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Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#291

Post by tyleo »

screye wrote: post #253

I genuinely think this is an amazing acquisition. Bethesda/Zenimax has arguably the longest lineup of critically acclaimed franchises in the video game world. Additionally, almost every franchise still feels fresh and has pulling power, unlike ones like Halo and Assassins creed which have slowly lost their thunder. Additionally, Bethesda had no idea what they were doing with their 2 biggest properties - Fallout and E…

I worked at Turn 10 (the Xbox studio which makes Forza) about a year and a half ago. Work life balance was amazing. The tech director of the studio made it a huge point that staff get adequate time off. He brought it up in almost every dev team meeting, "Let me know if you don't feel like you can take time off". He also made a huge point about having a sustainable team.

I don't know that this is a characteristic of all Microsoft studios. Departments in Microsoft can almost be like little companies all of their own. It _did_ leave a positive impression on me though and I can see myself working at Microsoft again in the future.

I left on good terms to see what it was like to work at startups.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#292

Post by shuntress »

gabereiser wrote: post #214
logicOnly wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the inevitable trend of gaming since the 90s. Small team makes innovative and interesting game. Gets bought, makes a good sequel, then milks IP forever. It's up to you to move on.

Bingo! CoD, Quake, Doom, Civ, Madden, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, All of Nintendo... you can’t fault them for milking an IP though when fans vote with their wallets. I would love new stories, new hero archetypes, new consequences, in games and I think indie have done a decent job at showing it can be done. But even indie suffers from the “Hey! This worked! Let’s just keep doing this!” IP milkage. Game dev, like so…

To directly name some of games you seem to be implying are automatically bad; I'm personally very happy with Doom (2016), Doom Eternal, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Odyssey. I am glad that ID and Nintendo have been "milking" these IPs.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#293

Post by tinus_hn »

ekianjo wrote: post #87
fendy3002 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more: - paradox interactive - rockstar, which is strong from gta v online and rdr - cd projeckt red, which also get income from gog and hyped cyberpunk - valve won't exit software devs in short time, their investment in vr is big. I won't be surprised if they release vanity knives with lootbox though IMO Bethesda decided to sell to MS because their recent games cannot generate enough popularity. They can on…

If Rockstar ever gets acquired, this will be one of the most expensive deals ever. They routinely sell games in the dozens of millions of units.

The people that made GTA great left so that well is going to dry up pretty quick

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#294

Post by mattmanser »

nix23 wrote: post #93
gravypod wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Fallout: Firefly. Space western fallout game with quirky characters, hard moral dilemmas, and no one telling you what's right/wrong.

So it is a Lifesimulator?

It's fun, but it's pretty much on rails. It's not open world.

In terms of game area progression it's more like Borderlands than Skyrim/Fallout. You can't just wander around the map to a random town and possibly spend a whole game mucking around in that area.

But the quests are more like Fallout NV.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#295

Post by ehnto »

epicide wrote: post #136
apatters wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you ate McDonald's every day you'd probably think that there are no good restaurants anymore. My top 4 games by playtime in the last few years were Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Dwarf Fortress and WoW Classic. Honorable mentions go to Spelunky and Stellaris. It's to everyone's great regret that a single one of these titles was purchased by one of the shitty publishers you mentioned, fortunately it's the one…

You make a good point to bring up indie development (WoW excluded), but I think looking at the storefronts is also important. For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals, privacy concerns, and plenty more. That's not to say that every game on a store has these issues. However, I think the lesson from mobile app stores is: don't discount the impact tha…

I also quite like a lot of the blockbuster games as well as the indie games. An indie dev will never release a game like Red Dead 2, for one example. I definitely play more indie games, but I would rather the blockbuster market be healthy too.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#296

Post by throwaway17_17 »

bitwize wrote: post #160
Firebrand wrote: post #84

Bethesda Games are not going not be exclusive to Xbox -- Confirmed by Todd Howard: >Like our original partnership, this one is about more than one system or one screen. We share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on. Regardless of the screen siz…

You're right. They won't be just on Xbox. They'll be on Xbox and Windows 10. In other news, the only 3D API that matters now for gaming is DirectX. Which was kinda always the case, except now OpenGL and VK fanboys can't go "but... idTech!"

I think this will be one of the most interesting fallout effects of this whole acquisition. Bethesda’s tech stack, as a developer, is basically worthless. But Id has plenty of tech, both tooling and engine, that are viable going into PS5/Xbox/new gen GPUs. If Microsoft does intend to push heavily for Xbox/Windows exclusives from all the acquired components the impact on DirectX as the standard 3D API is going to be pretty large. Also the internal transitions from current tooling and API will probably be prioritized to get early day titles ready for spring 2021 sales season (but surely for the holiday 2021 rush).

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#297

Post by [deleted] »

Angostura wrote: post #268
epicide wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point to bring up indie development (WoW excluded), but I think looking at the storefronts is also important. For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals, privacy concerns, and plenty more. That's not to say that every game on a store has these issues. However, I think the lesson from mobile app stores is: don't discount the impact tha…

> Right now, Steam is still the leader I wonder how they compare to Apple.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#298

Post by shrewduser »

gambiting wrote: post #188
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to target Xbox, you need to write a D3D renderer anyway (although the Xbox API has some significant differences, if I understand correctly). There's little point writing an OpenGL renderer if your target platforms are Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation (which has its own graphics API). Also, my understanding is that on Windows, OpenGL generally runs into more issues with driver bugs than D3D does.

I work for a large video games company and we usually write two backends - DirectX for Windows and Xbox, and a special one for PlayStation. That is changing slightly with Stadia, because that forces us to write a Vulkan renderer too. But on the few games that have it, the DX12 performance is better on windows than that of the Vulkan renderer backend - so we haven't released it to the public.

you should release vulkan for proton / linux users i think

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#299

Post by ineedasername »

Angostura wrote: post #268
epicide wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point to bring up indie development (WoW excluded), but I think looking at the storefronts is also important. For these big conglomerates, the trendy thing is to have your own games store. Complete with exclusivity deals, privacy concerns, and plenty more. That's not to say that every game on a store has these issues. However, I think the lesson from mobile app stores is: don't discount the impact tha…

> Right now, Steam is still the leader I wonder how they compare to Apple.

Apple probably doesn't have much revenue from the OS X desktop store, but if we're talking about total gaming revenue, Steam is around $5 billion/year and Apple is around $20 billion/year. Although I'm pretty sure Apple's # represents gross sales, not their 30% cut. I don't know if Steam's # is the revenue they receive after their cut, or if it's gross sales. If their # is the cut they take, they'd be far ahead of the App Store in terms of gross profit.
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