11 ms·

Activision-Blizzard buyout is 'harming both gamers and developers' – Lina Khan

172 points by nabla9 1y ago

blibble 1y ago
the game pass domination strategy was always going to fail in a world where Steam exists it must be very frustrating for Microsoft their usual tactic of buying out the competition isn't an option because Gabe Newell is already a billionare (and a gamer), who won't sell for any price and their backup strategy of tightening the screws of their competition on Windows can't work either, because he's funded a credible (almost) replacement for Windows so for once they have to compete on fair terms and when they do that: they lose
- squigz 1y ago
  This recent price increase notwithstanding, Game Pass has been, in my opinion, and those of almost every gamer I know, incredibly good value for the money. I suppose it's probably like Netflix at the beginning though, and we'll start seeing more things like this price hike and plan differentiation
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    If you’re in high school/college (hell your 20’s) and can game 10+ hours a week it was an unbelievable deal. Even $30 isn’t that crazy if you’re really using it. But a lot of people can’t get that kind of value out of it and it doesn’t help that Microsoft keeps cancelling every interesting game and/or lets their best studios languish.
    - lostmsu 1y ago
      $30 would be 6 AAA titles per year. There are barely that many descent games released in a decade.
      - addaon 1y ago
        > There are barely that many descent games released in a decade. There were three in the 90s that I know of. Have I missed some since?
        NexRebular 1y ago
        At least the two Descent: FreeSpace titles...
        lostmsu 1y ago
        Skyrim, GTA V, Minecraft
        croon 1y ago
        I think it was either a joke or a comment on the "descent" spelling of decent, referring to the Descent (sci-fi space sims) games.
        lostmsu 1y ago
        Shamed me there
      - Forgeties79 1y ago
        Gamepass has a lot more than AAA’s (Silk Song for instance) and if you haven’t been sticking with consoles in particular over the last 10-15 years the back catalog of tentpole titles is actually pretty impressive. I’ve had many conversations with people in their 30s who have not touched video games since the 360/PS3 era. Gamepass, even if just for a few months, makes a ton of sense for them if they have the time. I say this as somebody who absolutely does not think people should be paying $30 for gamepass generally speaking and I think Microsoft/Xbox is incredibly weak right now. But there are certainly cases where it makes a ton of sense and Sony isn’t exactly offering a better alternative unless you want a Final Fantasy machine that’s library is dominated by PS3/PS4 remasters (which in many ways mimics the value prop of gamepass for those who have not been gaming for years).
    - squigz 1y ago
      I think it's still a good deal even for more casual gamers - I imagine it would feel worse to spend $80 on a game that you may put an hour or two into, if you ever launch it at all. I imagine most casual gamers will simply not buy many games; whereas on Game Pass you can browse, pick up a game (that would otherwise cost you an arm and a leg) for the few hours you've got for gaming. But like another commenter points out, if you're playing games like Silk Song or other similarly-priced games, it makes more sense to buy the game. But yeah, you're absolutely right: lots of flaws with it, and I expect it will just get worse, much like Netflix. Long live Steam, which I still use and love :)
  - blibble 1y ago
    > Game Pass has been, in my opinion, and those of almost every gamer I know, incredibly good value for the money. it's a subsidised introductory price to capture market share and kill off the competition with the hope of creating a monopoly ("predatory pricing")
    - stanac 1y ago
      Apparently it was profitable (not subsidized), not sure if true. https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/xbox-series-x/xbox-president-says-game-pass-is-profitable-and-good-for-creators-despite-alleged-division-over-the-subscription-model/ https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/xbox-series-x/xbox-pres...
      - blibble 1y ago
        depends entirely how you attribute the game revenue this price rise was driven by them fearing cannibalisation of game sale revenues for the imminent new call of duty release last year just on CoD they gave up $300 million (due to gamepass) https://archive.is/ic79u https://archive.is/ic79u
        ErneX 1y ago
        And over 82% of the copies sold were on PlayStation. Seems MS bet on GamePass + all the publishers acquisitions moving lots of units of Xbox hardware but that simply did not happen, so now they pivoted to be the biggest 3rd party publisher and are releasing everything on all the other consoles, even their own original Xbox Studios games like Forza, Flight Simulator, Gears of War, etc.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        I thought common wisdom was that console hardware was sold at low profit to generate software-based revenue? If that's true, then selling software at low profit to sell hardware at low profit to sell software at high profit seems convoluted.
      - 1y ago
  - chrisfosterelli 1y ago
    Agreed; it has been an incredible deal, especially with the redemption loopholes they originally left open. I think I got nearly three years for less than $150 originally. But it's pretty obvious now that they've been nearly giving it away so they can capture the market and then raise the price.
  - rapind 1y ago
    It's a good deal if you're really really using it, or I guess if you're a blizzard sub (not even sure if this is still a thing). If you're just playing Silk Song now and then, you can buy it for $20 from Steam. I get you don't fully own it with steam, but it a hell of a lot closer to owning it than having temporary access via GamePass. IMO the real issues for the more casual gamer (who is not a mobile gamer), is having either a decent console or cloud gaming. There's not a ton of options besides GEForce Now and XBox Cloud, and the Steam consoles are kinda crap and outdated at the moment. Also XBox cloud kinda sucks last I checked and had restrictions on multiplayer etc. If XBox cloud gets as good as nVidia's cloud AND you get GamePass library access AND you can use a pretty dumbed down / cheap console for cloud gaming... then this might be a win for at least a subset. I think this is where they are headed? Even with all that, it's hard to beat Steam + GEForce Now which is the direct competitor. I dream of a world where Windows is no longer the dominant OS for gaming.
    - SSLy 1y ago
      much to my disappointment, GamePass doesn't give a sub to World of Warcraft.
  - rs186 1y ago
    You happen to know many gamers who do spend a lot of time playing (different) games. But that's not necessarily the user base of Game Pass, especially when it was cheap. Many don't even play 1 new title per month.
- amatecha 1y ago
  Yeah, Valve understood MS' position/power a long time ago and worked to mitigate that risk. I remember them shopping around nearly 15 years ago to find a partner to help them work on Linux and improve Steam's abilities there, which resulted in SteamOS[0]. Indeed the plan worked, and now you can even buy a dedicated gaming console[1] that runs ~all the Windows games but completely without reliance on MS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Deck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Deck
