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Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

• darknavi 3y ago
  Microsoft employee here, opinions my own. I work in gaming at Microsoft and I really enjoy it. I think Microsoft gives us a ton of space to explore and make our own impact and I am a huge fan* of Phil Spencer. > Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? Microsoft has been around for 4x that long.
  • lesuorac 3y ago
    > How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Does Activision get split back out? I doubt it. We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We need to be at the point where we also list the punishment ahead of time.
    • jxramos 3y ago
      that's not a bad idea, laws without punishments are kind of ambiguous I suppose. I wonder the utility of leaving this open, is it tantamount to mandatory sentencing and takes freedom away from the judge or something like that.
    • re-thc 3y ago
      > What happens in less than 10 years if they don't abide by it? Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. > We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. What's the rule / law here anyhow? There are always workarounds, e.g. it says it will keep it in parity with xbox... well what if they called a new console something else?
      • stale2002 3y ago
        You know that Sony could just agree to a contract with microsoft over this right? If they write up a contract with penalty provisions, this could able be guaranteed through civil court. It is not some crazy unsolved question as to how to get a company to commit to something in the future.
      • AlexandrB 3y ago
        > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. No kidding. They could just introduce a new game franchise called "Duty of Call - Warfare That's Modern" and make that Xbox exclusive instead. Or any number of other workarounds and sneaky tactics.
      • vkou 3y ago
        > Likely nothing. I don't understand why people believe in these things. Likely Sony will take them to the cleaners.
    • mysterydip 3y ago
      Most likely a fine far less than the money gained from not abiding by the law, if history is anything to go by.
    • oh_sigh 3y ago
      Depends how good Sony's lawyers are. Theoretically the courts could offer an injunction preventing sale of the CoD until it is also available on whatever equivalent Playstation type system there is.
      • NovaDudely 3y ago
        Sony vs MS lawyers... that would be messy... and fun to watch. grabs popocorn Would they just build a COD that is dependent on specific MS tech so they cannot release it on competing systems? Why not try and rebrand Call of Duty so that it isn't in violation? Just call it 'Duty'. It starts to get very grey very quickly.
    • dathinab 3y ago
      You mean like Facebook/WhatsApp which committed to not do some things and that certain things aren't even technically possible (which even back then was a lie) to get the merger through in the EU and then a few years later was, oh that, yep, let's ignore it and just turn it into a long legal battle which will anyway cost us far less then what we gain from it.
      • swyx 3y ago
        what has fb gained from whatsapp? theyre not charging for it right?
        • dybber 3y ago
          One big competitor less to worry about
        • Jochim 3y ago
          The phone contacts and social graph of everyone using WhatsApp.
    • robertlagrant 3y ago
      > We're long past the point where you can just set rules/laws and companies will abide by it. We're not, but this is pretty nebulous stuff. The state blocking freely agreed transactions because it can foresee some damage is not exactly a clear cut good, other than for people who are reassured by the idea of the state as a benevolent, all-knowing mom and pop, and for the lawyers who get paid a fortune to debate past and future hypotheticals. What about this: allow the merger, and if the harm is done, the company must pay, but if the harm is not done, the state must pay?
      • paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Because if there is harm the companies pay so little it's just written off as cost of doing business. Yet the harms too often continue. Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective.
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          > Companies with more resources than small countries are often too big to regulate because they capture the regulators and/or the judiciary. Regulatory capture is entirely the fault of the regulator. They don't have to be captured. They choose to be. A government body, funded by taxes, that decides to be captured, is a complete disgrace. People work hard to pay taxes, and they shouldn't be spent on employing people who choose to align with those they should be regulating. > Prevention is cheaper than treatment, especially when treatments have proven so ineffective. The same state that has the power to prevent has the power to treat. It chooses not to. Switching approach won't help. Getting regulators to do their jobs will.
          • paulryanrogers 3y ago
            I wish it were that simple. Sadly a large portion of US voters seem to think a revolving door with "industry experts" (i.e. insiders) is desirable. And that courts should defer to business interests above all else.
  • changeslitl 3y ago
    [dead]
  • LocalH 3y ago
    > I am a huge can of Phil Spencer I'm sure Phil Spencer will be interested to know that he can fit into a can :)
    • darknavi 3y ago
      I AM a HUGE can of Phil Spencer lmao. Fixed.
  • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • Retric 3y ago
      It’s not about Sony, but customers that own a PS and not an XBox. Microsoft loves to buy studios and restrict access, just look a Halo it was introduced as a Mac game by the studio, Microsoft bought them specifically for XBox and fuck anyone that owned a Mac. 2 years after release they released a copy of the first game because all the work was done. Nothing from the rest of the series.
      • pathartl 3y ago
        Please, Apple has been shooting themselves in the foot with gaming for decades. Halo: CE was also released for the Mac, so I'm not sure what the complaint is here.
        • frumper 3y ago
          If you were a Mac gamer it seems fair to complain about a game going from being made for Mac to a port 2 years after it was released.
        • Retric 3y ago
          What are you blaming Apple for Microsoft’s direct customer harm here? A more than 2 year delay for the first game and never getting the rest of the series is a major downside for existing customers. That’s exactly the kind of monopolist behavior you are supposed to block mergers for. Waiting 2 years cost Microsoft a little revenue directly, but pushed XBox sales which was far more valuable.
        • Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
          lol right? Halo would have been a flop if it was Mac exclusive. Keep in mind, this was back in the year ~2000. Mac market share in the home user market was a rounding error. Schools were full of iMacs, but at home, it was all Windows.
  • throwaway106382 3y ago
    in 10 years I fully expect Sony to have a competitive first party title exclusive to playstation, now that they actually have to give a damn. I love the killzone series but Guerilla seems to be doing fine with Horizon, hopefully a new IP
    • 16bitvoid 3y ago
      I wish they would bring SOCOM back.
      • throwaway106382 3y ago
        that would be so awesome, Socom was my absolute favorite game on the PS2 and there hasn't really been anythign to capture that same magic since
    • nocsi 3y ago
      In 10 years Sony… I don’t think Sony is intending to go all out on gaming going forward. They’ve been figuring out how to cross pollinate their IPs into media productions. It certainly will make them more money in the long term but some people might be turned off with how much they milk each franchise before moving onto a new IP. Naughty dog is working on LoU3 and Guerilla is working on Horizon Remaster, Horizon Multiplayer and supposedly a non horizon game..
