Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by georgeecollins » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

throwaway13337 wrote: post #460

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…

This is absolutely right. The best games now are from independent developers who are themselves barely making it. The games you listed were some of the breakout successes of indie games but there are a ton of fun, interesting indie games out there that are dying from lack of revenue. There seems to be an overall issue now where the quality of the good produced and the benefit to the consumer is divorced from the valu…

Many indie developers are barely making it. Some are killing it. New ideas come from indies, but sometimes from big companies too. Big companies depend on distribution and marketing, small companies depend on innovation. I have been in video games for twenty five years. It has always been like that.

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

#492

Post by slg » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #229

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…

This is a typical, vague PR statement that can mean anything and nothing at all. Microsoft has decided that all their exclusives will also come to PC anyway. So Windows, Xbox consoles and Xcloud (streaming service) are a given. This doesn't promise in any way that games will come to PlayStation.

It specifically says "should bring" and not "will bring". This is a philosophical statement and neither a promise nor even a plan.

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

#493

Post by DubiousPusher » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #385

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…

Indy is great if you like one of the genres where they excel (e.g. rogue like, deck builder, walking simulator, retro, traditional RPG, etc.). However, if you are into genres like modern FPS or open world action adventure then good indy games are difficult to come by.

Yeah, open world games generally take a large team to create tons of content and a large tools/pipeline team to get said content in engine. So yeah, I doubt we'll see them dominating that space any time soon.

I can't think of a good reason though that there aren't a few very successful indie shooters though.

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

#494

Post by sitkack » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #72

fuball63 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify what you mean? I recently got into developing on the Quake 2 engine, which I think is an amazing piece of software, so I'm kinda obsessed with all things Quake right now.

Carmack is the only reason why OpenGL is at all relevant in PC gaming as it was miniGL that made it popular in first place, against Glide. Later on he changed his mind regarding OpenGL vs DirectX, but there are legions of wannabe game developers that worshiped his opinions regarding OpenGL. See my sibling post regarding his change of opinion.

Technical merits and discussions aside, without Carmack keeping OpenGL alive, we wouldn't have gaming, engineering and visualization support on GPUs to the level we do today on non-windows platforms.

If MS kills (migrates) Bethesda off of Vulkan, I'd like the DOJ to censure them.

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

#495

Post by one2know » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #467

dangoor wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carmack's Facebook Connect talk last week[1] sure made him sound very plugged into what's happening at Oculus. I was surprised, given that I, too, thought he had essentially left for AI research. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmY26pOE-Y

yeah he sounded like he was tech lead for the project, i am surprised to learn he's "independent"

I think every non-manager employee these days should be "independent." Some may not have noticed, but tech company managers have gone insane and turned their ego up to 11 echoing the current political climate. Anyone who is a famous dev or even a grunt that shows they have basic competency is going to be an immediate management target.

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

#496

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #443

shuntress wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there's a difference between continuing an IP and milking one. When the same IP gets passed to a dozen different studios who each create vastly different experiences, that's milking and I generally don't like it. The whole point of an IP is that you know what to expect, and having different studios working on the same IP is contrary to that goal. Nintendo does not milk IPs, IMHO. They actually put a lot of th…

> When the same IP gets passed to a dozen different studios who each create vastly different experiences, that's milking and I generally don't like it. The whole point of an IP is that you know what to expect, and having different studios working on the same IP is contrary to that goal.

I think a distinction is if the Publisher treats the individual development studies as functionally equivalent black boxes. With Activision's brutal management of Call of Duty as maybe the key example. Where CoD assigned studios often go bankrupt after a couple games, and several have spun off after great hardship and will presumably never work with Activision again given the choice.

One fun exception from the more "indy" side of things that comes to mind is the playfulness that resulted when Croteam and publisher Devolver let a bunch of indy developers play with the Serious Sam franchise and created some fun games in a variety of styles outside of the FPS the series is known for.

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

#497

Post by msikora » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #211

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…

There are a lot of great Indie titles, and you can get a lot of them DRM free on Humble or Gog. I've loved a lot of Devolver's stuff. The Red String Club, Hotline Miami I/II, Katana ZERO .. all super incredible games with gameplay and story that's just as fun as the any of the big AAA shops.

I'm loving Annapurna Interactive, games like What Remains of Edith Finch and Outer Wilds have been amazing. 'What Remains of Edith Finch' feels like a (shorter) AAA title, no compromise in production values whatsoever.

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

#498

Post by CivBase » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

gregjw wrote: post #71

The year is 2040. Gigaconglomerates Tencent, Activision Blizzard Ubisoft (ABU), Microsoft and Apple gatekeep the entire gaming industry. Rebel guerilla groups of small publishers and indie developers rise up to take control of their encampments.

I think you severely underestimate the piles of money Nintendo is sitting on if you don't think they'll make it to 2040. Sony is also big enough, diverse enough, and well-established enough that I doubt they would have trouble weathering one or two bad console generations back-to-back.

And let's not forget 2K, 505 Games, Chucklefish, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, EA, Epic Games, Focus Home, Gearbox, Koei Tecmo, Paradox, Sega, Stardock, Square Enix, Take-Two, Team17, THQ Nordic, Valve, Warner Bros, and hundreds of other publishers that I can't even begin to list here.

2040 is definitely too soon for the dystopian future you're talking about. Maybe 2042.

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

#499

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #489

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…

>Bethesda Games are not going not be exclusive to Xbox The biggest problem that Microsoft has with the Xbox is lack of AAA exclusives. If the next Elder Scrolls game is going to be released for Xbox and PS5 - what's the point of this exercise?

"Not exclusive to XBox" could just be PC as well.

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

#500

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #384

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.

The trend is definitely moving away from many separate games and toward "living" games. Look at how many games these days end up just doing updates/DLCs over many years rather than releasing whole new versions of the game. Look at Destiny, there was originally planned for Destiny 3, but now the plan is just to make Destiny 2 the only game for the next 10 years with constant content updates. Even now, Destiny 2 of tod…

> Look at Destiny, there was originally planned for Destiny 3, but now the plan is just to make Destiny 2 the only game for the next 10 years with constant content updates. Even now, Destiny 2 of today is a significantly different than Destiny 2 at release.

Destiny seems to have gone through a lot of different plans. The plan before Activision was seemingly to stop after 1 and make that the live service game, though the 1/2 break helped them hurdle a console generation gap so Activision might not have been wrong to push for 2 at least (but yeah was definitely trying to milk it with 3).