3 ms·

Activision insiders fret $69B Microsoft merger could crumble

16 points by redbell 4y ago

robertlagrant 4y ago
Facebook's hideous attempt to buy a GIF company is surely far worse than Microsoft owning even every game company in the world. After all, they're Facebook.
- Sakos 4y ago
  MS really doesn't own all that much in the gaming space and what they own doesn't even produce any significant amount of revenue across the industry or any significant amount of new IP. Owning Activision doesn't shift the needle more than a tiny bit. Activision is 90% geared towards making CoD and some mobile trash games. People don't seem to realize the industry is massive now and there's a near infinite number of studios and publishers out there. MS owning Activision just doesn't matter and I fucking want Kotick gone.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I think you might have replied to the wrong post?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Sakos 4y ago
      Nope.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Oh dear. I think you misunderstood!
        rat9988 4y ago
        My understanding is the same as his. Is there any hidden message in your earlier post we missed?
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        There's no hidden meaning. If one of you explains what you mean vs what I said, then I can clarify.
        vaidhy 4y ago
        You made a sarcastic comment implying that this is a bigger deal that FB buying giffy. I think the person you replied took you literally and added data saying why MS buying activision is actually big deal. You can be a bit generous and think that they added data points to substantiate your claims :)
        oliwary 4y ago
        Interesting, I took the exact opposite from Sakos post above. As I understand it, he argues that Microsoft buying Activision will not have a significant impact on the landscape of video games due to the large number of studios, thereby disagreeing with robertlagrants comment implying that the MS-Activision merger is a big deal.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        Hah :) I was being, say, ironic, but the person who replied to me missed that, and the fact I was posing a hypothetical (even every game company), and proceeded to try and convince me of the opposite of what I was saying.
        Beached 4y ago
        Activision blizzard is roughly 3.5% of the total gaming industry by revenue. with roughly 5 to 6 bil reported for 2021 in a 180bil annual industry. Microsoft is the same size. in a marget so large, and fragmented, a single company coming to represent 7% is a huge deal. especially when you then realize that the share of ownership is significantly larger when you slice.out the non English speaking sector of the industry. also, ab is. apowerhouse in both mmo, lobby based, and mobile games, and produces a lot of new IP. and no, they are not focused on cod alone. they have wow, cod, overwatch , hearthstone, candy crush, Diablo, StarCraft, tony hawk, Spiro, and a number of other games. the point is, this isn't Ms buying up some no named indi shop with a single good game. this is Ms taking ownership of a large secment of English based gaming revenue, and some of the most iconic gaming IP of all time. all that being said, I want it to go through, ab's current structure and foresight is garbage and has. ahorozon of at most 1 year, and is 1000% profit driven milk the IP until it's dead. specifically for the blizzard IP, I want Ms to take it, and invest in it, because lord knows ab isn't doing that.
kromem 4y ago
Good. I have a hard time seeing how antitrust regulators would green light acquiring the combined Activision and Blizzard IP right on the tail end of the Bethesda acquisition. Especially seeing how almost immediately Bethesda games announced for cross platform became exclusives. Even if MS commits to CoD staying cross platform for a few years, is Diablo 4? What about IP currently in development? Start new studios or something. But just throwing your trillion dollar weight around to buy up all the third party games to starve out your competition is LITERALLY what antitrust regulation was created to prevent.
- mamonster 4y ago
  Tbh, we have yet to see how anti-trust arguments with regards to exclusives are played out, FTC has not really said anything yet in terms of how they view this development(which by the way is generalized across all digital media). After all, MSFT could just say something like "based on some internal thing we conducted it became clear that the porting cost in terms of man hours/money/etc we decided it did not make economic sense to do a port". And then they compromise by agreeing to port once a game is successful, which is perfectly fine for them. I can also already foresee an argument saying "If NFLX/HBO have exclusives why can't we?". Edit: I know the article is about the EU/UK authorities, but IMO this isn't something they can stop.
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    "Edit: I know the article is about the EU/UK authorities, but IMO this isn't something they can stop. " They can't stop the merger but they can presumably say "If the merger happens Xbox can no longer be sold in the UK and EU."
- bsjaux628 4y ago
  > Especially seeing how almost immediately Bethesda games announced for cross platform became exclusives. Except they didn't, none of the games that are now exclusive were announced multiplatform. You can scream Starfield but the game was not announced nor had confirmed platforms ( plus Sony tried to make it a platform exclusive for themselves) Personally I see this as the EU and UK protecting a bigger monopoly like Sony without giving actual reason why this would be decrimental to the industry when we already know the cesspit that Activision is

16 points by redbell 4y ago

Facebook's hideous attempt to buy a GIF company is surely far worse than Microsoft owning even every game company in the world. After all, they're Facebook.