  - sho_hn 1y ago
    Of course Newell literally was a Microsoft employee prior to founding Valve.
  - em-bee 1y ago
    the risk mitigation hasn't played out yet. if that's what it is. we need to wait until microsoft tries to squeeze Steam out of windows. we have yet to see whether it works to keep valve alive against microsoft. the attack hasn't happened yet. and judging by microsofts actions it looks like they are cancelling themselves. for now at least. the war is not over. of course as a linux user i am not complaining about linux support, but for now it still looks like valve supports linux from the goodness of their heart, and not as a way to make money. lets hope that this changes.
    - whatevaa 1y ago
      Not goodness, it's an insurance policy. It takes many years to achieve anything like this, so groundwork needs to be laid early.
      - em-bee 1y ago
        of course. my point is that we don't know if it will be enough. and i am not saying linux is a risky bet, because there are no safer bets to make. (other than gabe taking his earnings and keeping them for himself) if microsoft shuts out Steam, then valve will lose more than 90% of its current revenue. despite the insurance policy that just might kill the company outright. and, the more revenue valve gets from linux, the more of a threat it becomes to microsoft, which makes microsoft trying to shut out Steam even more likely. our only hope is that regulators prevent microsoft from even trying...
- bob1029 1y ago
  > he's funded a credible (almost) replacement for Windows Proton on Steam Deck is indistinguishable from Windows. I've loaded Win64 Unity builds on the machine to test and they run perfectly every time. I actually dont see the reason I would bother with a native Linux build at this point. The machine doesn't even get hot despite my fear that it would doing something like this. The only part of the SD experience that felt like "linux" was the OOBE wherein I had to arbitrarily restart the first time setup process 3-4 times before it finally worked. I am at a point where I almost prefer to game on the linux handheld over my windows desktop. It really is a superior package in many ways. Games like Elden Ring, Arkham Knight, Euro Truck Simulator 2, etc., are so much better to play on a machine like this. On keyboard+mouse I struggled to enjoy these titles. I realize I could always connect a controller to my PC, but it never felt right to me in that form factor. Playing ETS2 on the couch is a completely different dimension of relaxation. I'd never touch this game on my PC.
  - testdelacc1 1y ago
    > I actually dont see the reason I would bother with a native Linux build at this point. I would have agreed, having played the windows build Baldurs Gate III on the Deck. But a week ago the developer put out a native Deck build that outperforms the windows build, which is very helpful in the later parts of the game.
  - addaon 1y ago
    > Proton on Steam Deck is indistinguishable from Windows. Really? I haven’t used it, but I’ve mostly heard good things. It really has ads everywhere and needs regular reinstalls and malware scrubbing?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - estimator7292 1y ago
      You aren't funny or clever, just juvenile
- the_snooze 1y ago
  Steam is great, in no small part because Valve isn't beholden to quarterly earnings numbers. But I'm worried what will happen when Gabe Newell retires. Valve has been a pretty good (though at times imperfect) steward for PC gaming and it'll be sad if a change in leadership decides to extract value from 20+ years of goodwill.
  - protimewaster 1y ago
    I think the biggest problem with Steam is that when you buy a game on Steam, it's tied to your Steam account forever. In theory, Gabe could croak and they get bought by a VC firm that decides that a Steam account costs $45/month. At that point, you either give up all the games you purchased on Steam, or pay the $45/month. I don't know why anyone would prefer their games tied to a service in that way. Especially when we've seen other digital stores go belly up, resulting in inaccessible collections.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      Steam was the OG online store, it grandfathered itself in before a time people started to think that having their gaming library behind such a service might offer some downsides. Nowadays I mostly buy PC games on GoG for that reason, but I have plenty on Steam. I do worry about it a little.
      - protimewaster 1y ago
        One of the things that drives me a little crazy about Steam is that there was actually an earlier digital game store (run by Stardock IIRC) that made the launcher and other tie-ins optional. That one didn't take off, though. Steam required a tie-in to the launcher, and it took off. I would've much rather had the launcher and all that be optional, but I'm guessing that requiring Steam for games like Half-life 2 probably was the smarter move (from a profit perspective) than having it be optional, so that's the way the market went.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    Steam, and this concern, is an illustration of why we used to have rules that marketplaces need to be run by the government.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  I'm struggling to see why anyone would root for Steam. I've paid $10/month for a library of hundreds of games I can play on both PC and Xbox. We all knew that price was too good to be true but I've paid it happily for 5 years. We were waiting for the other shoe to drop and now it has. I've loaded up 2.5 years on my account at $20/month (the current retail price for Ultimate is $60 for 3-month cards.) I've played countless indie games that I never otherwise would have taken a chance on. Even if I only played day one AAA games, the same $70 would get me one game on Steam for 2.3 months of the entire Game Pass library at the $30 price point or 3.5 months at the still-available $20/month price point. The game can't be resold on either platform. Microsoft created a new business model that changed how I play games for the better. I can't see how the service isn't worth $30/month for 500+ games. (For a regular and not casual gamer.) This isn't shovelware like the Netflix library. There's a ton of high-quality games in there. And I don't see how their price increase, which was inevitable and the timing of which was hastened by tariffs, has anything but a specious like to the merger. Steam has done nothing but contrive a rent-seeker position for itself on an otherwise open platform. Maybe it's just because I'm old enough to remember a time when I could buy from the publisher without that middleman and click setup.exe for myself. And still retain the rights to resell and play offline without a middleman.
  - root_axis 1y ago
    GamePass is the worst thing to happen to gaming in the last two decades. It's an unsustainable race-to-the-bottom business model that devalues games and incentives shoveling out crap instead of producing quality titles. Worse yet, it conditions players to dismiss challenging, innovative, or unusual game mechanics due to the siren song of a functionally infinite catalog tempting them to just load up another title at the first sign of struggle.
    - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