  • xxpor 3y ago
    It would be incredibly stupid for MS to make CoD an xbox exclusive and completely misses the business case for buying Activision in the first place. Remember, MS is in business to make money, not to win the console wars. Buying the CoD (etc) IP at an inflated price and then immediately cutting off more than half of the revenue would be so mind-boggingly stupid, almost to the point of malpractice. This is why they really don't even need to be forced into saying they'll maintain it for 10 years on PS. It's all about moving gaming to a recurring revenue model. So you don't care about if the consumer made a one time purchase of your console (in fact, you might even prefer they didn't if you're losing money on each one!), but you do care about the fact that they're playing your games. Ben Thompson put it better than I could: > Notice that this is for games that are purchased, and keep in mind that Microsoft’s goal with the Activision acquisition is not to gain exclusive games to sell but rather games to subscribe to. As I’ve argued the only way this acquisition makes sense is the extent to which it makes possible a new business model for gaming; simply buying exclusives via established titles like Call of Duty would be hugely value destructive. >What is notable about Microsoft’s subscription push is that it aligns the company’s Xbox division with Microsoft’s overall push towards cloud computing and subscription services. What is interesting to consider are two questions: >First, would Microsoft have ever gone down this path absent the investment in its original (failed) Xbox strategy? I would argue the answer is no; this is a reasonable leveraging of Xbox assets, but I do wonder if Microsoft could go back two decades if they would even bother. >Second, if regulators were to kill this deal (Microsoft still needs approval from the UK and the US) would Xbox be long for this world? It’s hard to see how the division makes sense if Microsoft has the current business model dictated to them, given just how dominant Sony is with said business model. https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-acquisition-microsoft-and-google-earnings/ https://stratechery.com/2023/uk-blocks-microsoft-activision-... (paywalled)
    • darknavi 3y ago
      I totally agree. Xbox in the past 5-10 years really has been "Play our games where ever, just give us your money". I just don't really get the argument of "We won't do this for 10 years". OK, what about after that?
  • NoRelToEmber 3y ago
    > How does this make anyone feel any better? What happens after 10 years? Microsoft has been around for 4x that long. "The slow blade penetrates the shield."
  • justinclift 3y ago
    Yeah. Looking at past form, after the MS anti-trust agreement in the EU expired (the browser choice one), MS have now gone all-in to force Edge down everyone's throat. They're clearly "Ok, we have more room to legally get away with XYZ now so LETS GO FOR IT!!!!".
    • NovaDudely 3y ago
      MS is the definition of a Slippery Slope in action.
  • shmerl 3y ago
    Why can't MS play along with the industry and support Vulkan on Xbox though? That would make them not look like the worst lock-in examples of the '90s. Feels like these kind of issues are what anti-trust should have handled.
    • NovaDudely 3y ago
      I don't think they really care what people think until it becomes a really major issue. MS has been through this these fazes so many times in the past and look at were they are. It doesn't seem to have slowed them down that much. That lock in of the 90's never really stopped, they just figure out how to make it look better. The only times they gave up on the lock in was when it was starting to look really bad and even then they just pivot the messaging and then try to lock themselves in. Look at MS with "We love Linux", it didn't slow Windows down one bit.
      • shmerl 3y ago
        Well, that's what you think competition law should have fixed. But yeah, it's pretty toothless in practice.
    • dave7 3y ago
      A large chunk of the entire purpose of Xbox is to cement DirectX as the default option to perpetuate that lock-in. It's even in the name: The Direct X-Box!
      • shmerl 3y ago
        Yeah, clearly. But that's my point. Competition law should focus on preventing lock-in like this.
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Playstation and Nintendo's support of Vulkan isn't exactly stellar. They support Vulkan the same way Unity/Unreal Engine support Linux.
  • wredue 3y ago
    Why would you be a huge fan of the man who’s single handedly responsible for sinking the Xbox IP ship to the point of having to monopolize the industry to right the ship? I’m surprised people didn’t wake up with the One era lies he kept pushing, and given HNs general distaste for “marketer talk”, how can one be a fan of a dude that every time he opens his mouth, it’s marketing talk (when it’s not a lie). This dude would constantly say shit like “the console wars are stupid. We need to all get along”. And then when pressed about “hidden DGPU” that he knew didn’t exist, he lies and responds “we are not letting Sony have a hardware advantage”. This dude is a scumbag. He’s been terrible for Xbox, and now his horrid management of Xbox has led to being terrible for gaming in general. Big fan? Nah.
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      You're thinking of Don Mattrick.
      • wredue 3y ago
        I am most definitely not, Mattick was Mr “we have a console for that, the Xbox 360” ultimately leading to Spencer taking his role over. Spencer was 100% the dude saying “we’re not letting Sony have a hardware advantage” although I may have mixed up which obviously bullshit Xbox fanboy excuse it was about. None of it really matter though, because even forgetting Phil obviously constantly fanning the console wars, he’s presided over Xbox for what like 10 years? In that time, what he’s managed to do is be a baby, and complain that his ineffective management is leading to their console having no games.
  • W4RH4WK55 3y ago
    A bit of a loaded question, but how do you feel about xbox f-in up major titles like Halo Infinite and Phil Spencer just saying "yep, we are sorry, that's on me". When a) there doesn't seem to be any change in quality assurance (see Redfall) and b) the devs still take the hit (see 343). To me it's incomprehensible how they managed to f-up Halo Infinite, then just stand there in silence and then say, yeah we are sorry for not having a lot of interesting titles on Xbox, but here's what's coming next year. If I were a game dev at Microsoft, I'd be furious!
  • lucubratory 3y ago
    The judge considers it reasonable because if the market is as the FTC defines it and if Call of Duty is actually an essential input for a competitor in the "high-performance gaming console" space, then those commitments from Microsoft give Sony ten years to innovate and come up with a replacement for CoD. It makes a lot more sense if you read the whole judgement, Judge Corley is basically saying "Most of what the FTC is asserting is questionable, but even if we assume that their assertions are correct, the argument to temporarily prevent & potentially permanently ban the deal to prevent harm there is little evidence for is not strong enough to harm Microsoft and Activision in this way". There's other stuff that had some impact as well, like how the FTC knew the deals deadline (six days from now) more than a year ago, but only chose to bring the PI motion recently, giving Microsoft barely any time to prepare (and making the federal judge in this case have to work some unusual hours, including the entire weekend, because it's now so time critical). Basically, a lot more went into this decision than just the ten year agreements.
  • happymellon 3y ago
    > Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. Yeah, heard that one before. > Oh but we promised Call of Duty and this is Duty Called, so we don't have to care about anything we have promised before. I mean, this is Microsoft.
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >What happens after 10 years? Optimistically, Sony utilizes their Bungie aquisition and makes something worthy as a competitor. I imagine the 10 years is less a promise and more of a timer, and 10 years is enough for a AAA company to get at least a few attempts. Pessimistically, MS drives Activision to the ground and COD isn't even a valuable IP anymore. Bigger icons have fallen from grace faster.
• vinyl7 3y ago
  The monopolization of every industry continues
  • ansible 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • toblbg 3y ago
      I don‘t think this will work for gaming. Competition from both new Indie titles and older games will always be there. If prices for newer games in big franchises increase without reason, at some point customers will leave and buy other games.
    • robertlagrant 3y ago
      [flagged]
  • abduhl 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • NoRelToEmber 3y ago
      > It’s already monopolized by Sony. You say that as if it means that this acquisition then isn't monopolization. The solution is to sanction Sony, not to make things even worse.
      • abduhl 3y ago
        The evidence presented at trial showed that this vertical (not horizontal) acquisition would increase competition in the market. If antitrust laws were based on the conception of monopolization you seem to be suggesting then any acquisition or merger would be a monopolist’s act, and that’s ridiculous.
