Earlier quoted context omitted.
FTC: Wait what?! We're supposed to be concerned about the rabble first?
harms to the market are harms to the consumer, consumer harm as the court standard is how we got this consolidated state
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Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
141–150 of 490 posts
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#142The FTC's incredibly low win rate in federal court should be a source of agency-wide embarrassment. The only place they reliably win is their kangaroo "administrative courts" in which they act as the judge, jury and executioner but those are probably on their way out. But it doesn't even matter anyways because the new strategy is going to be outsourcing enforcement to Europe.
Is the low win rate a surprise though? As a foreign observer, the US justice system seems to largely be based on who can spend the most - so large company > government > small company > citizen is pretty much the assumed outcome. I have a vague sense the order also wraps around (individual > large company) because of cases like the McDonald's boiling coffee, but in those cases headlines and bad PR are just acting as a proxy for money.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? How does this lessen competition? The PC gaming market is thriving thanks to Steam and indies. Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. Microsoft? Aside from providing Windows and DirectX, they're basically invisible. Xbox is just a cheap wannabe PC with no great games. It's a wonder they've supported it for this long. Maybe this acquisition gives them a fighting chance against Sony and Nintendo. It's…
> Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. For now. Fortunes change pretty quick in the console world. One generation you are on top, the next you are struggling for second place. MS buying Activision is bad. This gives MS a long term advantage. It signals to companies like Sony and Nintendo that they shouldn’t bother competing since they can never counter the buying out of huge publishers as they aren’t wor…
That just isn't true though. Sony and Nintendo have no problem competing at all by the quality of their first-party and exclusive games. For every Call of Duty there is a Horizons or a God of War or Zelda or whatever. Xbox is the worst of all the platforms in terms of that. Even PC and mobile have more (good) games that aren't available on Xbox.
Has Microsoft has any major successes since Halo and Fable, years and years ago? They're desperate for games. Activision isn't going to suddenly make the dominant overnight. If anything, it would barely help stop the bleeding. Microsoft is so far behind right now it's not funny. I'd be way more afraid of competition dying because Microsoft gave up on it rather than buying Activision.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? How does this lessen competition? The PC gaming market is thriving thanks to Steam and indies. Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. Microsoft? Aside from providing Windows and DirectX, they're basically invisible. Xbox is just a cheap wannabe PC with no great games. It's a wonder they've supported it for this long. Maybe this acquisition gives them a fighting chance against Sony and Nintendo. It's…
> Now if someone acquired Valve, that would be a tragedy... Honestly I would cherish the moment. It would be the most likely path to actually seeing HL3 released. The one time the filthy capitalists manage to do a good thing... Valve to me has become a pathetic, rent-seeking platform owner. No clue why the gaming community still holds them in such regard. Linux support and not being publicly traded must be a massive…
> It would be the most likely path to actually seeing HL3 released.
The thought of seeing HL3 actually released makes me a little nervous. When I look at great game franchises that had a large time gap before another sequel is released, it seems pretty rare for that sequel not to be terrible.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? How does this lessen competition? The PC gaming market is thriving thanks to Steam and indies. Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. Microsoft? Aside from providing Windows and DirectX, they're basically invisible. Xbox is just a cheap wannabe PC with no great games. It's a wonder they've supported it for this long. Maybe this acquisition gives them a fighting chance against Sony and Nintendo. It's…
> Now if someone acquired Valve, that would be a tragedy... Honestly I would cherish the moment. It would be the most likely path to actually seeing HL3 released. The one time the filthy capitalists manage to do a good thing... Valve to me has become a pathetic, rent-seeking platform owner. No clue why the gaming community still holds them in such regard. Linux support and not being publicly traded must be a massive…
I don't think it's fair to understate the impact Steam has had on indie game dev. We went from "maybe hearing about this shareware on the PC Gamer floppy if you're lucky" to spamware sites like Tucows to a huge centralized marketplace of phenomenal games because the devs had a way to let people discover their one-hit wonder, get great reviews, etc.
Yes, I want HL3 as much as anyone, but Alyx was pretty cool (still one of the better VR demos), the Steam Deck is innovative in its own way (and Aperture Desk Job is a fun HL universe spinoff), GeForce Now integration is really useful for some of us, Cloud Save is awesome, etc. Not to mention the sales... because of Steam sales and resellers (isthereanydeal.com) games are far more affordable than they ever were before, especially compared to the consoles.
