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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

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Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#771

Post by kthejoker2 »

palijer wrote: post #84
agd wrote: post #53

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.

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 mar…

Halliburton / Baker Hughes merger was preemptively cancelled due to regulation

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#772

Post by bakugo »

smileybarry wrote: post #406
izacus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 g…

>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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#773

Post by pferdone »

chc wrote: post #708
cletus wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Imag…

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.

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

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#774

Post by milkytron »

trymas wrote: post #540
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #203

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 behin…

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…

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#775

Post by MisterBastahrd »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #767
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.

I mean, isn't this basically how it used to work when the console manufacturers were also the game developers? Like Sega and Nintendo.

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#776

Post by blondie9x »

cletus wrote: post #691
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 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. Imag…

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.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#777

Post by pelasaco »

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.

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

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#778

Post by tm-guimaraes »

fartcannon wrote: post #762
t3rabytes wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Game Pass has built up a helluva goodwill bucket, from talking with friends of mine.

Game pass is a loss leader. They will jack the price once they crush competition.

That’s what everyone thought.

They actually reported profit with game pass.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#779

Post by justicezyx »

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?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#780

Post by vkou »

salamandersauce wrote: post #13

Wow. No wonder Microsoft wasn't willing to shame Activision like Sony and others, they were in talks to buy it. Ridiculous.

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.

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