        • NoRelToEmber 3y ago
• alexlesuper 3y ago
  I have hope that Blizzard revives the Starcraft franchise. The RTS genre needs some love atm.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • FreshStart 3y ago
    There is always BAR https://www.beyondallreason.info/ https://www.beyondallreason.info/
    • neogodless 3y ago
      At first glance it looks/feels a lot more like Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander than StarCraft. Very robot focused. A sense that Armada and Cortex are very balanced. StarCraft has a more asymmetrical set of factions, where their strengths, economies, units, etc. at least feel more distinct.
  • sgillen 3y ago
    A lot of the StarCraft guys have already left and formed their own company (frost giant). They are making a quasi spiritual successor to StarCraft called StormGate.
    • strictnein 3y ago
      Maybe it'll be great but this doesn't inspire confidence: > Stormgate® is a _free-to-play_ real-time strategy PC game...
      • kevingadd 3y ago
        Single-purchase retail like Starcraft 1 & 2 simply doesn't make sense as an exclusive revenue source for small studios anymore, you're not likely to sell enough copies. The revenue isn't there. You've got to sell cosmetics, battle passes, or (barf) put in a gacha system. I'm not happy about it as a game dev but it's the reality. Even big games like Destiny 2 rely heavily on those microtransactions to rake in the cash. :( This is especially bad for multiplayer where you need high player counts so people can get into matches quick. Indie multiplayer games HAVE to be free or very inexpensive.
• tosh 3y ago
  How could closing the deal look like in practice while the UK is blocking it? Would that mean Microsoft can't sell Activision Blizzard games in the UK?
  • specto 3y ago
    It was already approved there too now
    • darrenf 3y ago
      When did that happen? On the dedicated CMA page[0] about the inquiry I see nothing since the draft final order[1] in May, which absolutely does not approve it. Quote: On 5 May 2023, the CMA made an Interim Order pursuant to section 81 of the Act preventing each of Microsoft and Activision and all members of their Groups of Interconnected Bodies Corporate from acquiring in the other any interest conferring control within the meaning of section 26 of the Act [0] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/microsoft-slash-activision-blizzard-merger-inquiry https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/microsoft-slash-activision-bliz... [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6465ec16e14070000cb6e181/Draft_final_order__.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6465ec16e1407...
      • granzymes 3y ago
        Grandparent jumped the gun a bit, but the CMA sees the writing on the wall and agreed to negotiate this morning. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791149/microsoft-activision-blizzard-uk-regulators-cma-appeal https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791149/microsoft-activi...
      • specto 3y ago
        Ah apologies, I read the original news article incorrectly it seems.
  • tzs 3y ago
    This is just from eyeballing the top results of some Google searching so may not be super accurate, but it looks like the console games market is around $34 billion a year in the US, $11 billion a year in the EU, and under $1 billion a year in the UK. The merger has been approved by EU and now US regulators. The UK market might be small enough compared to the US and the EU that Microsoft and Activision might find it worthwhile to just leave the UK console game market if they had to choose between that and not being able to complete the merger.
• MikusR 3y ago
  A snippet from the case "FTC: We've heard about the harms to Sony... Judge: This is about the harms to the consumer not to Sony. Let's take a break until 4:05."
  • _8j50 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • lockhouse 3y ago
      Sony is at little risk of harm here. They have a ridiculous amount of system selling platform exclusives. Microsoft has what Halo, Forza, Gears of War, and I guess Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020? They have a few other exclusives, but I don't think they're enough to make someone chose an Xbox over a PlayStation. Microsoft is seriously behind this generation and I just don't see them continuing next generation if they can't make up some ground this one.
      • firebirdn99 3y ago
        These are genre-defining games, and have been historically multiplatform. Not just Activision, they did the Bethesda acquisition, before it. Now, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, will be only Xbox. And now Starfield is confirmed exclusively on Xbox. These are the games I buy a system for, and I only have a PS4 before.
  • zamalek 3y ago
    Qualitatively, there are also more harms to the consumer by leaving Actiblizz in the incompetent hands of the current leadership. I still wonder what all of this is worth given that the merger was blocked in the UK.
    • MikusR 3y ago
      https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791149/microsoft-activision-blizzard-uk-regulators-cma-appeal https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791149/microsoft-activi...
• Daviey 3y ago
  I was curious how the UK CMA judgement affects this, and found this https://twitter.com/BradSmi/status/1678796043545350144 https://twitter.com/BradSmi/status/1678796043545350144
• devinprater 3y ago
  Meh, maybe with Microsoft's kind of accessibility support, Blizard can get more of a go-ahead to make Hearthstone, and other games, accessible. We've seen with the GuideDev Hearthstone mod that it's possible.
• ramesh31 3y ago
  This is a very good thing for gamers. It reminds me of the Sprint/T-mobile merger, which was a huge win for consumers, allowing T-mobile to actually put pressure on ATT and Verizon. Activision is a terrible company whose iron grip on their beloved IP (bought from Blizzard and Infinity Ward) has been absolutely stifling to the industry. They are almost singlehandedly responsible for everything that sucks about gaming now.
  • FreshStart 3y ago
    Yeah, this will end with engineering spirit penetrating McdonaldDouglas.
    • ramesh31 3y ago
      >Yeah, this will end with engineering spirit penetrating McdonaldDouglas. It's more like if MD had bought Boeing. One can only dream.
  • MikusR 3y ago
    Lootboxes and NFTs were by Valve
• htrp 3y ago
  >The court ruling even agrees with Microsoft in theory about the Nintendo Switch being part of the console market, but also accepts the FTC can reasonably claim it’s not. How is the Switch not a console?
  • chrisoverzero 3y ago
    It’s portable.
    • addisonl 3y ago
      A portable console.
      • kiwijamo 3y ago
        So you'd put the Gameboy for example on par with the PlayStation? Despite one being portable and the other not?
        • AmericanChopper 3y ago
          The portability doesn’t matter. Nintendo operates in a different market segment because of the hardware specs, and games they support. If you want to play the latest Call of Duty, Halo, God of War, Elden Ring… then Sony and Microsoft are competing for your business (sometimes with exclusive contracts), Nintendo is not. Their consoles wouldn’t be able to support those games.
          • vlozko 3y ago
            Call of Duty will be available for Switch under Microsoft. Halo and God of War are platform exclusives. But so are Tears of the Kingdom and various Mario titles. Elden Ring is the only game listed that's not available for Switch but is on both others. Even then, there are a ton of games that are available across all platforms, including some AAA ones: Mortal Kombat 11 The Witcher 3 Assassins's Creed (multiple) Skyrim Resident Evil (multiple) Monster Hunter Rise Overwatch 2 etc...
• nba456_ 3y ago
  Big loss for regulatory capture fans. Market leader will face more competition now.
  • AlexandrB 3y ago
    Big loss for customers. Industry has less competition now.
• nixass 3y ago
  Very bad for end consumer in long term.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • unpopularopp 3y ago
    Can you expand up on that? I can't play Pokemon on my PC or Gran Turismo on my Xbox or WoW on my PS5. What will change "very bad for end consumer in long term"?
    • dmonitor 3y ago
      “can someone explain why microsoft is evil?”
      • frumper 3y ago
        Those same people can explain how Activision is independently evil.
