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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

#431

Post by cjsawyer »

ElectricalUnion wrote: post #331
cjsawyer wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latency between peripheral input and visual feedback is much more important than the latency between a game client and server. The servers have all sorts of mitigation strategies to compensate. For inputs, it’s all on the human. Which feels bad.

> The servers have all sorts of mitigation strategies to compensate. I haven't seen any papers where cloud gaming servers implement rollback logic on your inputs in behalf of the game developer. Even assuming games that do support native rollback, most rollback netcode implicitly considers you're local to your game client, not in some relay box 7 frames or more in the past.

I was talking about clients and servers in the classic setup, not for cloud gaming. My parent was talking about game ping and I was pointing out that cloud services are even more sensitive since you’re not interacting with the game client locally.

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

#432

Post by [deleted] »

edgyquant wrote: post #104
logicchains wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft doesn't have anything close to a monopoly on games. In terms of sales and reviewer scores, most of the top games weren't produced by Activision or other Microsoft studios. The only recent release I'm aware of was Starfield, and that was panned for failing to meet expectations, achieving under 88 on Metacritic.

How is buying up two of the biggest game studios not anti-competitive behavior? The apologism in this comment is hilarious. I hope your getting paid for shilling this hard.

[deleted]

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

#433

Post by tnel77 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #336
WorldMaker wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Microsoft is just about the only player left in cloud gaming because Sony, Amazon and Google all tried and gave up in different ways, in part because none of them really found a market nor an audience. I heard Sony is trying again but leasing some cloud servers from Microsoft Azure's white box version of xCloud, ironically. That last part is also why I think the Ubisoft deal is probably funny. Rumors are Ubi i…

>> so far unfinished cloud gaming app. As a gamer, few things would turn me away from a potential purchase more than the phrase "cloud gaming app". It sounds like DRM-infected bloatware ready to kick me from a server the moment my connection even hiccups. Only "cloud gaming app, now by Microsoft " could be worse.

Laying in bed while playing my game on the cloud is real neat. Call it whatever you’d like, I love it!

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

#434

Post by mcpackieh »

sandworm101 wrote: post #336
WorldMaker wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Microsoft is just about the only player left in cloud gaming because Sony, Amazon and Google all tried and gave up in different ways, in part because none of them really found a market nor an audience. I heard Sony is trying again but leasing some cloud servers from Microsoft Azure's white box version of xCloud, ironically. That last part is also why I think the Ubisoft deal is probably funny. Rumors are Ubi i…

>> so far unfinished cloud gaming app. As a gamer, few things would turn me away from a potential purchase more than the phrase "cloud gaming app". It sounds like DRM-infected bloatware ready to kick me from a server the moment my connection even hiccups. Only "cloud gaming app, now by Microsoft " could be worse.

HN is the only place on the net where I've ever seen people defending the premise of cloud gaming and it's usually (not always) people saying something like "Well I don't game much myself but cloud gaming sounds compelling..."

I think this is why tech companies keep trying to implement cloud gaming and it keeps flopping with consumers. Tech industry people who aren't much of gamers themselves think there is some large untapped market of people who aren't gamers right now but could become gamers if the barrier to entry were lowered. In theory that logic makes sense but in practice that market just doesn't materialize. The barrier to entry for gaming is already quite low, it's a very cheap hobby and almost everybody who really wants to play games has already found a way to do so without cloud gaming.

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

#435

Post by georgeecollins »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #80
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?

What is the antitrust behavior here?

Microsoft has one of the two biggest gaming subscription services. They would like to see gaming be a subscription business. When they say, we will still sell Call of Duty on other platforms they don't say that they will give it away on GamePass.

What's wrong with subscriptions? It lets a distributor scrape off the excess profit. Games are a hit driven business. It sounds great when a platoform offers two or three times the cost of development to a developer, but the model won't really work unless some titles make like 10x. Listen to Jason Blum explain why Netfilx is terrible for independent film.

You will just see a lot less independent developers (not hobbyists) and small publishers. Maybe no one cares. I will probably be retired by then.

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

#436

Post by PhasmaFelis »

jonhohle wrote: post #389
eigenket wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself. I was pretty keen on starcraft and starcraft 2 back in the day, and I made a decision a few years back that blizzard wasn't the sort of company I wanted to support with my money anymore.

Before or after the Activision aquisition? I never played WoW, but I think every other game up to D3 is a masterpiece.

I don't know about the other fellow, but for me it was when they banned Blitzchung and revoked his prize money for saying "Liberate Hong Kong" on a stream.

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

#437

Post by WorldMaker »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #406
WorldMaker wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I see as an ancient PC Gamer is that Activision also sits on one of the largest hoards of IPs. Not just "cool" IPs from today's games (a lot of people are mentioning Activision's odd/bad stewardship of Blizzard, of course), but Activision bought a lot of the classic publishers in its history as a massive M&A shop. The legacies of Infocom, Sierra, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson, and many more both well known…

Are you saying I might see Torrin's Passage 2 now?

I also kind of wish to see that. Al Lowe is beyond retired at this point, but maybe Microsoft money can buy at least outlines of his four (!) proposed sequels.

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

#438

Post by lostmsu »

WorldMaker wrote: post #253
w0m wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, assuming there's actually a cloud gaming market. A fact that's still up for debate I think.

Right. Microsoft is just about the only player left in cloud gaming because Sony, Amazon and Google all tried and gave up in different ways, in part because none of them really found a market nor an audience. I heard Sony is trying again but leasing some cloud servers from Microsoft Azure's white box version of xCloud, ironically. That last part is also why I think the Ubisoft deal is probably funny. Rumors are Ubi i…

Coincidentally, I am building a peer-to-peer one: https://borg.games

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

#439

Post by 6502nerdface »

Sebguer wrote: post #286
koromak wrote: post #275

I'm not even worked up about gaming specifically. I just think the FTC is failing horrifically at its job of protecting consumers from monopoly. The SEC is failing on its end too. Everything will just get slowly worse.

I think this is a bit unfair, there's a real significant FTC upswell happening, but they're contending with decades of atrophy and an antitrust lobby that is extraordinarily powerful, not to mention the number of monopoly-friendly judges that are sitting in some of the most vital courts.

> antitrust lobby

you mean protrust lobby :)

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

#440

Post by deadmutex »

gigatexal wrote: post #412
rollcat wrote: post #369

I keep my fingers crossed for the revival of the StarCraft franchise. I grew up with the game, and it's kinda sad to see the current state of SC2: old bugs, new bugs, community trying to take over the processes but having a very bumpy ride, opaque decision making (de-facto spokespersons/community figures under muddy NDAs), and unfortunately all our 2010 fears (no local/LAN play!) coming true, when server outages are…

The SC2 professional scene is doing really well I think. Lots of games being played at the highest levels. And tons of content for it on YouTube with some of the best play by play commentators out there. I really enjoy that. What deep pocketed Microsoft could do is really up the ante and make the prize money for tournaments of say Quake (they own ID) or SC2 and others really high and attract even more buzz etc etc. I…

> The SC2 professional scene is doing really well I think

I could easily claim the opposite. There's very little to no mention of SC2 for Blizzcon '23 as well.

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