      Wow, there's a lot to unpack here.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
    There was also a time where no videogames were available on pc because publishers didn't want to sell there anymore. I think proton is such a huge thing,given what's happening with all OSes, that Valve should be considered great. Also, we never had a portable pc gaming device ever,until now.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  And on the console world, Playstation exists, with plenty of exclusives. Also Nintendo exists. Sony and Nintendo are not exactly companies they can buy (would almost certainly trigger anti monopoly cases everywhere, even if they could pay God knows how much money for one of those). And honestly, this is great. I shudder to think of a world where fucking Microsoft has a dominant position on gaming.
derektank 1y ago
Doesn't Games Pass also include cloud gaming as a feature? I have to imagine the hardware and data center costs for hosting games have risen a lot since 2022 (in a way the operating costs for e.g. Netflix haven't).
- mijoharas 1y ago
  Why would you think that out of interest?
  - kirth_gersen 1y ago
    Possibly bc games are much more intensive in cpu, graphics cards and RAM usage in a way that streaming content isn't. And that usage is per user since you don't see the same video game frames as everyone else. By comparison, you don't need to compute every frame of a netflix series. It's static, you just serve it up.
    - jakebasile 1y ago
      Xbox streaming uses Xbox Series X hardware in server blades. That hardware hasn't changed since the XSX released.
      - chrisfosterelli 1y ago
        In fairness, they did just increase the price of all of their consoles due to tariff effects on hardware production. Same with playstation. It's pretty much the first generation in history consoles have gotten more expensive after release. I doubt this is driving the game pass price increase though.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        ErneX 1y ago
        They bet on GP and acquisitions would increase their hw units sold and it did not happen. They can't really afford to subsidize day and date games from all their studios at the previous price anymore. And this is why they are now also releasing the games on the other consoles too. They just became the biggest 3rd party publisher, Xbox is not the focus going forward imo.
s3r3nity 1y ago
“… FTC when it challenged Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a convoluted process that didn't formally end until May of 2025—almost two years after the deal closed.” This process needs to be faster for these types of challenges to be more successful - both in the market and in consumer opinion. Markets move too fast, and the answer can’t be “FTC needs more of my money to hire more people.”
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  > and the answer can’t be Why can’t it be that? I’m not familiar with the inner workings of the FTC, so this is a genuine question.
coffeebeqn 1y ago
Has anything objectively good happened to the consumers from consolidation in the gaming space, ever?
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
  Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, yeah. Even Godot benefits from consolidation, they rely on good APIs for middlewares that were made for Unity and Unreal. Some parts of Steam consolidation have been good. It forces kids to have stakes (their whole account) that they lose if they hack / cheat in multiplayer games. Objectively good. But having one store I don’t know: you pay both 30% and you are sourcing users for CSGO and DOTA2. Anyway I don’t really know what consolidation means to you.
  - AlexandrB 1y ago
    > Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, yeah. I don't know about that. Unreal 5 games seem to have some real issues with clarity, ghosting, and dithering. There's plenty of analysis on the subject[1], and I'm not sure whether it's Unreal 5 or DLSS/TAA more to blame but I'm already longing for the days of more engine variety. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4
    - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
      Isn't that an issue with the studio pushing for more detail than the hardware can put out? Surely you could turn off graphical features like TAA without replacing a million lines of engine code. Or you could run the same engine with a custom renderer
  - jakebasile 1y ago
    > Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, Strongly disagree here. It worked out well for the businesses that can standardize on these engines and not spend resources making custom bespoke engines for sure, but as a gamer I remember the days when each game or company had their own engine which brought their own feel to the game. They could specialize it for exactly the type of game they were making. In addition, Unreal Engine 5 in particular runs like absolute trash on many PCs (including my very high end machines). Its reliance on frame generation (fake frames) and super resolution (fake pixels) has predictably led to developers ignoring optimization even further - "just turn on DLSS 4x Frame Gen and DLSS Ultra Performance!" - see Randy Pitchford's recent rants on Twitter.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
Hmm, on the other hand, I could sit around and knowing nothing, predict “prices for legacy cultural products will rise, sometimes significantly” and I’d be right, no? I like Lina Khan but predicting layoffs and price raises doesn’t really have to do with competition in the gaming sector. In fact it is pretty much everyone’s opinion that there are way too many games and way too many developers. That she is talking about price hikes and layoffs because that’s what you need for anti trust actions according to the case law should tell you: the problem is the courts.
- Spivak 1y ago
  I feel like the fundamental disconnect between the goals of private enterprise and government in these matters is a never ending source of frustration. I don't know what that solution is but it feels like we have to do something to reward companies for doing "what we want" which is providing stable gainful employment for as many Americans as possible and providing goods to consumers at the lowest price possible. These have to be balanced but the point is that generating profit for shareholders isn't the north star for a successful company at the expense of everyone else. What is good for the FTC is typically opposed to what is good for profits and we get standoffs like this.
- rapind 1y ago
  > In fact it is pretty much everyone’s opinion that there are way too many games and way too many developers. What are you talking about? It's awesome having so many options, with so many great indy titles. One of the things that makes Steam so great in comparison to consoles. Who are these people asking for less choice?
yawnxyz 1y ago
it ironically also harms the Xbox division... it should never have been approved
benced 1y ago
Game pass was never viable at its original price: it was always going to increase in price, just like subscription services that didn’t has big acquisitions (Netflix) have. I don’t think this acquisition helped gamers, I think it just didn’t matter. Microsoft is welcome to waste their own money.
- ksynwa 1y ago