    • leotravis10 3y ago
      What that commenter meant is that it clearly opens the door for further consolidation of the gaming industry. I can clearly see for example Microsoft buying Sega and Square Enix as we saw that filing (1) or Sony buying Konami or Nintendo buying studios. They're surely going to be coming and it's going to be bad for consumers in the long run limiting choices. (1) https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23777003/microsoft-square-enix-acquisition-mobile-xbox-game-pass https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23777003/microsoft-square...
  • rvz 3y ago
    Yes. The starting gun for consolidation and less for the consumer. Another grave mistake. But as long as you throw enough money at the judges and bribing regulators, perhaps you do get away with monopolistic practices. Microsoft will never change and cannot be trusted. They will continue their horizontal integration of games studios and apply their lock in with their game-pass platform over a so-called 10 year pinky promise which they can make all other new games exclusive anyway afterwards.
• anthk 3y ago
  Now Zork belongs to MS. Release it under MIT and everyone would win a great history of gaming (and the right to create new histories in the Zorkverse without worrying). Spiritwrak it's a good example. In case of anyone says "text adventures have no future"... the folk lore from a distant past made Disney rich. The Arturian legends plus some samurai touches set into a futuristic space made George Lucas and Lucasfilms loaded, too.
  • skissane 3y ago
    I think Microsoft might be willing to release the Infocom build tools and engines under an MIT license – by now they would be of purely historical interest, similar to open-sourcing MS-DOS 1.0 and 2.0. I'm not sure if they'd be willing to do so for the game assets (the room/item descriptions/etc) – it would remove one of the main legal barriers to a competitor creating their own game set in the Zork universe. The Fortran 77 version of Zork has long been available under a "non-commercial use only" license, so they might be willing to release the game assets under such a license too (or maybe a more modern equivalent such as CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-SA)
    • anthk 3y ago
      We already have build tools for infocom against the Z-Machine, and interpreters themselves since the 90's. Having a public domain or MIT licensed Dungeon/Zork would allow to fix bugs and not worrying about licenses on any Linux/BSD distro.
      • skissane 3y ago
        > We already have build tools for infocom against the Z-Machine The TOPS-20 versions of ZILCH (and ZAP) don't seem to be available. The ITS version of ZILCH from MIT has been recovered, but (from what I understand) it is an earlier version, and the TOPS-20 version which Infocom used later isn't publicly available, and that later version had added features. In any case, its copyright status is murky, Microsoft could clean up that murkiness.
• dnissley 3y ago
  I find the whole thing to be a tempest in a teapot -- why is the FTC involved in this at all? For christ's sake it's a video game! If we were discussing access to some critical resource I would understand, but how is this not a criminal waste of our government's time and resources? It reminds me of the congressional baseball steroid hearings. Am I totally off base here? Can anyone explain to me why this case is so critical?
  • Larrikin 3y ago
    You're totally off base. Video games are not just kids stuff. The industry makes nearly three times more money than the film industry. This is exactly the kind of stakes that FTC should be getting involved in.
    • dnissley 3y ago
      Both of these industries are entertainment though -- and to me at least it seems there's a pretty limited amount of consumer harm that could come from various IP exclusivity deals. Again -- am I thinking about this wrong? What is the consumer harm that could result from the moving of IP from one company to another? A truly dedicated fan has to buy a different console to play their favorite game? Non-truly dedicated fans play one of the hundreds of other FPS games on the market that work with their console of choice?
      • xboxnolifes 3y ago
        The point is to make sure there is always another console you could move to, and that there is a hundred other fps titles on the market.
        • johnnyanmac 3y ago
          yes, all 2 alternatives. Much choice. There is always phones and PC for "open platform" at least.
      • firebirdn99 3y ago
• glimshe 3y ago
  This is a great decision for the US game industry. Sony has a ton of exclusives, many from acquisitions, and strengthening XBOX will help maintain a competitive gaming market which should lead to even better exclusives in the long run. Some of the best rivalries in the history of gaming came from different sides with hard hitting exclusives (SNES vs Genesis for instance). While Microsoft has promised to keep Call of Duty on the Playstation, I think it would be totally ok if they stopped doing that in the future, as any other Activision-Blizzard game; after all, Uncharted and Last of Us aren't available on the XBOX either.
  • madeofpalk 3y ago
    Maybe we can put aside the superficial sports-team rivalries for a moment. Maybe both Microsoft and Sony could develop good products that consumers and publishers want to pay money for, rather than make unrelated, restrictive business deals!
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >rather than make unrelated, restrictive business deals! I thought you wanted to put aside the superficial sports-team rivalries? No casual consumer cares about the deals, they care about the games. If this makes better games, cool. If not, not cool. We'll see how history goes this time around.
      • madeofpalk 3y ago
        They are impacted because they bought a Playstation and they can't play Halo.
      • jakkos 3y ago
        I don't play one my of favourite games of all time, Bloodborne, because it's forever stuck at 1080p 30fps with terrible loading times on a PS4 solely due to these stupid exclusivity deals. All the other games built in the same engine by the same studio are released on Xbox and PC.
• haunter 3y ago
  Understandable. Nintendo is full of exclusives + it's the best selling console too (by the court's admission) and that's ok so as MS buying Actiblizz. Otherwise I don't know how would Nintendo get a pass lol, they are the worst with exclusives (and what ends up on mobile is p2w thrash) >If the Court was the final decisionmaker on the merits, it would likely find Nintendo Switch part of the relevant market. But it is not. Instead, on a 13(b) preliminary injunction, the FTC need only make a “tenable showing that the relevant market” is Gen 9 consoles. Given the plethora of internal industry documents and the acknowledged differences, the FTC has met its preliminary injunction burden to show the Switch is not included in the relevant market. >Nintendo made “technical decisions to enable an experience that they thought their customers would want to have, and it’s the best selling console right now in the market. So when I — when people try to tell me it’s not competition — competitive, for any number of reasons, I don’t believe that because I just look at what’s selling
  • haizhung 3y ago
    Was Nintendo buying up huge companies? Honest question, if Nintendo achieved their market position on their own merits, without abusing their monopoly (do they have one?), would that fall in the jurisdiction of the FTC?
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• user3939382 3y ago
  Great let’s add another merger on top of a merger that was already horrible for consumers and creates even less competition.
  • solardev 3y ago
    What? How does this lessen competition? The PC gaming market is thriving thanks to Steam and indies. Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. Microsoft? Aside from providing Windows and DirectX, they're basically invisible. Xbox is just a cheap wannabe PC with no great games. It's a wonder they've supported it for this long. Maybe this acquisition gives them a fighting chance against Sony and Nintendo. It's not like Activision and Blizzard are even particularly beloved, just pumping out endless sequels. They're steady but relatively soulless cash machines that don't really innovate anymore anyway. Having Microsoft in control might improve their internal cultures, maybe make Blizzard games finally available on Steam, get more and Bethesda Xbox games on GeForce Now, etc. Maybe even make more games cross platform and with good controller support. Those all seem great. Meanwhile the real innovation will continue to come from indies while the behemoths just keep pumping out new graphics (which are often just Unreal anyway, which is again not Microsoft). Microsoft is just too minor to be dominant in modern gaming, and Activision is a has-been that just keeps making filler titles. It's not some great loss to the industry. Now if someone acquired Valve, that would be a tragedy...
