are considered | AAA titles and have had hundreds of millions put into | them for development. | | Combine that with the lower barrier to entry with the | discoverability of games on Steam and Xbox marketplaces | and you have a very hot market. Oh, and consumers play | video games now more than ever. | kevinventullo wrote: | Ironically, HLL is a lot closer to the original BF1942 | than any other game I've seen recently. | vintermann wrote: | Yes, the problem is that the reliance on these few | engines is a worrying form of concentration in itself. | Especially for the Unreal engine, which is used | aggressively to push the Epic games store. How | independent are they really when they're so dependent on | a single software vendor? | | And, to my eyes, Epic uses openly monopolistic practices: | they drop the license fee for the engine if you use their | game store. | lowbloodsugar wrote: | I'm having the opposite experience. I dropped probably | $400 on games over the holidays and found three games I | wanted to play. | | I used to make games, so I hated when people used | GameStop because it avoided the developers getting any | money. But now I'm thinking that GameStop would be great, | because most all but three of the games I bought just | suck. | | These online-purchase-only systems frankly need a one- | hour refund policy. So many games where the controls are | just jank (like 100% janky). Like everyone looked at | Celeste and thought "This game is good because it's hard" | instead of "This game is good because it rewards skill". | I'd rather play Celeste and Returnal than these other | utter wastes of hard drive. I only made it through | Unsighted because you can make yourself invulnerable: fun | story, fun ideas, fun levels, jank combat. | | Bah humbug. | enkid wrote: | Doesn't Steam offer refunds for he's purchased within 48 | hours or something? | lowbloodsugar wrote: | I'll check that out. Most of 'em were PS5, and once you | download them you can't get a refund. | vymague wrote: | Inaccurate in what way? Indie studios getting bought by | Tencent is true. | tomnipotent wrote: | > The group of truly indie studios is dwindling | unfortunately. | | Have you looked at Steam recently? Indie studios are | doing just fine, and new indie studios are popping up all | the time. I'd argue the indie market is stronger than | ever. | cwilkes wrote: | What about profitable indie studios? Sure there's a lot | of games made by small companies, but how many are around | for a 2nd game that isn't just a shadow of their first | game? | | I don't have any stats but would find that interesting, | mainly as I'm not sure how much revenue indie studios | have. Is the split like 10% get most of the money while | the other 90% starve? | derefr wrote: | I assume by "truly indie" they mean "bootstrapped or | invested by neutral/disinterested VCs" -- as opposed to | | 1. invested in by one of the platform owners themselves, | in exchange for a [temporary] exclusivity agreement, | making them essentially a sharecropper on the platform; | or | | 2. invested in almost exclusively by a single bigcorp | publisher, making the studio essentially a secret marque | of that publisher for projects they don't want associated | with their regular brand image. | | Many of the games that later make it to Steam, were | originally funded by either one of the platform owners, | or by a bigcorp publisher. | smoldesu wrote: | > I assume by "truly indie" they mean "bootstrapped or | invested by neutral/disinterested VCs" | | This is such a narrow, HN-ified view of indie developers | that I genuinely have a hard time believing this is | anything other than satire. | tomnipotent wrote: | Changing the definition still doesn't change how many | indie studios are out there. There's been zero evidence | here that there isn't a healthy indie market, but plenty | that there is. | | > Many of the games that later make it to Steam, were | originally funded by either one of the platform owners | | My account is full of games (including top sellers) with | no such arrangements. And I have more access to such | games than at any time in history. | derefr wrote: | These indie companies are no more _independent_ (the | meaning of the word "indie") than a person hawking MLM | products is _independent_. They 're effective employees | of a bigcorp -- with all the same danger of being "fired" | by their publisher at any time for misbehavior. | | > What evidence? My account is full of games (including | top sellers) with no such arrangements. | | Ignore indie games that have been on Steam for years and | years, or that _only_ get published on Steam and no other | platforms; these are the exceptions to the rule (despite | this set containing some of the largest hits by sales | volume.) | | While there are studios that sell _only_ on Steam and | other low-barrier-to-entry channels, 99% of them don 't | last more than a year or two, because selling _only_ on | Steam is leaving almost all your money on the ground. | There 's a reason that many of these games don't get | support updates any more and won't run on e.g. macOS or | Linux after any major OS update, despite originally | intending support for those platforms: the studio didn't | survive. | | And while there are indie studios that _eventually_ take | their console-exclusive game over to Steam, it 's often | still published _by_ the publisher on Steam. Take a | careful look at the Steam catalog page for the | "publisher" field. If there is one? That's who's making | the direct revenue on the game sales. Like the publisher | of a book. The "author" -- the studio -- is only getting | a commission. | | There are a few indie studios who manage to "earn out" | their deals with publishers, and take over their own | Steam pages (though not usually their console marketing | rights -- the platform owners don't like dealing with the | long tail of self-publishers, they much prefer well-known | bigcorps as marketing partners.) | tomnipotent wrote: | I once found a rock that turned out to be a fossil. | Therefore, all rocks are fossils. That's the logic I'm | reading from this. | | > Don't look at the game as it exists on Steam > Instead, | look at any game that's still console exclusive. | | So I should ignore all the evidence that refutes your | position, and only look at a limited subset of data that | does support it? | | Having a publisher doesn't invalidate a companies indie | label. Being "indie" has never meant being bootstrapped. | tomnipotent wrote: | Here's just a small list of games I found in less than 5 | minutes of looking. - Five Nights at | Freddy - The Binding of Isaac - Hollow Knight | - Carrion - Loop Hero - Factorio | - Phasmophobia - Frostpunk - Valheim | - Satisfactory - Deep Rock Galactic - Stardew | Vallley - RimWorld - Terraria - Dead | Cells - Cuphead - Among Us - Project | Zomboid | soderfoo wrote: | Dwindling as in Tencent showing up with a bag of cash and | buying a board seat when a studio hits whatever financial | metrics they are tracking. | | FWIW, I have heard they are hands-off and offer | resources, like great groups for closed alphas. | | The only concern I have is that they can become more | hands on and excersie control over creative decisions in | the future. | | Personally, I value good stories from mid sized indy | studios. The dominance of 2 engines can make things feel | a bit homogenized. Pair a great story with another | engine, and my interest is piqued. | zenron wrote: | You are not entitled to play games or buy platforms. It is a | net negative for the gaming industry to be limited in their | revenue streams. You cannot split the baby because some | customers CHOSE to buy PS5 but the game THEY want to play is | on Xbox. If they want to play it, buy an XBOX too. If that is | too expensive, the gamer should increase their disposable | income. | | Gaming is not a human right. | hannasanarion wrote: | Forcing people to buy some of your products in order to use | others of your products is called "tying" and it's illegal | monopolization. | JAlexoid wrote: | No. It's not. | | Apple is not obligated to invest into building Apple | Music app on Android or Windows. Just because Apple tied | Apple Music into their own ecosystem, doesn't mean you | are owed anything. | madeofpalk wrote: | (poor example because Apple Music _is_ on Android and | Windows heh) | JAlexoid wrote: | Replace it with iMessage then. | mro_name wrote: | > resume bump | | yes, because what would he do without. | docmars wrote: | While I mostly agree with you, I think Microsoft is doing | this to compete directly with Sony's plethora of studios to | offer more AAA titles on Xbox and Windows exclusively -- so | from that light, it's not entirely a bad thing. | | We already know that Bethesda is keeping their autonomy to | make the same great games we love from them, and Starfield is | a chance to prove it. The only downside being: Playstation | owners losing out on playing what may end up being among the | most popular titles in the next 5-10 years if Starfield and | TES6 are a success. | madeofpalk wrote: | > with Sony's plethora of studios to offer more AAA titles | on Xbox and Windows exclusively | | Which is also a bad thing!!! | docmars wrote: | Valid. I am torn between both because I like to see | console makers competing and having a reason to innovate | somewhere, but as a consumer, I want the ability to play | games on any system the developer is willing to support, | too. | madeofpalk wrote: | Buying up studios and locking their games down is not | innovation. | bun_at_work wrote: | If the competition exists for Sony already, why is it | necessary for Microsoft to own that competition? | | Activision Blizzard already competed with Sony, which is | why people think the market is more healthy prior to this | acquisition. | | In your comment you point out that Bethesda still has their | autonomy. So why is it good again for MS to be acquiring | these studios? They continue to make the same product in | more or less the same way, but now have to appease their MS | gods, all while generating more profit for MS to the | benefit of not really anyone, except MS. | docmars wrote: | Points taken! Which is why I mostly agree with the GP. I | can't name a single acquisition that did more for the | consumer than what was already on offer, so I am | generally against them. | | My last comments were more in the shoes of Microsoft. | brightball wrote: | Oddly, 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 wrote: | It'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. | 4e530344963049 wrote: | Does CoD become an Xbox/Windows exclusive? | ptntl wrote: | No chance. COD has consistently been a huge money maker on PS | and Vanguard was #1 last year. They would lose out on way too | much revenue, not to mention that massive negative sentiment | that would bring towards Xbox and big game / console | manufacturers. I think certain games like Halo and maybe some | Bethesda will stay (ones that have previously been | exclusive). But acquiring a AAA company and then cutting off | half of your customer base seems like a big mistep. | ptntl wrote: | In addition, I believe they have already announced they | plan to continue support for other consoles/systems, and | they definitely announced they support a PS "gamepass". | Wouldn't be surprised if ABK would be included in a PS | gamepass (Microsoft ultimately makes money from that). | etempleton wrote: | I think there is some chance that future CoD will not be | on PlayStation. They might even be used as a bargaining | chip to get game pass on PlayStation. I could see it as, | "if you let us put game pass on PlayStation we will sell | Microsoft games on your storefront, including Cod. If | not, no CoD." | | This paints Sony as the unwilling party. Microsoft can | say, "we would love to have CoD on PlayStation." | | Why else buy them? Most Blizzard games are PC first | anyway. | viktorcode wrote: | I don't think Sony has anything against GamePass on | PlayStation as long as Microsoft pays its revenue share. | After all, there's EA pass on PlayStation. | The-Bus wrote: | Sony (the studio) is an "arms dealer" and works with many | different streamers. No reason they can't do the same on | the gaming side and release, say, Spider-man, on Gamepass | or Stadia after sales on their own consoles slow down. | JAlexoid wrote: | Microsoft isn't Apple, they have been much more open as of | late. | | I doubt that existing franchises will become exclusive. | kaesar14 wrote: | All of the Bethesda games have already been said to be | exclusive to Xbox from here on. | JAlexoid wrote: | That is factually untrue. | | https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/xbox-phil-spencer- | bethesda... | kaesar14 wrote: | What are you talking about? That article literally says | they're focused on delivering games exclusively to | platforms that support GamePass. The next Elder Scrolls | and Fallout games will not be on Playstation. | [deleted] | WillPostForFood wrote: | Bethesda is AAA, and we've already seen that Microsoft is | willing to sacrifice revenue short term, by dropping the | PS5 version fo Starfield, in order to drive long term | GamePass subscription and revenue. There is no point in | taking the risk of making a huge acquisition just to share | the games with your #1 competitor. | | I'd like to see this acquisition blocked, it will be bad | for gaming long term to have so much control with one | company. | sascha_sl wrote: | Console exclusivity is no longer the driving force for | revenue, that's GamePass. | | Selling full versions everywhere else is good business, we | saw that from both Microsoft and Sony making more PC ports - | and for Xbox it is yet another driver into their subscription | model. | WillPostForFood wrote: | Until GamePass is on Playstation, putting Microsoft games | on Playstation doesn't drive subscription revenue. We | already see future Bethesda titles being withdrawn from | PS5, I don't see why this would be different. | sascha_sl wrote: | There's a difference between "native" MS studios from | before the current aquisition wave and recent | acquisitions made to bolster GamePass. Last I checked | Deathloop did release on Playstation, at least. | bitwize wrote: | Microsoft owns CoD, Doom, Quake, Minecraft, Fallout, Elder | Scrolls, and soon Warcraft, Starcraft, and Overwatch. | | They're becoming the Disney of gaming, which is scary, but hey, | Microsoft gonna Microsoft. | baud147258 wrote: | well, maybe once they're in the extinguish phase, it will | make room for other gaming companies? | ArtWomb wrote: | >>> Disney of Gaming | | Yes. I mean the sub-headline is XboxGamePass is now 25M+ | subscribers. Logical next step isn't even games: it's | convergence. | | Curious we don't see similar consolidation in the Japanese | market: Square Enix, Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, Bandai Namco, | From. Even Nintendo. All seem attractive targets, no? | saynay wrote: | Maybe it is just my ignorance, but that type of | consolidation seems rare in any market in Japan, not just | gaming. | manuelabeledo wrote: | I would say that if there is anything Japanese, and many | other asian big corporations, are known for, is | consolidation. | | Samsung, Toyota, Hyundai, Sony... They all are huge | conglomerates spawning across multiple industries. | uncletaco wrote: | They aren't really consolidated so much as they're | interlocked. Many of the largest companies in Japan own | stock in all of the other largest companies in Japan. It | diversifies their holdings and insulates them from market | fluctuations while maintaining their independence. | saynay wrote: | I was thinking of those too, but did they get that way | via acquisitions or by entering new markets? | manuelabeledo wrote: | It's really a bit of everything. Some like Fuji, Hyundai, | or Toyota, I believe have been historically diversifying | across several different markets. | | Sony did expand on some fronts via acquisitions, e.g. | Sony Electronics acquiring Konica-Minolta, Sony | Electronic Entertainment acquiring several studios, etc. | bitwize wrote: | That's because the Japanese game companies are more or less | in friendly coopetition with each other. Both Namco and | Sega run game centers (arcades), which means they're buying | each other's games to populate said centers (as well as | other manufacturers' games). And then there's Smash Bros., | in which many of Nintendo's competitors (including | Microsoft -- twice) went to Nintendo and said, "hey, could | you feature _our_ characters too? " And then there's Mario | & Sonic at the Olympics... | boringg wrote: | They do own those legacy games but sadly Starcraft is not | going to be re-born anytime soon - maybe warcraft IV but we | will see. | | What will happen to Bobby Kotick now? | chx wrote: | I presume they didn't want to pin such a big acquisition on | him leaving but I wouldn't be making any bets on him still | being with Microsoft in 2023. | saynay wrote: | Yeah, keeping the execs around for a while after an | acquisition before they quietly exit seems common. | boringg wrote: | 4 year cliff typically unless acquirer wants to push them | out. | MangoCoffee wrote: | >Starcraft is not going to be re-born anytime soon | | you don't need to make another Starcraft game. you can use | that IPs to develop different kind of game like Warcraft is | used to make Hearthstone the card game. | | Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard's IPs | UnpossibleJim wrote: | Why they never used Starcraft to compete in the same | game-space as Eve Online or Star Citizen is beyond me... | though, I think that's just wishful thinking on my part. | Love the IP of one and the game play of the other =[ | boringg wrote: | True if your goal is to make money. | | Starcraft was just a fantastic game - people have been | playing it for decades. Not sure how financially | successful it has been (fairly well I would imagine) but | it has a legion fan base. | mobilio wrote: | That's true! | | Almost everyday play map or two on SC:R. | sarsway wrote: | Well Microsoft just released Age of Empires 4, which turned | out surprisingly well, best RTS since Starcraft 2. I'd say | chances we're going to see anything SC3 or WC4 related only | went up by this. Maybe there will even be a WoW2 finally. | | About time other studios get a chance to work with | Blizzards IPs, they did well creating all those beautiful | universes, but they struggle so much making just one new | game every few years. | WHA8m wrote: | In the back of my head I thought AoE4 has had | disappointing reviews, but they scored 81 at MetaCritic | [1]. [1] https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/age-of- | empires-iv | blargpls wrote: | Looks like he will stay (for now): | | > 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. | lvass wrote: | Haven't you heard? They <3 Linux now, they'll never use their | position to lock people into their platforms again. They even | promised they'll be good. | bitexploder wrote: | Well, if they promised. | JAlexoid wrote: | If they don't get an idealistic visionary, they will | probably just follow the best course for doing business - | serving as many people as possible. | johannes1234321 wrote: | they <3 people running Linux on Azure. But the Windows | Server PMs certainly don't like Linux. A large corporation | isn't fully uniform. | Ygg2 wrote: | So did Google. Turns out promises don't matter. | Siira wrote: | The comment is a reference to the song Not Evil. | vetinari wrote: | thatsthepoint.jpg | | I've read the GP comment with a strong dose of sarcasm. | squarefoot wrote: | > They <3 Linux | | They love _their_ Linux. I won 't be surprised at all if | some key games would magically become less compatible with | WINE in the future. | ethbr0 wrote: | Can we take a moment to appreciate the irony of decrying | platform lock-in when talking about the company that | successfully launched a new gaming console against... | Nintendo and Sony? | | The world, it be complicated, yo. | lvass wrote: | The fact someone else did something is an absurd | justification to do it as well. In a practical level, | Xbox is much more locked in than Nintendo, as all | Nintendo consoles have PC emulators for it and the | devices can be jailbroken. | qwytw wrote: | Are there even any games still that are only released on | Xbox but not Windows so that you might need an | "emulator"? | ethbr0 wrote: | It's not absurd: it's literally proof of a viable and | sustainable business model. | | Consoles have always been packaged, standardized, and | locked computers. That Nintendo is bad at security isn't | proof of any great altruism. It just means they're not | good at secure hardware design. | bitwize wrote: | Except they weren't -- until Nintendo came along with | their 10NES lockout chip. | | Actually Texas Instruments had a go at it with their | beige TI-99/4A, but by the time that came out most of the | TI-99/4As that would ever be sold were already sold, | without the lockout. But it was the NES that turned the | locked box into a business model. | fnord123 wrote: | Awesome news for gaming on Linux. As we all know Microsoft <3 | Linux. | OnlyLys wrote: | It's not like Activision / Blizzard really cared about | Linux gaming anyways. | saghm wrote: | I've had fairly good experiences running Blizzard games | under wine over the years. Diablo 3, StarCraft | Remastered, and a few others tend to work pretty much | perfectly. Based on the versions of Visual Studio and | stuff that get pulled in when installing them, I have to | wonder if the secret to making a game run well on Wine is | just to stick with older versions of the Window-specific | libraries rather than the cutting edge. | martin_a wrote: | Look, I found a "/s" under my desk, did you lose this by | any chance? | ryathal wrote: | Hopefully they can start to force Sony into a world where | cross console play is a thing if they have enough of the | marquee franchises. | WHA8m wrote: | Seems somewhat imaginable, since they'll try to do that | with Windows and Xbox obviously. At some point with enough | games to support that, PlayStation owners will feel left | out and Sony might follow. Who knows... | geerlingguy wrote: | And Halo, if we're counting seminal console franchises. | zuppy wrote: | And Diablo. I'm worried for this. | Frost1x wrote: | I'm hoping it just means Diablo 3 released sooner since | Microsoft has a mountain of resources. | | I'm curious how game development is under the large tech | companies like Microsoft. Game development is notoriously | recognized as a slave driving industry for the labor | force. Massive tech companies, like Microsoft, aren't | exactly known as places to slack in the software world, | but they also don't seem to have as toxic of a labor | culture as the gaming companies who pass mountains of | costs to their labor to remain competitive (Amazon | perhaps being the exception here). | rvba wrote: | Good news for you, Diablo 3 is already out! | | (Itemization and damage looks very bad in Diablo 4 | previews though - damage in hundreds of thousands and | "strictly better" items instead of trade offs) | Frost1x wrote: | Correction, Diablo 4 (you can tell how much I play!). But | thats disappointing to hear :( | apatters wrote: | Sounds lovely for the suits. | | As a longtime Blizzard fan and a former Microsoft employee, | maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit, but there's | really only one thing I care about: | | Will they finally start getting the fucking games right again? | katbyte wrote: | Hopefully first they will fire everyone responsible for | cultivating a toxic culture culminating in sexually harassing | a women to suicide and having a "Cosby" room at events. Don't | care how good of games they are when thats the company behind | them. | [deleted] | hydrok9 wrote: | As a fellow longtime Blizzard fan and someone who retired | from gaming (in part due to being too old for this shit), | | Don't get your hopes up :) | lgessler wrote: | Old Blizzard is dead and has been for almost a decade--the | name's the same but their job now is not to make great games | that push the envelope in game design but rather to manage | cash-printing franchises. It's hard not to think this when so | many of the people behind the original groundbreaking games | (StarCraft, WC3, D2) have left the company and in some cases | disavowed it. | | Be happy that old Blizzard happened, I say, and look on with | eagerness to new indie studios, many of which are being run | by the same Blizzard vets. | kergonath wrote: | If they can keep the Warcraft and Diablo balls rolling, | with competent releases every so often, I'm fine with it. | That way we have the best of both worlds: developing | franchises, and the indies. | blibble wrote: | I wonder if he realises what "fun" he's going to have over the | next years cleaning out the cesspit that is Blizzard | fartcannon wrote: | Did they clean out LinkedIn? | fintler wrote: | LinkedIn didn't need to be cleaned out. | fartcannon wrote: | If their goal was to acquire and learn from the scummiest | dark pattern designers, then I agree. | chaorace wrote: | I've never overseen a merger before, let alone one of this | scale, so pardon my blatant speculation... but will that | really be such an issue? | | It seems to me that the mismanagement of Acti/Blizz is a | product of a corrupt corporate apparatus. From the inside of | Acti/Blizz, the problem _is_ basically intractible, but I don | 't think that really applies the same way once you install | higher rungs of authority. MS is no stranger to acquisitions, | either, so it's not as though they will be asleep at the | wheel during this transition. | blibble wrote: | this buyout is a direct result of the sexual harassment | suit (causing a 40% drop in share price since it started) | | the company is rotten from the very top, through the middle | to the bottom | | they're going to have one hell of a time cleaning that up | kmeisthax wrote: | Given that they plan to keep Bobby Kotick on, I don't think | Microsoft understands the problem with ABK all that well. | ohgodplsno wrote: | The press release says they're keeping Kotick for the | duration of the transition, then everyone will report to | Phil Spencer. Seems likely that Kotick will be gone | soon(ish) | seanhunter wrote: | It may well be that he has a job in name in the new | structure but not actually a role and after some discreet | period he will be put out to pasture. Kind of sucks if you | wanted him to receive some sort of cathartic day of | reckoning but maybe a pragmatic solution. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | Look, you almost never fire the CEO of an acquired company | immediately, but I'd be very surprised if he's still there | in 18 months. | jlouis wrote: | They are painting an exit route for him. | femiagbabiaka wrote: | Talk about failing upwards. | jonny_eh wrote: | Phil Spencer only took over after the failure of the Xbox | One. They've been killing it since then. | femiagbabiaka wrote: | I'm not sure I would describe the state of Microsoft gaming | as killing it, but I did miss that he came in after the OG | Xbox One release. | jonny_eh wrote: | The fact that the brand didn't completely die at that | point was surprising. | femiagbabiaka wrote: | Yep agreed, that was definitely a do or die moment. | echelon wrote: | > [...] if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an | independent company at some point. | | I certainly think this should happen. | | The trillion dollar giants should not span multiple industries. | They have absurd monopoly power and can make growing your own | niche impossible. | | Why does a cloud computing / operating system vendor / hardware | manufacturer / business software / developer tooling company | also own the _third biggest_ gaming outfit? | | Why, for that matter, are Amazon and Apple also movie studios | (and soon to be game studios)? | | This is ridiculous. These companies never have to compete with | you. It's easy for them to funnel money into any effort and | clone your product. You can struggle to grow revenue and they | can simply allocate an engineering team and marketing budget. | | You'll probably also have to buy your competitor's products or | pay their taxes at some point. | ThunderSizzle wrote: | What's funny is that when EPB of Chattanooga decided they | wanted a Fiber Network to build their smart power grid | around, Comcast said no. | | So they built their own, and Comcast started suing them. A | lot of stupid lobby fights later, and EPB Fiber Optics became | a separate company with a loan from EPB (power company). Both | wholly owned by the City of Chattanooga. EPB had to keep all | power monies and all internet monies completely seperate in | order to operate; otherwise, they would have too much of a | competitive advantage over Comcast. | | For the customer, it's just EPB, but for legalize and | accountants, it's two completely separate companies, and | money isn't allowed to go from the power division to the | internet division and vice versa. | | Imagine if these conglomerates had to do similar type of | accounting. I don't know if that would be a positive for the | customer/consumer, but it's an interesting thought exercise. | Amazon might even consider shutting down quite a bit of | e-commerce if they couldn't subsidize it with AWS... | JAlexoid wrote: | I sell some nick-nacks on Amazon and eBay. | | Considering how much eBay charges for less - Amazon's eCom | is not going to fold, if AWS was separated. | likpok wrote: | Are you saying it's a good thing that Comcast was able to | break up an upstart competitor? I'm not sure a world where | that's easier would have fewer monopolies to today. Even in | your example the large and established company was suing | the upstart. | ThunderSizzle wrote: | I do think advanced scrutiny of government owned | companies is a good thing. I also think allowing Comcast | to continue to compete with EPB was also a good thing. | | I don't think Comcast is in a position to claim | victimhood, nor is EPB. However, I would be interested in | seeing this type of accounting being enforced for | companies that receive grants and significant tax | breaks/advantages and have localized enforced monopolies, | such as Comcast and several other large companies. | ethbr0 wrote: | 400 - 1400 (Feudal economics) | | 1850 - 1920 (Railroad + oil/steel trusts) | | 1880 - 1982 (ATT) | | 1950 - 1975 (IBM) | | 1985 - 2000 (Intel/Microsoft) | | 2008 - current (Google/Apple/Amazon) | | 2014 - current (Meta) | | It's the nature of technology to produce consolidation, | before the next breakthrough occurs and incumbents are | typically swept away. | | On the plus side, the length of dominant periods seems to be | decreasing. | | And realistically, data portability standards and pricing for | cloud & ability to use independent app stores are the biggest | tweaks I'd make. | kesselvon wrote: | Consolidation is not a function of technology, but a | function of unregulated capitalist economics. | lvass wrote: | Feudalism is an entirely different beast and either didn't | exist or had minor global presence throughout the whole | period you listed. Even listing the ancient Achaemenid | Empire for example would make more sense in this context. | ethbr0 wrote: | How would you describe the post-Carolingian economic | organization of Europe? | | What I was casting about for was the earliest example of | innovation-suppressing economic subordination by force, | over a wide area. | | The Achaemenid (or later Abbasid) seem have featured more | individual freedom, with regards to innovation, and less | maximally-taxing policy to redirect economic output to | ostensible land owners. | lvass wrote: | I'd suggest reading Susan Reynolds' Fiefs and Vassals. | It's a very complex topic and not fit for this thread at | all. | ethbr0 wrote: | If your contention is that feudalism is an inaccurate | lense through which to view medieval Europe, then okay. | | But the taxing and redirection of excess economic output, | accomplished through ownership and lending of land, | leading to an underperforming history of innovation, | seems borne out by the history of Europe, regardless of | the intricacies or framework through which it's viewed. | | And _that_ seems pretty on point for exactly what | everyone is decrying with regards to consolidation into | conglomerates in the tech sector. | uncletaco wrote: | macilacilove wrote: | > spin off gaming into an independent company at some point | | Unlikely without regulatory intervention. The added value for | MS shareholders here is that MS has now more leverage to gently | heard gamers towards their platforms. | ekianjo wrote: | > Congratulations 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 | | You forgot to mention he started with billions of dollars | backing him up. It was not like a small startup or something. | yccs27 wrote: | I feel like the "at Microsoft" already implies billions of | funding. However, teams within big companies are not immune | to reduced funding and cancelling if their strategy does not | work. | LocalH wrote: | You forget how big Nintendo's war chest is | ethbr0 wrote: | > _billions of dollars_ | | How big were Sony and Nintendo at the time? Even with | Microsoft's war chest, it was an uphill battle. | hydrok9 wrote: | Not really. It was clear that there was space for another | large player in the console market. Sega was done or dying, | Sony and Nintendo couldn't keep the entire playerbases to | themselves (and PC and Mac are barely worth mentioning im | sorry to say). | ethbr0 wrote: | I'd say Sega's floundering indicated the opposite, | despite a huge portion of that being own goals. I don't | see any fundamental reason the market couldn't have been | a duopoly. | | And, to the GP point of crediting Spencer, there weren't | even many synergies to exploit with a Microsoft console | in the first XBox generation. It certainly didn't | "integrate" with Windows in any way that made you more | likely to buy it over alternative consoles. | | AFAICT (as someone who doesn't spend much time console | gaming now), its success was essentially built on the | back of (1) access to capital, (2) savvy exclusives, (3) | intelligent acquisitions, (4) avoiding missteps in | hardware refreshes, and in later generations (5) strength | of social platform. So, props where props are due, | because 4/5 of those are skill. Especially while no doubt | having to fight an internal battle against all the other | Microsoft political power centers. | hydrok9 wrote: | IMO, and dismiss this as just gut feeling if you want, | but it was just a matter of time before there was a 3rd | big player. Console gaming was getting too big, too fast | for there to be just 2 options for the market. Someone | was going to come along and do it better than Sega. Now, | all credit to the bigwigs for having the business savvy | to pull it off. But with the size and scale of console | gaming, 2 consoles was just not going to cut it. (PC | gaming was finished as a true competitor due to cost | differences). | ethbr0 wrote: | My read is that it was really Nintendo's failure to | broaden their market that opened up the space. Cart vs CD | was a understandable debate when the N64 was being | designed. But the GameCube vs PS2 was just... ugh. And | Sony has always had arrogance in spades when they get a | lead. | | I guess, in retrospect, Microsoft's fundamental synergy | was "developers, developers, developers!" And realizing | trading more powerful commodity PC hardware for decreased | programming difficulty was a good deal. There were a | large number of developers, or future developers, | dissatisfied with catering to {insert Nintendo or Sony | weird architecture hoops du jour}. | hydrok9 wrote: | That's a good point. The Gamecube was definitely | underwhelming in it's library of games and frustrated a | lot of consumers. I think the point I'm trying to make is | that it was basically inevitable that there would be a | new major console. The market was too big. I'm sure there | was also a chance that this wouldn't happen, and | Sega/Sony/Nintendo kept on ruling the market. But it just | takes one misstep. And there were two (Dreamcast and | Gamecube) right as gaming was really starting to explode | into its present-day extent. | | I'm not trying to argue about the specifics about what | happened, but just in general terms, there was always | going to be room for a competitor in a space that big, | that was changing that rapidly. Imho. | ethbr0 wrote: | Makes sense! Between chance of failure & rate of change, | the odds looked pretty good. | | I'm more flummoxed by the fact that a fundamentally | social-native offering didn't disrupt the existing | ecosystem, in the 2000 timeframe. | | We had chat. We had basic web. Keyboards weren't that | expensive, were they? Seems a killer feature for kids. | | Not straight "the Web on your console", but something | more like AOL, Prodigy, and the late 90s portals. | | My only explanation is that the 3 big platform companies | were still thinking in packaged software/games, sold | retail, terms. Hence XBox Live, when it emerged, was | essentially a way to get more value (multiplayer) out of | the packaged software you bought. | BiteCode_dev wrote: | Suddenly, 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. | koheripbal wrote: | 20 employees out of 9500 employees is not significant. | | You are reading too much from too little. | exikyut wrote: | That answers the question "could there be enough groundswell | to form a blowback," then :( | tommiegannert wrote: | It 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. | mzs wrote: | https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-blizzard-pushes-out-... | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29966958 | [deleted] | exikyut wrote: | From 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._ | | -\\_(tsu)_/- | officeplant wrote: | One 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. | giorgioz wrote: | How will the company/person receiving the 68.7billions dollars | protect them from INFLATION? Will they use the capital | immediately to buy assets like ETFs? | Asmod4n wrote: | I'm awaiting the inclusion of Diablo and StarCraft as Easter eggs | in Excel and the like. Or Warcraft Minesweepers. | datavirtue wrote: | Bye bye Bobby!! | brobdingnagians wrote: | Activision 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. | shadowgovt wrote: | The 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 wrote: | Why would Microsoft want to participate in that scheme, | though? | shadowgovt wrote: | To gain control of another game studio with a stable of | popular franchises. | birdyrooster wrote: | lol how was the Diablo 2 re-release. Seriously has been | upsetting to watch their fall. | pram wrote: | Theres no speculation on WoW, it has been dying since Cataclysm | which was released a decade ago. | ThatPlayer wrote: | >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. | albertopv wrote: | Am I the only one thinking they paid really too much? | yalogin wrote: | Will 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 | EtienneK wrote: | The Nintendo Switch waves hi... | yalogin wrote: | Does 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. | fasteddie wrote: | As 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. | Narishma wrote: | This is the second big publisher they're buying recently, after | Bethesda. | dmonitor wrote: | Bethesda is an order of magnitude smaller | Saturdays wrote: | Nintendo would like to have a word | nottorp wrote: | I'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 wrote: | It can really only get better. I almost want to hope it will, | but I'm tired of getting burned. | karaterobot wrote: | > Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision | Blizzard. | | Not for long, I bet! | NullByteDelight wrote: | ChrisArchitect wrote: | aside: what's with the shared URL on this post? dated 1/14 | something "_trashed" and redirects to today's release | nixass wrote: | Microsoft 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 wrote: | This is a good thing. Fools run Activision Blizzard; let MS go | in and take over. | rvz wrote: | I 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. | somehnacct3757 wrote: | So 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? | Fnoord wrote: | I have been boycotting Microsoft since the Halloween documents, | and now I have to uninstall Hearthstone from my computer. | | Joking aside (I got over my Microsoft hatred when they started | to finally embrace Linux and FOSS, YMMV (though I was salty | about Nokia ditching Maemo!)), I have a deja vu: | | Microsoft + Elop -> Nokia + Elop -> Nokia + Elop = Microsoft. | | Microsoft + Ybarra -> Blizzard + Ybarra -> Blizzard + Ibarra = | Microsoft. | | Sure, I don't mention Kotick. I don't give a shit about | Activision's IP, so no problem for me there. Its Blizzard's IP | which I like, or perhaps rather, liked. Cause its gone | downhill.. ehh.. 'somewhat'. | zamalek wrote: | Microsoft 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 wrote: | "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." | Duralias wrote: | If 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. | zamalek wrote: | I'm expecting/hoping for Microsoft employees to protest his | involvement. They have successfully steered Microsoft in | the past. | Aissen wrote: | IMHO 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. | acheron wrote: | Everyone 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? | seattle_spring wrote: | Is this going to mean huge pay bumps for ATVI employees more in | line with what Microsoft pays tech employees? | privalove wrote: | rytill wrote: | I'm excited for what this could mean for undervalued IP like | StarCraft and Diablo. | bob1029 wrote: | I 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. | ramoz wrote: | If anyone has a chance at a legit "metaverse experience" it's a | tech giant who develops video games. | jmiskovic wrote: | I 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 wrote: | If 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. | smaryjerry wrote: | On 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. | hmate9 wrote: | Sounds 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. | pingsl wrote: | Activision 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... | rockbruno wrote: | Curious if WoW's business model will change after this. The whole | monthly game time thing is really outdated. | AlexandrB wrote: | What 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. | ouid wrote: | I feel like this buries the lede a little, Microsoft is acquiring | Blizzard for 70 billion dollars. | [deleted] | faisal_ksa wrote: | I 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. | cududa wrote: | You can run gamepass on Linux, so when all these games hit | gamepass (which they will) it's a net positive for Linux | gamers. | faisal_ksa wrote: | You could run them on Linux for how long? MS will not allow | any competition for its dominance over PC gaming. And trust | me, they will use gamepass against Linux gaming and Valve and | others. | skohan wrote: | Yeah exactly, MS will only play nice as long as they have | to. If they own _most_ of the popular AAA titles, you 'd | better believe everyone is going to have to use their | launcher, with DRM which doesn't work on Proton, and log in | to a MS account to play games. | intrasight wrote: | How much longer do you think "PC gaming" is going to be a | thing? Do you think it'll make the transition to VR? I | don't. | recursive wrote: | Nor do I, but I think non-VR gaming is going to be bigger | than VR gaming for a long time, maybe forever. | belthesar wrote: | If you've got a lead on how to do this, I'm interested. Last | I looked, Gamepass on Linux only worked for streamed titles | through a browser. | vymague wrote: | How? Quick googling says no. | nivenkos wrote: | Seems 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 wrote: | I think no chance that Tim Sweeney sells Epic. | | Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely | from being acquired by Microsoft. | gimmeThaBeet wrote: | I agree, imo unless something drastic changes, there's little | chance Tim Sweeney sells control of epic. But I believe | Tencent bought nearly half of it all the way back in 2012 I | think? I think they raised money from some PE groups a few | years ago, the internet seems to agree that Tencent still has | 40%? But, it being a private company, I wouldn't stake too | much on the accuracy of that. | | Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you | describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has | nearly the entire minority interest. | faisal_ksa wrote: | Everything is for sale for the right price. And what is good | for Unity does not mean it's good for the consumers. | oneoff786 wrote: | Well unity is dropping the ball hard for consumers so | something different would likely be an improvement | kizer wrote: | I 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. | oneoff786 wrote: | I could see it happen, but I feel a lot of these home grown | engines are just too driven by tribal knowledge to be | easily released to the public. | danhab99 wrote: | I'm worried that the gaming industry is on a decline. Some of | the biggest games are >5 years old, I can't think of a big | franchise that started in the last 5 years, the steam | greenlight program is a pile of shit, and new games are getting | held to the standard of existing games which discourages new- | comers. | | I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can | a problem be before it stops being a problem. | TameAntelope wrote: | A real monopoly in video gaming isn't nearly as valuable as it | first seems. | | Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like | reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's | not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people | will have nowhere to go with their time. | | Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been | easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great | games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the | ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or | without Activision belonging to Microsoft. | | Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games | they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. | Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're | worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had | opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so | it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what. | | I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously | optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP | that I've loved for most of my life. | | [0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/ | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | > Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things | like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc | | You're not wrong, but I can't agree with this. | klabb3 wrote: | Disagree, I think it's spot on! But you may need to | substitute for more modern attention hogs like Netflix, | podcasts, mobile and web based games, indie games etc. | | I'm sure that a pervasive predatory corporate development | department backed by a cash-heavy company could reel in | virtually all AAA PC games, but the long tail not so much. | And the funny thing is, AAA has been a huge disappointment | for gamers and I imagine investors as well over the last | years, compared to its golden days. | | Compare to say "owning your social graph" like Facebook, | that's something that's much more robust. A good messaging | platform doesn't take over the world in a few weeks like an | indie game (almost) can, so Facebook has plenty time to | acquire it or copy/steal their features. | TameAntelope wrote: | I avoided saying the words in my parent comment to try and | minimize controversy, but if you're interested in learning | more, what I describe is referred to as the "attention | economy"[0]. | | The "information overload" problem has been known about for | at least 40 years! | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy | avrionov wrote: | Reading books lost the competition long time ago. | privalou wrote: | sunnyque wrote: | I hope incoming reorganization will not kill D4 | lysecret wrote: | I mean it can only get better right? | lvass wrote: | There is nothing so bad that it couldn't be made worse. | ChildOfChaos wrote: | There is something that amuses me about 'Call of duty, World of | Warcraft, overwatch, Diablo, Candy crush' | javajosh wrote: | Purely from the perspective of the job market, this move sucks. | Before you could get Activision to bid against Blizzard to bid | against Microsoft. | xbar wrote: | I think Natella's execution for Microsoft has been scary smart. | This one feels shocking and obvious at the same time, similar to | Github. | bstar77 wrote: | Another 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. | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | Excited 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. | Vixel wrote: | Wow, 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. | natural20s wrote: | I hope they bring back Battlezone - Activision rebooted it in | 1998 (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.