Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 490 posts

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#411

Post by johnnyanmac »

jonhohle wrote: post #341
topkai22 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Xbox game pass streaming, for many of the reasons I like streaming music, tv, and movies. It’s cheap to try things- I can fire up a new game without waiting to download 40+ GB. If the play engages me I’ll keep playing, if not I’ll move on. I’m not a very good with high speed games anyways, so the increased latency isn’t generally noticeable in the games I play.

The issue isn’t about trying out games, it’s about having access to those games in 5, 10, 20 years or later. There is a growing list of digital only titles that are no longer available to new players and may be unavailable to people who “bought” them. I have a bricked Wii with digital games that are tied to the physical console, not any account. There is no way to recover them. Steam has done a remarkable job staying…

In theory I'm interested. In reality, 99% of games I care about will be remastered/ported or even remade 20 years later. $60 in the grand scheme of 20 years isn't even an afterthought.

I'm fine enough with piracy being the nuclear option if we run into situations like with F-Zero or Legends of Dragoon or whatnot. But there are official options for almost every other game I would be interested in re-visiting. I still like owning a disc the same way I like owning a physical book, but I'd be lying if I said I ever popped in a disc for any 10+ year old game. It's more of a sentimental gesture to display on my shelf than a means of preservation.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#412

Post by johnnyanmac »

Jochim wrote: post #345
topkai22 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Xbox game pass streaming, for many of the reasons I like streaming music, tv, and movies. It’s cheap to try things- I can fire up a new game without waiting to download 40+ GB. If the play engages me I’ll keep playing, if not I’ll move on. I’m not a very good with high speed games anyways, so the increased latency isn’t generally noticeable in the games I play.

Game streaming is a great option to have but it incentivises the same behaviour we've seen from companies that move to a SAAS model: Charge a monthly fee and remove the option to own the product. Not actually owning the games is a problem. Nvidia's service, GeForce Now, originally allowed you to play any game you had purchased on Steam, under the theory that you were using your license to play it. Their library was d…

too bad the choice isnt ours and we've long seen how other audiences in other media have chosen. People simply don't care about those things as a majority

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#413

Post by refracture »

Sporadic thoughts:

I'm not impressed with Sony's tantrums over this, they've been throwing money around for exclusivity for years, ranging from exclusive content in major titles (Destiny and CoD have often been 'definitive' on PlayStation) to outright title exclusivity.

I'm probably not a good source of opinion on this, Acti-Blizz has become a toxic company that doesn't really make games I like anymore, and I resent them for holding Heretic and Hexen hostage even during this renaissance of throw back FPSs.. there's too much money to be made elsewhere for them to do something like that.. maybe I'm being suckered but seeing Phil in that Hexen tshirt made me hopeful. I'm also an old and bitter Warcraft RTS fan, they ignored RTS Warcraft entirely for years after WoW became their focus, and when they finally did give Warcraft III attention they completely destroyed the community and arguably made the game worse for everybody. They could have done absolutely nothing and everything would be better!

In short, unless I was a big fan of their current offerings (I am not) I don't see how Microsoft could possibly make things worse, so I'm slightly optimistic about the changes this acquisition will bring. Worst case scenario the dumpster fire gets bigger. I'm sure people who love the current offerings have very different feelings about this.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#414

Post by zimpenfish »

refracture wrote: post #413

Sporadic thoughts: I'm not impressed with Sony's tantrums over this, they've been throwing money around for exclusivity for years, ranging from exclusive content in major titles (Destiny and CoD have often been 'definitive' on PlayStation) to outright title exclusivity. I'm probably not a good source of opinion on this, Acti-Blizz has become a toxic company that doesn't really make games I like anymore, and I resent…

> I don't see how Microsoft could possibly make things worse, so I'm slightly optimistic

I'd look at what they've done with the Minecraft IP since buying it - main game gets no love, infrequent updates, etc., whilst they churn out side-projects like Dungeons and load up Bedrock with monetisation. For sure, it's not "worse" but it's a million miles away from what should have been under good ownership.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#415

Post by kipchak »

bob1029 wrote: post #136
TillE wrote: post #128

Just the UK CMA standing in the way then, with its flimsy decision resting almost entirely on speculation about the "cloud gaming" market. Microsoft should be offering to to swear off cloud gaming entirely, they should be delighted. Game streaming is a lousy solution that requires enormous investment in specific infrastructure, it would be smart to ignore it and focus on their great subscription service that only req…

> Game streaming is a lousy solution I feel like it's only bad because it's still mostly a half-way house. Slapping existing AAA titles onto networked GPUs and calling it a day streaming gaming in my view. Streaming gaming is actually a thing for me when someone builds a game using it that would absolutely not be possible using traditional technology. For example, an MMO so massive that the average player's network s…

If I remember right this approach was a key pillar to the Xbox One at launch, with for example the Crackdown demo[1] using cloud for much more advanced physics/building destruction than the release game, with statements to effect of 3x the power of the console being available in the cloud.[2] With online only being a requirement when the One launched I think Microsoft tried something close to a streaming only exclusives, but at least at that point wasn't able to make it work.

