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Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

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Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#731

Post by mathattack »

luckydata wrote: post #577
mathattack wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People may be flooding into vertical integration, though the history of that isn’t great. (Look at AOL/TimeWarner or Verizon/AOL/Tumblr/Yahoo) All it takes is missing one generation and the house of cards gets written down. Someone can create the next generation blockbuster for a lot less than $69bln. To argue against myself, they’ve become a lot better at picking trends since Balmer left too.

Nah, their model is different. They are building a Disneyland-like experience, where the public pays to "be there" and the attractions always change. Never been done before.

That type of closed garden seems more like Apple, no?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#732

Post by cletus »

chc wrote: post #708
cletus wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an overly rosy view of Microsoft's moat (and acumen) IMHO. For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution. For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch. Imag…

I don't know about that. They gave it like four years and spent a lot of money promoting it and it was still microscopic. They could have tried other things, but if Ninja couldn't draw viewers, do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a bigger difference? At some point you have to stop throwing good money after bad.

Throwing money at Ninja is really an example of poor execution.

What makes Twitch successful is not any one streamer. It's an ecosystem. Raiding is huge on Twitch for streamers supporting other streamers.

You don't build a forest by planting one very large tree. A forest is everything from the tallest tree to the undergrowth.

> do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a bigger difference?

I absolutely do. You see this on Twitch whenever a popular game has drops and the viewer numbers go through the roof. Sure there are a bunch of AFK viewers just wanting the drops but this is a game of numbers. Some are real people. Some will stay.

On the streamer income side, I really don't think you can overestimate how huge of an impact Twitch Prime has on Twitch.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#733

Post by wayoutthere »

apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #222
palijer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented. I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens. I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the mar…

AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile was aborted due to anti-trust complaints if I recall correctly. The original purchase of Rite Aid by Walgreens was aborted due to similar concerns, although that one ended in a revised partial acquisition anyway. The Staples acquisition of Office Depot/Office Max was stopped as well on anti-trust grounds. They also blocked a merger of Nasdaq and NYSE. Those are all since 2010. I'm sure…

They blocked Comcast from merging with Time Warner Cable. By “they” I’m referring to AT&T and Verizon (the two biggest telecom providers in the US), who were afraid of a third telecom provider establishing a national footprint and potentially challenging them across wireless and wireline. By preventing the merger through their immense political connections, they keep both Comcast and TWC as regional players who are much easier to monopolize.

So even the antitrust that goes through usually only goes through because powerful (often monopolistic) forces want to block a merger, not because it’s what’s objectively best for competition.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#734

Post by ghostly_s »

peanuty1 wrote: post #617
benlumen wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has not been making money on xbox. They're not investing money made with xbox. They're using Office/Windows/Azure funds to boost Xbox, and it's not a fair fight. Sony and Nintendo don't have that kind of money. Torn on this. On the one hand I completely agree. I doubt there'll be any anti-trust action, first because that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore and second because I can't imagine the American au…

Xbox and Nintendo actually joined forces recently to make cross-play happen.

Of what?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#735

Post by airstrike »

shadowgovt wrote: post #672
brobdingnagians wrote: post #667

Activision Blizzard has been seriously mismanaged. They have very nice IP and a fanbase that is still somewhat loyal because of the glories of the past, but Microsoft would need to revitalize the management and the creativity. - Overwatch hit the ground running to massive success, but hasn't materialized Overwatch 2 and has stagnated. - Warcraft III Reforged is a total disaster and abandoned. - WoW has a wide followi…

The conspiracy theorist in me suspects this acquisition is a way for a disgraced ownership and upper-level management to golden-parachute out of the company without having to just quit. Simply quitting would be seen as a sign of failure and would leave a lot of their performance-based compensation behind... But getting bought, that's a different story.

Why would Microsoft want to participate in that scheme, though?

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#736

Post by freeflight »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #175
freeflight wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to be all-in on game pass, then they should actually go all in. As somebody who just got game pass, I feel kinda cheated for what I get; All the games offered there are the “f2p” versions, even MS first party titles like Halo only offer the “default” versions to play “for free” when paying a monthly subscription. It’s like those free versions Epic hands out; They are playable, but they usually lack any a…

This “f2p” versions cost 60 dollars. You’re getting the “standard” edition of the game. Sure, you’re not getting the expansion packs or other cosmetics, but neither is any other person that doesn’t buy the deluxe editions.

And the deluxe version gives you everything?

No, what they usually give you is actual customization options because in the full-priced standard edition those do not exist anymore.

As character customization has by now been apparently redefined as being wholesale "cosmetic" and thus locked behind an deluxe version up sale, MTX spending and FOMO season pass grinding.

It's a sorry state for AAA and increasingly even mid-tier developed games.

Often enough it directly affects gameplay, instead of playing with/against individual other people, which in many games used to be recognizable by their character customization choices, too often multiplayer now ends up looking like the clone wars.

As the only people that stick out with their customization are those that spend money on having any choice other but the one default choice.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#737

Post by monocasa »

mathattack wrote: post #731
luckydata wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, their model is different. They are building a Disneyland-like experience, where the public pays to "be there" and the attractions always change. Never been done before.

That type of closed garden seems more like Apple, no?

Microsoft has been understandably eyeing that 30% on all digital goods sales Apple gets for years now. They missed the boat on the Windows store, but they'll do just about anything to keep a similar financial structure on the Xbox side.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#738

Post by eh9 »

kungito wrote: post #365
curiousllama wrote: post #315

It's wild how Microsoft has been able to vertically integrate gaming. They now own the distribution (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Game Pass), the games (Call of Duty, WoW, Starcraft + what they owned before), the OS (Windows, Xbox), the hardware (Xbox, many PCs), and the back end compute (Azure). The only thing they're missing, the network bandwidth, is mostly a commodity anyway. That's a heck of a moat.

They are still missing a mobile platform and that's why I believe they will retry within the next few years

I don’t think so. They’ve moved away from owning the platform (at least in mobile) in favor of services. Office is wildly popular in mobile OS app stores.

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#739

Post by anthonypasq »

jimbob45 wrote: post #393
agd wrote: post #53

With these kind of acquisitions, other companies are going to find it very hard to compete with Game Pass. I think we'll look back in 10 years and wonder why antitrust regulators did nothing, but it may be too late by then.

Blizzard is dead weight compared to the incredible profitability of Skylanders + CoD. I'd be willing to bet Blizzard gets spun off within a year.

skylanders hasnt been thing for years lol

Re: Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

#740

Post by blooalien »

Gotta love that headline including the phrase "to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone, across every device"… I'ma have to cry "bullshit" on that "every device" part. They mean "every device Microsoft can control" or "every device Microsoft approves of".
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