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. | coding123 wrote: | Damn, 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. | Tempest1981 wrote: | > 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 wrote: | Can't wait until metaverse will fail to lure gamers. The hype | is on par with NFTs, in both vitality and lack of substance. | mushufasa wrote: | > 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. | Dave3of5 wrote: | Oh dear more consolidation in the gaming space. Not good for the | consumer. | wly_cdgr wrote: | Another big boy move. Satya Nadella is a proper CEO. Warms my | heart to see someone competent up top at Microsoft again | jprd wrote: | == 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. | kgersen wrote: | I don't see any discount. They're bying at $95 per share. Look | at YTD and 5Y prices. | | The 30% prior isn't the price they're bying at. | jprd wrote: | Fair point, and conceded. | | Oddly though, I nearly tried some weak defense. Outrage | algorithms are destroying my brain. | Jyaif wrote: | > 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. | flashgordon wrote: | As 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! | Kelteseth wrote: | Can somebody please explain to me, why is it allowed for a | company like MS to buy all of their (indirect) competitors? | jackling wrote: | I guess since there are so many competitors in the gaming | market, the US government doesn't care. Not like this | acquisition with make Microsoft have a majority share in the | entire gaming industry. | JohnWhigham wrote: | Because the federal government doesn't stop them, quite | plainly. They fear it would stifle innovation and competition. | It's the same reason why egregious white collar crimes rarely | get punishments. I wish I was making this up. | sbarre wrote: | Even 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 wrote: | Valve/Steam would be the biggest competitor on desktop, with | nearly 30 million active users. | syshum wrote: | >>Tencent, Epic, | | You said Tencent twice ;) | ohgodplsno wrote: | Tim Sweeney maintains more than 50% ownership of Epic. | dmonitor wrote: | Smaller than Sony or smaller than Playstation? Sony does a | lot more than just vidya | sbarre wrote: | I'll let you do your own research. | dmonitor wrote: | Fair enough. Looks like it was Sony Interactive | Entertainment | ecf wrote: | > Microsoft's gaming division | | Isn't that the point? Why can something as large as MS have a | "division" that can go into mergers and acquisitions as if | they were a separate entity? | | > There are stills lots of other large publishers | | ...goes on to name 5. | | > They are definitely not "buying all their competit | | Sure, you can be as pedantic as you want and jump through | hoops to come to that rationalization. | sbarre wrote: | The gaming industry has been in consolidation mode for | years, mostly due to the up-front investment required to | produce AAA games. All the large players are buying the | smaller ones, it's not just Microsoft. | | And I guess you can question my use of the subjective word | "lots", my fault. I still think there are _enough_ large | publishers around in the gaming industry that you can't | really start throwing around terms like "monopoly" or | "anti-trust" etc... | | I was mostly just pointing out that the original comment | was factually inaccurate by saying MS were buying up "all | their competitors". | | I'm not trying to rationalize or "jump through hoops" here. | We're all just debating and guessing, having a | conversation.. | | If you somehow accidentally assigned me to the opposite | 'side' from the one you appear to be on, let me gently | correct you.. I don't care enough about this to be picking | sides. | spiderice wrote: | > Why can something as large as MS have a "division" that | can go into mergers and acquisitions as if they were a | separate entity? | | Especially when Microsoft is using the rest of Microsoft to | subsidize said "division" | micromacrofoot wrote: | this will only make them the third largest gaming company | draw_down wrote: | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Why wouldn't they be allowed to? Companies acquire smaller | companies and competitors all the time, it's called | consolidation. | | One party want to sell, the other wants to buy. As long as the | deal doesn't breach any anti-trust laws, it's good to go. | sofixa wrote: | If this type of deal ( vertical consolidation through | acquisition of competitors, and then removing those former | competitors' content from competing platforms) isn't illegal, | antitrust laws need to be adapted so it becomes so. It's | impossible to deny it's purely in detriment to the market, | competitors, and consumers. | panick21_ wrote: | Anti-Trust is quite openly defined. The courts in the 70s | tried to establish a consistent way to judge it. The | basically defined it as consumer can be forced to pay | higher prices. You can read about Judge Richard Posner. | | Either there would need to be some revolution with the | legal profession, or congress would have to pass some new | law. | | What the judges realized is that by an more open definition | pretty much any company and any merger could be said to be | against anti-trust. | | So if you want such a law, you need to actually get some | exact definition of how every is judged that can be | consistently legally applied. | koheripbal wrote: | In our legal system, actions are legal unless there is a law | making them illegal. | | If you are referring to anti-trust laws preventing this, then | MS would need to be buying a huge number of companies to | monopolize the gaming market, not just Activision, in order to | be in violation of this law. | echelon wrote: | But they span ten or so different industries with a $2T | market cap, and it's full of unhealthy monopolistic | synergies. They can wield this power to force deals and push | out competitors across their multiple business units. | | They can "ask" gaming companies to use Azure if they want to | run on Windows or Xbox. They can ignore Mac and PlayStation | as platforms. They can bundle software licenses, payment | gateways, and design hardware that only works in one | ecosystem. | | This is the modern monopoly. Good luck competing with it or | avoiding their platform fees as you try to grow your revenue. | You'll undoubtably wind up feeding your direct competition | somehow or another. | sovnade wrote: | Yeah this is bad for everyone overall. Disney is an even | worse offender if you're looking at synergistic monopolies. | panick21_ wrote: | Monopolistic synergies are not a legal reason for anything. | This is what people imagine the law is, but it isn't. | | > They can wield this power to force deals and push out | competitors across their multiple business units. | | The only way this would matter is if you can prove that | they have some monopoly in any one market and use that | monopoly position to drive up prices. | | So if somehow could leverage their Windows OS as to sell | games for 1000$ rather then 100$. | | Microsoft does not have monopoly in any one market as far | as I can tell. | phasersout wrote: | This deal has to be approved by a lot of regulators before it | will go through. AB is a global company. MS thinks it will take | at least 12 to 18 month before the deal will happen. Or not, | since regulators are a bit iffy with big-tech these days. | | But overall even though it's a big acquisition both together | will still remain one amongst a few big gaming companies. | stephc_int13 wrote: | Blizzard 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. | shp0ngle wrote: | Finally, Candy Crush can be fully integrated into Windows. | hbn wrote: | I recall already finding that preinstalled on my Windows 10 | machine in the past | donkarma wrote: | this could easily be the worst part about the acquisition | andrewstuart wrote: | >> "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 wrote: | If your device runs a somewhat modern browser and you have a | reliable internet connection you can just stream from the | cloud. | United857 wrote: | Will Activision drop support for Sony and Nintendo platforms | eventually? | dageshi wrote: | Game 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. | atlasunshrugged wrote: | I 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. | glanzwulf wrote: | Nothing will happen as we live in the post-Disney/Fox merger. | madeofpalk wrote: | On the other hand, UK regulators blocked FB/Giphy and | Nvidia/ARM mergers. | skohan wrote: | The UK sees a strategic interest in ARM | slimginz wrote: | FB/Giphy tho? | MrDresden wrote: | Privacy concerns | Mindwipe wrote: | TBF the mood music has changed on mergers and I'm not sure | that would have gone through today. | skohan wrote: | In which way? As far as I can see, the size of M&A activity | is only increasing | giorgioz wrote: | ahah very appropriate comment given your nickname mention of | Atlas Shrugged! | atlasunshrugged wrote: | Ironically, I made that some years after a serious | libertarian phase and the "Un" is supposed to be the | operative part of that as while I am a big fan of | individuality, hard work, and limited (albeit ideally very | effective) government I very much appreciate now the | importance of other parts of society and that life is far | more complex than many libertarians (and even myself still) | would like it to be and requires a lot of nuance | boppo1 wrote: | Politicians need something meatier than gaming content. I'd | expect google or FB under that lens. | MangoCoffee wrote: | the article say Microsoft will be the third largest gaming | company behind Tenecent and Sony. how antitrust going to | trigger if Microsoft doesn't have the entire market. if | antitrust didn't take down Apple just force Apple to allows | third party payment option. i don't see how this will trigger | antitrust | cestith wrote: | Neither Tencent nor Sony are based in the US (although Sony | does have a US subsidiary). AT&T and T-Mobile together | wouldn't have been the whole cell phone market either, | although consolidation in physical-presence utilities are | seen somewhat differently from more easily distributed | products. | slimginz wrote: | > Neither Tencent nor Sony are based in the US (although | Sony does have a US subsidiary) | | Sony Interactive Entertainment actually relocated to | California a few years ago and literally everything | PlayStation is under them so I'd probably call them a US | company at this point. | cestith wrote: | It's still only a part of the larger Sony, though, with | other subsidiaries doing completely other things. They're | not leveraging TVs from a US company into the Sony | Pictures studios into game development into game | publishing into tying the games to the PS5. Microsoft is | all one company with divisions working more closely, in | theory anyway, than Sony's subsidiary companies. | ddtaylor wrote: | I doubt it. There are much bigger monopolies in the webspace / | ecommerce space than the gaming space. | atlasunshrugged wrote: | I 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. | panick21_ wrote: | Anti-Trust is not magic, its no longer a tool politicans can | wield like a club against things they don't like. The courts | have a definition and you actually have to prove abuse for | those law-suits to do anything. Doing so if you can do it at | all takes decades. | | Unless politicians make major changes to the anti-trust law its | unlikely to be effective. And doing so would require major | action in congress. | | The president could use non anti-trust actions as well of | course. But rather unlikely. | arrosenberg wrote: | You don't need Congressional action - the laws never changed, | the definition of the courts did. Biden is appointing federal | judges faster than even Trump did, so the opinion of the | courts may be shifting very quickly. | atlasunshrugged wrote: | Sure, but sometimes the threat of doing something and having | an acquisition mired in a lawsuit or the Prez using the bully | pulpit against your co can be a serious deterrent from | engaging in an acquisition as well. | ls612 wrote: | Yeah look how well that worked out for the previous | administration vis a vis AT&T and Time Warner. | atlasunshrugged wrote: | Given the insider hiring of Michael Cohen by AT&T I'd say | there were other factors at play in that one | viktorcode wrote: | It's not magic but it can block a deal. | fault1 wrote: | Of course, other countries besides the US could also block | the merger... | cestith wrote: | Abuse must be proven to break up an existing company. Nobody | has to prove abuse to prevent mergers among major market | members. | ece wrote: | If moderate democratic senators could be bought with handouts | to toe the party line (anyone remember those times?), perhaps | closely examining mergers like this would be a higher priority. | There are bills moving through congress though, and eventually | with more authority, perhaps the FTC could make meaningful | market changes. Like: making MS offer games on other platforms, | or at-least not actively stopping them from running by offering | good anti-cheat support on all platforms. | me_me_mu_mu wrote: | No way. The politicians are also bagholders now. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | They always were. Worth noting the bags are larger now and | there are fewer options to hold. | fredthomsen wrote: | Seems like the social and commerce aspects are drawing | scrutiny. I think MS will escape unscathed here | jgon wrote: | It 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? | p0wn wrote: | We gotta break up the monopolies again. These companies are | getting tooooo big. | cronix wrote: | I anticipate some curious bugs for playstation versions. | shmerl wrote: | Being 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. | curiousllama wrote: | It'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. | cletus wrote: | This is an overly rosy view of Microsoft's moat (and acumen) | IMHO. | | For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile | revolution. | | For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone | Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. | To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great | marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so | quickly and right before the new Xbox launch. | | Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console | and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops. | | What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon | Prime does with Twitch Prime? | | To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what | they're doing. | | I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing. | redisman wrote: | They tried with the failed Windows phone. I think after that | they wanted to stay out and focus on their strengths. Besides | this purchase gives them King - of Candy Crush fame. So now | they own one of the biggest mobile game devs. | chc wrote: | I don't know about that. They gave it like four years and | spent a lot of money promoting it and it was still | microscopic. They could have tried other things, but if Ninja | couldn't draw viewers, do you really think a bunch of obscure | streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a | bigger difference? At some point you have to stop throwing | good money after bad. | pferdone wrote: | Ninja just recently [0] talked about why he thinks Mixer | failed and it was not due to its potential. | | He specifically mentioned stuff like: needing a hotmail | account to register, when you register you had some random | name assigned to you and had to go into your profile to | change it afterwards, etc. Small stuff basically, but it | added up and Microsofts corporate structure prohibited | quick adjustments. | | [0] https://youtu.be/FxBpRQaPIPw | cletus wrote: | Throwing money at Ninja is really an example of poor | execution. | | What makes Twitch successful is not any one streamer. It's | an ecosystem. Raiding is huge on Twitch for streamers | supporting other streamers. | | You don't build a forest by planting one very large tree. A | forest is everything from the tallest tree to the | undergrowth. | | > do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody | watches having drops would have made a bigger difference? | | I absolutely do. You see this on Twitch whenever a popular | game has drops and the viewer numbers go through the roof. | Sure there are a bunch of AFK viewers just wanting the | drops but this is a game of numbers. Some are real people. | Some will stay. | | On the streamer income side, I really don't think you can | overestimate how huge of an impact Twitch Prime has on | Twitch. | stormbrew wrote: | > Throwing money at Ninja is really an example of poor | execution. | | Really agree with this. They should have been trying to | pull as many streamers on the verge of success on twitch | as they could (newly qualifying partners mostly) rather | than trying to get already established talent to come | over for big money. | | I do think they also tried this, I knew of some mid-tier | streamers who moved over as well, but they probably could | have done more. Ninja was clearly a last ditch effort to | save the platform rather than a calculated plan. | blondie9x wrote: | You know there are essentially only two search engines on the | internet right? Google and Bing? Microsoft is doing good and | cornering market and is helping users forget that DDG and | Ecosia and Yahoo are just Bing. | cletus wrote: | Who is Microsoft "doing good" for? It's not Microsoft | shareholders. Bing is a money pit and poorly executed. | | Do you know who benefits the most from Bing? Google. Why? | Because Bing's (subsidized) existence helps create this | illusion that there really is more than one search engine. | Google loves that Bing exists because it nicely helps them | avoid having to have the monopoly talk. | kooshball wrote: | bing made 8b in revenue last year. your data is way out | of date. its wildly profitable | curiousllama wrote: | Interesting. I take that Mixer example as quite the opposite: | throwing money at game streamers only really makes sense if | they're trying to get yet another point of integration for | gamers, no? | | I take your word for it that the execution was lacking - and, | perhaps, they were never going to win. Perhaps that's why | they keep buying other, successful companies. | | But it still builds to the same picture: even if they suck as | operators, they're building a pretty darn big machine. | anaganisk wrote: | Guess this was what Steve Balmer meant when he said, DEVELOPERS | DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS. | pdpi wrote: | For how bizarre that moment was, he was 100% correct. | Developers are the lifeblood of a hardware platform like | this. | unsigner wrote: | The only thing they're missing is hardware design capabilities. | crawsome wrote: | jpablo wrote: | Isn't that basically the same Nintendo and Sony? Save for the | cloud platform. | ouid wrote: | Absolutely not, Microsoft owns your operating system on your | general computer. At least you could argue that I am, in some | sense, willingly entering the ecosystem by buying an xbox. | Blizzard and Minecraft are primarily PC games. | smileybarry wrote: | Sony practically owns their cloud platform too, with their | Gaikai purchase a decade ago[1] and PS Now being "PS3/PS4s in | the cloud". | | [1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-03-sony- | acqui... | phatfish wrote: | I assumed Sony were migrating to or already using Azure at | this point. | | https://news.microsoft.com/2019/05/16/sony-and-microsoft- | to-... | | At the time Microsoft where not throwing so much money at | games development an IP ownership. I wonder how Sony feel | about this now. | smileybarry wrote: | I see. But because they're maintaining datacenters for | PS3/PS4 streaming I think they have the potential to go | hosted, at the end of the day multiplayer servers are | developer-controlled and network servers (e.g.: PSN, Xbox | Live) are mostly identity services and such. (Even | matchmaking isn't the network's job anymore) | brendoelfrendo wrote: | This is actually an area where I think Sony has dropped the | ball; PS Now is an interesting service, and they have a | pretty interesting catalog of older games from the PS2/PS3 | era. But they don't advertise it well enough, and I don't | think they put enough focus on new releases and keeping | them available the way Microsoft does with Gamepass. | Hamuko wrote: | There's rumours of them revamping PS Now and PS+ into a | new service. | brendoelfrendo wrote: | I've heard these, and they should! It would give them | direct competition to GamePass Ultimate, which is a tier | of service they don't currently offer (unless you buy PS+ | and PS Now as separate subscriptions). | curiousllama wrote: | Nintendo yes. But they've long been a closed, relatively | niche ecosystem. Their entire market cap is less than the | value of this deal. | | Sony, perhaps. But I do think the cloud platform is a | critical piece, because it is a huge source of value capture | (e.g., all CoD compute on Azure is no small deal). It also | allows significantly more dominance in distribution via cloud | gaming - and coincidentally, Microsoft has been much more | aggressive about owning distribution with Xbox Game Pass. | This is all on top of the fact that Microsoft influences the | PC and console markets, not just the console market. | djtango wrote: | Activision are much better at monetising than Nintendo. | | Think candy crush and loot boxes vs fun single player mario | games | ghostly_s wrote: | Pretty sure Nintendo operates their cloud platform as well, | though it's hardly comparable as it only offers NES + SNES | roms. | sbelskie wrote: | It offers some n64 titles now as well. | everdrive wrote: | Sadly, these are emulated quite poorly. | aparticulate wrote: | Nintendo operates on different rules due their absurd array | of reliable IPs. I get the sense that MS, Sony are still | trying to sort out their own "Mario, Zelda, Pokemon" clone | with mainstream movies/merch potential and all that entails. | xeromal wrote: | Halo is probably the closest thing they have to a | Marioesque IP. | farisjarrah wrote: | I'm not that big on FPS games. When I play Nintendo I | generally play things like Mario Party or Mario Kart. A | friend recently gave me an Xbox Series S, and off the top | of my head I couldn't think of a single multi-player | party sorta party game. I'm sure there are plenty of | these games, but they definitely don't have the same type | of draw as Mario. | nightski wrote: | I don't think the parent was saying they were the same. | | Just that Halo was the closest IP in terms of prestige. | Drew_ wrote: | Nintendo and mobile are the only real options for party | games. Xbox and Playstation are for AAA enthusiast games. | dont__panic wrote: | The major non-Nintendo consoles have de-emphasized | splitscreen and party games for a long time -- once we | hit the PS4 and Xbox One era, it felt like most games | didn't even support splitscreen at all, aside from a few | indies. I think those games tend to rely on in-person | interaction to boost the fun, and MS/Sony have decided to | prioritize selling additional consoles instead of making | one usable for multiple people. | xeromal wrote: | The halo universe is pretty big. There are about 20-30+ | books that I can recall, a phone game, and 2 RTS games on | top of the FPS games we know and love. There is a TV show | releasing this or next year. The universe of Halo is one | I've grown up with and can't stop waiting for the next | piece of lore to come out. There's a lot to enjoy in the | Halo universe even if you don't play FPSes. The books | themselves are solid though a solid % is just your run- | of-the-mill fiction. | pelasaco wrote: | Unfortunately they didn't support their own game engine as they | could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA | | Stardew Valley and Terraria were actually IMO the best games | produced with that | u2077 wrote: | This is what I'm worried about. With them owning both the games | and the OS that they are played on, we could be forced into a | subscription. Paying to own may be a thing of the past. | bduerst wrote: | Paying to own is already a thing of the past for music and | movie content. How is this different? | u2077 wrote: | I'm not saying it's different, it's more like the nail in | the coffin. Movies, music, apps, games, treadmills, coffee, | printers. Anything that can somehow have internet | connectivity becomes a subscription. | wanda wrote: | Fortunately, all the good video games have already been made. | whoopdedo wrote: | You mean a thing of the present. See the other front-page | story about Diablo not working if you're offline for too | long. | mathattack wrote: | People may be flooding into vertical integration, though the | history of that isn't great. (Look at AOL/TimeWarner or | Verizon/AOL/Tumblr/Yahoo) | | All it takes is missing one generation and the house of cards | gets written down. Someone can create the next generation | blockbuster for a lot less than $69bln. | | To argue against myself, they've become a lot better at picking | trends since Balmer left too. | lumost wrote: | To argue in favor of your point. Big vertically integrated | firms often become insulated from economic, technical, and | business realities. This eventually leads to politics winning | out over technical or business savvy. At the extremes you'll | have companies burning 10s of billions on pet projects going | nowhere, or software engineers producing 0 lines of code per | year. | | I wouldn't be surprised if this effect could even be | mathematically quantified. | luckydata wrote: | Nah, their model is different. They are building a | Disneyland-like experience, where the public pays to "be | there" and the attractions always change. Never been done | before. | mathattack wrote: | That type of closed garden seems more like Apple, no? | monocasa wrote: | Microsoft has been understandably eyeing that 30% on all | digital goods sales Apple gets for years now. They missed | the boat on the Windows store, but they'll do just about | anything to keep a similar financial structure on the | Xbox side. | awill wrote: | Exactly. They're going for quantity to ensure even if a | bunch of stuff fails, they'll get a few hits. Sometimes all | you need is a few hits. | dawsmik wrote: | Gasprom, Dell and Tesla may be some examples of companies | that have done will with vertical integration. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | Tesla is kind of vertically integrated, but mostly because | they were the first to make a popular electric car, so | adequate supply chains for those components didn't | previously exist. It remains to be seen whether it's still | an advantage when most of the industry is making electric | vehicles and competitive alternate suppliers for those | components are common. | | Dell installs a Microsoft operating system on SSDs from the | lowest bidder and puts them in a Foxconn motherboard with a | CPU from AMD or Intel. | | Gasprom is a majority state-owned company in Russia. This | can't really be an example of anything to do with a free | market. | | The typical example is Apple, because they're currently | very profitable. But they've been doing vertical | integration for decades and their history is full of | instances of almost going out of business. The previous | "see how well vertical integration works" example was IBM. | brightball wrote: | It probably means more to keep the Blizzard catalog off of | Oculus than anything else. IMO many games in their catalog | would be ideal in that environment and keeping them off of it | goes a long way towards buying time. | bravetraveler wrote: | Intel has also been feeling the pain of vertical integration. | Like with most things, double edged sword. | | They fabricated their chips - not sure if they still do. | Initially this was great, they owned the equipment and got | things 'at cost'. However, they had trouble refining their | tooling to get < 14nm for several generations. | | This made them less competitive for a while, while having a | pile of expenses a more lean design house wouldn't have. | They'll surely be fine, but it's not the same sprint they've | had for quite a while. | babypuncher wrote: | Intel still fabricates their own chips. Though notably, | their new dedicated GPUs are made by a third party. | | Two years ago I would have expected this trend to continue | and for Intel to stop in-house fabrication, but with their | new CEO and some prodding from the US government, they are | now investing many billions of dollars into new fabs. | babypuncher wrote: | At least for Xbox, the biggest positive change in leadership | has been the replacement of Don Mattrick with Phil Spencer in | 2014. Xbox as a brand was in real bad shape when he took | over. | mdasen wrote: | AOL/TimeWarner was a failure because because it valued AOL at | $200B and TimeWarner at $164B. AOL was just way over-valued. | It wasn't really an integration failure so much as paying too | much for something. If Time Warner had bought AOL for $2B, it | would have been fine. The problem is that they merged valuing | AOL at 100x that when it wasn't worth it and later sold for | $4.4B to Verizon. | | Likewise, Yahoo/Verizon bought a lot of properties at | inflated values. Tumblr wasn't worth $1.1B, but Yahoo wanted | to buy one of the hot up-and-coming properties to feel | relevant. | | I think the big issue is the price one is paying and whether | one has a plan for the purchase or if the purchase is more | "but if I don't make a big move, what am I doing? I can't go | wrong following trends, right?" | | For example, AOL/TimeWarner was a situation of over-paying | because TimeWarner was afraid that the internet was going to | eat the world and they needed to stay relevant. AOL was so | hot and it's easy to get swept up in the moment thinking "I | need to get on board now or I'll miss it!" Likewise, Yahoo | feared becoming irrelevant as Google took over the internet | and thought buying Tumblr would make them the hip forward | company once again. | | Activision Blizard seems like a reasonable add-on for | Microsoft. $69B isn't that much money for it given it would | represent a P/E ratio of around 26. Apple's P/E is 30, Amazon | 62, Microsoft 34, Google 26. So they aren't paying an absurd | amount given Activision's profits. Even if they did no | integration or strategy, Activision could simply continue | doing its thing and contribute favorably to Microsoft's | bottom line. | | With a tiny bit of strategy, it seems clear Microsoft could | get even more value out of the company. Maybe a few Xbox | exclusive titles to push their console business. Maybe some | stuff for their game streaming service. | | If Disney has shown us something over the past few years, | it's that owning IP that people like allows you to keep | spinning new versions of that IP. Activision has lots of that | kind of IP in the gaming space so Microsoft should be able to | use that to its advantage. | | I think there's a big difference between buying Activision at | a price whose P/E ratio is better than your own and where | there are clear strategies that could offer you even more | value compared with the "omg, I'm getting left behind! I'll | pay anything you want" panic purchases/mergers of other | companies. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | AOL bought TW not the other way around. | RC_ITR wrote: | Sure, but Time Warner shareholders accepted AOL equity at | an over-valued price. THAT's the fleece - Time Warner | kept being a company despite AOL's failure, but the | ownership shifted dramatically toward former owners of | AOL. | | Also worth noting on the AOL/Time Warner comparisons | everyone is making: Everyone knew dial-up was on the way | out in 2000, they just assumed AOL would 'figure it out' | because they were the current market leader. Not clear to | me (other than maybe metaverse, controversially) what | MSFT's looming problem they need to 'figure out' is. | alex_c wrote: | Microsoft's "looming problem" seems to be the $130B+ in | cash they're sitting on, and finding something to spend | it on? | sumedh wrote: | They can give the cash back to shareholders. | kelp wrote: | Another example right here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29980227 | | Intel is buying fab capacity from TSMC. Backing away from | vertical integration to force their own fabs to compete on | the open market. | no_wizard wrote: | I think vertical integration tends to win when the floor is | built atop of commodities. The new consoles have similar | hardware[0] and it really comes down to allocation of those | hardware resources, which makes first party studios ways to | differentiate your product from the competition, as you can | justify the extra cost to make sure your first party console | is optimized for in its unique ways, where cross publishing | houses don't always do that, for example. This can | differentiate gaming experience, even for titles that _are_ | cross platform, if one is optimized for say, the Xbox | ecosystem, but its PlayStation port does not have the same | kind of optimizations. How much this matters may remain to be | seen, for now. | | Having highly optimized flagship titles though is what makes | these vertical integrations so appealing in this market, in | my estimation. | | [0]: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ps5-vs-xbox-series-x | | _FWIW I don 't endorse everything in the link to toms guide, | I just wanted a reliable source for hardware specs_ | andrewparker wrote: | Creation layer of the stack: Unity or Unreal. | HeavyStorm wrote: | Visual Studio is still there, although losing market share | zeusk wrote: | To Visual Studio Code | kizer wrote: | Next headline: MS to acquire Epic Games? Tencent is in the | way there. | | Really, I could see them launching their own engine. Think of | all the studios and talent they have now. They have the | engines behind Halo, CoD, WoW, Overwatch. Could build an | Unreal competitor. | Hamuko wrote: | Tencent and Sony have investments in Epic Games, not sure | if either party wants to start selling to Microsoft. | GuB-42 wrote: | Microsoft already has id Software! Epic Games historical | competitor. id Software has Quake, Epic Games has Unreal. | | id Software is not the company it once was, but they still | make engines. idTech 7 is their last one, powering Doom | Eternal. | terafo wrote: | idTech is cutting edge tech. Their team is one of the | best in the industry, second to none, competing with | Epic, Insomniac and Naughty Dog. But it is not engine for | general use, not now. It does one thing(FPS), and does it | extremely well. But it lacks tools that you would need to | create games of another genres. Things like advanced | animation tools, dialogue systems, quest systems, ways to | handle vast open worlds, etc. | | idTech would be great for Halo and Call of Duty. But it | isn't great for The Elder Scrolls, Starcraft, Gears, and | many different games Microsoft Studios are working on. EA | already tried to make every studio to use Frostbite for | every single game and ended up with disasters like Dragon | Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda. | devmunchies wrote: | another strategy piece is linkedin for competitive analysis. | They are able to see industry data for where all the top talent | is working and when they are on the market. | StreamBright wrote: | >> has been able to vertically integrate | | MS for a long time had such opportunities which it missed | almost every single time. | | On the other hand, Apple had similar opportunities and | succeeded almost every single time. | | The MS list: | | - Windows Mobile | | - Zune | | - MSN | | The Apple list: | | - iTunes | | - iMessage | | - iCloud | | - iOs (some more) | dgellow wrote: | Microsoft is extremely successful with Azure. Apple did not | compete at all on public cloud offering. | [deleted] | aeortiz wrote: | They still don't own the graphics cards and displays (monitors | &/or googles) | Graphguy wrote: | They do have HoloLens though. | zymhan wrote: | Those are very much a commodity. | reducesuffering wrote: | Nvidia and AMD, of $650B and $160B market caps, make | commodities?! | bregma wrote: | Consumer game hardware is small potatoes in the revenue | stream of those companies. They might be important to the | game-playing consumer, but they're regarded as | commodities by industry. | zymhan wrote: | I'm not sure what market cap has to do with it? BHP | Billiton is an _actual_ commodity (mining) company with a | market cap similar to AMD [1] | | GPUs aren't commodities in the traditional sense, it's | more of a figure of speech to convey how interchangeable | and standardized GPUs are nowadays. | | [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BHP:NYSE | schleck8 wrote: | Microsoft has an AR goggle contract for the US Army, and | functioning models of both this and the commercially | distributed HoloLens, so you bet VR is in their reach. | zitterbewegung wrote: | Activision-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 wrote: | Sure... If $2B in profit up 46% YoY is worst performing I'll | take it. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | DirectX, too. | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | I mean, isn't this basically how it used to work when the | console manufacturers were also the game developers? Like Sega | and Nintendo. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | It's not really the same. For one, when those were the two | juggernauts in the game cartridge era, they weren't really in | the business of just scooping up a bunch of game studios, | because financially it didn't make much sense. | | What's different now is that Microsoft is focusing on | becoming the Amazon Prime Video of video games. While you | will still be able to buy the games outright, the games of | the companies they're purchasing will be part of the monthly | price gamers pay to play. | | So for instance, because they own Zenimax, I can load up any | of the Bethesda / id games and play as part of my | subscription. And when Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI come | out, they'll be part of that price too. Buying Activision | brings Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, | and a host of other games under the same umbrella. | | I guess they've decided that low monthly subscriptions paired | with season passes for content is the way of the future for | gaming. | nightski wrote: | It's definitely a compelling offering. I don't think one | model has to win over the other though. There will be room | for subs and there will be room for steam libraries where | you own licenses as well in the future. | | For me personally I have a hard time justifying game pass. | I only complete 2-3 games a year at best and it's really | expensive at that rate. | kungito wrote: | They are still missing a mobile platform and that's why I | believe they will retry within the next few years | eh9 wrote: | I don't think so. They've moved away from owning the platform | (at least in mobile) in favor of services. Office is wildly | popular in mobile OS app stores. | curiousllama wrote: | That's an interesting idea. I wonder if the size & | concentration of that market is an effective deterrent? | keewee7 wrote: | They haven't completely given up on mobile. The Microsoft | Launcher for Android is really close to what a modern | Microsoft mobile platform would feel like. | | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/launcher | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Launcher | twobitshifter wrote: | I could see using this for work with office 365 integration | but that's the complete opposite direction of gaming for | me. | chc wrote: | Microsoft is making the Game Pass catalog playable on mobile | devices. I think that's their strategy there. | [deleted] | politician wrote: | They should just copy Steam Deck. | Croftengea wrote: | That is a really interesting thought. Now they got much more | of everything both in terms of technology (cloud, mobile | apps, hardware experience) and developers trust. | shmoopi wrote: | They don't need to have a mobile platform if they can get a | foothold on game streaming on mobile. | WithinReason wrote: | Wonder if Windows on ARM will be any help there | JAlexoid wrote: | I don't think they will. There's no point. There is a stable | duopoly, where Microsoft can reap the benefits of competition | between the two, without wasting any resources. | | May not be best for consumer - really great for business. | (especially, if courts hold that Apple/Google cannot outright | ban apps from their stores) | sylens wrote: | Purely anecdotal but I feel like we are at a point where a | lot of people would definitely stop and take a close look | at a non-Android alternative to the iPhone | kyriakos wrote: | Would be really hard to launch a new platform. Even if | its excellent on its own unfortunately it can't survive | without a big app catalog. | friedman23 wrote: | Easy solution, make the default app platform be based off | of html/css/javascript. Now the entire ecosystem of web | developers can build for your platform instantly. | ProfessorLayton wrote: | Why does this idea sound so familiar... | vanadium wrote: | The nostalgia I have for 2009-2011's webOS, as a former | app dev for the platform and its embrace of the Web | Platform, is still very much real to the point that I | keep my Palm Pre 2 dev unit behind me in my home office. | Still charges and boots just like it did back in 2010. | I'd love to see something with the computing power of the | present try it again (and I'm aware React Native exists), | but my expectations of it ever coming to fruition are | rather low. | | Aside: Seeing MagSafe chargers for iPhones these days | makes me chuckle. Also a webOS innovation from back | in...2009. | rstupek wrote: | Wasn't that PalmOS which got acquired by LG? | vanadium wrote: | That would be Palm webOS. | sylens wrote: | Yes, it would definitely be an uphill battle. But I | wonder if you could build a platform where a progressive | web app felt enough like a mobile app and therefore | enticed more app developers than requiring them to learn | native tools for another platform | leppr wrote: | Ever heard of Firefox OS? | | https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-legacy-of-firefox- | os-c58ec3... | FalconSensei wrote: | > "a lot of people" | | Depends what you mean by a lot of people, and what kind | of alternative you have in mind. Tech folks want | something open source, like the degoogle androids we | already see. Non-tech folks don't care much about | Android, they just want something that works and has all | the apps. So it would be hard to have any real | competition, considering even Microsoft had to pull the | plug | bhauer wrote: | I would be _very_ happy with a third option. As an iPhone | user, I really am unhappy with iOS, but any time I even | briefly entertain the idea of switching to Android, I | laugh at the idea. Both options are bad, and I 'm stuck | with the lesser of two evils. | bee_rider wrote: | The new PinePhone actually looks kinda decent. | Unfortunately it will likely go from an interesting idea | to abandoned before my iPhone is ready for a replacement. | mastazi wrote: | I have the PinePhone Beta Edition with Convergence | Package and I tried all of the available OS alternatives, | unfortunately none of those is quite ready for use as a | daily driver. | | Overall the best experience was with Mobian, this is | actually pretty close to being a daily driver and if only | performance was a bit better it could be OK (the new | PinePhone Pro will be faster so I'm waiting to try Mobian | with that). | | Ubuntu Touch was the smoothest in terms of performance. | The main disadvantage is I could not find some of the | apps that are available for the other distros like Gnome | Maps. Since it is based on Ubuntu I was expecting to find | a larger app ecosystem compared to Mobian but that wasn't | the case (I tried searching both in the store app and | using apt search in terminal). Also, many apps in the | store are actually repackaged progressive apps. | | The default OS (Manjaro Plasma) is the least polished of | all the ones I tried, it is quite a lot slower than | Mobian or Ubuntu Touch and even basic things like placing | an app on the home screen are broken, and I have no idea | why they chose it as the default OS. | rusk wrote: | I've heard that thanks to patents and stuff they already | makes loads of money out of mobile as it is! | nikanj wrote: | I wonder if the Nokia phone division sale included the | NGage patent portfolio | mnd999 wrote: | Nokia kept all their patents. | adventured wrote: | For anyone curious about that: | | "Nokia will retain its patent portfolio and will grant | Microsoft a 10-year license to its patents at the time of | the closing. Microsoft will grant Nokia reciprocal rights | to use Microsoft patents in its HERE services. In | addition, Nokia will grant Microsoft an option to extend | this mutual patent agreement in perpetuity." | | https://news.microsoft.com/2013/09/03/microsoft-to- | acquire-n... | [deleted] | obert wrote: | they make money but they lack control, e.g. MS can't | decide how software/apps are distributed, what is trusted | and what not, how apps are glued together, that's a huge | miss, plus the 30% cut Apple and Google apply to | payments, MS is missing out on a lot of money, and MS | stores pale in comparison. Not that I support this model | of distributing software, I prefer the old desktop model | of downloading from internet, but don't think MS is | making much money just because of patents. | rusk wrote: | Is there some particular cultural reason why MS have been | so bad at the whole walled Garden thing? I'm thinking | back as far as MSN | kaesar14 wrote: | I'm not sure about internal cultural reasons why but it | seems like Microsoft just sucks at user experience for | the most part, which is the key to the walled garden | approach to me. I've never used a Microsoft product | (other than mayyyybe the Xbox 360?) and thought, wow, | this product is awesome and I'd never willingly switch to | something else. You know, that feeling you get when you | use something like an iPhone or Google products in the | 2000s/early 2010s? | will4274 wrote: | Less so than they used to. These were mostly 90s patents | and a lot of them expired in the past five years. | kizer wrote: | I could see them launching an Android "SurfacePhone" just | because (to have SOME stance in mobile). Or Windows-based | since Windows already has an android subsystem (or emulator | right?). | [deleted] | mdoms wrote: | It's called the Surface Duo, it's already on its second | generation. | | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface- | duo-2/9408kgxp4xjl... | kyriakos wrote: | I honestly don't understand which market segment that | device is targeted to. | pram wrote: | $1500 Android phone is giving me some Ballmer-era level | laughs. | leppr wrote: | The Samsung Fold 3 was around this price at launch. | bduerst wrote: | Yeah, there's already a quality- and cost-leader for the | mobile market. MS would need to push their business office | lock-in, but both they and Blackberry tried that. Without | the consumer market it's not viable. | cma wrote: | > There is a stable duopoly, where Microsoft can reap the | benefits of competition between the two, without wasting | any resources. | | The huge competition where both charge 30% of gross sales, | far higher than even the federal corporate tax rate, which | is only charged on the net. | bduerst wrote: | They get away with that because it's a two-sided market | and they have all the consumers. Microsoft tried to woo | devs on Windows phone and it didn't work, because | consumers didn't follow. | JAlexoid wrote: | And they don't have to spend billions on building and | maintaining their own platform. | [deleted] | [deleted] | AJ007 wrote: | Hard to see that lasting more than another 2-3 years. | rdudek wrote: | This will be interesting to see. If Steam Deck becomes a | successful device, I believe the Xbox division will release a | mobile device to compete with Nintendo. | k12sosse wrote: | I mean if your controllers already support Bluetooth and | you already have an Android-based dual-screen form factor | device and you already have cloud gaming infrastructure.. | do you really need an entire new device? Or do you need a | bundle at point of sales | whywhywhywhy wrote: | Convinced they're just going to do the Netflix/Stadia route | with mobile etc. Sell a controller, use the device you | already have and stream games running from azure. | | Long term plan, obviously. | curiousllama wrote: | Not so long term - xCloud has been in live public beta for | a few years now. | pjmlp wrote: | They are going at it with their own Surface Duo based on | Android, it is like Android but with Microsoft twist, so. | simonh wrote: | Duo is an utter facepalm. What are they thinking. It | doesn't make the device cheaper or lighter, in fact it | makes it heavier and more expensive. It constrains your | interaction and UI model. It introduces unnecessary | mechanical complications and points of failure. It made | sense for Nintendo on the DS because it did reduce costs | and the device could be small and light enough for it to | work. The Duo is just different for the sake of being | different though. Classic solution in search of a problem. | pjmlp wrote: | We could have had Windows 10X as well, but apparently the | new blood on WinDev has lost track of what made Windows | great, and are now as headless chicken running into all | directions. | VRay wrote: | I agree with you 100%, I've never even heard of or seen a | use case for the dual-screen flip smartphone | | That said, my friends seem to love their Samsung foldable | phones. "Having a tablet available at any time in your | pocket is a game changer" | | (I don't understand how it's a game changer, but there | you go, one counterpoint) | sorry_outta_gas wrote: | just saying wouldn't be a bad idea to make a xbox mobile- | android device in the near future now that they have | mindshare again | muttantt wrote: | Give it a few months, and they will acquire Subspace. | tytrdev wrote: | They still rely extremely heavily on Nvidias ability to create | more and more powerful hardware. I recently found out that like | 70% of the world's supercomputers are powered by nvidia GPU | compute. People often talk about the tech power of different | countries (personally I've heard a ton of people talk about | China in this way), but at the end of the day they are still | reliant on the hardware manufacturers. Who am I to say that | China or X country doesn't secretly have something that far | outclasses nvidia hardware, though? | | Between gaming (the biggest form of media), supercomputers, | science computation, crypto nonsense, etc. It's really looking | to me like nvidia is actually one of the biggest power players | across the globe. Makes me really wonder about the tech they | aren't flashing to the public. I was personally astounded when | I saw their announcement to purchase ARM. I've seen a few | instances of people saying the dead acquisition is stifling | innovation. Honestly I'm kind of happy it didn't go through. | Probably just a lack of vision on my part, though. | anotherman554 wrote: | Microsoft uses AMD for their Xbox consoles, not Nvidia. | tytrdev wrote: | Honestly wasn't thinking about xbox at all. Good point. Now | I'm wondering what the market share is between the two. I'd | guess xbox is properly higher? | tytrdev wrote: | Also apparently tencent owns like 40% of Epic Games? It's all | bullshit folks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-r7GNlZvk&a | b_channel=Cap.H... | goldfeld wrote: | It is quite wild. The only thing missing is good will. | t3rabytes wrote: | I think Game Pass has built up a helluva goodwill bucket, | from talking with friends of mine. | icu wrote: | The Games Pass is such ridiculous value that my "non- | gaming" partner got a Series-S with Games Pass to play MS | Flight Simulator, and as an aside, to have games available | to myself and our kids (it was impossible to get the | Series-X in the UK in the lead up to Christmas without | paying scalpers). | | I have a PS5 (sadly from a scalper), and I begrudgingly got | Plus to fully experience the PvP aspect of Demon's Souls | but the fact that it comes with a bunch of PS4 games for | free, especially a few that I've been meaning to buy, makes | it worth the subscription. | | I doubt Sony would have done this without the pressure from | the Games Pass. | | I think Microsoft know that the PS4 won last gen on the | basis of the amazing exclusives it had. I think that | Microsoft is going to put a lot of exclusive pressure on | Sony this gen with their buying spree (Bethesda etc), and | while it is very hard to find time for gaming, I'm glad we | have both systems in my house. | isk517 wrote: | I liked the PS4 but even I feel like Sony didn't so much | win the last generation so much as Microsoft lost it. | Microsoft just never recovered from just how bad the XBox | One launch was and Sony managed to win by pretty much | doing nothing but releasing great exclusive titles. Sony | right now seems to be fully into the hubris stage they | were in when they made the PS3 and I feel like they are | going to slowly lose market to XBox which has immerged | from the disastrous XBox One humbled and with a greater | desire to cater to their audience. | everdrive