4 ms·

Can somebody more informed comment on how/why the UK / EU regulators thought differently about this. One would think that regulators have protocols (like, say,

Can somebody more informed comment on how/why the UK / EU regulators thought differently about this. One would think that regulators have protocols (like, say, a medical doctor) and while of-course there can be "light-touch" or "strict" regulation and differences of opinion, that would be the exception. In any case usually it is the EU that is accused of "regulatory overreach".

belter 3y ago
5,000,000€ difference... - https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/microsoft-corporation?rid=0801162959-21 https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/microsoft-corporation?rid...
- rvz 3y ago
  There you have it. The EU donkeys falling for the carrot on the stick and unbeknownst to them, they have approved a horizontally integrated merger that is a bad deal for gamers and competition. The EU has done may silly decisions like their recent AI act legislation, but this one is their biggest error yet which they have failed to stop the further consolidation of large existing multi-billion dollar games companies. The EU is know to give in to bribes so easily and €5M in bribes is just beyond pathetic to approve this.
  - tgmatt 3y ago
    I'm curious as to why you think it's a bad deal for gamers and competition, given the disdain pretty much every gamer with experience has with Activision. Microsoft seems, at least outwardly, to care about their gaming division and their games have a whole lot less predatory microtransactions compared to anything that has come out of Activision in the last x years.
- belter 3y ago
  Microsoft has Seven! lobbyists with European Parliament accreditation. It must get busy in those coffee breaks. If you know the layout of the building in Brussels, you might know you can't go to the the toilet in peace without bumping into a Microsoft lobbyist :-)
ralfn 3y ago
1. Cloud gaming is a non existing market. Clearly it needs very big upfront investments to enable that kind of transition. 2. Console gaming is small slice of the gaming market. Most money is made on mobile games. 3. Bundling/unbundling of publishers is completely normal everyday economic behavior in the media market. 4. Microsoft is buying IP and managers. To keep the designers and engineers that actually win in the competitive war that is the gaming industry they would have to pay the same amount of money to keep them as they would to just outright steal them. They did this to be polite and quick within the market, but the alternative is to just steal all the talent by offering higher pay. Would be cheaper. 5. If EU would block this, then what the _f_ were they doing when Disney bought up geek IP's like there was no tomorrow? It wouldn't be very consistent. 6. The transition to subscription gaming might be in the interest of consumers and developers. It sure was a good thing when it happened to video and music. And it did lead to multiple players. The business model of subscription all-you-can-eat-gaming itself extracts more money from consumers -and- delivers more value to those same consumers. Streaming services tend to focus on 'genre' completeness (have something for every type of viewer), whereas a business model where you rent or pay tends to favor low-risk high-budget more-of-the-same, with a low-effort low-budget offering with ads/microtransactions. 7. It's hard to imagine any professional believing Microsoft would try to use the vendor lock-in on content to sell you a subsidized console you would only use to access their subscription service. Consoles themselves are already a publishing play, i.e. taking 30% of the sales of somebody else's content. That have that same power with a popular subscription service, if you are streaming from Android TV (possible today), a Steamdeck (possible today). Their play here is to compete with the subsidized console market with a subscription business model.

belter 3y ago

5,000,000€ difference... - https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/microsoft-corporation?rid=0801162959-21 https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/microsoft-corporation?rid...

rvz 3y ago
There you have it. The EU donkeys falling for the carrot on the stick and unbeknownst to them, they have approved a horizontally integrated merger that is a bad deal for gamers and competition. The EU has done may silly decisions like their recent AI act legislation, but this one is their biggest error yet which they have failed to stop the further consolidation of large existing multi-billion dollar games companies. The EU is know to give in to bribes so easily and €5M in bribes is just beyond pathetic to approve this.
- tgmatt 3y ago
  I'm curious as to why you think it's a bad deal for gamers and competition, given the disdain pretty much every gamer with experience has with Activision. Microsoft seems, at least outwardly, to care about their gaming division and their games have a whole lot less predatory microtransactions compared to anything that has come out of Activision in the last x years.
belter 3y ago
Microsoft has Seven! lobbyists with European Parliament accreditation. It must get busy in those coffee breaks. If you know the layout of the building in Brussels, you might know you can't go to the the toilet in peace without bumping into a Microsoft lobbyist :-)

ralfn 3y ago

1. Cloud gaming is a non existing market. Clearly it needs very big upfront investments to enable that kind of transition. 2. Console gaming is small slice of the gaming market. Most money is made on mobile games. 3. Bundling/unbundling of publishers is completely normal everyday economic behavior in the media market. 4. Microsoft is buying IP and managers. To keep the designers and engineers that actually win in the competitive war that is the gaming industry they would have to pay the same amount of money to keep them as they would to just outright steal them. They did this to be polite and quick within the market, but the alternative is to just steal all the talent by offering higher pay. Would be cheaper. 5. If EU would block this, then what the _f_ were they doing when Disney bought up geek IP's like there was no tomorrow? It wouldn't be very consistent. 6. The transition to subscription gaming might be in the interest of consumers and developers. It sure was a good thing when it happened to video and music. And it did lead to multiple players. The business model of subscription all-you-can-eat-gaming itself extracts more money from consumers -and- delivers more value to those same consumers. Streaming services tend to focus on 'genre' completeness (have something for every type of viewer), whereas a business model where you rent or pay tends to favor low-risk high-budget more-of-the-same, with a low-effort low-budget offering with ads/microtransactions. 7. It's hard to imagine any professional believing Microsoft would try to use the vendor lock-in on content to sell you a subsidized console you would only use to access their subscription service. Consoles themselves are already a publishing play, i.e. taking 30% of the sales of somebody else's content. That have that same power with a popular subscription service, if you are streaming from Android TV (possible today), a Steamdeck (possible today). Their play here is to compete with the subsidized console market with a subscription business model.