    • worrycue 3y ago
      > Playstation is doing well. Switch is doing great. For now. Fortunes change pretty quick in the console world. One generation you are on top, the next you are struggling for second place. MS buying Activision is bad. This gives MS a long term advantage. It signals to companies like Sony and Nintendo that they shouldn’t bother competing since they can never counter the buying out of huge publishers as they aren’t worth 2.47 trillion USD like Microsoft.
      • solardev 3y ago
        That just isn't true though. Sony and Nintendo have no problem competing at all by the quality of their first-party and exclusive games. For every Call of Duty there is a Horizons or a God of War or Zelda or whatever. Xbox is the worst of all the platforms in terms of that. Even PC and mobile have more (good) games that aren't available on Xbox. Has Microsoft has any major successes since Halo and Fable, years and years ago? They're desperate for games. Activision isn't going to suddenly make the dominant overnight. If anything, it would barely help stop the bleeding. Microsoft is so far behind right now it's not funny. I'd be way more afraid of competition dying because Microsoft gave up on it rather than buying Activision.
• WhyQ 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • Arrath 3y ago
    Any worse than the 15 years of annual releases already have?
• TillE 3y ago
  Just the UK CMA standing in the way then, with its flimsy decision resting almost entirely on speculation about the "cloud gaming" market. Microsoft should be offering to to swear off cloud gaming entirely, they should be delighted. Game streaming is a lousy solution that requires enormous investment in specific infrastructure, it would be smart to ignore it and focus on their great subscription service that only requires a $500 Xbox.
  • solardev 3y ago
    Oh man, I hope they don't get rid of cloud gaming. It's been amazing, especially with their new partnership with GeForce Now (which IMO is the smarter move... rather than sunsetting xCloud entirely, just partner with Nvidia to make GFN the default since most cross platform Xbox/Windows games support controllers anyway). Streaming games is an amazing convenience (and value) for those of us who don't want to be limited to an Xbox (poor graphics, limited mouse/keyboard support) but also don't want to shell out $3k for a RTX 4080 rig and all its associated noise and heat. Where Stadia failed, GeForce Now, Luna, Shadow, and Xbox and PS streaming are still alive and well. And very useful!
  • bob1029 3y ago
    > Game streaming is a lousy solution I feel like it's only bad because it's still mostly a half-way house. Slapping existing AAA titles onto networked GPUs and calling it a day <> streaming gaming in my view. Streaming gaming is actually a thing for me when someone builds a game using it that would absolutely not be possible using traditional technology. For example, an MMO so massive that the average player's network stack couldn't handle all of the events, so the only rational option is to render everything on some supercomputer and ship the final frames. Consider also that you can get a lot of reuse out of a particular scene graph if multiple players are in the same one. Many such cases in streaming gaming. There are new, multi-server engine architectures that will not be possible until we start saying things like "this will be a streaming-only exclusive". That is probably the scariest proposal an MBA in any AAA studio could hear in 2023, so I don't expect you will see Blizzard or Sony playing in this flavor of traffic any time soon.
    • 3y ago
• leotravis10 3y ago
  Welp, that's a wrap! When, not if Call of Duty and many others Activision Blizzard has goes Xbox and PC exclusive, some people are going to get pies and eggs on their faces that is for sure. Also more consolidation of the gaming industry isn't good in the long run as it clearly opens the door for the big players to buy up even more assets. I can clearly see Microsoft buy EA, Sega and Square Enix now as a example.
• from 3y ago
  The FTC's incredibly low win rate in federal court should be a source of agency-wide embarrassment. The only place they reliably win is their kangaroo "administrative courts" in which they act as the judge, jury and executioner but those are probably on their way out. But it doesn't even matter anyways because the new strategy is going to be outsourcing enforcement to Europe.
  • notquitehuman 3y ago
    Can you share a link to that strategy memo?
  • anyoneamous 3y ago
    Is the low win rate a surprise though? As a foreign observer, the US justice system seems to largely be based on who can spend the most - so large company > government > small company > citizen is pretty much the assumed outcome. I have a vague sense the order also wraps around (individual > large company) because of cases like the McDonald's boiling coffee, but in those cases headlines and bad PR are just acting as a proxy for money.
  • Accujack 3y ago
    The FTC is still spooling anti trust enforcement back up from a nonexistent state. A lot of the rules governing mergers and acquisitions haven't been enforced since the 1980s due to regulatory capture. Read up on developments in anti-trust in the last couple of years here: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/
  • HWR_14 3y ago
    I would expect the FTC to have a low win rate. Let's leave aside how atrophied enforcement of antitrust has been over the last 40 years, and the subsequent implications for case law, regulations and human skill of litigators. This is a 75 billion dollar event between two giant companies. They can pay for legal advice. That legal advice is well incentivized to predict how the case will go, and signed off on it. I assume MS has to pay a hefty fee if the acquisition is blocked for antitrust reasons, in addition to the time and embarrassment for all involved. Therefore, the only cases the FTC should expect to see are ones where highly paid lawyers said "we will probably win this case". They might be wrong (and the FTC does seem unable to stop too many cases), but no matter how tough the enforcement gets, I would expect the FTC to usually lose at trial. The standards will just be applied pre-merger announcement (or probably pre-offer). It might be an exciting couple of years when the FTC regrows its backbone and the lawyers assessing mergers have not caught up yet.
• kemotep 3y ago
  Microsoft still needs more studios to make Game Pass a “Netflix for Gaming” service. WoW and CoD and the rest of the ActiBlizz back catalog help but Microsoft still doesn’t have enough studios to be pumping out a new major release every month.
  • failuser 3y ago
    Even Netflix itself is no longer “Netflix for video”
    • kemotep 3y ago
      The idea of subscribing to get games (movies and TV shows) instead of buying to own them Netflix is certainly still doing. Constant, consistent revenue by having people subscribe instead of paying a bunch to market to them and hope it is a blockbuster, to me at least, seems far more sustainable for publishers and developers.
• throwaway202351 3y ago
  Maybe it's just sour grapes from me, but it feels like a lot of these acquisitions are for has-been companies that were great 10+ years ago but haven't had much success lately. Bethesda, Double Fine, and now Activation Blizzard.
  • kevingadd 3y ago
    No comment on Bethesda or Activision, but Psychonauts 2 had an average Metacritic score of ~90. Not sure how their financials look but Double Fine seems to be doing OK. Their previous two titles had shakier scores but don't look like they were big failures or anything.
  • pnw 3y ago
    Activision isn’t successful? They own several of the biggest franchises in console, PC and mobile. 2022 was a record year for them - over $7b in revenue - and that was before Diablo IV shipped.
  • addisonl 3y ago
    The game Blizzard just released, Diablo 4, was the “best-selling opening in Blizzard’s history, crossing an auspicious $666 million in global sell-through in the first five days following its June 6 launch”. https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/diablor-iv-crosses-666-million-sell-through-within-five-days https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-d... This places it among the fastest selling video games of all time (https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_fastest-selling_video_games https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_fastest-selling_vide...) so yes, it’s just sour grapes from you.