wrote: | This feels a little like Amazon Prime in that the cost of | the total bundled deal is technically good, except that I | don't really want everything in the bundle, and would | rather receive much less value for only somewhat less | money. It probably works for a lot of customers, but I | really avoid as many subscription services as I can. | fartcannon wrote: | Game pass is a loss leader. They will jack the price once | they crush competition. | tm-guimaraes wrote: | That's what everyone thought. | | They actually reported profit with game pass. | fartcannon wrote: | Not according to Phil in Nov 2021 | | https://www.essentiallysports.com/esports-news-not-the- | only-... | | At 15 dollars per month, 18 million subscribers, that's | 3.25 billion dollars. They bought Betheseda for 7.5 | billion. So now they're in the hole 4.25 billion and they | still have to pay to run an entire extra company. | spaceisballer wrote: | I would have loved game pass when I was younger for the | sheer number of games. Now personally it offers me the | ability to try things out and not regret dropping money on | those games. I don't play nearly as many games as I used | to, but paying $15 and playing Back 4 Blood with friends | was great. And I didn't care when we all got our fill of it | because I got my moneys worth. Personally it's a great | alternative to pirating. | justicezyx wrote: | A 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? | belinder wrote: | I wonder if this means XBox game pass will at some point include | a WOW subscription | seanalltogether wrote: | Blizzard 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 wrote: | Back 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 wrote: | Diablo 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 wrote: | D2: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. | phgn wrote: | Now, 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. | obmelvin wrote: | I 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). | monkeydust wrote: | What'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. | 999900000999 wrote: | As 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 wrote: | > 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 wrote: | I'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. | pjerem wrote: | Hey, at least, all planets are aligned for the Banjo-Kazooie | remake by Toys For Bob. | akmarinov wrote: | Overwatch 2 PC/Xbox exclusive in 2030?? | revel wrote: | This 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. | Bayart wrote: | Like 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. | coldpie wrote: | These acquisitions are ridiculous. How long till Disney buys | Microsoft? Why even bother having more than one company in the | US? | Quillbert182 wrote: | I think Disney might struggle to buy Microsoft, given that | Microsoft has 10x the market cap. | [deleted] | jpeter wrote: | We are going for the Cyberpunk future. But instead of Arasaka, | Kang Tao, Militech and Biotechnica, we get Microsoft, Apple, | Amazon and Facebook | micromacrofoot wrote: | how do you think the laws should be changed to prevent this? | fourseventy wrote: | They shouldn't. Capitalism works. | depaya wrote: | In who's favor? | awestroke wrote: | What do you mean? In what way does capitalism work? | coldpie wrote: | I'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. | ssnistfajen wrote: | Then it's for good reason Business laws are not drafted and | implemented by people like you. Arbitrary and narrow rule | of thumb does not make a legislative bill in any | functioning modern society. | coldpie wrote: | 100% agreed!! But, if someone was a politician and | looking for my vote, saying words like "break up big | companies" would be a pretty appealing prospect to me. | smk_ wrote: | Vertical integration can be a win for consumers. Also, a | law like that (and any law infringing a free market) | disincentivizes growth and innovation. | coldpie wrote: | > 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 wrote: | > 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. | panick21_ wrote: | > I'm not convinced. | | So you think that cars built by 1 company providing | engines and then another company sells you the cabin to | put on top? | | Should rocket companies not be able to build and launch | rockets, or their own sats? Should we prevent Tesla from | making batteries? Should Apple or Oxide (if you want a | startup) be prevented from developing software and | hardware together? What is that other then vertical | integration. | | Vertical integration is everything, being against | vertical integration means that basically every company | should only ever be allowed to control a single step in a | production process. And its hard even define 'a step' | even means, as even things like making steel requires | many steps. | | If you want things, at least actually figure out what you | want because I don't think that is it. | coldpie wrote: | > If you want things, at least actually figure out what | you want because I don't think that is it. | | I want competition. I want more choices. Acquisitions are | the opposite of that. | panick21_ wrote: | So no acquisition of any company ever? | coldpie wrote: | I already made a stupid proposal above: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29979477 | smk_ wrote: | Example of good vertical integration: Apple | M1/AirPods/iPhone/Apple Music. That's a very convenient | ecosystem for users, and it allows Apple to reduce | manufacturing cost. We both agree there should be strong | competitors to Apple, for the lower manufacturing costs | to propagate to consumers as well. | | >Yes, that's exactly what I want to accomplish. These | companies are too big & powerful. | | Economic growth is a consequence of gains in | productivity. Therefore, we should champion economic | growth because it allows us to do more during a day. | | >Huge companies use acquisitions to squash innovation. | | Another idea: people set up really innovate companies | because they hope to be acquired by a bigger company. In | other words - big companies enable an incentive structure | favouring innovation. In general, VC:s (which drive most | innovation today) hope to exit via an IPO - but selling | to a big tech-company is a safety cushion. If we remove | the safety cushion - the VC market will be more risk | averse and less willing to spend on innovative, but | unproven, ideas. | owaislone wrote: | > Example of good vertical integration: Apple | M1/AirPods/iPhone/Apple Music. That's a very convenient | ecosystem for users, and it allows Apple to reduce | manufacturing cost. We both agree there should be strong | competitors to Apple, for the lower manufacturing costs | to propagate to consumers as well. | | I agree this is a very good thing but I think we'd both | agree that Apple buying Arm would probably be a very bad | thing in the medium-long run. I don't know what the | solution is but as a consumer, I'd like companies to | collaborate and thrive in a single big ecosystem vs | having one big company. For example, Activision games can | still be on Game Pass without Microsoft completely owning | them and as an end user, I think that is more balanced. | dasKrokodil wrote: | https://youtu.be/yuBe93FMiJc?t=239 | wayoutthere wrote: | Microsoft is 10x the size of Disney, so more likely they buy | Disney than the other way around. | AlexandrB wrote: | My 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. | no_time wrote: | They are long overdue for a break-up. I guess the US elite thinks | otherwise. | micromacrofoot wrote: | If you want them to break up you'd first need to get the law | changed. There are larger game companies still. | nathias wrote: | Too bad two evils don't cancel each other out. | pixel_tracing wrote: | I 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. | mrkramer wrote: | All 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. | giorgioz wrote: | I 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? | bombcar wrote: | Valve 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 wrote: | I 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 wrote: | >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. | goldcd wrote: | I'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-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. | gfd wrote: | Blizzard 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? | aetch wrote: | Love the article header image. One of these games is not like the | others. | ur-whale wrote: | But is it a good deal? | | Wrt Blizzard specifically, where is the amazing company that | designed Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW, ... | | I find their recent offering ... bland. | parkingrift wrote: | No 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? | MangoCoffee wrote: | Disney? it own all the media and franchise IPs like Star Wars, | Marvel...etc. | parkingrift wrote: | I don't consider past regulatory failures as a reasonable | counter argument to regulating current transactions. I would | wholeheartedly supported forcing Disney to divest much of | their portfolio. | loceng wrote: | Along with that perhaps implement rules of integrity - that | you can't alter story lines (multiple movie release | versions) for various reasons, else you can't earn | revenue/profit from democratic-free nations [or at least | nations doing their best to working towards understanding | the rules necessary for an ideal level of freedom as maxim, | e.g. driving on the right side of the road, excessive force | for self-defense isn't acceptable, etc]; or perhaps these | modified movies act as a Trojan horse library - which can | later be proof points to help educate, enlighten their | population by showing the contrast - and arguably why | they'd want to exclude it. | unethical_ban wrote: | Counterpoint: It's gaming. It is a space with a low barrier to | (indie) entry and it is not part of some critical | infrastructure. Maybe it is lamentable, but I am not sure | antitrust would be my way to go for this. | unethical_ban wrote: | Self-reply: The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it | is. Call of Duty, Minecraft, Warcraft, Doom and TES are under | one roof where they were under five (or non-existent) 15 | years ago. | | Whether or not it's legal, it should not be celebrated. | inetknght wrote: | > _It is a space with a low barrier to (indie) entry and it | is not part of some critical infrastructure._ | | How many indie games are there for Xbox? | whynaut wrote: | Microsoft has been championing indie games for three | generations now. This was the wrong question for sure. | vlozko wrote: | A lot? Certainly far more than I can ever get to. Even more | on PS and PC. Not exactly sure what you're getting at. | dmonitor wrote: | and microsoft still takes 30% of their revenue | mbg721 wrote: | More than you might think. Manifold Garden is one that | comes to mind; if you're looking for them in the online | store thing, you can find them, although of course they're | not the games with discs and cases at Walmart or Target or | wherever. | parkingrift wrote: | It will be tough to sell $60 games when you can get the | entire library of Microsoft games, plus their partner | networks, for $10/month. | | Not to mention the potential platform abuses whereby MS can | now gate their property behind Windows and Xbox. | | And I'm not even that creative. Surely MS will get a return | on their $70,000,000,000 investment whether it's better for | the gaming economy and consumers, or not. | smileybarry wrote: | The games industry is trying to push $70 MSRP this | generation, so I see the savings in Game Pass and potential | pressure on standalone pricing to be good. | | Given that nearly every popular $60 game now has | microtransactions, loot boxes, (paid) season passes, and | maybe even (paid) DLC, there's absolutely no reason for the | price increase. They're already making buckets of cash (and | turning a profit) at the "just $60" price point. | ChildOfChaos wrote: | I get this, but this is what bothers me sometimes with | these laws, because getting all these games for $10 is | better for the consumer, that is why it dominates the | market. | | Breaking it up just means you end up with a worst product | for the consumer and a higher expense. | parkingrift wrote: | I think you need to have a longer time horizon. Microsoft | cannot justify spending $70B to offer the entire catalog | of games for $10/month. They'll use this economic | advantage to muscle out the competition and then they'll | start adding tiers, raising prices, and other anti- | consumer behavior. | | This is a common tactic to win public approval for anti- | consumer acquisitions. It's always better for there to be | more competition, not less. | loceng wrote: | One counterweight mechanism that might work really well is a | higher % tax for these massive organizations - of which then | ideally direct that funding to support and fund | creativity/competitors, etc. Whether that accounts for and | counters all the potential pitfalls of companies with such | gravity and power, I don't know? | bombcar wrote: | Disney already owns some huge percentage of _all_ | entertainment, we just need to wait for them to buy Microsoft | 's gaming division now. | SahAssar wrote: | Microsofts market cap is 10x disneys. It's more likely that | microsoft would buy disney (and perhaps spin off theme parks | and cruises). | me_me_me wrote: | Wow, 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 wrote: | Based on current market valuations, it seems more likely for | Microsoft to be able to buy Disney than the other way round. | Balero wrote: | Or Microsoft to buy Disney, which is probably more likely. | syshum wrote: | Idiocracy and Demolition Man were both prophecies | franzwong wrote: | I wish Apple can also acquire some game studios to produce games | on MacOS... | taurath wrote: | It'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. | LinuxBender wrote: | There 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- | act... | drannex wrote: | My god I hate monopolies, MS has been on a buying spree and | someone needs to stop them, but it will likely never happen. | fourseventy wrote: | This acquisition makes Microsoft the third biggest gaming | company in the world... Not even the biggest, and far from a | monopoly... | sofixa wrote: | Don'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). | phendrenad2 wrote: | That means Nintendo should be slapped "hard" too, since | we're not getting hung up on legal definitions. | smileybarry wrote: | Their 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. | NineStarPoint wrote: | I agree in theory, but having exclusives is a requirement | to compete with Sony and Nintendo, two companies that are | somewhat outside the reach of US regulators. How to handle | competition against foreign pseudo-monopolies isn't an easy | question. | crecker wrote: | Lol look at the URL funny :) "__trashed" | poetril wrote: | It's an absolute shame Bobby Kotick will continue to function as | CEO. | agd wrote: | With 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. | Taylor_OD wrote: | Gamepass will be the netflix of game... rental? Sharing? | Streaming? Whatever you want to call Gamepass. I'm surprised it | didnt happen sooner. | jimbob45 wrote: | Blizzard is dead weight compared to the incredible | profitability of Skylanders + CoD. I'd be willing to bet | Blizzard gets spun off within a year. | anthonypasq wrote: | skylanders hasnt been thing for years lol | SkeuomorphicBee wrote: | Blizzard had a very big and dedicated fan base, the launch of | a Blizzard game used to be one of the biggest gaming events | of a year, their IPs are (were) loved by huge numbers. | Current management did squander most of that good will in the | last few years (mainly optimizing their new games for | addictiveness instead of designing for fun), but I don't | think it is too late, if under new management Blizzard pulls | a 180 and goes back to make good games with the old IPs, fans | will come back in droves. | nottorp wrote: | > if under new management Blizzard pulls a 180 and goes | back to make good games with the old IPs, fans will come | back in droves. | | With who? Most names known for the titles of good old | Blizzard are long gone. Possibly even retired. | oblio wrote: | Nobody's irreplaceable if the will to do it is really | there. | palijer wrote: | I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list | of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented. | | I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't | hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what | I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different | than what actually happens. | | I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two | players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was | allowed to happen. | strulovich wrote: | Meta's (Facebook) acquisition of Giphy got blocked by | European regulators iirc. | perbu wrote: | UK, I think. Still a weird decision. Of all the stuff | Facebook bought they blocked Giphy. Not Whatsapp, | Instagram, etc. | Hamuko wrote: | I imagine that if Facebook tried to buy Whatsapp or | Instagram toady, they would be facing a different kind of | a regulatory environment. It feels like the world has | only recently awakened to how Facebook just tries to buy | out their competition. | GeekyBear wrote: | > I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a | list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually | prevented. | | Just today, the DOJ and FTC announced plans to toughen up on | mergers and acquisitions. | | >The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice | Antitrust Division kicked off a process to rewrite merger | guidelines for businesses on Tuesday, signaling a tougher | stance toward large deals. | | https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/18/ftc-doj-seek-to-rewrite- | merg... | umeshunni wrote: | Visa/Plaid very recently | | https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/visa-and-plaid-abandon- | merger... | sofixa wrote: | In the EU, Siemens and Alstom weren't allowed to merge their | train divisions without significant divestment. Same for | Daewoo and Hyundai shipbuilding just last week. | dls2016 wrote: | > I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a | list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually | prevented. | | A lot has been written about the decline of antitrust | enforcement in the US since 1970. | | https://hbr.org/2017/12/the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-the- | u-s... | coldpie wrote: | It does happen, but it's pretty rare. One example that comes | to mind: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T- | Mobile... | forkerenok wrote: | And another fairly recent one: | https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/12/business/visa-plaid- | termi... | | (Visa + Plaid) | NetBeck wrote: | That failed merger's poison pill is the reason T-Mobile is | the juggernaut it is today. The cash T-Mobile received | allowed them to upgrade their network, and customers could | roam free on AT&T's 1700MHz frequency. | | AT&T's threat assessment of T-Mobile was correct at the | time. | pessimizer wrote: | > AT&T's threat assessment of T-Mobile was correct at the | time. | | I think that assessment was obvious to everyone at the | time. The question is whether buying out competitors is | good for the public. | | Of course, the cash was a penalty for not being able to | pull off the merger; if the cash was critical for | T-Mobile to become the threat it has been, the outcome is | ironic. | ece wrote: | I don't know what the breakup cash might have amounted | to, but the AT&T roaming agreement was for 7 years, and | it's only recently with n41/n71 that T-Mobile has done | any better. | | The equivalent for this merger would be something like | Minecraft and Bethesda games on the A-B launcher for 7 | years. Huge giveaway by AT&T I think, as foolish as it | might have been for them to think the merger would | actually go through; having at-least 4 major carriers was | policy at the time and still is (Dish's spectrum hoarding | notwithstanding). | mchesters wrote: | Nvidia/Arm comes to mind as a recent acquisition prevented. | laputan_machine wrote: | Because of the UK's CMA. the US equivalent does not seem to | care about preventing these giant mergers as much. | | https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/nvidia-slash-arm-merger- | inquiry | chronogram wrote: | "Mergers: Commission opens in-depth investigation into | proposed acquisition of Arm by NVIDIA" 27 October 2021 ht | tps://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21 | _... | | "FTC Sues to Block $40 Billion Semiconductor Chip Merger" | 2 December 2021 https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- | releases/2021/12/ftc-s... | kthejoker2 wrote: | Halliburton / Baker Hughes merger was preemptively cancelled | due to regulation | apocalyptic0n3 wrote: | AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile was aborted due to anti-trust | complaints if I recall correctly. | | The original purchase of Rite Aid by Walgreens was aborted | due to similar concerns, although that one ended in a revised | partial acquisition anyway. | | The Staples acquisition of Office Depot/Office Max was | stopped as well on anti-trust grounds. | | They also blocked a merger of Nasdaq and NYSE. | | Those are all since 2010. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few big | ones too. They should definitely be blocking more, but they | have stopped some. | PascLeRasc wrote: | Intuit was blocked from buying Credit Karma Tax just | recently. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice- | department-requires-d... | LadyCailin wrote: | Thank goodness, they don't need any more power over | people. | vl wrote: | And MS from buying Intuit | wayoutthere wrote: | They blocked Comcast from merging with Time Warner Cable. | By "they" I'm referring to AT&T and Verizon (the two | biggest telecom providers in the US), who were afraid of a | third telecom provider establishing a national footprint | and potentially challenging them across wireless and | wireline. By preventing the merger through their immense | political connections, they keep both Comcast and TWC as | regional players who are much easier to monopolize. | | So even the antitrust that goes through usually only goes | through because powerful (often monopolistic) forces want | to block a merger, not because it's what's objectively best | for competition. | RC_ITR wrote: | It's also worth noting the FTC (not just the Justice | Department) can sue to block mergers on competitive | grounds: see Visa <> Plaid from 2020. | cjf4 wrote: | GE Honeywell was a huge one. | | https://www.rferl.org/a/1096891.html | paulpan wrote: | It'll depend on the perspective. | | For the gaming industry, this seems to push Microsoft into 3rd | place (by size) behind Sony and Tencent. So hardly a monopoly | and akin to T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint a few years ago. | It makes Microsoft much more competitive against Sony and even | Nintendo since it'll likely bolster their 1P offerings in the | future. | | But if Microsoft uses their ownership to favor their own game | subscription services (aka GamePass) as well as platforms (aka | Windows 11, Xbox console), then certainly that'll be | monopolistic behavior. Interesting to note that they're | probably #1-#2 in either of those sub-industries. It's possible | to end up with an "Internet Explorer-esque" antitrust scenario | if Microsoft removes or heavily discourages Activision and | Bethesda from making their titles cross-platform. | redisman wrote: | Nintendo and Sony are small potatoes compared to MSFT in | 2022. 