Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#351

Post by post-it » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #275

1_player wrote: post #2

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.

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

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#352

Post by u2077 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #315

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.

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#353

Post by loceng » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #313

MangoCoffee wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney? it own all the media and franchise IPs like Star Wars, Marvel...etc.

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.

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#354

Post by phgn » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#355

Post by 999900000999 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

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

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#356

Post by whynaut » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #309

unethical_ban wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

Microsoft has been championing indie games for three generations now. This was the wrong question for sure.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#357

Post by criley2 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

animanoir wrote: post #274

MrJagil wrote: post #63

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 wat…

The Apple of gaming is Rockstar Games.

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#358

Post by aeortiz » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #315

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.

They still don't own the graphics cards and displays (monitors &/or googles)

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#359

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

1_player wrote: post #2

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.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#360

Post by Wurdan » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

tonmoy wrote: post #349

raxxorrax wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would think women employees would be harassed less under Microsoft

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.