    • kipchak 3y ago
      I don't think I've heard sell-through used before as a metric in that way, typically I recall seeing it as a percentage such as 80% of units shipped to stores have sold through to consumers. Units sold is what I typically see, like Diablo 3 at 30mil. Maybe sell through here means people buying platinum/cosmetics as well?
• Aeolun 3y ago
  This is weird. The judge says that because there won’t be any anticompetitive effects in the next 10 years (because MS made a pinky promise), this merger is fine? What about after those 10 years? What about anything not Call of Duty?
  • tnel77 3y ago
    Activision’s portfolio of games aren’t that great. I think we’ll be fine.
    • ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
      Activision / Blizzard / King includes: Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, and Diablo which are all heavy hitters.
      • mustacheemperor 3y ago
        And their gigantic IP portfolio includes Arcanum, creator of which Tim Cain is now under MS' employ. Tim has recently said he has the full source code to the original and the design doc to the planned sequel...
      • tnel77 3y ago
        I don’t like any of those games, but their sales numbers obviously show that others do haha.
        • madeofpalk 3y ago
          I don’t think US competition law should be based on your personal taste for video games!
          • tnel77 3y ago
            I agree!
          • beebmam 3y ago
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  We know from history that exclusives are incredibly important in the console industry. Microsoft buying ATVI will net them ownership over one of the most important game IPs of the last three console generations. The only way this decision makes any sense is that the courts are somehow thinking that 10 years is long enough and things will be different by the time MS is in the position to tilt the deck to their favour by making parts of or the entirety of this franchise a platform exclusive. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is already 16 years old, so the courts are likely wrong as this franchise clearly has remarkable staying power to still be this relevant.
• collinc777 3y ago
  Is this hyper-competitive or anti-competetive? The objective of business is to win, but if a business is too dominant, then they have the ability to extort customers. I don't see how customer extortion is born out of this. It's fair and in the spirit of a healthy ecosystem.
  • madeofpalk 3y ago
    I think Microsoft’s reason for why they feel they need this is exactly the reason why this is bad. Shouldn’t Microsoft build a compelling cloud gaming service that both customers want to pay for, and publishers want to publish on? Microsoft should build good gaming hardware and services, and people buy them based on the merits of those products rather than acquiring companies just to prop up their efforts and otherwise restrict consumers.
    • collinc777 3y ago
      Microsoft is getting their butts kicked on exclusives from Sony. Nothing wrong with them buying their way to better exclusives
      • madeofpalk 3y ago
        I think we shouldn't have exlcusives! I think they're inherently anti-consumer, and eventually anti-developer also!
    • stale2002 3y ago
      > just to prop up their efforts and otherwise restrict consumers. Consumers aren't being restricted. Quite the opposite, Microsoft purchasing this IP is causes them to release those games on more platforms. All activision games with be on Gamepass, steam, as well consoles when that wasn't automatically the case before.
• ecf 3y ago
  Microsoft saw Sony’s acquisition of Bungie as open season and they’re making moves now to compete. Good for them.
• Sparkyte 3y ago
  real reason merges happen is to the benefit of the stockholders looking to cash out on their life time investment in a particular company honestly this create an economic boon upon closure more tax from sales win-win but if the acquisition doesn't succeed it is fine too Activision is in a good stance as its titles have been doing better than most
• enahs-sf 3y ago
  Can’t wait to login to d4 with outlook.
  • may_i_ai_plz 3y ago
    Believe it or not, that will be less boring than actually playing D4.
• Pufferbo 3y ago
  maybe we just shouldn’t let big ass companies by other big ass companies.
• TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  What a joke. Because Microsoft is now failing as a gaming company the past 10 years, they’ve been allowed to swallow up competiton. Practically every game they’ve released or worked on the past 5 years has failed. Halo Infinite might literally be the biggest flop in entertainment history. Because of Azure they’re able to absorb these losses and continue to consolidate and eat the competiton. There’s tons of examples in the past of gaming studios that underperform and end up downsizing - Sega is a great example. Meanwhile, Sony and Nintendo continue to release quality titles knowing they have no infinite money backing.
  • wilg 3y ago
    Well that’s the idea, isn’t it? If you’re not doing well in your business you aren’t being anti-competitive by trying to buy your way back into the game. Hence, the decision to allow it.
    • TheCaptain4815 3y ago
      Isn’t that practically the definition of “anti consumer”behavior - A company division being bailed out by another because of its ineptness? It’s one thing for Microsoft to continue to pump money into Xbox (look at Amazon and Alexa). It’s another for them to simply purchase the competition.
      • smoldesu 3y ago
        Anti-consumer behavior? I don't think so. Bailing out failing studios doesn't necessarily harm the consumer, and it's especially the case with dead-in-the-water studios like Activision-Blizzard. The alternative would be their corpse getting picked over by companies who want to buy up their IP, and that's certainly not what their consumers want. If Microsoft is really subsidizing a failing business, they should be allowed to do so as long as they find it reasonable. I don't think Sony has the right to demand a favorable status-quo for their consoles if their competitors double down on software investments.
        • 3y ago
• footlose_3815 3y ago
  They ruined bethesda, they're going to ruin... Oh wait bliz is already optimized for money and delivering garbage content
  • ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    Yeah as a former Blizzard fanboy I'm not sure anyone could do more damage to Blizzard than Blizzard did to itself. The only direction Microsoft could take them is up.
  • CivBase 3y ago
    They ruined Bethesda? Did everyone forget about Fallout 76 already?
    • footlose_3815 3y ago
      That and ESO are under current development under M$ ownership, no? They are my main angers about Bethesda right now. I played FO:NV and 3, again and again, but everything after it has been a doubled down poor experience
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  This fight isn't over yet. Nevermind the misleading title. The fight is only beginning. FTC lost on the injunction, which was only sought when MSFT brazenly threatened to close the deal when it learned it would not be approved. MSFT still has a monkey on their back. Khan is far from giving up. Perhaps FTC can get a stay pending an appeal to the 9th Cir. The July 18 deadline to close is rapidly approaching.
  • CivBase 3y ago
    What monkey are you referring to here? Doesn't look like the FTC has even a remote chance of successfully appealing this case.
    • lokar 3y ago
      You mean appealing the injunction? The case has not been decided has it?
      • CivBase 3y ago
        Yes, sorry.
  • atomicUpdate 3y ago
    This sounds the same as the student loan forgiveness people saying the Supreme Court decision is just the start of Biden’s fight. “He’s not defeated, this is just a small loss but he’ll definitely win the war.” Khan has lost 2 major cases recently, which isn’t a good look for her tenure so far. I don’t see how this case is recoverable considering how poorly it’s gone so far. With the EUs backing and the short time table, this deal seems essentially approved.
    • haizhung 3y ago
      Better to lose 2 cases than to not try to appeal the mergers at all. The FTC finally is growing some teeth under Khan, and even if they aren’t winning all cases, mergers are under much more scrutiny internally in companies. It’s no longer a „will definitely go through“ kind of thing. Khan is doing the right thing for the consumers here, and we can only hope that she perseveres.