70B and 150B market cap against a 2.27T one. Japanese | tech companies are happy to stay in their niche. But now | Microsoft has an incomprehensible advantage in available | capital. Apart from the Japanese government blocking the sale | they could just buy them | Teknoman117 wrote: | When they bought Bethesda last year they announced that Elder | Scrolls 6 would no longer be a multi platform title, it would | be a Microsoft exclusive. I wouldn't be surprised if they | would try to take something like the Call of Duty franchise | and make it Xbox/Windows only. | Tiktaalik wrote: | They don't even need to do that. They can keep releasing | CoD on Playstation, but if they add it to Gamepass, that | increases the value of Gamepass so significantly that it | could tilt the console market toward Microsoft. | sharkjacobs wrote: | > if Microsoft removes or heavily discourages Activision and | Bethesda from making their titles cross-platform. | | I'm pretty sure that Starfield is announced to be a | Windows/Xbox exclusive already. | weakfish wrote: | bobthepanda wrote: | It should be worth noting that T-mobile + Sprint succeeded on | the third try after the first two were more or less blocked | by regulators in the same decade (it didn't actually get all | the way to them, but they signaled there was no way they | would approved.) | | The _only_ reason it got approved the third time was that | regulators were convinced that either way, the US would only | have three mobile operators because it did not look like | Sprint could be a going concern. | encryptluks2 wrote: | Game Pass has major issues still. No integrated backup | mechanism; only 3 changes to your home PC per year... Imagine | reinstalling more than 3 times to find out that you can no | longer play offline; absolutely horrible download speeds... | Compared to Steam which maxes out bandwidth; and the interface | for Xbox Game Pass on PC is terrible. | mrtranscendence wrote: | > absolutely horrible download speeds... Compared to Steam | which maxes out bandwidth | | Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know why they do that, it's | annoying. If I _can_ download a game in a half hour I 'd like | it in a half hour, not next Tuesday, please. | MrDresden wrote: | I wonder if this is due to MS hosting their content at | fewer datacenters and thus needing to balance the data flow | to each user better. | | Valve has boxes hosted at many ISPs around the world and so | each location could have lower usage numbers, thus less | need to throttle. | | Pure speculation though. | danity wrote: | Very true, just like when Google bought DoubleClick. I couldn't | believe that went through. | bduerst wrote: | You could say the same thing about Disney, Netflix, HBO, Apple | TV, Amazon prime, etc. | | The thing about subscriptions is that consumers tend to buy | multiple. | ren_engineer wrote: | my question is whether Microsoft was fanning the flames of all | the controversy surrounding Activision recently and how much | that dropped the acquisition price. | 999900000999 wrote: | As 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. | habeebtc wrote: | Indeed the Steam Deck is very exciting because what we've | seen is that the mobile space is where Linux has been able to | defeat Microsoft in end user adoption. | | As some other folks have pointed out, the existence of WINE | and other compat layers is actually hindering gaming on | Linux, by disincentivizing game devs to make games directly | for linux. A huge hit with the Steam Deck could actually | start bringing more games directly to Linux. | oblio wrote: | > Indeed the Steam Deck is very exciting because what we've | seen is that the mobile space is where Linux has been able | to defeat Microsoft in end user adoption. | | That's a very generous definition of "Linux". | | Android won, not Linux. | | What's the GUI toolkit? Android's one. Audio? Same. | Notifications? Android. Etc, etc. | | There's a reason many people are scared of Fuchsia, it's | not inconceivable that Google at some point just pulls the | plug on Linux and replaces it wholesale with Fuchsia as the | base for Android. | | Linux on mobile failed utterly, from Maemo to Meego to | Ubuntu Mobile to all other attempts. | f6v wrote: | Right, but big developers have also been getting away with | producing crappy AAA titles. They always have tried to push | unfinished games to the market, but it has become more | widespread in the last years. Now, with less competition, | things might actually get worse. | JeremyNT wrote: | > Steam Deck is Valve opening up an alternative to Microsoft | land. | | This seems to put the writing on the wall for the Steam Deck | though, right? How many people are really going to care about | a Valve system that can't run any of the popular games from | the MS catalog? | | I preordered the Steam Deck and plan to follow through with | the purchase, but things look pretty dismal for Valve at this | juncture. It seems like they're five years too late to the | party with the Deck, and they now have no leverage to push MS | to interoperate. | falcor84 wrote: | > How many people are really going to care about a Valve | system that can't run any of the popular games from the MS | catalog? | | So far, it seems MS is quite happy to put its games on | Steam as an additional revenue source. Looking now, Xbox | Game Studios has 49 games on steam, including its latest | and biggest offerings, such as Halo Infinite and Forza | Horizon 5[0]. | | [0]https://store.steampowered.com/curator/3090835-Xbox- | Game-Stu... | JeremyNT wrote: | But doesn't this acquisition put MS in a much stronger | position, and isn't the Deck a direct competitor to MS | hardware? MS now has a massive game catalog and I can't | see any reason they would want to allow Valve to access | it on their own console. Maybe MS will tolerate Steam | near term, but you can't tell me that MS enjoys letting | Valve take a cut of every sale, and with so many huge | titles they can absolutely force users into whatever | store they want (and limit them to whatever platform they | want). | | I don't know why anybody would give Microsoft of all | companies the benefit of the doubt on this front. | mrtranscendence wrote: | I don't know. If they were so bent out of shape that | Valve takes a cut of every sale, they could have stopped | at any point before now. If anything would force people | to use Microsoft's storefront it would have been a new | well-reviewed Halo game, but nope, there it is for sale | on Steam. And that makes sense to me -- withdrawing from | the predominant PC storefront would be a gamble that | might not pay off, as anyone who doesn't wish to buy | direct from Microsoft is a loss of $60*0.7 = $42 that | they could've won buy selling on Steam. | | Maybe the calculus changes as they eat up publishers and | grow their catalog, but traditionally Microsoft's | storefronts haven't done particularly well. | sofixa wrote: | Why wouldn't it be able to? With the Proton compatibility | layer almost all Windows-only games should run on it. And | worst case scenario, one can dual boit Windows if Microsoft | decide to be really aggressive vis a vis regulators and | block their games from running on Proton. | 999900000999 wrote: | Better yet. | | You can run Game Pass directly in a browser. So you could | use GamePass on really any modern web connected device. | | I would be shocked if Microsoft supported the actual | GamePass app on Linux | sofixa wrote: | Can is a bit abstract. I've found it works really poorly | in the browser ( just getting to the correct page that | actually shows you the list of games available is a pain | and requires multiple hops). | mrtranscendence wrote: | For what it's worth, I used xcloud for the first time on | iOS this morning, where it runs entirely in the browser. | It actually wasn't bad! I had to close out the browser | entirely and reopen it to fix issues with the streaming, | but once I did that it was much smoother than I | anticipated, and jumping into a game was quick. | | It was absolutely unplayable without a controller, mind | you, but it worked. | smileybarry wrote: | That's just cloud streaming, though. "Normal" Game Pass | means downloading full games to run locally. | izacus wrote: | I 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 wrote: | I 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 wrote: | Yeah, 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. | cloogshicer wrote: | Agreed. It's a very deceptive business practice. | smileybarry wrote: | There's a large crowd of people who'd rather buy to own | games even if they're on Game Pass, even after the entire | Bethesda catalog was added. I'm personally one of them, if | I like/want a game a lot, I prefer buying it on Steam so | I'll always be able to replay it. (I've even bought some | games I discovered on Game Pass) | | Also -- EA (EA Play), Ubisoft (Uplay Plus), and Sony (PS | Now) already went the way of subscription gaming. EA Play | is included in Xbox/PC Game Pass, and PS Now isn't just | Sony's catalog, either. | bakugo wrote: | >There's a large crowd of people who'd rather buy to own | games even if they're on Game Pass | | Judging by the reactions I've seen to this acquisition | around the internet, this crowd is really not that large. | | The average consumer of today does not care in the | slightest about owning things, they only care about being | able to enjoy whatever the current flavor of the week AAA | tripe is for now before the next flavor of the week comes | along to replace it. When they're done with a game, they | don't care about having it anymore. | fullstop wrote: | You get a discount (20%, I think) if you want to buy a | game which is available on Gamepass and you have a | subscription. | | This way you can fully play the game and if you really | want to "permanently" add it to your library, you can do | so for less. | JAlexoid wrote: | It's already a race to the bottom. It has been for a while. | | Don't blame mobile games - they got those exploitative | ideas from PC market. | | The upside of a PC market, is the lack of a centralized | authority to tell you what games are good - a.k.a the app | stores. (App stores are horrible for games or any creative | content discovery, as they use purely utilitarian | categorization) That doesn't mean that PC, or web, games | are any less exploitative than mobile counterparts. | (remember mafia wars or farmville?) | mrtranscendence wrote: | > It's already a race to the bottom. It has been for a | while. | | Is it? Undoubtedly there's exploitative crap on PC, but | there are countless great titles -- indie and otherwise | -- released every year that you can pay money to own. On | my iPhone I can hardly even find games to pay a fair | price once to own anymore; it's almost _entirely_ | exploitative crap. | | I used to buy games all the time on my iPhone; were it | not for Apple Arcade I'd've hardly played anything in | years. | JAlexoid wrote: | Yes, commercial games have been a race to the bottom for | a long time. | | In spaces where casual gaming dominates - exploitative | games are top of the "charts". | | I'm not an enthusiast gamer - I don't have time to search | for indie games. What I see is primarily exploitative | games, which turned me off gaming. | | If you even read about gaming industry or new games - | you're not the majority , that drives casual games to the | top of the charts in primary app stores. | dleslie wrote: | I used to hold the same opinion as you, and for the most | part I still do. But I think the subscription model is a | solution to the race to the bottom, because it creates an | artificial level of quality assurance. | | Take PlayPass, for instance: the play store is a landfill | of endless trash, but PlayPass adds both a level of | curation and it unlocks all the microtransactions. | | So for a low yearly fee you get access to the best Play | Store games, never pay for microtransactions, and don't | need to go digging to find gems in the garbage heap. | VRay wrote: | I dunno, I tried Apple Arcade, and the games on there are | decent, but I really didn't feel like I was getting my | $5/month's worth | | Any random $20 Switch title from the Shovelware Shelf at | your local retailer is so much more polished and fun than | even the best phone games, it's insane | dleslie wrote: | I have no idea what's on Apple Arcade, but on Play Pass | I've been playing the Kingdom Rush games, the Baldur's | Gate Enhanced Edition, and a tonne of critically- | acclaimed indie titles. | dmead wrote: | the government will look the other way if there is a competitor | to tencent. | YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: | At this rate it's going to be Tencent vs Microsoft and if I | have to choose I pick Microsoft. | einpoklum wrote: | So, you're saying that between the giant douche and the turd | sandwich you pick the sandwich? | | Somehow I'm not impressed. | anaganisk wrote: | Ekaros wrote: | On gaming side the Microsoft from big players actually | producing games seem the least bad option. Lot less bullshit | in general than likes of Ubisoft and EA or Activision. | viktorcode wrote: | There's a difference though. Tencent doesn't dictate its | studios how to conduct business. Microsoft on the other hand | made Bethesda leave PlayStation, which negatively impacts | their revenue, but plays into the hand of Microsoft. | Lio wrote: | > Tencent doesn't dictate its studios how to conduct | business. | | Isn't that _exactly_ what Tencent are well known for | doing?[1] | | > According to the designer, Riot managers had provided a | PowerPoint presentation that she assumed Tencent had made | for them, although she didn't know for sure. | | 1. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/15/china- | video-gam... | schmorptron wrote: | This quote doesn't fit the context here. In the article, | it states this was about entering the chinese market, not | about how to design their game. | RyEgswuCsn wrote: | Quite the contrary: | | > The deal still leaves Riot with a largely independent | remit, however, with CEO Brandon Beck telling press that | Tencent see Riot more as investment partners than as a | fully-owned subsidiary. | | > "Riot is going to remain completely independent. There | are no redundancies, no layoffs, no synergy fishing, no | leadership change," Beck told Gamasutra. "Nothing is | going to change other than they're dramatically | increasing their holding in the company. They see this | more as an investment in a partner. | | https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-02-07-tencent | -ac... | | I remember reading somewhere that Tencent has the | reputation of not interfering with the game studios it | had acquired. | rodgerd wrote: | Tencent _and Sony_ are still much larger than Microsoft 's | gaming division, even after this. | thfuran wrote: | I'm already wondering why these trillion dollar companies are | allowed to make pretty much any acquisitions at all, let alone | ones pretty clearly aimed at vertical integration. | neogodless wrote: | > other companies are going to find it very hard to compete | with Game Pass | | I haven't really ever used it. I used to buy everything | Blizzard made (OK that's an exaggeration, but I was all about | WarCraft/StarCraft/Diablo...). Before Steam, I bought lots of | games on disk. Now I buy most things on Steam. And I haven't | bought anything Blizzard since Diablo III. | | Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game | Pass? | | (I'm just one person, but among the people I know that play PC | games, I don't hear about Game Pass much. One person mentioned | he's on a 14 day $1 trial - that was the extent of it.) | ssully wrote: | I would look at consoles first. Why would someone buy a | Playstation, when you can now buy an Xbox + GamePass and get | access to a large chunk of the biggest games? | FanaHOVA wrote: | > Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game | Pass? | | I paid like $5/mo for 1 year of the Ultimate version, I can | play games on both Xbox and PC and carry over progress for | most of them. It's great. Steam doesn't have anything like | that, so not sure there's any comparison to do. | krageon wrote: | > Why wouldn't Steam continue to be competitive against Game | Pass? | | Game pass is significantly cheaper, unless you buy very few | games on steam (and/or only buy them on deep, deep sale. | Which doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful way). | Noos wrote: | the cheapskate consumer really doesn't have much power | here, though. Not many people will develop primarily for | xbox if all they can hope is to have gamepass level money. | Thats why despite it, Xbox is still very much a 3rd in the | console wars, and microsoft has to resort to buying popular | IPs to have a chance. | ericd wrote: | The annual steam sales still feel pretty deep. | neogodless wrote: | Ah yes I don't buy a _ton_ of games, and I see sales all | the time for Steam, like seeing $40 games for $10. | agar wrote: | So imagine deciding to spend $10 on that game, then | realizing it's on GamePass. You now can choose wither to | spend that same $10 to have access to 150+ games | (including that one that's on sale), or just that game. | | Sure, that $10 gets you only 1 month, but will you buy a | different $10 game next month? Will you play this game | for more than a month? | | Pretty soon the GamePass ROI becomes difficult to ignore. | (This coming from someone that doesn't have GamePass but | is very impressed by the business model and value | proposition around it). | Hamuko wrote: | I'd still rather own my games than rent it out, | especially since I know that there's also a constant | stream of games leaving Game Pass. | | This month, Game Pass subscribers will lose access to | Cyber Shadow (launched January 2021), Nowhere Prophet | (launched July 2020), Prison Architect (launched January | 2021) and Xeno Crisis (launched August 2020). | | I'm also having trouble believing that Game Pass will | remain $10 for long. At some point Microsoft will want to | start recouping its investments and it's gonna start | hiking prices. I personally got pretty tired of the | constant Netflix price updates and I'd rather not do the | same to my video game collection. I didn't actually have | a gaming PC between January 2014 and March 2021, and it | was actually pretty nice to install Steam and see all of | the games that I bought between 2006 and 2014 still | waiting for me in my library. | erosenbe0 wrote: | I think most casual consumers nowadays only care to own | staples like Mario Kart and everything else is closer to | a long-term movie rental. | ericd wrote: | There's a very long tail of interesting games, 150 games | at a time just doesn't cut it. When the urge to replay an | old favorite comes along, I'm incredibly uninterested in | doing the equivalent of checking Netflix to see if it's | still in the library. They'd have to have coverage at | Spotify levels to make that start to seem interesting. | | But maybe they'll get there. | bmhin wrote: | I don't have GamePass but do find it intriguing. The | value prop is completely on the other end. It's not | wondering if you can play (or replay) some older game | that you want in particular. It's when a new game comes | out or you are in the mood for _something_ you haven 't | played before, you can go to the page and find something | to at least try for zero marginal cost. If you play or | are interested in a broad swath of games, eliminating | that initial hump of whether you want to invest money | into it is a different ball game. | | It's really is literally just Netflix of games. Not great | at all when you want to watch Movie X, better if you want | to just watch _some_ movie, and the only way when you | want their in house productions which in theory are | striving to be high quality. GamePass isn 't to that | final level of exclusivity yet, but I wouldn't be | surprised if some game goes "Only on GamePass" in the | nearish future. | | It's also similar to Netflix in that if your usecase was | the old "Just streaming The Office only" you could | probably just purchase it. A mono game player would | definitely be better served just buying the title they | want for $60 rather than a monthly fee, but it starts to | get more attractive at just a few games per year. | frenchie14 wrote: | Just FYI Game Pass has ~500 games right now. Full list: | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kspw-4paT- | eE5-mrCrc4... | neogodless wrote: | I paid $20 for Valheim and played that for about 6 | months. | | Got Conan Exiles for $12 and played it for 3 months. | | If you really like playing a wide variety of games, and | like to rent them, then a $10/mo deal is excellent. I | like to buy inexpensive games and play them for a long | time. Should I even mention the 15 years I got out of | StarCraft? | | I'll go in waves, playing one game like crazy for a | couple months, and then maybe not playing anything for a | few. I like going back to the games I already know I | enjoy and playing them some more, so I don't want to rent | them. | drusepth wrote: | The big difference with Game Pass is that the $10 gets me | all those games just for that month, whereas my Steam | library is full of games I've bought over the years, | usually for <$10/each. If I were to have paid $10/mo over | the same period of time, I would have paid significantly | more -- and I'd have to keep paying it in order to play | those games. | | I subscribe to Game Pass occasionally and it sucks every | time to lose access to all the games I'm playing. It | becomes a balancing act of "I can buy this game for $30 | or I can play it (and others) for 3 months at the same | price... but what if I want to play it again in the | future?" Like most rental models, most times it's easier | _and_ cheaper to just buy the game upfront if you can | afford it, especially when it 's on sale, which is easy | to predict (and be notified of) on stores like Steam. | sylens wrote: | >> and I'd have to keep paying it in order to play those | games. | | But how long do you play these games for, and how often | do you replay them? There are definitely games I replay a | lot (Resident Evil games, for one) but there are many | where I'm done after one playthrough. I'm totally okay | "renting" it and moving on with Game Pass for a lot of | titles. | drusepth wrote: | This might be specific to my tastes, but most of the | games I play don't really have an "end" to playthroughs | (and for the ones that do, it's very rare that I dedicate | the time to play it start to finish without taking breaks | to play other games, which usually drags playthroughs on | for much longer than less casual players). And sometimes | I just come back to old games years later for nostalgia. | | Some of my most-played on Game Pass are Crusader Kings 3, | ARK, Dragon Age, My Time at Portia, and No Man's Sky, | which are basically what I go back to every time I | resubscribe. But after getting up near a dozen months | subscribed at $10/mo, I'm now really wishing I would have | just dished out the cash earlier to buy the games | instead, especially if I want to keep playing them over | time. I'm very much in a sunk cost mindset though: "I've | already paid to play the game so much, surely this month | is the month I'll 'finish' it and get to stop paying, | right? Therefore, I shouldn't pay full price to own it | when I can just pay the $10..." | | It's very much a digital Blockbuster all over again. | There, too, I spent many more hundreds of dollars on | repeatedly renting games that I should have just bought. | But, like Blockbuster, Game Pass is really good for | discovering new games because it's such a low cost to try | anything in the library once. | sylens wrote: | The nice thing about Game Pass is that after a game has | been on the service for a number of months, you get a 20% | discount if you choose to buy it. It's useful for | instances where a game you want to keep playing is about | to leave the service, or you want to get off the | subscription plan. | 0xedd wrote: | dleslie wrote: | You know that ever growing library of unplayed games that all | steam users have? Game Pass is that, but instead of paying | for games individually you pay a low fixed rate, and it | includes many hot new releases that are still full price | elsewhere. | kevingadd wrote: | Many of them on launch day too, instead of waiting 6-18 | months for a sale | JAlexoid wrote: | Not really. | | It's only an issue if this negatively. affects the competitive | market. And since games are a creative market - there's hardly | any reason to fear that Microsoft can restrict access to new | players. | | This is not like a utility, that could technically force | something on you. One company can buy all of game | developers/publishers and still not make a dent in | competitiveness of the games market. | 0xedd wrote: | koheripbal wrote: | There are so many gaming companies and platforms... An Anti | trust case would be very hard to make. | nvarsj wrote: | We're way past the point where government is meant to be a | check on unchecked capitalism. Mega monolith corps are the now | and future. | mise_en_place wrote: | It makes sense they'd acquire Activision now, especially | after Intel and AMD are bootlicking them and implementing | Pluton. Essentially any new or even existing titles will not | be able to be pirated with Pluton enabled. | 0xedd wrote: | _notathrowaway wrote: | Honestly, why should any regulator bother with this? It's video | games, it is clearly not any kind of essential | infrastructure/software. | calf wrote: | Not that regulators might care but game software shapes how | young people conceive of software and IP issues. A company | notorious for manipulating IP buying out a massive game | company means entire generations of children and families | will be exposed to this software as a service model of IP | consumption. | oblio wrote: | At this point both Google and Apple have more end users | than Microsoft. | | Their "software as a service model of IP consumption" | didn't seem to bother many regulators so far. | 0xedd wrote: | alexshendi wrote: | Does that mean that MSFT now owns Infocom IP? | xhrpost wrote: | I 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. | shadowgovt wrote: | In 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. | zjaffee wrote: | This is truthfully not a big problem in the tech industry when | compared to other industries, the big exceptions to this in the | tech industry are the much older tech giants like IBM, Cisco or | HP whose entire growth model is acquisitions. Compare tech to | big pharma, and you'll see one industry still innovating inside | big companies and another which is totally acquisition driven. | Nbox9 wrote: | I 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. | jmnicolas wrote: | Facebook own WeChat? | xhrpost wrote: | My bad, I meant WhatsApp, can't edit | kristjansson wrote: | Once 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 wrote: | Losing 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. | etempleton wrote: | I 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 wrote: | I 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. | 1_player wrote: | The 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 wrote: | Read the whole paragraph. Once the deal closes Activision will | report to Phil. | gostsamo wrote: | It is not like Microsoft have something against sexual | misconduct at work. | Someone1234 wrote: | Is this a reference to something specific? | gostsamo wrote: | Yep, Gates. | thedevelopnik wrote: | Bill Gates. | | https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/microsoft- | bi... | mercy_dude wrote: | Or 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 