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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

#281

Post by tinus_hn »

epicide wrote: post #136
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…

You make a good point to bring up indie development (WoW excluded), but I think looking at the storefronts is also important. For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals, privacy concerns, and plenty more. That's not to say that every game on a store has these issues. However, I think the lesson from mobile app stores is: don't discount the impact tha…

> For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals

How else are they going to get people to use these stores?

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

#282

Post by someperson »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #153
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…

You could make the argument that because of Steam having such reach / monopoly on the PC gaming market, Steam (and by extension Valve) is effectively the publisher of games like that, and a very large one at that. There's GoG that mostly focuses on vintage games, and Epic that spends tons of money to get (timed?) exclusives on indie games + free handouts, but I'm not sure how well it's working for them to get market…

id Software -- the makers of Doom 2016 -- is owned by ZeniMax Media, which has been acquired by Microsoft as per the featured article we are discussing

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

#283

Post by me_me_me »

de_watcher wrote: post #224
nindalf wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dota 2 is dying I'm old enough that I remember people saying this in 2014. Actual data on active users - https://steamcharts.com/app/570#All . This indicates that it's far from it's peak of 1.2M active players but 700k active is still respectable. > Dota 2 is by far their biggest game. Not by players. That would be CS:GO ( https://steamcharts.com/app/730 ) with 900k active players.

They've managed to make a Dota 2 tutorial that's worse than the 2014 one. And matchmaking for the new players is just brutal, there is no retention.

Personal story time, few months back me and my buddy got asked to help our non-dota friend get into the game. We are both playing occasionally in lower brackets.

Both of us created new account to so that noobie wouldn't be thrown into deep water right away. Note that me and my friend were 'baby sitting' - playing neutrally not trying to win vs lower rated opponents.

Out of 10 games 7 had hardcore smurfs in them. People in stack dominating their lanes. I don't see how anyone new and without any friends could possibly survived through such acid pool.

Imagine you are starting to play chess and 7/10 opponents are rated master and will crush you. And its kind of crush that you can't really learn from either.

I really don't see how dota can grow when there are so many alternatives.

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

#284

Post by [deleted] »

ryneandal wrote: post #13
sgerenser wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even 7.5B is still only 15% of the failed TikTok deal. Seems like a bargain in comparison.

3x the Mojang purchase[1], and I still think it's worth it. 1: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1308029942018510848

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by cogman10 »

fartcannon wrote: post #143
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…

From now until acquisition, the language internally will be 'we have our own identity within Microsoft' and then 3 to 6 months later, there will be these offhand remarks from senior management about how nameless other employees are confused about their place in the company. Then within 1 year, there will be an email about how the CEO has decided to eleviate the confusion among the staff and unite the company under on…

Lol, basically exactly what happened to the Palm group at HP. Except, I believe they ended up firing the whole palm group.

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

#290

Post by selykg »

Waterluvian wrote: post #145
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…

Todd has zero power to make that promise. In my opinion it’s irresponsible to make the claim.

Given Todd's history on, well, anything the past decade... why would anyone believe literally a word out of his mouth?

As a Playstation gamer, anything Todd Howard related can stay on Xbox for all I care. What I will potentially miss are games like Wolfenstein and Doom.

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