• tonymet 3y ago
  As much as i want Blizzard games included in Game Pass, this will end up resulting in lower quality games titles . Fewer studios are going to be able to compete
  • elefanten 3y ago
    Yeah, this is the real danger of the deal. Most likely, it will: 1. First, be good for consumers short-term as MS floods the market with high quality cheap content. 2. Next, be bad for the games industry medium term as their product gets devalued and only the biggest winner-take-all free to play games can compete vs. the value of bundled content 3. Next, be bad for gaming employees and entrepreneurs as the value of their roles gets squeezed and the nature of working in the industry become more constrained and formulaic 4. Finally, end up bad for consumers when the quality and variety of viable gaming products declines. Sadly, the FTC and CMA chose to base their cases on a bunch of abject nonsense, so I'm grateful that the FTC has rightfully lost the crummy case that it made. And the CMA is also about to rightfully lose / surrender next. But the key words of my take are "most likely". Games market changes too much to make long term predictions about. The countervailing forces are increasingly cheaper and easier creator tools, as well as the rising difficulty of maintaining a meaningful hardware edge. From the public policy perspective, it's much more urgent to come up with meaningful and sound legal doctrines against excessive market power than it is to litigate speculative crap based on the optics of resisting big price tags. Lina Khan's performative career boosterism has been a huge failure because she's just as greedy and anti-social as every stereotype about corporate management. But I have faith that a framework which doesn't rely on spectacle and punditry can be found. The EU is trailblazing in that area where the US and UK are still completely primitive.
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >Fewer studios are going to be able to compete But there already is competition? FPSs and aren't exactly a dead genre.
• hammeringnails 3y ago
  Someone please correct me if I'm way off the mark here: I assume the reason behind this purchase is to keep Windows relevant as a gaming platform. It looks as though Windows is becoming less relevant overall as a computing platform, and alternative platforms such as Steam Deck are beginning to pose a major threat to one of their major market demographics: Gaming.
  • JKCalhoun 3y ago
    Is that true? The game I developed for Steam Deck is actually the Windows application (it runs under Proton on Steam Deck). I suspect most developers are also doing this. No harm to Windows there. Maybe it's the Xbox getting left behind?
    • kyleyeats 3y ago
      It's the Xbox. They've been on a huge campaign for exclusives for a while now.
    • NovaDudely 3y ago
      Windows has been a decent development platform for Linux via Proton. ;) Maybe they are just worried about the long game of Proton eventually eroding MS's share? But this looks more like propping up Xbox and Gamepass than Windows losing share (at least short term).
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I'm confused how you came to that conclusion. Steam isn't threatening Windows gaming because a linux installed device sold 2m units. An Windows is still very relevant for computing despite more enterprise trying to move off Windows to avoid licensing cost. I think the reason is much simpler and smaller scale: Microsoft has always been behind in the gaming space and a huge 3rd party company with valuable IPs can bolster some incentive to buy Xbox and even PC's. It also further gives value to gamepass which seems to be their big focus this generation.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  That’s quite a turn of event, but MS is proven suck at making games so there is the argument
• oneTbrain23 3y ago
  Let's all agree that judge need to be investigated. I am NOT surprise if there is some kind of conclict of interest not disclose by the judge.
  • lijok 3y ago
    Judges son works at Microsoft
• KingMachiavelli 3y ago
  The real issue is Sony has many exclusives which gives Microsoft a better case (despite the judge saying it's NOT about Sony). It certainly harms consumers, so I don't see how the court still approved this especially with the judge's comment against the comparison to Sony. Almost all mergers of this size harm consumers, the fact that it's allowed by default is the crucial issue. If the FTC still had a spine they would go after all of these kinds of exclusive deals - and not just limited to games. The film industry was famously broken up such that the production companies couldn't own theaters yet in 2023 that rule (if it still exists) is so weak that most production companies have their streaming service and aggressively pressure theaters into exclusivity Windows. At the end of the day this only strengthens the trend to PC gaming which only benefits Microsoft and can only hurt Sony. It would only be a minor surprise if Sony joined the Proton/WINE effort with Valve to get around Microsoft exclusives. (Which does help consumers but in a 3D chess kind of way).
  • QuesnayJr 3y ago
    A judge ended the rule that studios couldn't own theaters in 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomnunan/2020/08/07/judge-decrees-studios-can-own-theater-chains-for-first-time-in-71-yearswhat-lies-ahead/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomnunan/2020/08/07/judge-decre...
    • deutschepost 3y ago
      It is a very weird coincidence that every major film studio started streaming services after that law ended. I thought it was more general like a cut between production and distribution not production and theatres. Now we are in the same position as a hundred years ago. At that time you would have to go into a theatre by the production company and now you have to go to the streaming service of the production company. That split between production and distribution has to come back.
      • Sai_ 3y ago
        > That split between production and distribution has to come back. What if Netflix had made and won that argument before 2020 to prevent production companies from also streaming content? I think Netflix missed a trick here.
• tremorscript 3y ago
  The judges son works for Microsoft. This is not only conflict of interest but corruption at its absolute core. I knew the FTC would lose this case. I am not surprised. It does not matter if the FTC had a case or not. I do not believe it received a fair trail.
  • doikor 3y ago
    FTC knew the judges son works at Microsoft and this court/judge was pretty much their choice (Microsoft wanted a different judge in a different jurisdiction)
    • tremorscript 3y ago
      Sorry https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/29/watchdog-group-calls-judge-recuse-ftc-microsoft-case/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/29/watchdog-... The FTC will never ask for a recursal. I know I would not. You cannot blatantly call a judge corrupt especially when you are a participant in that case. If you are in the judiciary, your standards must be higher. From the article:- “Nothing antagonizes a judge with whom you might have litigation in the future like calling them recklessly biased,” he said. “What are the odds that Judge Corley would recuse if she was already choosing to brazen her way through this apparent conflict of interest?”
      • johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >The FTC will never ask for a recursal. I know I would not. You cannot blatantly call a judge corrupt especially when you are a participant in that case. of course not. Law has much prettier words for that that the FTC could have used. The same words the article uses (they never use "corrupt" in the watchdog quotes). Besides, I agree with the professor's arguments: >“A rank-and-file employee at Microsoft would probably not have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of this case. … She's right to look at [the fact that] the division that would be affected by the litigation is not where her son is employed,” he said. It's the equivalent of some Wal-Mart lawsuit where a judge's grandson is working part time at Wal-Mart.
• mustaflex 3y ago
  I know it is just wishful thinking but I hope Microsoft restore legacy warcraft 3 so I can play the original campaigns and not the hot mess they made with reforged.
• lijok 3y ago
  Gamers rise up !
• gloosx 3y ago
  We all know no good games are coming from this company any more, and it is true for a long time now. Microsoft is the most anti-competitiveness corp in the world and Bobby's comments... They are really funny :) The sun is finally setting for Blizzard.
• nextlevelwizard 3y ago
  I know nothing will happen, but I can dream that after the Microsoft owns World of Warcraft it will move back towards the old form.
  • PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    I hope not tbh. I don’t want to go back.