  Yeah I don't see what the acquisition has to do here. Both Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard were pretty predatory before the deal. I can't imagine what they would have done differently being separate from each other. The biggest "concern" I can remember of was Call of Duty coming to Game Pass or leaving PlayStation but I don't know what came off that. I am guessing it didn't come to pass seeing how the console department at Xbox has imploded.
- garbthetill 1y ago
  call me naive, but I thought game pass was going to be used as sort of a loss leader and gives them the avenue to build out other things like in the azure side of their business or cloud gaming etc
- vachina 1y ago
  I’m going to sell my series X. Thought of keeping it for the odd moment of family time to play Overcooked but at $30, might as well go for a buffet lunch.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    If you enjoy playing old retro games, I think Xbox can run Retroarch pretty well. I may buy a used one later on for that reason, specifically.
827a 1y ago
IMO: it's a complicated situation. Activision-Blizzard-King has been in a pretty icky spot for many years now, dating back further than just the MSFT acquisition. I'd put the probabilities at like 90%+ that we'd see headlines very similar or worse to these if MSFT had not been allowed to buy them; more micro-transactions, layoffs, flops, weird exclusivity deals, etc. We need to cool it with the revisionist history; ABK sucked before MSFT bought them, they'd suck whether or not MSFT bought them, and you'd have to go back to like 2011 before you'd find a version of that company that's generally positive vibes. The party that got screwed by that acquisition was, ironically, Microsoft. To be clear, this isn't a new discovery or idea; everyone was saying this during the acquisition, but Microsoft's corporate story is best summarized as "makes the worst possible decision at every turn yet still somehow does ok". If there's any reason the ABK acquisition should have been blocked, it might have been to protect Microsoft from itself, much akin to how parents have to keep babies from touching the stove. ABK is a sinking ship that MSFT paid luxury yacht prices for. ABK should be renamed "King & Call of Duty Inc", but they're saddled with dozens of other properties and business divisions, including all of Blizzard, that make zero or negative money. This tethers a sinking ship, ABK, to a second sinking ship, Xbox, which similar to ABK has been sinking since, like, 2015, and hopes that the two sinking ships together might float. There's a world where maybe Xbox leadership gets more involved, cuts fat, takes direct management of key laggard properties, maybe selling some off to focus up on what's driving revenue. But, again; Microsoft sucks. Their direct management buried Halo and Gears below the ground, from industry titans to totally irrelevant. The very real situation is that their leadership has totally lost confidence even in themselves, their failures are obvious and written across the sky, and that's led them to take a hands-off approach with ABK. But, again; ABK sucked. Eventually things get so bad that someone has to step in and make the really bad tactical decisions; raising prices and layoffs. By 2030, Xbox will stagger on as an umbrella brand for a few zombie game studios + "gaming services on Windows". But, the hardware will be dead, and we'll see them begin to offload laggard studios/IPs/brands, either selling them off to other companies or spinning them off into independent companies which Microsoft holds a minority stake in.
DwnVoteHoneyPot 1y ago
I think it's pretty easy to argue it would have been overreach by a regulatory body to block the deal. It's difficult to guess, with reasonable certainty, if the deal will kill all competition. Difficult given the competition that is out there on all fronts (Steam, Playstation, Nintendo, Epic). So if it's not totally clear the deal is bad, it's overreach to block it. Layoffs and increased pricing isn't indicative of monopoly power. Lina's mandate wasn't to prevent layoffs, it's anti-trust. It's also too early to conclude anything from the deal that was closed so recently.
honkostani 1y ago
Well, its the end-game - there will no be monopoly break-ups because the companies will be the government
PeterStuer 1y ago
Don't know about Activision or King, but Blizzard has been a dumpster fire that has not produced anything up to par for a decade. Microsoft was never the party that would clear out the muck from that stable.
glenstein 1y ago
As good a place as any to reflect on Andy Yen, CEO of Proton, who said [0] the new post-Lina Kahn DOJ and FTC would stand up "for the little guys", in one of the most bizarre comments from a tech CEO I can recall. People gave Brendan Eich grief for political stances as a tech CEO but, say what you will, I think his actions were never based on a catastrophic misdiagnosis of which parties stand for what. I think Yen was at least right that there were important anti-trust efforts that unfolded during Trump's first term, but they appeared to be politically selective, and at a completely different order of magnitude than what Kahn achieved afterward. Perhaps most head-spinning of all was when he claimed that none of his commentary was "intended to be political." 0. Screenshotted statement here: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/654f16fa-d3ca-4304-bb2a-41cc1c129eeb.png https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/654f16fa-d3ca-4304-bb2a-41c...
gnarlouse 1y ago
What games do activision-blizzard even make/sell these days? How are people not just steam-saling thru way through games anyway?
softwaredoug 1y ago
AAA games are just tired. Is anyone excited about what comes out of these companies? It just all feels like a shrinking, tired approach to making games. The corporate bloatware of games.
xnx 1y ago
I strongly believe that there is an important role for government actions in many areas (e.g. pollution), but I can't see any good reason for the government to intervene here. If it sucks for consumers, they'll do something else with their time and money. I'd much rather the government do more to bring competition to Internet service providers where the regulatory/infrastructure barriers are much higher.
thisisit 1y ago
The headline has the wrong name. It is Lina Khan.
- tomhow 1y ago
  Fixed now, thanks!
npteljes 1y ago
In case of any service, the user needs to be able to move on. To me, that is the ultimate antidote to most of the ails services afflict, like lock-in, altering the offer, raising the price above a reasonable limit, and so on. If the user cannot, or can hardly move on, the pain is big. If the user is willing to adapt, services are an actual good deal. They can be enjoyed while they last, and the world is full of other wonders ready to discover, when they fail.
pjjpo 1y ago
I think there's some causation vs correlation here - AFAIK Microsoft didn't lead the hike in game prices, it was probably Nintendo? Either way given the strong inflation it seems likely this would have happened acquisition or not. The layoffs seem more damning but we would need a crystal ball to know if Activision could have skipped them if independent, or bought by another company. Still it seems hardly clear cut and more story-crafting after the fact by a beurauceat rather than a proper analysis.
pogue 1y ago
MARRY ME LINA KHAN (I would have posted Lina Khan for president, but I recently learned she was born in the UK, so I'll take what I can get)

