[HN Gopher] Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard
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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:
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