Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#1

Post by flankstaek » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#2

Post by dyeje » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

Kind of timely with that Oomba piece. I'm a bit surprised though, this seems like a site MS could build in under a year and Smash.gg doesn't have much traction in the major esports AFAIK. Also, I assumed Mixer shutting down was MS stepping away from esports.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#3

Post by eecks » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

Unless there's some hidden complexity to this site.. it looks fairly straight forward. Why have MS bought it?

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#4

Post by DoctorOW » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

dyeje wrote: post #2

Kind of timely with that Oomba piece. I'm a bit surprised though, this seems like a site MS could build in under a year and Smash.gg doesn't have much traction in the major esports AFAIK. Also, I assumed Mixer shutting down was MS stepping away from esports.

Agreed, my first thought was "but they just sold Mixer". Doesn't make much sense to me.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#5

Post by merb » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

DoctorOW wrote: post #4

dyeje wrote: post #2

Kind of timely with that Oomba piece. I'm a bit surprised though, this seems like a site MS could build in under a year and Smash.gg doesn't have much traction in the major esports AFAIK. Also, I assumed Mixer shutting down was MS stepping away from esports.

Agreed, my first thought was "but they just sold Mixer". Doesn't make much sense to me.

and shutting down mixer was a mistake. also they should've just grown mixer slowly and made it more accessible, it could've been a good twitch alternative..

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#6

Post by arleny » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

eecks wrote: post #3

Unless there's some hidden complexity to this site.. it looks fairly straight forward. Why have MS bought it?

I'd say since smash.gg is already the established method of organizing esports events across a variety of game communities, despite being straight forward.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#7

Post by kaashmonee » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

dyeje wrote: post #2

Kind of timely with that Oomba piece. I'm a bit surprised though, this seems like a site MS could build in under a year and Smash.gg doesn't have much traction in the major esports AFAIK. Also, I assumed Mixer shutting down was MS stepping away from esports.

Huh, this is pretty interesting. I'm not really familiar with Smash.gg, but if what people in this thread are saying is true, that it's a fairly straightforward platform that could be easily reproduced by Microsoft, then it seems like this acquisition was almost altruistically motivated. It feels like it's easy for a lot of big companies to make better competing products and drive the little guy into extinction, but this acqusition move feels like the company encourages startups and isn't entirely motivated by greed. But I may be biased; I already do like Microsoft, Nadella, and what the company does and how far it has come since the Ballmer days.

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#8

Post by nwsm » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

eecks wrote: post #3

Unless there's some hidden complexity to this site.. it looks fairly straight forward. Why have MS bought it?

Same reason behind most tech acquisitions: the users

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#9

Post by nwsm » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

Imagine if Nintendo did something for competitive Smash

Re: Microsoft Acquires Smash.gg

#10

Post by marc__1 » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

nwsm wrote: post #8

eecks wrote: post #3

Unless there's some hidden complexity to this site.. it looks fairly straight forward. Why have MS bought it?

Same reason behind most tech acquisitions: the users

or the team

here is the series A announcement from 2017, with some interesting VCs participating

https://blog.smash.gg/growing-our-team-at-smash-gg-912f1caaa...