4 ms·

Give the current uninspired bean-counter leadership at Activision and turmoil at their major studio Blizzard, this acquisition seemed like it would be a net pos

Give the current uninspired bean-counter leadership at Activision and turmoil at their major studio Blizzard, this acquisition seemed like it would be a net positive to innovation and choice in gaming. Microsoft is actually pretty good at games, has the deep pockets needed to make long-term investments in quality content that Blizzard at least seems to be struggling with atm (not sure about Activision’s other properties). I don’t follow gaming that closely though, is there some reason this acquisition is a net negative and needs intervention by regulators? Or is this a case of regulators misunderstanding the situation and the market?

ldoughty 4y ago
Maybe the council environment is different, but I generally feel Microsoft has more often killed the PC game franchises that they have acquired, hurting innovation and choice. The last 2 fallout games I can recall are a phone game and an MMO... And it took people bailing from the company (instead of the company supporting the initiative) to get Outer Worlds, which is the closest thing to Fallout. And then there's Skyrim... It's like MS acquires the intellectual property then goes DLC and/or MMO only. I don't think many games that I loved for PC survived any acquisition.. at least before Blizzard (so far)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
zimpenfish 4y ago
> Microsoft is actually pretty good at games Their lacklustre stewardship of Minecraft notwithstanding.
ziml77 4y ago
I agree. I was really hoping this would go through so Microsoft had some chance to keep Activision Blizzard from destroying itself. Dragonflight has been one of the best WoW expansions and yet the dev team continues to lose talent due to terrible management decisions from people who must neither understand video games nor people.
chx 4y ago
How long do you think Microsoft Activision would keep Call of Duty and Overwatch alive on other platforms? Or perhaps use discontinuing it as a threat to wrangle some concession out of Sony when it needs it. Let's say the Windows or Internet Explorer days are far behind Microsoft and not relevant to games anyways. Well, remember their lock down attempt on the Xbox One ten years ago? https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2013/06/06/connected/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2013/06/06/connected/ which was so bad they needed to back down in just two weeks. Overall, the centralization of the gaming industry is worrisome. Sony in 2021 alone bought six studios including Valkyrie which also should've been blocked. Microsoft bought Zenimax, Nintendo bought Next Level but even Take Two bought up Zynga. Also, this is a lot of money, even for Microsoft and if times get tough, they will squeeze Activision to get some of that back and creativity will go down.
- philistine 4y ago
  Why do everybody treat Call of Duty like some sort of universal constant, even Microsoft, Sony and Activision? Does no one realize this is an artistic franchise that could be in a very different place in ten years? It's as if someone was saying they were unfair because Disney refuses to release Star Wars to movie theaters. It changed into a bunch of TV shows, it went in a different direction!
mustacheemperor 4y ago
>Microsoft is actually pretty good at games This is the second thread I've seen this take and I'm really curious why it's a popular statement. They completely dropped the ball with 343 Studios and Halo. Ruining their own tentpole franchise should ding them a few points. They haven't done much with Minecraft. Apparently games titled 'tell me why' and 'bleeding edge' were published by Microsoft in 2020, the latter being a multiplayer title abandoned 10 months after release. The Goldeneye remake was mediocre. Crackdown 3 took forever and was mediocre. They release so few games I am already in 2019 on their wikipedia page. And this is all after they've spent huge sums of money acquiring studios and publishing rights for games already in development. They've certainly had some solid releases with games like Psychonauts 2 and the Forza Horizon series, and I'm thankful that their money got us Pentiment. But especially when it comes to the AAA titles you'd expect from a market leader with their own hardware platform, I don't personally see how Microsoft is that good at making games. TBH, from my armchair expertise I might also agree that this acquisition isn't going to give MS unfair control over the market - but mainly because I don't expect MS could effectively manage Activision.
- epolanski 4y ago
  Your argument is like saying that Paramount is not good at movies because they have release this and that crap.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Like I said, I don't follow games that closely, but I was under the impression the whole Xbox system is overall pretty impressive, regardless of the occasional mistake they make with it. Maybe I'm wrong.

ldoughty 4y ago

Maybe the council environment is different, but I generally feel Microsoft has more often killed the PC game franchises that they have acquired, hurting innovation and choice. The last 2 fallout games I can recall are a phone game and an MMO... And it took people bailing from the company (instead of the company supporting the initiative) to get Outer Worlds, which is the closest thing to Fallout. And then there's Skyrim... It's like MS acquires the intellectual property then goes DLC and/or MMO only. I don't think many games that I loved for PC survived any acquisition.. at least before Blizzard (so far)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

zimpenfish 4y ago

> Microsoft is actually pretty good at games Their lacklustre stewardship of Minecraft notwithstanding.

ziml77 4y ago

I agree. I was really hoping this would go through so Microsoft had some chance to keep Activision Blizzard from destroying itself. Dragonflight has been one of the best WoW expansions and yet the dev team continues to lose talent due to terrible management decisions from people who must neither understand video games nor people.

chx 4y ago

How long do you think Microsoft Activision would keep Call of Duty and Overwatch alive on other platforms? Or perhaps use discontinuing it as a threat to wrangle some concession out of Sony when it needs it. Let's say the Windows or Internet Explorer days are far behind Microsoft and not relevant to games anyways. Well, remember their lock down attempt on the Xbox One ten years ago? https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2013/06/06/connected/ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2013/06/06/connected/ which was so bad they needed to back down in just two weeks. Overall, the centralization of the gaming industry is worrisome. Sony in 2021 alone bought six studios including Valkyrie which also should've been blocked. Microsoft bought Zenimax, Nintendo bought Next Level but even Take Two bought up Zynga. Also, this is a lot of money, even for Microsoft and if times get tough, they will squeeze Activision to get some of that back and creativity will go down.

philistine 4y ago
Why do everybody treat Call of Duty like some sort of universal constant, even Microsoft, Sony and Activision? Does no one realize this is an artistic franchise that could be in a very different place in ten years? It's as if someone was saying they were unfair because Disney refuses to release Star Wars to movie theaters. It changed into a bunch of TV shows, it went in a different direction!

mustacheemperor 4y ago

>Microsoft is actually pretty good at games This is the second thread I've seen this take and I'm really curious why it's a popular statement. They completely dropped the ball with 343 Studios and Halo. Ruining their own tentpole franchise should ding them a few points. They haven't done much with Minecraft. Apparently games titled 'tell me why' and 'bleeding edge' were published by Microsoft in 2020, the latter being a multiplayer title abandoned 10 months after release. The Goldeneye remake was mediocre. Crackdown 3 took forever and was mediocre. They release so few games I am already in 2019 on their wikipedia page. And this is all after they've spent huge sums of money acquiring studios and publishing rights for games already in development. They've certainly had some solid releases with games like Psychonauts 2 and the Forza Horizon series, and I'm thankful that their money got us Pentiment. But especially when it comes to the AAA titles you'd expect from a market leader with their own hardware platform, I don't personally see how Microsoft is that good at making games. TBH, from my armchair expertise I might also agree that this acquisition isn't going to give MS unfair control over the market - but mainly because I don't expect MS could effectively manage Activision.

epolanski 4y ago
Your argument is like saying that Paramount is not good at movies because they have release this and that crap.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
Like I said, I don't follow games that closely, but I was under the impression the whole Xbox system is overall pretty impressive, regardless of the occasional mistake they make with it. Maybe I'm wrong.