172 points by nabla9 1y ago

the game pass domination strategy was always going to fail in a world where Steam exists it must be very frustrating for Microsoft their usual tactic of buying out the competition isn't an option because Gabe Newell is already a billionare (and a gamer), who won't sell for any price and their backup strategy of tightening the screws of their competition on Windows can't work either, because he's funded a credible (almost) replacement for Windows so for once they have to compete on fair terms and when they do that: they lose

squigz 1y ago
This recent price increase notwithstanding, Game Pass has been, in my opinion, and those of almost every gamer I know, incredibly good value for the money. I suppose it's probably like Netflix at the beginning though, and we'll start seeing more things like this price hike and plan differentiation
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  If you’re in high school/college (hell your 20’s) and can game 10+ hours a week it was an unbelievable deal. Even $30 isn’t that crazy if you’re really using it. But a lot of people can’t get that kind of value out of it and it doesn’t help that Microsoft keeps cancelling every interesting game and/or lets their best studios languish.
  - lostmsu 1y ago
    $30 would be 6 AAA titles per year. There are barely that many descent games released in a decade.
    - addaon 1y ago
      > There are barely that many descent games released in a decade. There were three in the 90s that I know of. Have I missed some since?
      - NexRebular 1y ago
        At least the two Descent: FreeSpace titles...
      - lostmsu 1y ago
        Skyrim, GTA V, Minecraft
        croon 1y ago
        I think it was either a joke or a comment on the "descent" spelling of decent, referring to the Descent (sci-fi space sims) games.
        lostmsu 1y ago
        Shamed me there
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      Gamepass has a lot more than AAA’s (Silk Song for instance) and if you haven’t been sticking with consoles in particular over the last 10-15 years the back catalog of tentpole titles is actually pretty impressive. I’ve had many conversations with people in their 30s who have not touched video games since the 360/PS3 era. Gamepass, even if just for a few months, makes a ton of sense for them if they have the time. I say this as somebody who absolutely does not think people should be paying $30 for gamepass generally speaking and I think Microsoft/Xbox is incredibly weak right now. But there are certainly cases where it makes a ton of sense and Sony isn’t exactly offering a better alternative unless you want a Final Fantasy machine that’s library is dominated by PS3/PS4 remasters (which in many ways mimics the value prop of gamepass for those who have not been gaming for years).
  - squigz 1y ago
    I think it's still a good deal even for more casual gamers - I imagine it would feel worse to spend $80 on a game that you may put an hour or two into, if you ever launch it at all. I imagine most casual gamers will simply not buy many games; whereas on Game Pass you can browse, pick up a game (that would otherwise cost you an arm and a leg) for the few hours you've got for gaming. But like another commenter points out, if you're playing games like Silk Song or other similarly-priced games, it makes more sense to buy the game. But yeah, you're absolutely right: lots of flaws with it, and I expect it will just get worse, much like Netflix. Long live Steam, which I still use and love :)
- blibble 1y ago
  > Game Pass has been, in my opinion, and those of almost every gamer I know, incredibly good value for the money. it's a subsidised introductory price to capture market share and kill off the competition with the hope of creating a monopoly ("predatory pricing")
  - stanac 1y ago
    Apparently it was profitable (not subsidized), not sure if true. https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/xbox-series-x/xbox-president-says-game-pass-is-profitable-and-good-for-creators-despite-alleged-division-over-the-subscription-model/ https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/xbox-series-x/xbox-pres...
    - blibble 1y ago
      depends entirely how you attribute the game revenue this price rise was driven by them fearing cannibalisation of game sale revenues for the imminent new call of duty release last year just on CoD they gave up $300 million (due to gamepass) https://archive.is/ic79u https://archive.is/ic79u
      - ErneX 1y ago
        And over 82% of the copies sold were on PlayStation. Seems MS bet on GamePass + all the publishers acquisitions moving lots of units of Xbox hardware but that simply did not happen, so now they pivoted to be the biggest 3rd party publisher and are releasing everything on all the other consoles, even their own original Xbox Studios games like Forza, Flight Simulator, Gears of War, etc.
        rkomorn 1y ago
        I thought common wisdom was that console hardware was sold at low profit to generate software-based revenue? If that's true, then selling software at low profit to sell hardware at low profit to sell software at high profit seems convoluted.
    - 1y ago
- chrisfosterelli 1y ago
  Agreed; it has been an incredible deal, especially with the redemption loopholes they originally left open. I think I got nearly three years for less than $150 originally. But it's pretty obvious now that they've been nearly giving it away so they can capture the market and then raise the price.
- rapind 1y ago
  It's a good deal if you're really really using it, or I guess if you're a blizzard sub (not even sure if this is still a thing). If you're just playing Silk Song now and then, you can buy it for $20 from Steam. I get you don't fully own it with steam, but it a hell of a lot closer to owning it than having temporary access via GamePass. IMO the real issues for the more casual gamer (who is not a mobile gamer), is having either a decent console or cloud gaming. There's not a ton of options besides GEForce Now and XBox Cloud, and the Steam consoles are kinda crap and outdated at the moment. Also XBox cloud kinda sucks last I checked and had restrictions on multiplayer etc. If XBox cloud gets as good as nVidia's cloud AND you get GamePass library access AND you can use a pretty dumbed down / cheap console for cloud gaming... then this might be a win for at least a subset. I think this is where they are headed? Even with all that, it's hard to beat Steam + GEForce Now which is the direct competitor. I dream of a world where Windows is no longer the dominant OS for gaming.
  - SSLy 1y ago
    much to my disappointment, GamePass doesn't give a sub to World of Warcraft.
- rs186 1y ago
  You happen to know many gamers who do spend a lot of time playing (different) games. But that's not necessarily the user base of Game Pass, especially when it was cheap. Many don't even play 1 new title per month.
amatecha 1y ago
Yeah, Valve understood MS' position/power a long time ago and worked to mitigate that risk. I remember them shopping around nearly 15 years ago to find a partner to help them work on Linux and improve Steam's abilities there, which resulted in SteamOS[0]. Indeed the plan worked, and now you can even buy a dedicated gaming console[1] that runs ~all the Windows games but completely without reliance on MS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Deck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Deck
- sho_hn 1y ago
  Of course Newell literally was a Microsoft employee prior to founding Valve.
- em-bee 1y ago
