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Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#181

Post by gota »

logicOnly wrote: post #116
apatters wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you ate McDonald's every day you'd probably think that there are no good restaurants anymore. My top 4 games by playtime in the last few years were Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Dwarf Fortress and WoW Classic. Honorable mentions go to Spelunky and Stellaris. It's to everyone's great regret that a single one of these titles was purchased by one of the shitty publishers you mentioned, fortunately it's the one…

This is the inevitable trend of gaming since the 90s. Small team makes innovative and interesting game. Gets bought, makes a good sequel, then milks IP forever. It's up to you to move on.

Have you watched Mythic Quest? There's a particular episode touching this, that doesn't really require the rest of the series and is very good.

Check it out if you can - it' "Dark Quiet Death" from Season one

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#182

Post by wasmitnetzen »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #164
ekianjo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Rockstar ever gets acquired, this will be one of the most expensive deals ever. They routinely sell games in the dozens of millions of units.

GTA V, mainly thanks to their online offering, has been the 2nd best selling video game of all time, second only to Minecraft... which Microsoft bought in 2014 for $2.5 billion. Mind you, Minecraft's income comes from a lot of merchandise and spinoffs, whereas GTA is mainly from the game itself. I was curious; RDR 2, also a Rockstar game, is the #14 best selling game of all time apparently; I didn't know it did that…

Note that two thirds of the sales of Minecraft occured after 2014[1].

[1]: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-26-minecrafts-con...

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#183

Post by sequence7 »

MaximumMadness wrote: post #37
abluecloud wrote: post #9

microsoft are seeing that the money is going to be made in a subscription model for games. by purchasing the studios it makes it much easier for them to bundle games (possibly with exclusivity) with their gamepass. i know i'm more likely to subscribe to gamepass (and keep it running for years) vs. the 1/2 games i buy a year.

I still have some trouble around the idea that hardcore consumers will want a bundle that has maybe 2-5 games they would have bought otherwise + 95 more they dont really care about. Aren't consumers just going to buy what they want anyway? Plus the Sony world just has so many more games worth playing

Doesn't the success of Netflix help convince you?

That's the model Microsoft are going for with Game Pass, just pay us a fixed monthly fee and play any of the hundreds of games we have available on Android/PC/XBox.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#184

Post by anonymfus »

Firebrand wrote: post #84

Bethesda Games are not going not be exclusive to Xbox -- Confirmed by Todd Howard: >Like our original partnership, this one is about more than one system or one screen. We share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on. Regardless of the screen siz…

I believe that he is talking about diversity of Microsoft's platforms here and nothing else.

Specifically:

> Regardless of the screen size, the controller, or your ability to even use one.

"your ability to even use one" is clearly a reference to Xbox Adaptive Controller

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#185

Post by the_hoser »

logicOnly wrote: post #151
pjmlp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Switch data, Unity powers about 50% of its games. It is also the tier1 engine sponsored by Google and Microsoft for their 3D offerings, Godot needs to grow a bit more to reach that level of relevance for game studios, AR/VR companies and Hollywood now looking at Unity.

Nintendo isn't really helpful to understand the greater market. Most developers don't work with them, and their customers represent a tiny less "gaming educated" population. It's like using cellphone games as a gauge on the greater market.

That's silly gatekeeping bullshit.

By the numbers, mobile gaming is the greater market. It's traditional gaming that's becoming the niche.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#186

Post by gambiting »

iruoy wrote: post #89
DominikD wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Microsoft game has monetization as bad as Fallout 76. So whatever Bethesda does from now on can't be worse than what it does today. ;)

What would you say is Microsoft's worst game for microtransactions? I've played Forza Horizon 4 for a while and you can buy cars in that game, but you earn enough points that they all become pretty cheap after only a few hours in the game.

The biggest issue for me was that certain in-game cars were locked behind the spin-the-wheel game, and while(thankfully) there was no way to spend real life money for more spins, it still felt absolutely shit that I could have 100+ in-game hours, hundreds of millions of in-game currency, and yet no, I can't have that Mercedes E63 AMG, because it can only be won through spins. In Horizon 3 you could just buy any car at any point, it was just a matter of getting enough currency.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#188

Post by gambiting »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #46
bzb5 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I saw Doom 2016 running on OpenGL I was shocked. I would’ve never thought you could write an AAA game with it. It made me wonder why game developers use DX instead.

If you want to target Xbox, you need to write a D3D renderer anyway (although the Xbox API has some significant differences, if I understand correctly). There's little point writing an OpenGL renderer if your target platforms are Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation (which has its own graphics API). Also, my understanding is that on Windows, OpenGL generally runs into more issues with driver bugs than D3D does.

I work for a large video games company and we usually write two backends - DirectX for Windows and Xbox, and a special one for PlayStation. That is changing slightly with Stadia, because that forces us to write a Vulkan renderer too. But on the few games that have it, the DX12 performance is better on windows than that of the Vulkan renderer backend - so we haven't released it to the public.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#189

Post by G4E »

Tsiklon wrote: post #135
G4E wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had it, it's called The Outer World ;) (I know, I know...)

Bethesda and Obsidian are now sister studios - it is possible...

Yeah actually, I oversaw that. With the original dev from Obsidian and the license from Bethesda, it is not that far fetched.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#190

Post by Aeronwen »

iruoy wrote: post #89
DominikD wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Microsoft game has monetization as bad as Fallout 76. So whatever Bethesda does from now on can't be worse than what it does today. ;)

What would you say is Microsoft's worst game for microtransactions? I've played Forza Horizon 4 for a while and you can buy cars in that game, but you earn enough points that they all become pretty cheap after only a few hours in the game.

You can't buy them in-game without buying them with real money first. Once you unlock the car pack, or spend 1/3 as much to unlock that particular car, you can buy as many extras as you want with in-game money.
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