8 ms·
It's strange to see some gamers praise this acquisition as if it will have any positive effect on some of the games they enjoy. In no world will Microsoft decre
by izzydata 3y ago
It's strange to see some gamers praise this acquisition as if it will have any positive effect on some of the games they enjoy. In no world will Microsoft decreasing the competition going to be a good thing for consumers.
- eigenket 3y agoMostly its because Activision/Blizzard is such an obviously shitty terrible company that any deal that sees cool IPs taken out of their hands is seen as a positive thing.
- jnovek 3y agoCame here to say this. Activision has been such a poor steward of Blizzard's properties that I find them largely unplayable. It may be unlikely that Microsoft will course correct away from data-drive, engagement-focus mtx games, but I know Activision never will.
- AlexandrB 3y agoRumor is that Bobby is stepping down once the acquisition closes, which is a good start.
- NekkoDroid 3y agoHe is gone on the 01.01.2024, until then he remains CEO
- izzydata 3y agoMaybe from an artistic perspective, but not from a financial one. It will inevitably mean gamers will spend more money for less game. They might hide it will with their game renting service and microtransactions, but if this was not the case there would be no reason for them to acquire Activision Blizzard in the first place. They see some way to profit by reducing competition.
- jacobr1 3y agoIt is _possible_ that their rental bundle results in a better deal for a reasonable segment of the market than the aggregate of one-off title purchases would be. Though the lock-in means if they jack up the price it might become a poor deal after the fact. Or if you are the kind of person that would purchase fewer games than the total subscription fees would cost, it also wouldn't be better. But sometimes bundling is indeed a better deal for consumers.
- hx8 3y agoAs a gamer, I'm most interested in the artistic perspective.
- njovin 3y agoWhich games has MS shown good stewardship of? Halo is a shell of what it once was and has snubbed the players with false promises in recent iterations (couch co-op used to be a staple of Halo but they reneged on their promise to include it with the latest). AFAIK they haven't had any good exclusive IP for Xbox in a while. They've had a few dynamite hits (ex. Sunset Overdrive) but haven't followed up on any that I'm aware of.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoExclusive IPs aren’t and shouldn’t be a marker of good stewardship. IMO, exclusives are one of the biggest issues with game systems nowadays, especially now that consoles are basically just reskinned and optimized computers.
- c0pium 3y agoAge of Empires, for one. Thoughtful updates and remastered versions that aren’t priced like new games. Then new games that are actually worth the update. Can’t wait for that same ethos to be applied to Warcraft.
- anon84873628 3y agoI love SC2 and think it is one of the best esport games. However it is considered a "classic game" for Blizzard and they have a skeleton crew maintaining it. Funding for professional events has been decreasing consistently and especially reduced in 2023. There was a recent controversial balance patch that highlighted problems with community interaction and communication -- and no one knows how soon until a new patch might be deployed. (While it's also true that most fears by players are overblown). Basically, the whole community just holds its breath hoping things continue as they are and the other shoe never drops on a 13 year old game. Best case scenario is that Microsoft embraces these properties and revitalizes them without ruining the game in the process. Worst case is they kill it completely...
- jonhohle 3y agoI’m not sure what Blizzard’s strategy with esports is (or now Microsoft’s), but they basically imploded the official Overwatch league by being extremely ambiguous about whether or not it would continue, buying out franchise contracts to leave the league, and leaving Twitch for YouTube.
- TheRealDunkirk 3y agoI've argued about this deal on Twitter at length, and the prevailing sentiment of those who favor this acquisition comes down to one thing, and one thing only: getting more AAA games "for free" on Gamepass. Discovering why these people call this an "increase in competition" will be an exercise for future generations of intelligence researchers.
- AlexandrB 3y agoCan't wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the free ride ends and Microsoft starts turning the screws on their (now captive) audience.
- izzydata 3y agoI give it a few years before GamePass is as much a month as a full price game and the only way to make it a good deal is to convince yourself they you were going to buy at least one full priced game a month anyway.
- eigenket 3y agoI can only speak for myself. I was pretty keen on starcraft and starcraft 2 back in the day, and I made a decision a few years back that blizzard wasn't the sort of company I wanted to support with my money anymore.
- jonhohle 3y agoBefore or after the Activision aquisition? I never played WoW, but I think every other game up to D3 is a masterpiece.
- PhasmaFelis 3y agoI don't know about the other fellow, but for me it was when they banned Blitzchung and revoked his prize money for saying "Liberate Hong Kong" on a stream.
- WorldMaker 3y agoOne thing I see as an ancient PC Gamer is that Activision also sits on one of the largest hoards of IPs. Not just "cool" IPs from today's games (a lot of people are mentioning Activision's odd/bad stewardship of Blizzard, of course), but Activision bought a lot of the classic publishers in its history as a massive M&A shop. The legacies of Infocom, Sierra, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson, and many more both well known and almost forgotten to history developers and publishers have all been locked into Activision's forgetful vaults. It's such a huge swath of classic PC games. Some of that catalog Activision eventually allowed onto at least GOG (with GOG allegedly doing a lot of the preservation work to make them run), if not Steam, but there's still so much of gaming history that Activision has either claimed to have lost (No One Lives Forever, as one commonly discussed franchise) or just seems disinterested in the IP they own because they can't figure out how to build mobile games from it. I don't know if Microsoft will be a better custodian of all that gaming history, but as the company most synonymous with the PC today, maybe they will. (If so, among other possibilities PC Game Pass could get very interestingly different from Xbox Game Pass.)