  the risk mitigation hasn't played out yet. if that's what it is. we need to wait until microsoft tries to squeeze Steam out of windows. we have yet to see whether it works to keep valve alive against microsoft. the attack hasn't happened yet. and judging by microsofts actions it looks like they are cancelling themselves. for now at least. the war is not over. of course as a linux user i am not complaining about linux support, but for now it still looks like valve supports linux from the goodness of their heart, and not as a way to make money. lets hope that this changes.
  - whatevaa 1y ago
    Not goodness, it's an insurance policy. It takes many years to achieve anything like this, so groundwork needs to be laid early.
    - em-bee 1y ago
      of course. my point is that we don't know if it will be enough. and i am not saying linux is a risky bet, because there are no safer bets to make. (other than gabe taking his earnings and keeping them for himself) if microsoft shuts out Steam, then valve will lose more than 90% of its current revenue. despite the insurance policy that just might kill the company outright. and, the more revenue valve gets from linux, the more of a threat it becomes to microsoft, which makes microsoft trying to shut out Steam even more likely. our only hope is that regulators prevent microsoft from even trying...
bob1029 1y ago
> he's funded a credible (almost) replacement for Windows Proton on Steam Deck is indistinguishable from Windows. I've loaded Win64 Unity builds on the machine to test and they run perfectly every time. I actually dont see the reason I would bother with a native Linux build at this point. The machine doesn't even get hot despite my fear that it would doing something like this. The only part of the SD experience that felt like "linux" was the OOBE wherein I had to arbitrarily restart the first time setup process 3-4 times before it finally worked. I am at a point where I almost prefer to game on the linux handheld over my windows desktop. It really is a superior package in many ways. Games like Elden Ring, Arkham Knight, Euro Truck Simulator 2, etc., are so much better to play on a machine like this. On keyboard+mouse I struggled to enjoy these titles. I realize I could always connect a controller to my PC, but it never felt right to me in that form factor. Playing ETS2 on the couch is a completely different dimension of relaxation. I'd never touch this game on my PC.
- testdelacc1 1y ago
  > I actually dont see the reason I would bother with a native Linux build at this point. I would have agreed, having played the windows build Baldurs Gate III on the Deck. But a week ago the developer put out a native Deck build that outperforms the windows build, which is very helpful in the later parts of the game.
- addaon 1y ago
  > Proton on Steam Deck is indistinguishable from Windows. Really? I haven’t used it, but I’ve mostly heard good things. It really has ads everywhere and needs regular reinstalls and malware scrubbing?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - estimator7292 1y ago
    You aren't funny or clever, just juvenile
the_snooze 1y ago
Steam is great, in no small part because Valve isn't beholden to quarterly earnings numbers. But I'm worried what will happen when Gabe Newell retires. Valve has been a pretty good (though at times imperfect) steward for PC gaming and it'll be sad if a change in leadership decides to extract value from 20+ years of goodwill.
- protimewaster 1y ago
  I think the biggest problem with Steam is that when you buy a game on Steam, it's tied to your Steam account forever. In theory, Gabe could croak and they get bought by a VC firm that decides that a Steam account costs $45/month. At that point, you either give up all the games you purchased on Steam, or pay the $45/month. I don't know why anyone would prefer their games tied to a service in that way. Especially when we've seen other digital stores go belly up, resulting in inaccessible collections.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    Steam was the OG online store, it grandfathered itself in before a time people started to think that having their gaming library behind such a service might offer some downsides. Nowadays I mostly buy PC games on GoG for that reason, but I have plenty on Steam. I do worry about it a little.
    - protimewaster 1y ago
      One of the things that drives me a little crazy about Steam is that there was actually an earlier digital game store (run by Stardock IIRC) that made the launcher and other tie-ins optional. That one didn't take off, though. Steam required a tie-in to the launcher, and it took off. I would've much rather had the launcher and all that be optional, but I'm guessing that requiring Steam for games like Half-life 2 probably was the smarter move (from a profit perspective) than having it be optional, so that's the way the market went.
- spwa4 1y ago
  Steam, and this concern, is an illustration of why we used to have rules that marketplaces need to be run by the government.
add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
I'm struggling to see why anyone would root for Steam. I've paid $10/month for a library of hundreds of games I can play on both PC and Xbox. We all knew that price was too good to be true but I've paid it happily for 5 years. We were waiting for the other shoe to drop and now it has. I've loaded up 2.5 years on my account at $20/month (the current retail price for Ultimate is $60 for 3-month cards.) I've played countless indie games that I never otherwise would have taken a chance on. Even if I only played day one AAA games, the same $70 would get me one game on Steam for 2.3 months of the entire Game Pass library at the $30 price point or 3.5 months at the still-available $20/month price point. The game can't be resold on either platform. Microsoft created a new business model that changed how I play games for the better. I can't see how the service isn't worth $30/month for 500+ games. (For a regular and not casual gamer.) This isn't shovelware like the Netflix library. There's a ton of high-quality games in there. And I don't see how their price increase, which was inevitable and the timing of which was hastened by tariffs, has anything but a specious like to the merger. Steam has done nothing but contrive a rent-seeker position for itself on an otherwise open platform. Maybe it's just because I'm old enough to remember a time when I could buy from the publisher without that middleman and click setup.exe for myself. And still retain the rights to resell and play offline without a middleman.
- root_axis 1y ago
  GamePass is the worst thing to happen to gaming in the last two decades. It's an unsustainable race-to-the-bottom business model that devalues games and incentives shoveling out crap instead of producing quality titles. Worse yet, it conditions players to dismiss challenging, innovative, or unusual game mechanics due to the siren song of a functionally infinite catalog tempting them to just load up another title at the first sign of struggle.
  - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
    Wow, there's a lot to unpack here.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 1y ago
  There was also a time where no videogames were available on pc because publishers didn't want to sell there anymore. I think proton is such a huge thing,given what's happening with all OSes, that Valve should be considered great. Also, we never had a portable pc gaming device ever,until now.
surgical_fire 1y ago
And on the console world, Playstation exists, with plenty of exclusives. Also Nintendo exists. Sony and Nintendo are not exactly companies they can buy (would almost certainly trigger anti monopoly cases everywhere, even if they could pay God knows how much money for one of those). And honestly, this is great. I shudder to think of a world where fucking Microsoft has a dominant position on gaming.

