5 ms·

Yeah, Activision Blizzard was always chasing revenue at the expense of everything else. They got away with riding the coattails of Blizzard for a while, but ev

Yeah, Activision Blizzard was always chasing revenue at the expense of everything else. They got away with riding the coattails of Blizzard for a while, but eventually everyone figured out what was going on. My "favorite" part was watching them kill Overwatch with Overwatch League. Overwatch was popular because people played it casually. Activision thought it would be great to make it a professional sport. Eventually every balance change was aimed at preventing some pro team from complaining and they made the game completely unfun for casual players. So they all stopped playing. Meanwhile, Overwatch League was massively unprofitable and the privately-owned teams all pulled out after losing everything. Probably the worst business decision in gaming history, or maybe even in Fortune 500 history. At this point, I'm just waiting for someone else to make games with the quality and "spark" of old Blizzard. It will happen. Probably not at Microsoft, though.

pfdietz 3y ago
If the bad decisions there were driven from the top, then the acquisition could cause a large change in behavior. No guarantees, of course.
- solardev 3y ago
  Microsoft hasn't made any remarkable games in a long time, either. They just play it safe and release filler msterial, like most of Gamepass.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Blizzard has been stuck in a failure state for years now, so there's little downside for them to shaking things up. At worst, Microsoft sells its parts off to vulture companies to turn things into gatcha games.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    Yeah, I don't have a lot of hope for Microsoft acquired companies tbh. Just look at what happened to Rare after they were acquired. All the games in their pipeline were published on Xbox, but then the Studio's production nose dived. Rare as an independent studio was producing banger after banger for 20 years. Under ~15 years of Microsoft they have only produced Viva Pinata, B&K:N&B, then nothing for a decade but some Kinect sports trash nobody wanted(sorry). then Sea of Thieves.
- picadores 3y ago
  Like mcdonnell douglas made Boeing a great aircraft company..
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Are you suggesting Blizzard is going to take over the C suite at Microsoft?
    - picadores 3y ago
      At the end of the day, the C suite at microsoft is just another group of humans, waiting to be hacked with lootboxes and stimuli, nothing makes you more capable & prone to apply parasitic technices then beeing in a company who develops such
- jrockway 3y ago
  That's what I (and the rest of the community) was hoping for, but given that they gutted things like the art teams today... I don't think they're planning on improving anything. If anything, they're making it worse.
solardev 3y ago
Larian, FromSoftware, Gunfire, Grinding Gear... the smaller studios are putting out great games still, with much of that 90s magic. There's that new game Palworld too apparently making a stir (haven't tried it yet), from another small studio. It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist. I mostly just ignore them and haven't felt like I've missed much. So many good indie titles coming out every day.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  Palworld is basically Ark: Survival Evolved with Pokemon plus some elements from Breath of the Wild. That said, it's less buggy (and better performing) at launch than Ark is 9 years after release, and unlike Ark it isn't designed to require you to quit your job and have a full guild with set work schedules just to get some cool pets.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    > and unlike Ark it isn't designed to require you to quit your job and have a full guild with set work schedules just to get some cool pets. This is a very important point, Palworld is much more respectful of you the player's time. Gone is the tedious tending of Ark's taming and breeding, or Conan's arduous process of dragging a captured thrall back to your base to throw on the wheel of pain. On top of that it has a number of handy QoL upgrades over most survival crafters I've played, like all chests in your base sharing their inventory with all crafting stations at the base. No more hunting through all the storage in your base schlepping things into your own inventory just to craft junk.
- password54321 3y ago
  >It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist. Nonsense for most single player games which there are still many of.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Yeah? That's probably not a segment of the market I play much, then. What are some good ones from the AAAs that aren't just Call of Duty sequels or Ubi games?

pfdietz 3y ago

If the bad decisions there were driven from the top, then the acquisition could cause a large change in behavior. No guarantees, of course.

solardev 3y ago
Microsoft hasn't made any remarkable games in a long time, either. They just play it safe and release filler msterial, like most of Gamepass.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Blizzard has been stuck in a failure state for years now, so there's little downside for them to shaking things up. At worst, Microsoft sells its parts off to vulture companies to turn things into gatcha games.
- riversflow 3y ago
  Yeah, I don't have a lot of hope for Microsoft acquired companies tbh. Just look at what happened to Rare after they were acquired. All the games in their pipeline were published on Xbox, but then the Studio's production nose dived. Rare as an independent studio was producing banger after banger for 20 years. Under ~15 years of Microsoft they have only produced Viva Pinata, B&K:N&B, then nothing for a decade but some Kinect sports trash nobody wanted(sorry). then Sea of Thieves.
picadores 3y ago
Like mcdonnell douglas made Boeing a great aircraft company..
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Are you suggesting Blizzard is going to take over the C suite at Microsoft?
  - picadores 3y ago
    At the end of the day, the C suite at microsoft is just another group of humans, waiting to be hacked with lootboxes and stimuli, nothing makes you more capable & prone to apply parasitic technices then beeing in a company who develops such
jrockway 3y ago
That's what I (and the rest of the community) was hoping for, but given that they gutted things like the art teams today... I don't think they're planning on improving anything. If anything, they're making it worse.

solardev 3y ago

Larian, FromSoftware, Gunfire, Grinding Gear... the smaller studios are putting out great games still, with much of that 90s magic. There's that new game Palworld too apparently making a stir (haven't tried it yet), from another small studio. It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist. I mostly just ignore them and haven't felt like I've missed much. So many good indie titles coming out every day.

HideousKojima 3y ago
Palworld is basically Ark: Survival Evolved with Pokemon plus some elements from Breath of the Wild. That said, it's less buggy (and better performing) at launch than Ark is 9 years after release, and unlike Ark it isn't designed to require you to quit your job and have a full guild with set work schedules just to get some cool pets.
- Arrath 3y ago
  > and unlike Ark it isn't designed to require you to quit your job and have a full guild with set work schedules just to get some cool pets. This is a very important point, Palworld is much more respectful of you the player's time. Gone is the tedious tending of Ark's taming and breeding, or Conan's arduous process of dragging a captured thrall back to your base to throw on the wheel of pain. On top of that it has a number of handy QoL upgrades over most survival crafters I've played, like all chests in your base sharing their inventory with all crafting stations at the base. No more hunting through all the storage in your base schlepping things into your own inventory just to craft junk.
password54321 3y ago
>It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist. Nonsense for most single player games which there are still many of.
- solardev 3y ago
  Yeah? That's probably not a segment of the market I play much, then. What are some good ones from the AAAs that aren't just Call of Duty sequels or Ubi games?