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Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#221

Post by e63f67dd-065b »

xinayder wrote: post #100
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's being rewarded for growing net income roughly a hundred fold between 2010 and now. I think it's fair that he gets a huge chunk of the value he's created for investors.

He also got a $200mi bonus shortly after he laid off 200 employees: https://frontofficesports.com/activision-blizzard-ceo-bonus-...

And? Laying off 200 employees isn't really that much, Activision-Blizzard employs 17k people after all, and he is creating a lot of value. Boards want to incentivise CEOs to take moonshots -- for institutional investors, a 50% chance to make $100 million is better than a 100% chance to make $30m.

Keeping employees around for the sake of keeping them around is just bad business. A 1% layoff isn't a cost cutting exercise, it's just organisational reshuffling. Employee churn is a fact of life, no need to get too hung up over it. The optics might be not great, but that doesn't really matter.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#222

Post by ejlxsh »

hx8 wrote: post #42
ejlxsh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chances are games will be added to the gamepass, meaning we get these for essentially free.

I'm more concerned that I won't have access to the games because I don't play on Xbox or Windows.

I do agree here, but also I think if a company is acquiring to give an even better service to their own users it's a good thing (as one of those users). I'm sure I read they've agreed to keep them cross-platform so it won't impact Playstation users (maybe a delay with new games being released on Playstation, like how FF16 isn't on Xbox yet) - but what I am really hoping for is the games simply become part of the Xbox Ultimate subscription.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#223

Post by AlexandrB »

huytersd wrote: post #216
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put into context, he was a close associate of one Jeffery Epstein, and in his book of clients and close associates. Why? Hard to say, Epstein wasn’t really in the games industry. That’s really just the beginning of it, Kotick is quite a prolific pos himself: https://nypost.com/2021/11/16/activision-ceo-threatened-to-h... . And he’s alleged to have covered up sexual assault at the company, which given the Epstein c…

Everyone famous in the 90s in the eastern US was an associate of Epstein. He was a rich famous guy, it’s sort of expected.

I don't understand how this is supposed to exonerate anyone. Many accounts attest to the fact that Epstein's "interests" were hardly a secret. Donald Trump himself alluded[1] to it.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10314430-i-ve-known-jeff-ep...

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#225

Post by femiagbabiaka »

huytersd wrote: post #216
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put into context, he was a close associate of one Jeffery Epstein, and in his book of clients and close associates. Why? Hard to say, Epstein wasn’t really in the games industry. That’s really just the beginning of it, Kotick is quite a prolific pos himself: https://nypost.com/2021/11/16/activision-ceo-threatened-to-h... . And he’s alleged to have covered up sexual assault at the company, which given the Epstein c…

Everyone famous in the 90s in the eastern US was an associate of Epstein. He was a rich famous guy, it’s sort of expected.

A rich famous guy who was known to be surrounded by underage women at all times, yeah. I'm not exonerating anyone.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#226

Post by Capricorn2481 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #191
m3kw9 wrote: post #114

MS has been making some really mediocre games in the past 5 years. What have they made that was good or won awards/Acclaim? I think they buy studios and the execs then put their finger prints all over it and f up the games. Just look at Starfield, hyped af but mid af

I really don't get the complaints about Starfield being mid. What did people expect? Skyrim, Fallout 3/4, Starfield are all basically the same things with visual retouches along the way. This is not a slam in the slightest mind you: I'm currently in the midst of my fourth playthrough of Fallout 4. I'm looking forward to picking up Starfield in a year or so once the modders have made it more awesome and Bethesda's fix…

> I'm sure I'll enjoy it, I'm just not chomping at the bit to have it right now and so will pick up the Game of the Year edition with all DLCs included for like $20 in a year or two.

So...you haven't even played it and you're incredulously wondering why people don't like it? I don't have a big stake in what others think about the game but that seems worth reconsidering.

I think if you like Fallout 4 you MAY like Starfield. I guess just speaking as someone that ignored all the marketing for this game and came in with an open mind, I wasn't expecting anything. I love a lot of Bethesda games, though I wasn't crazy on Fallout 4 since it stripped some RPG stuff. It was serviceable still. I didn't really care when people said "oh you can't land on planets" and things like that. It seemed like a lot of the complaints people about Starfield were unimportant to me.

So imagine how disappointed I was when it had a bunch of additional things I didn't like on top of that.

- Terrible NPCs. Not likable or hatable, just bland. All the companions talk the exact same.

- Boring missions and story (yes even the "cyberpunk" city was bad).

- Easily the worst skill tree I have ever seen in a Bethesda RPG. I have never been less excited to level up. It's just minor stat boosts or shit that should've been basekit for the player. Fallout 4 had a great skill tree that made me feel different on each playthrough.

- While we're talking RPGs, this is not an RPG. There's basically no decisions to be made in any of the missions and no sense of having a character.

- Pretty boring setting. I know it's Nasa punk, but I vastly prefer the Fallout setting.

- Maybe one of the laziest ways procedural generation has ever been used in modern gaming. I hope it's the nail in the coffin for this kind of development.

- To cap it off, the discourse around the game has been annoying because it's either people calling the game woke or people saying only idiots that like No Man's Sky are disappointed by this game. It's a lot of polarized hateful nonsense.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#227

Post by e63f67dd-065b »

spacephysics wrote: post #76
AirMax98 wrote: post #72

God damn man. How is this not an antitrust violation? The only answer is that we live in truly corrupt times. What is our answer to this?

I’m convinced we’ve always had corruption, it’s just seeing more of the light today. I mention this to my Eastern European friends and they laugh at the level of corruption the US complains about (compared to what they’ve had for decades+)

Where is the corruption here? I agree that there are many corrupt parts of government, especially in procurement, and especially in regional and local governments, but in this specific case it's pretty clear that the law is on the side of Microsoft here.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#228

Post by s1artibartfast »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #194
stale2002 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the person you responded to just answered that question? It is because Microsoft isn't anywhere close to being a monopoly in games. You could have just read the comment to get the answer to your question.

It's not a monopoly but I think it's fair to express frustration towards the lack of legislation preventing what's clearly anti-competitive behavior. It doesn't seem very helpful for people to continually state what the current laws are as if that makes this better somehow.

How is it stopping anyone from coming in and competing? It's not like they're selling games at a loss to kill the competition.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#229

Post by lagadu »

xinayder wrote: post #92
echelon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on one asshole getting undeserved rewards is one thing, but it distracts from the real story. What hurts way more at scale is the increasing monopolistic power of Microsoft Games. That should be the primary focus of everyone's attention. This weakens Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Epic. The consumer. Everyone but Microsoft. Microsoft can give away "experiences" under-cost and sink a lot of human attention into it. T…

I don't know how the authorities were convinced that they won't make ActiBlizz games exclusive. When they acquired Bethesda, a similar concern was brought up. Fast-forward to today, new Bethesda games aren't releasing on Sony consoles. It started with Starfield. TES6 won't release on PS either.

Considering how terrible Sony is, almost Nintendo-level, at making sure their titles are exclusives, bringing them up only makes Microsoft look good by comparison: they have by far the fewest exclusives of the three big console makers.

Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard

#230

Post by chainwax »

mrweasel wrote: post #70

And what is Microsoft going to do with this purchase? Seriously, Microsoft is buy all these game studios and fail to utilize them probably. They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING.

A Fallout 3 remaster is in the works.

https://www.ign.com/articles/oblivion-remaster-fallout-3-rem...

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