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

Post by GoblinSlayer » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 7:53 AM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #385

apatters wrote: post #94

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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.

Post by nickflood » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 8:03 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #699

francis_t_catte wrote: post #22

Soon we'll just have Microsoft, Epic, and a conglomeration of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft after Bobby Kotick forces them all to merge. Facebook will bungle up any chance they have of capturing the gaming market after writing a cryptic paragraph about their legal right to request blood samples from all Oculous users in the TOS. Valve will quietly exit software development altogether, and pivot to building custom vanit…

If you think Valve will exit software development, then you don't understand the market. Valve did do that and had this luxury when they were the only big game platform on PC. Unfortunately for them, there's GOG, EPIC, and MS Game Pass now. They need exclusives and the best way to do that without going the EPIC route is by developing their own games.

Post by yulaow » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 8:35 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #251

gambiting wrote: post #178

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If I'm doing the maths correctly - Nintendo's current worth is somewhere around $40BN? Like, that's a lot of money, even for Apple, and then I'm not sure Nintendo would want to sell?

> I'm not sure Nintendo would want to sell? Nintendo definitely wouldn't want to sell but it's publicly traded so a hostile takeover is always in the cards

Post by lagadu » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:19 AM UTC

RealStickman_ wrote: post #366

nonbirithm wrote: post #311

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Also the fact that the Epic Games Store exists is a step towards countering Steam's monopoly on mainstream titles. People complain about the loss of functionality like screenshots or the in-game browser when using Epic. And there are exclusivity deals. Complaints against those things are valid, and the actual implementation of the storefront needs a lot of improvement, but I'm wondering if a Steam monopoly would have…

The exclusivity deals were disruptive because they took games that were promised to come to steam and made them exclusive. The customer has no benefit from the lower cut epic charges. Epic doesn't treat everyone equally. Big games like Cyberpunk 2077 are allowed to also sell on other platforms, while smaller games either go exclusive or go with everyone else. Competition is good, but I'd rather have GOG be that compe…

Post by Sander_Marechal » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #266

tormeh wrote: post #200

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> IMO Bethesda decided to sell to MS because their recent games cannot generate enough popularity Truly mystifying why they'd want to create an MMO. It's as if they hadn't been following the news. The success of WoW is incredibly hard to repeat, and most studios who try fail, no matter how much money they throw at it. The MMO space has been, WoW aside, a money bonfire for one and a half decade at this point.

ESO has been pretty successful, 15 million players: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjagneaux/2020/03/30/elder-... I'd guess that the article has it wrong and they're mainly on the free tier and that's not the subscriber count though.