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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

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Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#301

Post by panick21_ »

sofixa wrote: post #278
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they be allowed to? Companies acquire smaller companies and competitors all the time, it's called consolidation. One party want to sell, the other wants to buy. As long as the deal doesn't breach any anti-trust laws, it's good to go.

If this type of deal ( vertical consolidation through acquisition of competitors, and then removing those former competitors' content from competing platforms) isn't illegal, antitrust laws need to be adapted so it becomes so. It's impossible to deny it's purely in detriment to the market, competitors, and consumers.

Anti-Trust is quite openly defined. The courts in the 70s tried to establish a consistent way to judge it. The basically defined it as consumer can be forced to pay higher prices. You can read about Judge Richard Posner.

Either there would need to be some revolution with the legal profession, or congress would have to pass some new law.

What the judges realized is that by an more open definition pretty much any company and any merger could be said to be against anti-trust.

So if you want such a law, you need to actually get some exact definition of how every is judged that can be consistently legally applied.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#302

Post by SahAssar »

bombcar wrote: post #201
parkingrift wrote: post #196

No acquisition of this size should ever be allowed. This is way too much consolidation. Microsoft is buying their way to becoming the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. They should have to innovate and compete their way to the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. Who is going to be able to compete with Xbox Game Pass?

Disney already owns some huge percentage of all entertainment, we just need to wait for them to buy Microsoft's gaming division now.

Microsofts market cap is 10x disneys. It's more likely that microsoft would buy disney (and perhaps spin off theme parks and cruises).

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#303

Post by JaimeThompson »

cableshaft wrote: post #275
1_player wrote: post #2

The most important question I have is: will they replace Bobby Kotick? EDIT: "Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. [...] he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture." Shame on you, Microsoft.

Stephen Totilo shared this back in June of last year. Apparently Bobby's got an agreement signed that if he gets terminated he makes $292 million off of it, double what he made last year. So that might be part of it. https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1407658278893592579

Agreements like that are evidence that boards don't always take into account the health of the company as a whole when making decisions.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#304

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

Excited to see what this will mean for some of the gaming franchises.

Overwatch has been on shaky grounds due to uncertainty surrounding the league and the release of the sequel.

Heroes of the Storm is still my favorite MOBA even though it's clearly on life support. I'd love to see Microsoft try reviving it once more by doing a big Heroes 3.0 push.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#305

Post by sovnade »

echelon wrote: post #164
koheripbal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our legal system, actions are legal unless there is a law making them illegal. If you are referring to anti-trust laws preventing this, then MS would need to be buying a huge number of companies to monopolize the gaming market, not just Activision, in order to be in violation of this law.

But they span ten or so different industries with a $2T market cap, and it's full of unhealthy monopolistic synergies. They can wield this power to force deals and push out competitors across their multiple business units. They can "ask" gaming companies to use Azure if they want to run on Windows or Xbox. They can ignore Mac and PlayStation as platforms. They can bundle software licenses, payment gateways, and desig…

Yeah this is bad for everyone overall. Disney is an even worse offender if you're looking at synergistic monopolies.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#306

Post by 3np »

geoduck14 wrote: post #178
raxxorrax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If he hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money too. It was banned after a short time. To be honest, I think Microsoft and Activision deserve each other.

>I remember a Starcraft II fan map named Bobby Kotick TD. If he hits you, you loose money. If you hit him, you loose money too. I love it! Political Opinions as a Game!

Maybe you'll be happy to hear that Polandball have a game on Steam..

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#307

Post by sofixa »

megumax wrote: post #147

I don't really understand these acquisitions made by Microsoft, first Mojang, then Bethesda and now Activision. Is Microsoft trying to revive these companies or it's just trying to leech of the market? At this moment, Activision is living out of in-game purchases, not making good games. Bethesda was almost dead when they bought it. >Legendary games, immersive interactive entertainment and publishing expertise acceler…

> I wonder what this "cloud" means. Is Microsoft planing an alternative to Google Stadia?

They already have it, Xbox Cloud Gaming. It's mostly a steaming pile of crap that can't handle billing or multi-language users without cryptic useless errors. Quality and latency are pretty bad too, and the games are meh and console versions only ( so it's poor for strategy games for instance).

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#308

Post by gurkendoktor »

MrJagil wrote: post #208
sto11z wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't have a gaming division. Why would they be interested in acquiring Blizzard?

That’s why i included the paranthesis “ (or probably could have) happen(ed) ”. That said, they do have a gaming service: https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/

Apple Arcade is for casual games that have to work on all of Apple's form factors (minus the watch, thankfully). I've tried it out twice. It is, with very few exceptions, in a completely different category from PC gaming because most people access it through a touchscreen. It's like comparing a PS5 and a Switch, except that Apple Arcade is not nearly as polished as the Switch.

My impression is also that Apple Arcade is already pushing the limits of how much Apple's management wants to touch gaming.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#309

Post by inetknght »

unethical_ban wrote: post #297
parkingrift wrote: post #196

No acquisition of this size should ever be allowed. This is way too much consolidation. Microsoft is buying their way to becoming the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. They should have to innovate and compete their way to the #2 or #3 gaming company in the world. Who is going to be able to compete with Xbox Game Pass?

Counterpoint: It's gaming. It is a space with a low barrier to (indie) entry and it is not part of some critical infrastructure. Maybe it is lamentable, but I am not sure antitrust would be my way to go for this.

> It is a space with a low barrier to (indie) entry and it is not part of some critical infrastructure.

How many indie games are there for Xbox?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#310

Post by stephbu »

raxxorrax wrote: post #78
s3r3nity wrote: post #16

Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position. Oh, and he now leads the third biggest gaming company on the planet: > When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. It will be interes…

I think for gaming this is pretty negative that everything is consolidated under large developers. I also don't think that the atmosphere under Microsoft will be better than under Activision. I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest.

I agree with your view point - however it’s hard to see any other outcome for the AAA franchises. Player expectations of a modern title are increasing - as are the time, human, and fiscal capital required to ship a modern title - years of engineering, hundreds of people, hundreds of millions of dollars. The risks are huge - missing your date, or game experience can sink a company - consider what Cyberpunk almost did to Projekt CD RED - to ship they cut to the bone very late in the day. The economics of the AAA business is optimizing towards managing and distributing that risk thru supply-chain and scale. I don’t see a better way on this current trajectory.
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