[1]https://youtu.be/EWANLy9TjRc?t=594

[2]https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/how-the-xbox-one-draw...

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#416

Post by anthk »

skissane wrote: post #181
anthk wrote: post #58

Now Zork belongs to MS. Release it under MIT and everyone would win a great history of gaming (and the right to create new histories in the Zorkverse without worrying). Spiritwrak it's a good example. In case of anyone says "text adventures have no future"... the folk lore from a distant past made Disney rich. The Arturian legends plus some samurai touches set into a futuristic space made George Lucas and Lucasfilms…

I think Microsoft might be willing to release the Infocom build tools and engines under an MIT license – by now they would be of purely historical interest, similar to open-sourcing MS-DOS 1.0 and 2.0. I'm not sure if they'd be willing to do so for the game assets (the room/item descriptions/etc) – it would remove one of the main legal barriers to a competitor creating their own game set in the Zork universe. The For…

We already have build tools for infocom against the Z-Machine, and interpreters themselves since the 90's.

Having a public domain or MIT licensed Dungeon/Zork would allow to fix bugs and not worrying about licenses on any Linux/BSD distro.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#417

Post by bavell »

cman1444 wrote: post #354
NovaDudely wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> argues that this deal actually helps consumers I'm listening... > by speeding up the transition to "streaming" games and cloud gaming Ewww... no thanks!

It's not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn't like it? Well too bad, that's $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.

What are you talking about?? Owning a physical game is not at ALL what we are discussing. I buy 2-4 games a month, all through steam and OBVIOUSLY they are all digital downloads, no physical copies.

Going from an ownership model to a rent-extracting subscription model is a HORRIBLE idea that almost no one wants (just execs who see $$$ and few gamers living in cities with low-latency high bandwidth internet)

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#418

Post by kipchak »

addisonl wrote: post #394
throwaway202351 wrote: post #166

Maybe it's just sour grapes from me, but it feels like a lot of these acquisitions are for has-been companies that were great 10+ years ago but haven't had much success lately. Bethesda, Double Fine, and now Activation Blizzard.

The game Blizzard just released, Diablo 4, was the “best-selling opening in Blizzard’s history, crossing an auspicious $666 million in global sell-through in the first five days following its June 6 launch”. https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-d... This places it among the fastest selling video games of all time ( https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_fastest-selling_vide... ) so yes, it’s ju…

I don't think I've heard sell-through used before as a metric in that way, typically I recall seeing it as a percentage such as 80% of units shipped to stores have sold through to consumers. Units sold is what I typically see, like Diablo 3 at 30mil. Maybe sell through here means people buying platinum/cosmetics as well?

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#419

Post by johnnyanmac »

deutschepost wrote: post #344
QuesnayJr wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A judge ended the rule that studios couldn't own theaters in 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomnunan/2020/08/07/judge-decre...

It is a very weird coincidence that every major film studio started streaming services after that law ended. I thought it was more general like a cut between production and distribution not production and theatres. Now we are in the same position as a hundred years ago. At that time you would have to go into a theatre by the production company and now you have to go to the streaming service of the production company.…

I mean, if theatres weren't utterly destroyed by COVID something may have actually happened with theatres. But investing in a theatre in the current decade is like investing in cable at this point.

The only coincidence is this repeal happening during a time where it mattered least.

Re: Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

#420

Post by johnnyanmac »

darknavi wrote: post #2

Microsoft employee here, opinions my own. I work in gaming at Microsoft and I really enjoy it. I think Microsoft gives us a ton of space to explore and make our own impact and I am a huge fan* of Phil Spencer. > Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep C…

>What happens after 10 years?

Optimistically, Sony utilizes their Bungie aquisition and makes something worthy as a competitor. I imagine the 10 years is less a promise and more of a timer, and 10 years is enough for a AAA company to get at least a few attempts.

Pessimistically, MS drives Activision to the ground and COD isn't even a valuable IP anymore. Bigger icons have fallen from grace faster.

Post reply on HN