wrote: | Dismay over Kotick actively hiding sexual abuse and | protecting the abusers is a "woke uprising"? That's a shitty | take. | elzbardico wrote: | So far, only allegations. Outside the US, in the civilized | world, we expect people to be found guilty in a court of | law under the due criminal process. | mercy_dude wrote: | Yeah and surely the timing of this whole campaign has | nothing to do with it. That's exactly what a "woke | uprisings" is. Conveniently exploiting victims to fit your | own benefits be it political or economic. Last 2yrs have | seen plenty of that. | keewee7 wrote: | I'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 wrote: | Are 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. | maweki wrote: | There's more to it than twitter allegations, you know. | Real people have been hurt. | | https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby- | kot... | mercy_dude wrote: | I am not saying real people weren't hurt. But some of | these allegations are years old. You don't think those | same insiders who were pushing those stories in news | media could buy the lows and now riding the spike in the | stock price? | maweki wrote: | So you don't think your original comment was (or at least | seemed) dismissive of the allegations and was instead | purely a note on the timing of them coming to the public? | raxxorrax wrote: | I don't like sanctimonious woke policies like we get from | Microsoft, but these allegation seemed to be corroborated | by multiple people. | | Don't think Microsoft is any better than Activision, | although most software developers aren't really famous | for being outgoing womanizers. | zadjii wrote: | Literally the next sentence: | | > Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will | report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming. | | So no, they aren't keeping him around. Good call. | user-the-name wrote: | I do not see that saying that at all. | ferdowsi wrote: | That doesn't say that Kotick will be gone, it says that he'll | be reporting up to Microsoft. | uptown wrote: | Corporate speak sometimes requires you to read between the | lines. | mandis wrote: | Thats what I thought. A CEO reporting to a CEO isnt going | to end well. | bidirectional wrote: | Who exactly do you think the CEO of Microsoft Gaming | reports to? This is a pretty common corporate structure. | I've worked under a total of 4 CEOs in a hierarchy before | (CEO of an investment firm reports to CEO of the owning | bank's European investment division reports to CEO of | Europe reports to actual CEO). | mandis wrote: | CEO within CEO is for separate Business Units or | divisions, which is clearly not the case here. | bidirectional wrote: | How is Activision Blizzard not a business unit? | mandis wrote: | It probably isnt and it should become an integral part of | Microsoft Gaming within 3-6 months. There is nothing | dramatically different between it and other gaming | projects/units in MS Gaming. This is not a large | enterprise acquiring a startup and letting them run | independently. | mbg721 wrote: | Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two | presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. | bidirectional wrote: | There's nothing to read into. He is categorically going | to being staying on. | stoobs wrote: | Golden parachute incoming... Probably hanging around for a | few months until the buyout completes, then off he goes. | Hamuko wrote: | Apparently his shares are worth about 385 million and his | golden parachute is like a maximum of 293 million. | | So if Microsoft buys out and fires Kotick, he'd walk away | with like 678 million dollars. It's pretty weird that | there are people who are happy about this proposition and | are not named "Robert Kotick". | Ygg2 wrote: | https://tenor.com/view/crying-wiping-tears-with-money- | sad-mo... | Miner49er wrote: | No, he's just going to report to Phil Spencer it looks like. | He will still lead Activision Blizzard. Might be different | once we know more details. | TigeriusKirk wrote: | There's still a CEO of Mojang. So maybe they keep him, maybe | they won't. | | They wouldn't muddy their happy upbeat acquisition | announcement by mentioning they're pushing him out, though. | | So it's wrong to draw any conclusions yet. | [deleted] | Ekaros wrote: | Probably keep him until they restructure the Activision | Blizzard somewhat. Like Separating Blizzard and studios under | Activision if needed. | b3lvedere wrote: | Maybe they can't get rid of Mr. Kotick yet.. | nobodyofnote wrote: | I share your dismay. Even if you're someone who doesn't care | about the issues that have come to light over the past year, | the blatant mismanagement (dare I say running into the ground) | of the once golden Blizzard portfolio has been painful as a | long-time Starcraft 2 fan. | | For a moment, I was truly hopeful that we might see some | reinvigoration for blundered projects like the Warcraft III | reforged. | | Perhaps even some hope that Microsoft might breathe new life | into Starcraft II, which still stands as an incredible game. | | /sigh | Someone1234 wrote: | Everything under Blizzard's portfolio feels like it has been | left to rot. The only thing they seem to put effort into is | their Pay-To-Win card game, Hearthstone. | | Unfortunately even under new management I don't see Starcraft | getting much love, the focus is now on cross-platform games | and RTS games are PC only (which is a small niche compared to | the overall market). | 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: | Given how ActiBlizz doesn't even want to acknowledge | Starcrafts existence anymore, excluding it from Blizzcon | e-sport highlights and leaving the broken ranked system | unfixed for I don't even know long it's been, I believe | change in company culture there would need to be pretty | substantial to bring some love back to Starcraft. | Iolaum wrote: | Moreover I recall them saying SC2 was the final chapter on | the IP. | | I mean now that MS owns them maybe they can pull a Win11 :p | indigochill wrote: | They catapulted over the shark with the conclusion of | SC2's campaign, so it wouldn't surprise me, buuut if I've | learned anything in this era of reboots, it's that no IP | is really dead, some of them just hibernate for a while, | and promises a popular franchise is done aren't worth the | electrons inconvenienced to convey it. | jrockway wrote: | Wait, did they start putting effort into Hearthstone? I | stopped playing a couple of years ago. To me, the | bellwether is whether the game still locks up for a second | right before a match starts as it synchronously produces a | megabyte of logs or something. | | The game never really felt that great after Ben Brode left. | Battlegrounds was pretty OK though. | ryanbrunner wrote: | They put a lot of effort into their new game mode (which | might as well be an entirely separate game from | Hearthstone), but by all indications it flopped pretty | hard. | | There has been more activity than normal on the core game | mode and Battlegrounds, although mostly focused on | content (whether actual cards or cosmetics) than actual | technology changes or new features. | junon wrote: | Yep. Overwatch is an empty husk of a game and community it | once was. | curiousllama wrote: | I'm not so sure. Microsoft recently revived their Age of | Empires franchise, and has has been pretty good about | supporting it as an e-sport (sponsoring tournaments & | streamers, reliably re-balancing, releasing updated | versions, etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if they took a | long term view for the much-larger-RTS Starcraft, | especially given its size relative to AoE. | bredren wrote: | No way Microsoft lets this guy stick around. This is the best | soft landing the board could possibly provide for the ceo. | Bayart wrote: | Does anyone has any doubts it's anything but a transitional | position ? | overcast wrote: | Bobby "Culture" Kotick | rkalla wrote: | I would _guess_ that ousting a CEO AND acquiring the core | company at the same time are expensive propositions - I'd also | guess that MSFT fully plans to address the leadership issue | there (Kotick) but going to give him a year to age out of the | newly acquired company and take his golden parachute elsewhere. | | Smaller M&A where it's easier to swap the leader (like a | startup - which most of us are used to) is MUCH | easier/cheaper/faster than swapping out an established CEO of a | public company. | | They'll do it because he's a liability and they want to make a | statement to the new company - but it'll be slow. | wombat-man wrote: | yeah, it's going to take a little time for Microsoft to worm | its fingers in there and get a feel for a massive org like | that. I've got a feeling Kotick is going to be out of there | within a few years. | this_user wrote: | If you take over a company, you don't necessarily want to | plunge it into even more chaos than the acquisition will create | already by immediately getting rid of the CEO. It's entirely | possible that they will get rid of him after a transition | phase. | geoduck14 wrote: | I'm hiring now, and I had the pleasure of interviewing | someone who was leaving Blizzard. He was pretty sharp and I | was bummed that I had to pass on him. | | Anyway, I think this acquisition will actually stop the | bleeding snd create some stability | [deleted] | [deleted] | tallanvor wrote: | Honestly, this is the sort of thing they have to say right now | - the deal isn't closed yet, and saying they're going to dump | him might lead to shareholder lawsuits, especially if the | acquisition is blocked. | | Realistically, there's a high chance that within a few months | of the acquisition being completed he'll be expected to leave | quietly. | Frost1x wrote: | Businesses learned long ago there are plenty of very easy | legal ways of making people leave of "their own accord" by | adjusting work environment factors to a point no sane person | would stay in the position. | arketyp wrote: | Can you supply some context to this denounciation? | nindalf wrote: | There's probably an essay that could be written to answer | your question, but the short version is that Kotick is not a | gamer, but an executive. He specialises in extracting maximum | value from an existing property, everything else be damned. | | For example, Activision had a successful franchise Call of | Duty that did releases every 2 years or so. Kotick's insight | was that they could release one every year and basically | print money. He was right. He then used that money to acquire | Blizzard, a company that had many beloved franchises. He then | applied those same principles to the running of Blizzard, to | the point where the company releases half baked, buggy, awful | excuses for games. An example of this is Warcraft III | Reforged. They did it because re-releases of old games are a | reliable way to monetise nostalgia. | | And that's just the somewhat justifiable part. Because making | money is good, right? Shareholders love that shit. | | What's less defensible is the toxic work culture that was | fostered under him, where sexual harassment was endemic. Of | course he never saw the fallout of that. They fired some | patsies and called it a day. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | > For example, Activision had a successful franchise Call | of Duty that did releases every 2 years or so. Kotick's | insight was that they could release one every year and | basically print money. | | To be fair though, they put two studios on it, which is | very unlike other annual games, and a much better approach | for WLB and avoiding (some) crunch. | 1_player wrote: | "Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual- | Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant" | | https://www.wsj.com/articles/activision-videogames-bobby- | kot... -- mirror at https://archive.fo/fzdAv | | And if you're completely out of the loop: https://en.wikipedi | a.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Fair_... | elaus wrote: | As a developer I have a strong dislike against CEOs that say | things like... | | > The goal that I had (...) was to take all the fun out of | making video games. | | > The executive said that he has tried to instill into the | company culture "skepticism, pessimism, and fear" of the | global economic downturn | | https://www.gamespot.com/articles/activision-games-to- | bypass... | cableshaft wrote: | Stephen Totilo shared this back in June of last year. | Apparently Bobby's got an agreement signed that if he gets | terminated he makes $292 million off of it, double what he made | last year. | | So that might be part of it. | | https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1407658278893592579 | JaimeThompson wrote: | Agreements like that are evidence that boards don't always | take into account the health of the company as a whole when | making decisions. | post-it wrote: | Microsoft is spending $70 billion all-cash on this, an extra | quarter billion isn't much. I don't expect they'll cut him | loose until after all the ink is dry. | robertlagrant wrote: | Looks like he'd be terminating "with good reason" himself | after a change of control and getting $292m? | techdragon wrote: | How long is that valid for? Also does buyout by Microsoft | count as a "change of control" ... I'd bet Microsoft would | wait out whatever time span that's valid for and then | immediately refuse to give him another one and can him... | throwawaysea wrote: | Aren't those types of severance packages typically invalid if | you're fired for good cause (like sexual harassment)? | sbarre wrote: | This can't be permanent. I bet this is to keep the markets | happy in the short term while this gets absorbed, and then | Kotick will "retire" at some point in the next year. | joaodlf wrote: | I'd buy shares right now if they had gotten rid of Kotick. | techdragon wrote: | Even though it would cost an additional $275 ish million? | g051051 wrote: | The reason he's still there is because this deal has probably | been in the works for a while, and they weren't going to cut | him loose until it settled. I'm sure that as soon as it's | possible after the acquisition that he'll suddenly decide to | spend more time with his family, pursue other interests, or get | sent to the farm to play with the other dogs, whatever | euphemism you like. | raxxorrax wrote: | I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If he | hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money too. | It was banned after a short time. | | To be honest, I think Microsoft and Activision deserve each | other. | geoduck14 wrote: | >I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If | he hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money | too. | | I love it! Political Opinions as a Game! | 3np wrote: | Maybe you'll be happy to hear that Polandball have a game | on Steam.. | miked85 wrote: | At least you don't lose money though. | baal80spam wrote: | Activision's value skyrocketed under Kotick, not sure why they | would want to replace him. | madeofpalk wrote: | On the other hand, since the news that he knew about years of | sexual harassment at the company the stock has dropped 33%. | If "maximising shareholder value" is the only metric for | success it seems that making one of your employees kill | themselves for failing to tackle a culture of abuse seems | like a poor way to do that. | slothtrop wrote: | Corporations should be about maximizing value for all | stakeholders, not just shareholders. Historically the | creation of a corporation had to be justified to be in the | interest of public good. Anyway I agree. | abduhl wrote: | And 100% of that drop (and more?) has been recovered for | shareholders by this acquisition. | | One could argue that Microsoft would have paid more, and | I'm sure some enterprising lawyers will get paid by | tricking some shareholders into suing over that, but that's | like arguing with the waves about when high tide is. | [deleted] | freeflight wrote: | I don't think this acquisition is about stock value as much | as it is about acquiring IP and games for MS game pass | offering. | JaimeThompson wrote: | Short term it was increased but how much long term damage was | done? Warcraft III Reforged has yet to receive most of the | promised features or even a single patch. | boringg wrote: | Kotick got a good run for the shareholders - he's now a | liability having had all the sexual harassment under his | watch. The sexual harassment/lack of leadership discipline | has discounted the sale price of ATVI (microsoft swoops in) - | he sticks with firm for a bit during transition to ensure | smooth transfer and steps away afterwards. I don't see any | other way - he's become a liability especially for a company | like Microsoft. | justaman wrote: | Value skyrocketed, but IP was demolished. Warcraft and | Starcraft are two of the most popular game franchises ever. | Today, nobody cares about the story of these games anymore. | Popular characters have been written into a wall or killed | off in an unsatisfying way. The overall story is a tangled | mess of retcons, 1000 IQ BBEG, and directionless plot lines. | While Activision made record profits, they did it at the cost | of player numbers. Every new character is shallow, | uninspired, quickly killed off, or never used again after | their initial use(Bwonsamdi, Rexar, many more). By failing to | appease players with the story, and putting systems designers | in charge of gameplay, they have been draining the value of | their IP for the last 10 years. | | For games to be successful today, they need popularity. | Twitch streamers need to play it. Youtubers need to make | "how-tos", and word of mouth is king. Activision drove the | final nail in their coffin with the PR nightmare this year. | No amount of necromancy (Warcraft Reforged, Classic WoW, | Diablo 2) can save the company long term. | Iolaum wrote: | Totally Agree. Inspiring games like Horizon Zero Dawn just | don't come out of Blizzard anymore. | sidcool wrote: | Would there be a anti-competitive angle? | throwawaysea wrote: | Cool. 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. | marcus_holmes wrote: | Still not going to buy anything from the dumpster fire that used | to be Blizzard | throw_m239339 wrote: | This is... unexpected. Wow and COD on Gamepass? | ddtaylor wrote: | https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/01/18/welcoming-activision-... | nemacol wrote: | I 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 wrote: | Maybe it actually works | duckmysick wrote: | I 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 wrote: | They 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 wrote: | The 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. | jhoelzel wrote: | oh 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. | blondie9x wrote: | Dude. Antitrust please stop this. | alexshendi wrote: | Does this mean that Microsoft now owns Infocom IP? | miiiiiike wrote: | Can't wait for an Overwatch 2 Developer Update that starts with | "Hi, I'm Jeff from the Microsoft team." | h2odragon wrote: | So 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 wrote: | It 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 wrote: | I 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 wrote: | Maybe not profitability, but I'd say it does with revenue | growth. Activation's revenue has been mostly flat for a few | years. | michaelbuckbee wrote: | I 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 wrote: | Can you imagine if they make it so Game Pass covers your WoW | subscription? WoW could see a comeback. | trymas wrote: | I 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. | milkytron wrote: | I 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. | obayesshelton wrote: | All we need now is a Microsoft VR / Metaverse platform and | FB/Meta can finally sink into oblivion. | KaoruAoiShiho wrote: | How 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 wrote: | Sony 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 wrote: | After 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). | alsaaro wrote: | This 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 wrote: | I can't imagine anyone losing any sleep over an AR/VR | powerplay. | _ph_ wrote: | I 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 wrote: | There'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_ wrote: | I 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. | pcdoodle wrote: | My name is Grom Hellscream, He/Him. | MangoCoffee wrote: | a 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 wrote: | In 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 wrote: | Tencent 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. | bobberkarl wrote: | Can't wait for cloud gaming. | mouzogu wrote: | would 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. | lemoncookiechip wrote: | This 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). | sabertoothed wrote: | The 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. | yreg wrote: | They were good citizens of macOS too. Up until Overwatch. | donatj wrote: | Right? 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. | SloopJon wrote: | Even outside of the recent scandal, I've long had mixed | feelings about Blizzard: harassing independent servers, always- | connected DRM (I got booted out of single-player CoD: MW _so_ | many times), and milking franchises with remasters. I will say, | though, that after a several year hiatus, a friend and I have | discovered StarCraft 2 co-op with weekly mutations, and it 's a | lot of fun. | | SC 2 recently went free-to-play. If the rest of their catalog | is added to Game Pass, that will be something. Blizzard games | have been stubbornly expensive years after release. I wonder | what this means for Battle.net? | akmarinov wrote: | They've now fallen so low, it's like it's a completely | different company. | redisman wrote: | All the original creators of the magical IPs left a long time | ago. | hooby wrote: | Not 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. | theandrewbailey wrote: | Back in the day, Starcraft was my thing. I didn't get into | Diablo too much, but I thought it was cool. I remember playing | the original up to the final level. A few years ago, I played | and beat it on my retro PC, and it was exactly as fun as I | remembered it.