Sakos 4y ago
MS really doesn't own all that much in the gaming space and what they own doesn't even produce any significant amount of revenue across the industry or any significant amount of new IP. Owning Activision doesn't shift the needle more than a tiny bit. Activision is 90% geared towards making CoD and some mobile trash games. People don't seem to realize the industry is massive now and there's a near infinite number of studios and publishers out there. MS owning Activision just doesn't matter and I fucking want Kotick gone.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I think you might have replied to the wrong post?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sakos 4y ago
    Nope.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Oh dear. I think you misunderstood!
      - rat9988 4y ago
        My understanding is the same as his. Is there any hidden message in your earlier post we missed?
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        There's no hidden meaning. If one of you explains what you mean vs what I said, then I can clarify.
        vaidhy 4y ago
        You made a sarcastic comment implying that this is a bigger deal that FB buying giffy. I think the person you replied took you literally and added data saying why MS buying activision is actually big deal. You can be a bit generous and think that they added data points to substantiate your claims :)
        oliwary 4y ago
        Interesting, I took the exact opposite from Sakos post above. As I understand it, he argues that Microsoft buying Activision will not have a significant impact on the landscape of video games due to the large number of studios, thereby disagreeing with robertlagrants comment implying that the MS-Activision merger is a big deal.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        Hah :) I was being, say, ironic, but the person who replied to me missed that, and the fact I was posing a hypothetical (even every game company), and proceeded to try and convince me of the opposite of what I was saying.
        Beached 4y ago
        Activision blizzard is roughly 3.5% of the total gaming industry by revenue. with roughly 5 to 6 bil reported for 2021 in a 180bil annual industry. Microsoft is the same size. in a marget so large, and fragmented, a single company coming to represent 7% is a huge deal. especially when you then realize that the share of ownership is significantly larger when you slice.out the non English speaking sector of the industry. also, ab is. apowerhouse in both mmo, lobby based, and mobile games, and produces a lot of new IP. and no, they are not focused on cod alone. they have wow, cod, overwatch , hearthstone, candy crush, Diablo, StarCraft, tony hawk, Spiro, and a number of other games. the point is, this isn't Ms buying up some no named indi shop with a single good game. this is Ms taking ownership of a large secment of English based gaming revenue, and some of the most iconic gaming IP of all time. all that being said, I want it to go through, ab's current structure and foresight is garbage and has. ahorozon of at most 1 year, and is 1000% profit driven milk the IP until it's dead. specifically for the blizzard IP, I want Ms to take it, and invest in it, because lord knows ab isn't doing that.

kromem 4y ago

Good. I have a hard time seeing how antitrust regulators would green light acquiring the combined Activision and Blizzard IP right on the tail end of the Bethesda acquisition. Especially seeing how almost immediately Bethesda games announced for cross platform became exclusives. Even if MS commits to CoD staying cross platform for a few years, is Diablo 4? What about IP currently in development? Start new studios or something. But just throwing your trillion dollar weight around to buy up all the third party games to starve out your competition is LITERALLY what antitrust regulation was created to prevent.

mamonster 4y ago
Tbh, we have yet to see how anti-trust arguments with regards to exclusives are played out, FTC has not really said anything yet in terms of how they view this development(which by the way is generalized across all digital media). After all, MSFT could just say something like "based on some internal thing we conducted it became clear that the porting cost in terms of man hours/money/etc we decided it did not make economic sense to do a port". And then they compromise by agreeing to port once a game is successful, which is perfectly fine for them. I can also already foresee an argument saying "If NFLX/HBO have exclusives why can't we?". Edit: I know the article is about the EU/UK authorities, but IMO this isn't something they can stop.
- anotherman554 4y ago
  "Edit: I know the article is about the EU/UK authorities, but IMO this isn't something they can stop. " They can't stop the merger but they can presumably say "If the merger happens Xbox can no longer be sold in the UK and EU."
bsjaux628 4y ago
> Especially seeing how almost immediately Bethesda games announced for cross platform became exclusives. Except they didn't, none of the games that are now exclusive were announced multiplatform. You can scream Starfield but the game was not announced nor had confirmed platforms ( plus Sony tried to make it a platform exclusive for themselves) Personally I see this as the EU and UK protecting a bigger monopoly like Sony without giving actual reason why this would be decrimental to the industry when we already know the cesspit that Activision is