• hanselot 3y ago
  Its a bit late to jump in here, but I would just like to share the observation that 90% of the comments here look like they were crafted by Microsoft's PR deparment. The rule expecting good faith arguments is entirely moot if corporate players can sic their squads of goons on social media. Almost every comment is something like: "Well, big corporations gonna be corporating, what you gonna do?" or "MS is bad, but are they as bad as [Insert distraction here]" or "I love this move, please promote me microsoft." And here people will still believe this isn't happening, when the evidence is clear to see for anyone with a slightly skeptical mind.
• deleted 3y ago
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• lemoncookiechip 3y ago
  I like how everyone forgets that it wasn't Sony, Nintendo or even the PC market that put the XBOX division in the position they are, it was themselves. At the start of last generation, XBOX decided to shot themselves [1] and announce that the XBOX One would be an always online media (not gaming) machine that would require itself to phone home frequently or it wouldn't even work at all offline during vacations. They spent more time trying to sell you a media brick with features no was or is asking for to this day, instead of showing games which is the whole point of a console (Sony capitalized on this by showcasing nothing but games). They asked 100$ more than Sony's console ($499vs$399), and iirc, the console had weaker hardware which lead to many games running worse on it. Over the years they've also destroyed all their first party studio franchises besides Forza which is still going strong, this includes Halo which has been more misses than hits in the last decade plus. I'm in no way saying they weren't commercial hits, you can sell well and still be a bad or broken product (Cyberpunk 2077) that ends up poisoning the well. XBOX first party games are also notorious for their predatory monetization, just as much if not more so than EA or ACTIVISION Blizzard, does anyone even remember how bad GoW5 was? Another thing people seem to be forgetting is that XBOX isn't just trying to acquire ACITIVSION Blizzard. They've been on a shopping spree, including the likes of ZeniMax Media [2] which included subsidiaries such as Bethesda Softworks, Arkane Studios, id Software... as well as other solo studios like Obsidian Entertainment known for amazing RPG classics, Ninja Theory behind Hellblade, as well as plenty of other studios since 2018 [3], please check for yourself and see what they're doing. They've shown that they don't care about you, the consumer, time and time again, willingly putting out titles such as Redfall at full price (70€£$) without a care. They've shown that they'll immediately pull games out of Playstation [4][5] so that they can compete with Sony by using brute force, hell, I'm sure if allowed, they would've tried to acquire Sony Interactive Entertainment from the Sony Group, if not the whole group itself. (Sony Group 113.89 billion USD vs Microsoft 2.47 trillion USD) Lets talk about cloud gaming, the "Future" of gaming. Gamepass is a good deal, yes, but like every SAAS model, it means you don't own anything, not digitally, not physically, you can't even modify files, and prices are subject to change, and change they do [6]. Now think about that, you can't modify files... If you play more than 2-3 games a year, I'm sure one of the first things you've done is mess around with the .ini file because the in-game menu is lacking settings. I'm sure you've had to install mods because the game was broken at launch and it was the modding community who fixed it, or you simply wanted mods. What happens in a few years when they do what Netflix or HBO does, and they remove games they don't want to pay licensing for?[7] or when they terminate an online game and you have no way of making your own private servers to keep it alive? Right now, a lot of games that came out before 2010 simply can't be legally purchased[8], this problem gets worse the older the titles are, especially if you go into the retro game list. But they hold their IP rights, which means you can't even legally distribute ROMs or else you run the risk of companies like Nintendo coming after you. Finally, it's Microsoft. They aren't known for their pro-consumer policies. They're known for being ruthless and exploitative. Windows 11 is filled with ads and forces you to use their products with shady behavior such as making you jump through hops to set a different browser as the default. The XBOX division is no different and this tribalism surrounding consoles (PSvsXBOX) which leads to people publicly defending a trillion dollar company online because the FTC is fighting to preserve the consumer (them) is worrying. EDIT: Forgot to mention Age of Empire 2 Definitive Edition as another game that is doing quite well, although AoE4 isn't quite as well, and was also initially a Windows Store only game, which further cements the fact that they don't control the PC market the way they want, Steam does. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrvE3B5Rz6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrvE3B5Rz6A [2] https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-finalizes-acquisition-of-zenimax-media/ https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-finalizes-acqu... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Studios https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Studios [4] https://gamerant.com/redfalls-ps5-cancelation-negative-impact-playstation-years/ https://gamerant.com/redfalls-ps5-cancelation-negative-impac... [5] https://www.gamesradar.com/starfield-ps4-ps5/ https://www.gamesradar.com/starfield-ps4-ps5/ [6] https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23768400/microsoft-xbox-series-x-xbox-game-pass-price-increase https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23768400/microsoft-xbox-s... [7] https://www.npr.org/2023/03/17/1164146728/why-are-dozens-of-tv-shows-disappearing-from-streaming-platforms-like-hbo-max https://www.npr.org/2023/03/17/1164146728/why-are-dozens-of-... [8] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/culture/study-finds-nearly-every-pre-2010-video-game-is-unavailable https://www.gamedeveloper.com/culture/study-finds-nearly-eve...
• refracture 3y ago
  Sporadic thoughts: I'm not impressed with Sony's tantrums over this, they've been throwing money around for exclusivity for years, ranging from exclusive content in major titles (Destiny and CoD have often been 'definitive' on PlayStation) to outright title exclusivity. I'm probably not a good source of opinion on this, Acti-Blizz has become a toxic company that doesn't really make games I like anymore, and I resent them for holding Heretic and Hexen hostage even during this renaissance of throw back FPSs.. there's too much money to be made elsewhere for them to do something like that.. maybe I'm being suckered but seeing Phil in that Hexen tshirt made me hopeful. I'm also an old and bitter Warcraft RTS fan, they ignored RTS Warcraft entirely for years after WoW became their focus, and when they finally did give Warcraft III attention they completely destroyed the community and arguably made the game worse for everybody. They could have done absolutely nothing and everything would be better! In short, unless I was a big fan of their current offerings (I am not) I don't see how Microsoft could possibly make things worse, so I'm slightly optimistic about the changes this acquisition will bring. Worst case scenario the dumpster fire gets bigger. I'm sure people who love the current offerings have very different feelings about this.
  • zimpenfish 3y ago
    > I don't see how Microsoft could possibly make things worse, so I'm slightly optimistic I'd look at what they've done with the Minecraft IP since buying it - main game gets no love, infrequent updates, etc., whilst they churn out side-projects like Dungeons and load up Bedrock with monetisation. For sure, it's not "worse" but it's a million miles away from what should have been under good ownership.
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Does the main game need love? I feel like MS could die tomorrow and fans would still maintain Minecraft servers until the heat death of the universe. >it's a million miles away from what should have been under good ownership. Notch didn't exactly age well in the last 12 years or so, so I'm not sure if that's a good example of "it couldn't be worse".
• unmole 3y ago
  Turns out appointing a hipster anti-trust activist with minimal experience to head the FTC wasn't a brilliant idea.
• Woshiwuja 3y ago
  I just want sony to free bloodborne from the playstation chains, microsoft can own the shithole that activision is for all i care