derektank 1y ago

Doesn't Games Pass also include cloud gaming as a feature? I have to imagine the hardware and data center costs for hosting games have risen a lot since 2022 (in a way the operating costs for e.g. Netflix haven't).

mijoharas 1y ago
Why would you think that out of interest?
- kirth_gersen 1y ago
  Possibly bc games are much more intensive in cpu, graphics cards and RAM usage in a way that streaming content isn't. And that usage is per user since you don't see the same video game frames as everyone else. By comparison, you don't need to compute every frame of a netflix series. It's static, you just serve it up.
  - jakebasile 1y ago
    Xbox streaming uses Xbox Series X hardware in server blades. That hardware hasn't changed since the XSX released.
    - chrisfosterelli 1y ago
      In fairness, they did just increase the price of all of their consoles due to tariff effects on hardware production. Same with playstation. It's pretty much the first generation in history consoles have gotten more expensive after release. I doubt this is driving the game pass price increase though.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - ErneX 1y ago
        They bet on GP and acquisitions would increase their hw units sold and it did not happen. They can't really afford to subsidize day and date games from all their studios at the previous price anymore. And this is why they are now also releasing the games on the other consoles too. They just became the biggest 3rd party publisher, Xbox is not the focus going forward imo.

s3r3nity 1y ago

“… FTC when it challenged Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a convoluted process that didn't formally end until May of 2025—almost two years after the deal closed.” This process needs to be faster for these types of challenges to be more successful - both in the market and in consumer opinion. Markets move too fast, and the answer can’t be “FTC needs more of my money to hire more people.”

hnlmorg 1y ago
> and the answer can’t be Why can’t it be that? I’m not familiar with the inner workings of the FTC, so this is a genuine question.

coffeebeqn 1y ago

Has anything objectively good happened to the consumers from consolidation in the gaming space, ever?

doctorpangloss 1y ago
Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, yeah. Even Godot benefits from consolidation, they rely on good APIs for middlewares that were made for Unity and Unreal. Some parts of Steam consolidation have been good. It forces kids to have stakes (their whole account) that they lose if they hack / cheat in multiplayer games. Objectively good. But having one store I don’t know: you pay both 30% and you are sourcing users for CSGO and DOTA2. Anyway I don’t really know what consolidation means to you.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  > Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, yeah. I don't know about that. Unreal 5 games seem to have some real issues with clarity, ghosting, and dithering. There's plenty of analysis on the subject[1], and I'm not sure whether it's Unreal 5 or DLSS/TAA more to blame but I'm already longing for the days of more engine variety. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    Isn't that an issue with the studio pushing for more detail than the hardware can put out? Surely you could turn off graphical features like TAA without replacing a million lines of engine code. Or you could run the same engine with a custom renderer
- jakebasile 1y ago
  > Consolidation around Unity and Unreal has probably been good for everyone, Strongly disagree here. It worked out well for the businesses that can standardize on these engines and not spend resources making custom bespoke engines for sure, but as a gamer I remember the days when each game or company had their own engine which brought their own feel to the game. They could specialize it for exactly the type of game they were making. In addition, Unreal Engine 5 in particular runs like absolute trash on many PCs (including my very high end machines). Its reliance on frame generation (fake frames) and super resolution (fake pixels) has predictably led to developers ignoring optimization even further - "just turn on DLSS 4x Frame Gen and DLSS Ultra Performance!" - see Randy Pitchford's recent rants on Twitter.

doctorpangloss 1y ago

Hmm, on the other hand, I could sit around and knowing nothing, predict “prices for legacy cultural products will rise, sometimes significantly” and I’d be right, no? I like Lina Khan but predicting layoffs and price raises doesn’t really have to do with competition in the gaming sector. In fact it is pretty much everyone’s opinion that there are way too many games and way too many developers. That she is talking about price hikes and layoffs because that’s what you need for anti trust actions according to the case law should tell you: the problem is the courts.

Spivak 1y ago
I feel like the fundamental disconnect between the goals of private enterprise and government in these matters is a never ending source of frustration. I don't know what that solution is but it feels like we have to do something to reward companies for doing "what we want" which is providing stable gainful employment for as many Americans as possible and providing goods to consumers at the lowest price possible. These have to be balanced but the point is that generating profit for shareholders isn't the north star for a successful company at the expense of everyone else. What is good for the FTC is typically opposed to what is good for profits and we get standoffs like this.
rapind 1y ago
> In fact it is pretty much everyone’s opinion that there are way too many games and way too many developers. What are you talking about? It's awesome having so many options, with so many great indy titles. One of the things that makes Steam so great in comparison to consoles. Who are these people asking for less choice?

yawnxyz 1y ago

it ironically also harms the Xbox division... it should never have been approved

benced 1y ago

Game pass was never viable at its original price: it was always going to increase in price, just like subscription services that didn’t has big acquisitions (Netflix) have. I don’t think this acquisition helped gamers, I think it just didn’t matter. Microsoft is welcome to waste their own money.

ksynwa 1y ago
Yeah I don't see what the acquisition has to do here. Both Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard were pretty predatory before the deal. I can't imagine what they would have done differently being separate from each other. The biggest "concern" I can remember of was Call of Duty coming to Game Pass or leaving PlayStation but I don't know what came off that. I am guessing it didn't come to pass seeing how the console department at Xbox has imploded.
garbthetill 1y ago
call me naive, but I thought game pass was going to be used as sort of a loss leader and gives them the avenue to build out other things like in the azure side of their business or cloud gaming etc
vachina 1y ago
I’m going to sell my series X. Thought of keeping it for the odd moment of family time to play Overcooked but at $30, might as well go for a buffet lunch.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  If you enjoy playing old retro games, I think Xbox can run Retroarch pretty well. I may buy a used one later on for that reason, specifically.