The platform is WORTH paying rent for. If you want to see how bad it could be otherwise, it's not a hypothetical... Epic, Windows Games Marketplace (or whatever it's called these days), GOG, etc. are all far inferior in terms of ease of use, features, selection, pricing, etc. As someone who's been PC gaming since Lode Runner and Commander Keen, Steam is by far the best thing that's happened to it in three decades. It was even more transformative than 3DFX or DirectX in terms of the quality and quantity of games made available to gamers.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#146Just the UK CMA standing in the way then, with its flimsy decision resting almost entirely on speculation about the "cloud gaming" market. Microsoft should be offering to to swear off cloud gaming entirely, they should be delighted. Game streaming is a lousy solution that requires enormous investment in specific infrastructure, it would be smart to ignore it and focus on their great subscription service that only req…
> Game streaming is a lousy solution I feel like it's only bad because it's still mostly a half-way house. Slapping existing AAA titles onto networked GPUs and calling it a day streaming gaming in my view. Streaming gaming is actually a thing for me when someone builds a game using it that would absolutely not be possible using traditional technology. For example, an MMO so massive that the average player's network s…
You can fit a ton of data down a consumer's pipe. Can you actually design a game that would have those network requirements? A single frame of video is a ton of data compared to traditional game state constructs.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#147Just the UK CMA standing in the way then, with its flimsy decision resting almost entirely on speculation about the "cloud gaming" market. Microsoft should be offering to to swear off cloud gaming entirely, they should be delighted. Game streaming is a lousy solution that requires enormous investment in specific infrastructure, it would be smart to ignore it and focus on their great subscription service that only req…
> Game streaming is a lousy solution I feel like it's only bad because it's still mostly a half-way house. Slapping existing AAA titles onto networked GPUs and calling it a day streaming gaming in my view. Streaming gaming is actually a thing for me when someone builds a game using it that would absolutely not be possible using traditional technology. For example, an MMO so massive that the average player's network s…
And the thing is, latency can be "good enough" for some games. I tried out the top end tier of GeForce NOW for a month just to see what it was like since I've always been skeptical of game streaming. I picked Last Epoch as a game since it has (had?) a reputation for being hard to run at 4k.
Even at 4k, I could play it and my views on game streaming have changed a bit. This was last year and I was using an i7 4770k based system. I can say pretty confidently that I found the local lag spikes from not having a high end gaming PC to be far more frustrating than the consistent 40ms of latency via streaming. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and don't have the same reflexes anymore, but I couldn't even really notice the latency via streaming.
I also think people are seriously overlooking the trend towards secure computing. What if you put a TPM in a video card? Then your video for the game stream can be encrypted and only gets decoded just before being sent to your HDCP compliant monitor. I think it's much harder to build cheats if the client side doesn't have any data to work with beyond video that gets decrypted as it's sent to your monitor.
Heck, even just a lack of local game data gets rid of most cheating, right?
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#148Great let’s add another merger on top of a merger that was already horrible for consumers and creates even less competition.
Are you talking about the Vivendi and Activision merger?
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Game streaming is a lousy solution I feel like it's only bad because it's still mostly a half-way house. Slapping existing AAA titles onto networked GPUs and calling it a day streaming gaming in my view. Streaming gaming is actually a thing for me when someone builds a game using it that would absolutely not be possible using traditional technology. For example, an MMO so massive that the average player's network s…
You can fit a ton of data down a consumer's pipe. Can you actually design a game that would have those network requirements? A single frame of video is a ton of data compared to traditional game state constructs.
What's more exciting to me the client doesn't need that data or assets you can actually make games thatb need to be discovered though the game. No peeking local files or state for what's possible in the game.
Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. For now. Fortunes change pretty quick in the console world. One generation you are on top, the next you are struggling for second place. MS buying Activision is bad. This gives MS a long term advantage. It signals to companies like Sony and Nintendo that they shouldn’t bother competing since they can never counter the buying out of huge publishers as they aren’t wor…
That just isn't true though. Sony and Nintendo have no problem competing at all by the quality of their first-party and exclusive games. For every Call of Duty there is a Horizons or a God of War or Zelda or whatever. Xbox is the worst of all the platforms in terms of that. Even PC and mobile have more (good) games that aren't available on Xbox. Has Microsoft has any major successes since Halo and Fable, years and ye…
MS is playing the long game. They don’t care about this generation. They want to win all future generations.
3rd party support plays a big part in a console’s success. MS is effectively buying out one of the largest 3rd party studios denying its competitors their support.