[0] I tried Warcraft, but I didn't get into it. | | [0] https://theandrewbailey.com/article/180/Diablo | speg wrote: | Indeed. I remember drawing my own maps on paper before we had a | computer at home. It seems so simple looking back. | beders wrote: | Can't wait for the SC2 servers to run on a single slow VM in the | MS cloud... | usrbinbash wrote: | This makes me even more glad I quit Blizzard Games long ago. | prophesi wrote: | What 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. | MrJagil wrote: | The 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). | snotrockets wrote: | The rampant sexual harrasment is more in line with Microsoft's | alleged culture. | bogwog wrote: | What a bizarre view of the world. It's like teenagers gossiping | about celebrity relationships, but with corporations instead. | | A Microsoft acquisition of this company is bad, and an Apple | acquisition of this company would be bad. | | When mega corporations like this consolidate, consumers always | lose. Microsoft couldn't win customers through product and | service quality, so they bought one of the largest game | publishers in the world so that their competition can't sell | those games anymore. | mdoms wrote: | > Microsoft couldn't win customers through product and | service quality | | GamePass subscriber numbers are growing at an incredible | clip. | MrJagil wrote: | > It's like teenagers gossiping about celebrity | relationships, but with corporations instead. | | I think that's accurate. Whether there's room for and value | in these kinds of playful conjectures is of course up to each | of us to decide. | hogrider wrote: | It's totally accurate bc humans are a simple ape that | should be living in bands of 50 to 150, but then we had | several technological revolutions. Someday well be more | like star trek vulcans, I'm sure. | xxs wrote: | >It's like teenagers gossiping about celebrity relationships, | but with corporations instead. | | very much need, but that's how gaming industry works in | general - hype, fans and all. | Kiro wrote: | Complaining about a bizarre world view and then dropping an | equally bizarre and hyperbolic statement. I think this will | be good, just as I think Microsoft's previous gaming | acquisitions have been good. | Underphil wrote: | For those who like Bethesda Games and bought into the Sony | ecosystem? Good for you, maybe. | JAlexoid wrote: | And you weren't aware of the potential risks of a closed | ecosystem before? | | It's not like you bought into an open ecosystem, but now | they closed it off. | Underphil wrote: | I didn't buy into either ecosystem. I'm just trying to | show that it's not positive for everyone. | JAlexoid wrote: | Commercial games aren't made to make everyone happy. | | No game release is a "positive for everyone" and never | will be. | | I can equally argue that my neighbor baking bread is not | positive for me, because I don't get to eat it. And I | like bread... | Kiro wrote: | Never said it's positive for everyone but "consumers | always lose" is equally false. | ssnistfajen wrote: | "consumers always lose" and "it's not positive for | everyone" are different statements with non-overlapping | meanings. | dont__panic wrote: | I am very sad that ES6 and Starfield will never run on a | Sony console. Just like when some Gimlet podcasts I liked | went Spotify exclusive -- this kind of thing is a net | negative for the world. | ManManBoyBoyMan wrote: | personally, I'm glad they won't be wasting time catering | to two lowest-common-denominator systems. as someone | who's only ever owned a PC, I've always lamented my high | end (or, after a few years, low-grade (but still better | than console)) hardware going to waste on games which | haven't figured out how to make proper use of it. we've | had affordable SSDs for nearly a fricken whole decade and | essentially zero attempts to optimize their use until | now, now that consoles have them. and there still aren't | any directstorage games _out_. it 's ridiculous the | frontiers we've lost, the games we've gimped, due to low | end hardware restraints. someday i hope they ditch the | idea of the "xbox" as well, and consoles are lost to the | sands of time. but for now, at least they're only wasting | their time optimizing for one piece of trash, and at | least that trash uses the same OS. | skohan wrote: | Yes exactly - it should meet the current standard for | anti-trust action that it hurts consumers. It's quite sad | that this is not enforced at all anymore apparently. | Underphil wrote: | This is the world we live in now. People rage against | capitalism but at the same they'll hang their hat on | corporation x and defend them to the death. | JAlexoid wrote: | Consumers loose literally nothing from Microsoft's | acquisition of Activision/Blizzard. | xxs wrote: | The tinted rose glasses are really strong. Most large | company merges are close to never good for the end user - | less concurrency and competition is not good. | JAlexoid wrote: | IP laws already prohibit competition. | | There is only one maker of Diablo, and no Torchlight is | going to replace Diablo. | | Games aren't going to get pulled from other platforms. | New games may not come out on (insert-your-preffered- | console), but they never were guaranteed to come out at | all. | | Thus consumers aren't loosing anything here. It doesn't | even reduce competition. | skohan wrote: | Yes consumers are losing here. In the near future, you | will have to own at least two almost identical gaming | devices to play all the relevant AAA games. That's | basically a $500 tax being applied to gaming enthusiasts | to get the same access to IP. | JAlexoid wrote: | So what you're saying is that consumers aren't loosing | access to games at all. They aren't forced to choose one | to the exclusion of the other. Other consoles aren't | forced out of the market. And other console manufacturer | will have a market incentive to invest into similar | games, to entice people from buying a second console... | | And the market that would actually care, will already own | multiple consoles... and a gaming rig. | | You've actually managed to convince me that this is good | for the market, not neutral. | skohan wrote: | I can't tell if you're joking, but I hope you are. Having | to pay more to access the same products is not a net loss | to the consumer? | JAlexoid wrote: | You're stretching the term "same" to mean "new products | created for a different use case". (5G is a net loss to a | consumer, because you need to buy a new phone to access | "same" product.) Same products are quite clearly not same | here. | | Consumer doesn't mean "a specific individual that owns a | PS5", it's a generic term meaning market participants | that consume products. Consumers don't loose if prices | for new products are substantially higher in a | competitive market, because willingness for a consumer to | pay the price in a competitive market equals to the value | of the product. | | Interactive game market is highly competitive. Therefore | producer prices a product at $500 => consumer agrees that | $500 is acceptable => consumer spends $500 => consumer | gets $500 in value => cost - value = 0 => no consumer net | loss. | RugnirViking wrote: | You're essentially making the argument that games are | fungible while the other commenter is saying that they | are not. The reality is that most games, yes including | triple A games, are hot garbage and make no money and | provide no benefit to everyone. It's a lot like the movie | industry in that sense. So consoling myself that maybe | someone will make a copy of the cool game I want to play | doesn't really work, because that copy is near guaranteed | to be expensive garbage | ssnistfajen wrote: | Would've been valid only if the quality of products and | services pre-acquisition were actually good, and for | Blizzard games at least it's been anything but good in | the past few years. Gaming is a very end-user-focused | experience and until their testimonies come in due time, | your abstract market competition spiel is irrelevant to | it. | weakfish wrote: | joaodlf wrote: | This sounds a bit like "ms should just make better games". | Games are hard. Extremely hard. If Microsoft managed to | incorporate the Battle net portfolio into their gamepass, | there is some argument to be made about how much better that | service would become. | | I see your point, I really do, this stinks in all sorts of | ways, but there could be a benefit here for a lot of players. | p_j_w wrote: | >This sounds a bit like "ms should just make better games". | Games are hard. Extremely hard. | | The answer to this conundrum for them should be, "Tough | titties, learn to compete or die, but we will not allow you | to bully your way into a market with money." | joaodlf wrote: | I sometimes really question if I'm back on reddit while | reading some of these replies... | | You're in HN, talking about MS and acquisitions, telling | them to learn to compete? | | Am I on the right website or has my browser been | hijacked? | p_j_w wrote: | Buying Blizzivision is not the same as competing, it's | them swinging their money dick around to take stuff away | from the competition. | animanoir wrote: | The Apple of gaming is Rockstar Games. | criley2 wrote: | The 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. | f6v wrote: | They have any hardware that took off? | derac wrote: | The index. The have a few other pieces of hardware they | have made over the years. Currently they are making the | Steam Deck, time will tell how that does. | oneoff786 wrote: | I have an index. I like it. It definitely hasn't taken | off. | 1_player wrote: | It's not the Index fault, just modern VR tech hasn't | taken off. The Index is a great piece of hardware. And my | prediction is that the Steam Deck will sell like | hotcakes. | oneoff786 wrote: | I think modern VR sucks. Beat Saber is cool but frankly | beat saber would be just as cool on the wii or the kinect | or on a normal screen with vr wands. It doesn't actually | utilize VR when you think about it. | | Half Life Alyx was impressive but it also kind of sucked. | Teleport movement breaks immersion hard. And the enemy | design was clearly incredibly gentle to accommodate the | fact that people are not in fact very competent in VR. | f6v wrote: | > Steam Deck will sell like hotcakes | | Pretty sure it won't. Too chunky for playing indie games | on the go, not enough battery to play AAA. And if you | plan having it plugged in as a desktop replacement, | there're batter gaming laptops. | kd913 wrote: | It's a chicken and egg problem. VR tech isn't taking off | cause there isn't enough market share to justify having | great games for it. | | To get that level of market share a company basically | needs to subsidize the initial hardware/consoles. I don't | think Valve has ever learned that concept and as such | they are still selling the hardware at full price. This | in contrast to say FB/Microsoft/Sony who actively | subsidize their offerings because they understand the | benefit of getting people locked in their ecosystem. | | I predict a repeat of Steam Machines. (as a Linux user) | RugnirViking wrote: | I'm pretty sure idealogically valve are opposed to | locking people into their ecosystem. They don't even make | it so you can only play their _own games_ with steam, and | they allow you to add non-steam games to your library. | They 're a weird comapny in general, they have a pretty | hardcore horizontal management system going on in their | company which as I understand as an outsider is a big | reason why they've struggled to bring stuff to market of | late. | | Their (leaked) employee handbook is literally subtitled | "A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one's | there telling you what to do" | cuham_1754 wrote: | Ever heard of EA? | sto11z wrote: | Apple doesn't have a gaming division. Why would they be | interested in acquiring Blizzard? | cestith wrote: | To start a gaming division with widely known titles already | onboard. | cmelbye wrote: | What else are people going to do with their $3,000 Apple | Goggles? | pm90 wrote: | Exactly. MS has Xbox and has been buying up a lot of Game | studios as well. Blizzard makes sense for them to buy; Apple | doesn't seem to be contending... | MrJagil wrote: | That's why i included the paranthesis " _(or probably could | have) happen(ed)_ ". | | That said, they do have a gaming service: | https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/ | gurkendoktor wrote: | Apple Arcade is for casual games that have to work on all | of Apple's form factors (minus the watch, thankfully). I've | tried it out twice. It is, with very few exceptions, in a | completely different category from PC gaming because most | people access it through a touchscreen. It's like comparing | a PS5 and a Switch, except that Apple Arcade is not nearly | as polished as the Switch. | | My impression is also that Apple Arcade is already pushing | the limits of how much Apple's management wants to touch | gaming. | hajile wrote: | Apple has started to sink hundreds of millions into Apple | Arcade the past couple years. | | Big AAA titles take several years to produce and I doubt | Apple will allow half-baked games to launch. That means | we won't be seeing those games start to launch until | 2023-2024. | | Apple is definitely working on a VR headset. They've | bought out 4-5 VR companies already. There were rumors of | a 2022 launch, but 2023 matches up much better with their | game studio launch dates. | | That subscription is a HUGE moneymaker (that's how WoW | made Blizzard so much money). Most serious gamers play | 1-2 games for a couple of years. Traditional studios | charge $60 (less for sales) and then release one $20-30 | DLC per year. That gives them $120 over two years at the | very best (though most players won't bother with DLC). | Apple gets $80 per year unconditionally. Moreover, this | will get casual gamers in addition to hardcore ones. | | Now that Apple runs everything on M1 and even the slowest | M1 chips have better GPUs than most Wintel systems, Apple | can sell games to everyone. Because everything is using | the same architecture (same CPU and same GPU across the | board), their devs save a ton of time and money | developing and optimizing which means their total time to | deliver and cost to deliver is much lower. | | I suspect that MS sees this as an extremely serious | threat. They need to do everything they can to leverage | xbox pass and compete. | yoz-y wrote: | A year back or so there were articles claiming that apple | has stopped all development of content rich games, aiming | at quick addictive ones instead. They released studios | making the former from contracts. | | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-30/apple- | can... | madeofpalk wrote: | You would be shocked to know Apple was _days_ late to buying | Bungie, creator of Halo. | raxxorrax wrote: | Not sure if an image campaign is enough to convince me that | they have changed. They had to embrace open source to some | degree because developers were plainly fleeing their | environments en masse. Today it is extremely hard to find an | expert for hard technical problems. Perhaps everyone is hiding | somewhere, but I haven't found them yet. | telxosser wrote: | Power law going to power law. | | I am sure this will result in better games than if not, lol. | gigel82 wrote: | C'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. | boringg wrote: | The 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 :) | jrockway wrote: | Does this mean that Blizzard engineers get a FAANG salary now? | psyc wrote: | No, they'll have to settle for Microsoft pay. Still probably a | moderate bump for them, though. | chaoz_ wrote: | They might create an employee retention fund. | [deleted] | krelian wrote: | Apparently the price tag is $68.7 billion. How long until they | recoup the investment? | | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-buy-activision-bliz... | martini333 wrote: | That's not how it works. | dagaci wrote: | I 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/ | hanselot wrote: | ho_schi wrote: | Competition 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 :) | JAlexoid wrote: | What does this have to do with competition? | | Console platforms have not competed for games to be on their | platforms for.... ever. | lowbloodsugar wrote: | I 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. | skohan wrote: | I honestly think behind climate change, the current state of | anti-trust enforcement is one of the biggest issues facing | Americans right now. It's disappointing that it's not even | expected for anti-trust action to happen anymore. | coliveira wrote: | This is not a new danger. Americans had to deal with that by | the end of the 19th century. The elites were able to run back | the clock and remove or control any anti-trust structure that | has been created to avoid their crazy accumulation of money | and power. | obert wrote: | I think America might want to tackle health care, drug | addiction, inequality, racism, sexism before worrying about | anti-trust | skohan wrote: | I think having a handful of corporations owning everything | makes all of those issues worse | RugnirViking wrote: | Extending off what the other commenter said, consolidation | within the medical market is a big reason for the opiod | epidemic. It's not something that just came out of nowhere, | its directly because a large company intentionally pushed | for highly addictive drugs to be given to as many people as | possible | | It's also a big reason for the fact that americans spend | far far more on healthcare than other countries. For | reference, the US government spends 28% of your tax on | healthcare. The UK government spends 18.8%, which is | arounge average among western nations. And ON TOP of that, | americans pay huge medical fees and insurance. | | Inequality is partly caused by the two above issues, | combined with the fact that its really damn hard to make | much of a company for yourself when a vastly more powerful | company is intentionally suppressing or if you're one of | the lucky few buying out all of its competition. | | Racism and Sexism are at least partly caused by ineqality, | but another big part of it comes from the consolidation in | mass media. Shock stories on the national news about the | actions of ten or fifteen people can cause and deepen | ingrained biases about millions. | choward wrote: | Need to tackle corruption before we can solve any of those. | TheRealDunkirk wrote: | A guy named Matt Stoller focuses on this sort of thing. He's | been saying that the right people have been appointed to the | FTC, but it remains to be seen if this will produce any real, | consumer-felt fruit. This is him, just 2 hours ago, at the | time of this writing: | | https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/148348691488801996. | .. | | He is reporting that the chair of the FTC is begging for | public comment on merger activity. | | UPDATE | | And just a few minutes ago, questioning whether this whole | Microsoft/Activision will be stopped. | | https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/148353211536295117. | .. | dmead wrote: | I'm sorry. does gabe produce games anymore? | xahrepap wrote: | Blizzard'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 wrote: | What platform does Nintendo support ? It has always been like | that. | haunter wrote: | iOS and Android, they have some gacha games there | | https://www.nintendo.com/sg/games/smartphone/index.html | LynxInLA wrote: | Microsoft seems likely to support at least Nintendo. With Game | Pass and Minecraft, they've leaned more towards gaming as a | platform. Some Switch games have full MS support including | Achievements, which was surprising. | tempestn wrote: | I'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. | redisman wrote: | Warcraft 4 please. They made Age of Empires 4 happen too | [deleted] | KiDD wrote: | Should have bought EA | advael wrote: | I 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 | phgn wrote: | > 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. | schleck8 wrote: | Most likely via xCloud, cooperations will always opt for | subscriptions. | pradn wrote: | There'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. | smileybarry wrote: | That's probably a reference to Xbox Cloud Gaming, though. | kizer wrote: | I agree. They worded that poorly, conflating mobile gaming | and cloud gaming on mobile. | Aissen wrote: | > 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. | aaronsimpson wrote: | Diablo 4 on Game Pass definitely makes for an interesting value | proposition. Maybe login will actually work this time at launch | :p | freeflight wrote: | If 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. | simlevesque wrote: | That is not at all the case. I've played over 20 games, full | games, on Game Pass. | mynameisvlad wrote: | This "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 wrote: | And 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. | emdowling wrote: | You'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. | boppo1 wrote: | What is Halo missing? MCC and infinite have all the relevant | content, unless you wanted a dress-up game instead of an FPS. | freeflight wrote: | Pretty 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- | milli... | | [1] https://gamerant.com/halo-infinite-charges-8-color- | blue/ | | [2] https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/xbox-halo-infinite- | shop-c... | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | > Pretty much all meaningful multiplayer customization. | | So to answer him, yes, you want to play dress up. | Everything you're complaining about is entirely cosmetic. | freeflight wrote: | Character customization has _always_ been a huge part of | multiplayer games even before MTX became a thing, | _particularly_ for Halo titles. | | Disregarding that as "you only want to play dress-up" is | not only unbelievably reductive, it's also a very lazy | way to just hand-wave away a very real issue. | | The same way you could disregard the vast majority of | features from any game except core-gameplay features; _" | You want to color your car in your racing game? How | silly, you only want to play dress up!"_ | | I guess it's just naive of me want to _play_ things in | _games_? | boppo1 wrote: | > always... particularly for Halo titles. | | Maybe if you started with Halo 2. Halo 1 lan parties and | Xbox connect you had a choice of maybe 10 colors. It was | about the shooty-shooty. And maybe that's why I like | infinite, I get pretty darn good shooty-shooty. | | I agree to an extent that the customization system is a | little broken though. Team games should force red or blue | coloring, half the time I can't tell who is or isn't on | my team. "Outlines" aren't enough. All so people feel | that their $50 armor purchase isn't hidden. | freeflight wrote: | _> Maybe if you started with Halo 2._ | | I "started" with Quake, but that's besides the point. | | _> Halo 1 lan parties and Xbox connect you had a choice | of maybe 10 colors._ | | At PC lan parties people had a choice between a myriad of | custom skins particularly with GoldScr mods, all for | free. | | _> It was about the shooty-shooty._ | | It was also about the community, _particularly_ at a lan | party, and part of a community is also being able to | individualize your avatar. | | This used to be very well understood for the longest | time, and now it's suddenly considered "playing dress up" | because billions dollar heavy AAA publishers, and | developers can't be arsed anymore to put in any | meaningful player customization that isn't monetized and | FOMO'ed to hell. | | _> All so people feel that their $50 armor purchase isn | 't hidden._ | | Would you disagree that previous Halo games, short of | going back over a decade, offered more, and particularly | more meaningful, multiplayer customization options _out | of the box_? | | _> Team games should force red or blue coloring, half | the time I can 't tell who is or isn't on my team. | "Outlines" aren't enough._ | | They are enforced to such a degree that picking any blue | color skin already gives you a slight advantage as | enemies will always be colored red and allies always be | colored blue. | | Which is btw a very separate issue from armor types | customization, people having different armor types makes | it much more likely for you to recognize enemies from | friends as 90% of people wouldn't sport the _exactly | same_ armor style that 's completely indistinguishable. | | It gives the whole affair a real "clone wars" vibe where | you ain't fighting individuals, but yet another of the | same model, something that wouldn't have been acceptable | in single-player FPS games or multiplayer mods, like CS, | decades ago. | boppo1 wrote: | I'm sorry you're not enjoying the game. | freeflight wrote: | I didn't write a single thing about my enjoyment of the | game? | | But it's fascinating how your difficulties of | differentiating players and teams trace directly back to | the lack of non-monetized character customization, and | that just passes right by you like a non-issue. | | Maybe you enjoy fighting in the clone wars, I think it's | greedy design and not conductive to good gameplay. | | 20 years ago non-commercialized mods got this right, I | really don't see why wanting it to get right in massive | AAA titles, with a pretty rich and established history in | exactly that, is suddenly such a controversial opinion, | on HN out of all places. | | On one hand I get called out for wanting more than only | the purest "core-functionality" ("You can shoot people, | what more do you want?"), on the other hand people | disagree with the notion of how these "low-content" | version are very much "f2p" versions, as a lot of content | that _used to come out of the box_ is now relegated and | hand-waved away as "playing dress up". | Stevvo wrote: | Why the negative implication? Is "playing space soldier" | somehow more valid than "playing dress-up"? | viktorcode wrote: | Are you sure everything that Activision / Blizzard publishes | will be on GamePass day one? | cuham_1754 wrote: | My 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? | [deleted] | diogenescynic wrote: | I hope they invest more in the Diablo franchise. It's been a lot | of fun on the new Xbox. | major505 wrote: | Well after all the shit Blizzard have done in the last years, I | can imagine it was a bargain. | zkid18 wrote: | Excellent job, MSFT M&A team. | agar wrote: | Even 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. | unobatbayar wrote: | Deeply regretful news. | megumax wrote: | I 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 wrote: | > 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). | gfd wrote: | Mojang turned out to be a brilliant acquisition compared to | what roblox is valued at nowadays. | fullstop wrote: | >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 | aaronsimpson wrote: | Mojang 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(tm). From a business | standpoint, I'd say they've made the acquisitions of a | lifetime. | activitypea wrote: | They're building the Netflix of games with the catalogue to | match. Seems like short and mid term, they're focused on owning | as many brands/IP as possible, and predictably, efficiently | releasing solid games that don't rock the boat too much. See | Gears Of War, Forza and Halo. With Bethesda and ActiBlizz, they | have enough IP under them to release 3-4 okay games every year, | which will make Game Pass a good value proposition when third | party support eventually dies out. | jasondigitized wrote: | This. It's similar to Netflix realizing they need to own as | much content as possible to retain and attract subscribers | and keep fat margins. GamePass is where the money is. Once | they have your credit card the friction to up sell you is | dramatically lowered. | taubek wrote: | If they don't buy it, someone else will. This way they probably | get a bunch of games in their catalogue, they get brand names, | people, players, etc. I would say that they don't want to be | left out and over run by other players. | redisman wrote: | Revive? Bethesda will have two best selling games out in the | next two years in the fairly empty AAA RPG landscape. Minecraft | is a evergreen with kids with over a 100M monthly players | kybernetyk wrote: | Good. Maybe they can fix WoW. | peakaboo wrote: | I just deleted my blizzard accounts last week. Looks like perfect | timing! | tosh wrote: | Microsoft now runs two of the apps I spend a lot of time in: | Visual Studio Code and StarCraft II :) | gigatexal wrote: | holy 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?! | beebeepka wrote: | Not 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 | glanzwulf wrote: | This is a megaton deal for Microsoft. Some of the biggest | franchises, exclusive to their console/gamepass. | | I wonder what will Sony do now? | kizer wrote: | Wait... 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... ;) | juanani wrote: ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-18 23:01 UTC)