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoAre you saying I might see Torrin's Passage 2 now?
- WorldMaker 3y agoI also kind of wish to see that. Al Lowe is beyond retired at this point, but maybe Microsoft money can buy at least outlines of his four (!) proposed sequels.
- imbnwa 3y agoCan you imagine a Leisure Suit Larry in 2023
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoI regret to inform you that the most recent original Leisure Suit Larry game, "Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice," came out in 2020 (2021 on console, 2022 on mobile).
- lost_tourist 3y agoI used to love their games, the past decade has been nothing but a slog for them. I'm hoping M$ might be able to turn some of that around.
- __s 3y agoHow familiar are you with Activision?
- pjmlp 3y agoBecause the gaming culture isn't like the FOSS culture.
- jokoon 3y agoit should
- dmonitor 3y agomainstream gaming is closer to crack addict culture than anything else once you start exploring gamedev, FGC, or retro gaming cultures, you find more interesting people that care about game mechanics. your average call of duty player would put up with the verification can system if it meant they keep getting their gaming fix.
- deafpolygon 3y agokpop culture is closer to "crack addict culture" than mainstream gaming.
- tacocataco 3y agoPeople should enjoy doing what they like so long as they don't hurt themselves or others We all die at the end of our lives, so do what you love.
- anon1199022 3y agomost gamers are just mindless addicts at this point. Activision started releasing almost same game every year and they still buy that game. It even has same name (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) as old versions without being remastered or sth. Blows my mind.
- ejlxsh 3y agoChances are games will be added to the gamepass, meaning we get these for essentially free.
- hx8 3y agoI'm more concerned that I won't have access to the games because I don't play on Xbox or Windows.
- c0pium 3y agoSo you campaigned against Sony buying Bungie too, right?
- AlexandrB 3y agoI thought it was terrible news. But Bungie is so much smaller than ActiBlizz - they have one active franchise in one genre and maybe another one starting soon in roughly the same genre. Meanwhile ActiBlizz has something like a dozen popular franchises. It's like the difference between Comcast buying a small, local ISP vs. Comcast buying Verizon in terms of scale and number of people impacted.
- hx8 3y agoI've been campaigning against this consolidation since EA bought Westwood in '98.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoTo be frank, Sony seem to have bought Bungie more for its live service expertise than its IP. Not fond of this direction but it's hard to argue that Sony bought them to starve Microsoft of game releases - Bungie has like one franchise that's so-so in popularity.
- ejlxsh 3y agoI do agree here, but also I think if a company is acquiring to give an even better service to their own users it's a good thing (as one of those users). I'm sure I read they've agreed to keep them cross-platform so it won't impact Playstation users (maybe a delay with new games being released on Playstation, like how FF16 isn't on Xbox yet) - but what I am really hoping for is the games simply become part of the Xbox Ultimate subscription.
- MikusR 3y agoBecause it means more games for GamePass and Geforce NOW.
- dnissley 3y agoI've only ever seen gamers grouse about this acquisition fwiw
- TheRealDunkirk 3y agoThen you haven't spent any time on Twitter.
- wilg 3y agoThe relevant competition is between Xbox and PlayStation exclusive titles. Xbox has essentially no exclusive titles that are any good, while PlayStation has many. It will make Xbox more competitive, theoretically. Though I don’t think Activision Blizzard has any great games these days anyway.
- PeterStuer 3y agoI think at least as far as Blizzard is concerned the prevailing mood amongst players is given the current state of their games, chances are any change would be better than no change.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoLike MS has a good track record with improving studios they acquire ... Studios under them seem to succeed despite them not because of them.
- kridsdale3 3y agoMSFT as an employer and work environment has industry standard (very good) ESG / DEI stuff, and work life balance is apparently excellent. Contrast with Activision's stewardship of grinding their workers in to bloody dust, and sprinkling sexual abuse on top. Kotic has to go. Before this acquisition became a news story the news was full of employee lawsuits and California itself initiating action against the awful management. If life gets considerably better for Blizzard workers under new leadership, they can make better products.
- tacocataco 3y agoThe sexual abuse scandal is what finally broke me free from World of War craft. I had been playing WoW since the invite only beta. My gaming backlog is still insanely huge and I won't be going back.
- PeterStuer 3y agoArguably their best and most succesfull games were produced by hard grinding devs that loved the game they were wotking on and the gamers that played them. You can feel about ESG/DEI however you wamt, but it has nothing to do with producing great games.
- c0pium 3y agoWhat if you feel that it’s integral to producing good games because it means people who care about it will come work there. This fetishization of crunch as somehow unavoidable is disgusting.
- sirspacey 3y agoI completely disagree. I’m a long-time gaming enthusiast who has followed Activision, Blizzard, and Microsoft Xbox since their beginnings. Microsoft has done a singularly great job valuing the communities around games, often more than the companies they acquired. Activision in particular was the death of Blizzard. They have a poor reputation which is very well deserved. I consider this acquisition a rescue of IP I’d given up on. I’m looking forward to the next chapter under Microsoft. For context, it’s important to review Microsoft revenue in gaming (a loss) and how they justify it - they see gaming as a brand play. Unlike most AAA corporations in gaming, protecting the brand of their games and studios is far more important to them.