827a 1y ago

IMO: it's a complicated situation. Activision-Blizzard-King has been in a pretty icky spot for many years now, dating back further than just the MSFT acquisition. I'd put the probabilities at like 90%+ that we'd see headlines very similar or worse to these if MSFT had not been allowed to buy them; more micro-transactions, layoffs, flops, weird exclusivity deals, etc. We need to cool it with the revisionist history; ABK sucked before MSFT bought them, they'd suck whether or not MSFT bought them, and you'd have to go back to like 2011 before you'd find a version of that company that's generally positive vibes. The party that got screwed by that acquisition was, ironically, Microsoft. To be clear, this isn't a new discovery or idea; everyone was saying this during the acquisition, but Microsoft's corporate story is best summarized as "makes the worst possible decision at every turn yet still somehow does ok". If there's any reason the ABK acquisition should have been blocked, it might have been to protect Microsoft from itself, much akin to how parents have to keep babies from touching the stove. ABK is a sinking ship that MSFT paid luxury yacht prices for. ABK should be renamed "King & Call of Duty Inc", but they're saddled with dozens of other properties and business divisions, including all of Blizzard, that make zero or negative money. This tethers a sinking ship, ABK, to a second sinking ship, Xbox, which similar to ABK has been sinking since, like, 2015, and hopes that the two sinking ships together might float. There's a world where maybe Xbox leadership gets more involved, cuts fat, takes direct management of key laggard properties, maybe selling some off to focus up on what's driving revenue. But, again; Microsoft sucks. Their direct management buried Halo and Gears below the ground, from industry titans to totally irrelevant. The very real situation is that their leadership has totally lost confidence even in themselves, their failures are obvious and written across the sky, and that's led them to take a hands-off approach with ABK. But, again; ABK sucked. Eventually things get so bad that someone has to step in and make the really bad tactical decisions; raising prices and layoffs. By 2030, Xbox will stagger on as an umbrella brand for a few zombie game studios + "gaming services on Windows". But, the hardware will be dead, and we'll see them begin to offload laggard studios/IPs/brands, either selling them off to other companies or spinning them off into independent companies which Microsoft holds a minority stake in.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 1y ago

I think it's pretty easy to argue it would have been overreach by a regulatory body to block the deal. It's difficult to guess, with reasonable certainty, if the deal will kill all competition. Difficult given the competition that is out there on all fronts (Steam, Playstation, Nintendo, Epic). So if it's not totally clear the deal is bad, it's overreach to block it. Layoffs and increased pricing isn't indicative of monopoly power. Lina's mandate wasn't to prevent layoffs, it's anti-trust. It's also too early to conclude anything from the deal that was closed so recently.

honkostani 1y ago

Well, its the end-game - there will no be monopoly break-ups because the companies will be the government

PeterStuer 1y ago

Don't know about Activision or King, but Blizzard has been a dumpster fire that has not produced anything up to par for a decade. Microsoft was never the party that would clear out the muck from that stable.

glenstein 1y ago

As good a place as any to reflect on Andy Yen, CEO of Proton, who said [0] the new post-Lina Kahn DOJ and FTC would stand up "for the little guys", in one of the most bizarre comments from a tech CEO I can recall. People gave Brendan Eich grief for political stances as a tech CEO but, say what you will, I think his actions were never based on a catastrophic misdiagnosis of which parties stand for what. I think Yen was at least right that there were important anti-trust efforts that unfolded during Trump's first term, but they appeared to be politically selective, and at a completely different order of magnitude than what Kahn achieved afterward. Perhaps most head-spinning of all was when he claimed that none of his commentary was "intended to be political." 0. Screenshotted statement here: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/654f16fa-d3ca-4304-bb2a-41cc1c129eeb.png https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/654f16fa-d3ca-4304-bb2a-41c...

gnarlouse 1y ago

What games do activision-blizzard even make/sell these days? How are people not just steam-saling thru way through games anyway?

softwaredoug 1y ago

AAA games are just tired. Is anyone excited about what comes out of these companies? It just all feels like a shrinking, tired approach to making games. The corporate bloatware of games.

xnx 1y ago

I strongly believe that there is an important role for government actions in many areas (e.g. pollution), but I can't see any good reason for the government to intervene here. If it sucks for consumers, they'll do something else with their time and money. I'd much rather the government do more to bring competition to Internet service providers where the regulatory/infrastructure barriers are much higher.

thisisit 1y ago

The headline has the wrong name. It is Lina Khan.

tomhow 1y ago
Fixed now, thanks!

npteljes 1y ago

In case of any service, the user needs to be able to move on. To me, that is the ultimate antidote to most of the ails services afflict, like lock-in, altering the offer, raising the price above a reasonable limit, and so on. If the user cannot, or can hardly move on, the pain is big. If the user is willing to adapt, services are an actual good deal. They can be enjoyed while they last, and the world is full of other wonders ready to discover, when they fail.

pjjpo 1y ago

I think there's some causation vs correlation here - AFAIK Microsoft didn't lead the hike in game prices, it was probably Nintendo? Either way given the strong inflation it seems likely this would have happened acquisition or not. The layoffs seem more damning but we would need a crystal ball to know if Activision could have skipped them if independent, or bought by another company. Still it seems hardly clear cut and more story-crafting after the fact by a beurauceat rather than a proper analysis.

pogue 1y ago

MARRY ME LINA KHAN (I would have posted Lina Khan for president, but I recently learned she was born in the UK, so I'll take what I can get)