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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

#241

Post by philipov »

opportune wrote: post #135
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.

They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…

Bethesda has been synonymous with janky game launches for decades. They practically invented it.

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

#242

Post by duped »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #155
huytersd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reading this as he was a regular guy that may have asked some women out a few times given the hyperbole and dissembling around this entire thing.

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…

> he was a close associate of one Jeffery Epstein

Might want to check your sources

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

#243

Post by Retric »

duped wrote: post #200
Retric wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Activision is a lot bigger than CoD with Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, etc each have huge followings. So not only does it impact players of a huge chunk of game series, plus any potential future series by Activision but also the viability of alternative platforms. Thus, even pure indy gamers are being harmed here. Worse it’s yet another sign that US regulators have no intentions of limiting monopolistic behavior.

Roughly 82% of their revenue comes from Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush. I'm not sure what the actual breakdown is from there, but they're not exactly diversified. https://www.axios.com/2022/03/03/embattled-activision-facing...

That ~20% varies by year but is still ~1.5 Billion dollars per year which is a major studio representing a long tail of properties that come out infrequently. More importantly you need to consider future franchises not just their current properties:

Caesar, Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, DJ Hero, Empire Earth, Gabriel Knight, Geometry Wars, Guitar Hero, Gun, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Hexen, Interstate ’76, King’s Quest, Laura Bow Mysteries, The Lost Vikings, Overwatch, Phantasmagoria, Pitfall, Police Quest, Prototype, Quest for Glory, Singularity, Skylanders, Solider of Fortune, Space Quest, Spyro the Dragon, StarCraft, Tenchu, TimeShift, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, True Crime, Zork, and probably a few others I missed.

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

#244

Post by w0m »

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.

My theory is Mobile gaming (King) was the key here.

Outside of that it's simply to try and narrow the (surprisingly large) Exclusives gap Sony has been enjoying the last decade or so.

> They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING

I mean - didn't the team that would work on that launch Starfield in the last month?

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

#245

Post by crazygringo »

wredue wrote: post #211
gdulli wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does competition mean, if not differences in software? The console hardware between Sony and Microsoft isn't meaningfully differentiated. If the consoles had identical catalogs what would be left to differentiate them other than friends list lock-in? A few FPS or a home screen you happen to prefer aren't important things.

So Microsoft failing for a decade to bring titles to their console means that it’s okay to remove titles from Sony gamers? The consoles today don’t have identical catalogs. That’s where your argument falls apart. One company made a decade of bad decisions which caused them to fall behind. In a fair market where Microsoft didn’t have trillions in resources to just steal the market, Phil Spencer would be fired and Xbox…

What does a company's past failures have to do with whether its current strategy is sound? Do you think Apple shouldn't have been allowed to acquire NeXT when Steve Jobs came back, just because Apple's previous CEO's had done a bad job?

It's not "stealing" anything. It's acquiring a company and paying a fair price for it.

Playstation has way more exclusives than Xbox. This is just getting closer to leveling the playing field. There's nothing wrong with that. The more equal in size major market participants are, the better off it tends to be for consumers.

And please don't call anyone "fanboys". That kind of name-calling isn't appropriate for HN discourse.

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

#246

Post by Hamuko »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #134
malfist wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MS just wants the profits. Are you sure about that? MS required Starfield to be exclusive after purchasing Bethesda

Well of course. They're spending a lot of money, why wouldn't they make the titles of anything they acquire be Xbox/Windows exclusive? That increases their profits. More people buy Xboxes, more people are on their platform, etc. They have some contractual obligations that prevent them from doing it for everything , but they'll do it for anything they can. That's just business sense.

>why wouldn't they make the titles of anything they acquire be Xbox/Windows exclusive?

"[Microsoft] submits that Microsoft has strong incentives to continue making ZeniMax games available for rival consoles (and their related storefronts). [...] Therefore, according to [Microsoft], Microsoft would not have the incentive to cease or limit making ZeniMax games available for purchase on rival consoles."

https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases1/202124/m1000...

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

#247

Post by w0m »

everforward wrote: post #202
opportune wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…

> I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” In fairness to Microsoft, "half-baked" would be how I describe all of Bethesda's previous releases as well. I don't think Starfield is that far off how Skyrim or Fallout 4 was on release. Starfield's a long shot from where Skyrim and Fallout are now af…

> Diablo 4 is basically dead. 5 million players on launch, 300k last month. They're down to ~5% of the players they started with a year after launch. The core gameplay was not fun, and I can't believe no one noticed it forever ago.

Diablo 4 was launched less than ~4 months ago. Feels much longer. lol.

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

#248

Post by ikekkdcjkfke »

everforward wrote: post #202
opportune wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” Regarding at least the Blizzard side of the acquisition, I feel like Microsoft ownership may end up being a good thing for their underused IP.…

> I do suspect that Microsoft may have been behind Starfield releasing in its half-baked, dumbed down state though a la “We need it on game pass by X, make it happen!” In fairness to Microsoft, "half-baked" would be how I describe all of Bethesda's previous releases as well. I don't think Starfield is that far off how Skyrim or Fallout 4 was on release. Starfield's a long shot from where Skyrim and Fallout are now af…

As has been said, these companies are a shell of what they used to be. The real meat were the sublime developers and craftsmen that are no longer in those companies.

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

#249

Post by aceazzameen »

fifticon wrote: post #131
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…

never mind the downvotes, I agree with you. My kid plays minecraft, and the amount of microsoft bullshit we have to put up with to be allowed to play the game we already bought before the acquisition boggles the mind. I have a suspicion, that before 2025, we won't be allowed in the game without an ms authenticator app on my mobile - to be allowed to play a kids game we already paid for. The rights of the end users ar…

The Minecraft permissions UX is fucking nuts. To be fair, Sony's is ridiculous too. The only one to get it right is Nintendo. Anyways, yeah, I have no doubt you'll eventually need an Xbox login to play Activision/Blizzard games on Playstation, just like Minecraft.

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

#250

Post by burnte »

w0m wrote: post #244
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.

My theory is Mobile gaming (King) was the key here. Outside of that it's simply to try and narrow the (surprisingly large) Exclusives gap Sony has been enjoying the last decade or so. > They own all the IP required to do a followup to Fallout New Vegas and NOTHING I mean - didn't the team that would work on that launch Starfield in the last month ?

> I mean - didn't the team that would work on that launch Starfield in the last month?

Yep. Although one could argue there are are other studios who could be tapped to make a sequel.

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