Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard for $70bn

Microsoft has done this since Xbox was a thing if not before. They have little talent at making their own games so they buy those that can. I don't really buy Activision or Blizzard games but this is the second massive buy from them. They're obviously doing what they can to start being the Disney of videogames and I can see antitrust lawsuits coming in short order.
 
On the face of it the deal is huge for Microsoft. They will take control of a lot of that continuous engagement they crave when using GamerPass.

Also the subs they will get from COD alone is crazy, let alone the $$$$ from Candy Crush.

I do ask where this sits in competition laws but I've zero idea about that.

What we're seeing is gaming being split into 2 (Broad for these purposes) areas.

Subscription model, repeat engagement, casual gaming. Microsoft.

1st party, single player IP based on high game quality and delivery. Nintendo and Sony.

We know neither Sony or Nintendo can compete on a financial level with Microsoft so this seems the best way to go for them. They have some incredible games between them and will hold their target markets because of that. The issue will be how hard these 3rd party games, especially COD with Sony having exclusive content, impacts them going forwards.

It's also sad that we see yet another company bought and diverse gaming becoming less, certainly on the face of it.

But from a business POV insane deal for MS.
 
lol innit. So crazy to me to be honest.

I'm a huge blizzard fan going back ~16 years and believe that they have made some of the best games of all time. Much like Shenmue, I've met a lot of great people through their games which I, after 10 years, still speak to every day. If you saw the Blizzard Logo on a box, you knew that you were going to get a great game, and a great experience but now sadly, it's almost the opposite.

I spent 10+ good years playing WoW, still play a few Starcraft 2 games a day, religiously follow the competitive scene and watch Korean Pros pretty much 24/7.
It's been a very sad few years since the Activision merger as it's just too clear that they don't care about their games, their player base, or even their workers... they just care about their margins.
Since Mike Morhaime, Chris Metzen etc left, everything just started to crumble, but really they left because they could see what was happening internally to the company.

I feel like the final straw, in terms of game development (worker issues aside), was the Warcraft 3 Remaster/remake/failure.
"It's ready when it's ready" used to be their slogan, but now, they couldn't even be further from that if they tried, hell, the game wasn't even playable, and removed features that the old game had...

I was dreading the day that they would, like Heroes of the Storm, announce that they were pulling support of Starcraft 2, but honestly it's now in better hands with ESL running the competitive scene, as they actually care about the game and the players.

Activision not only cancelled Starcraft Ghosts (an FPS game in the SC universe) but they then rejected any further RTS games as they don't make enough money in comparison to your Call of Duty 1 a year instalments (fuck those games). Due to this, all the RTS developers (and a lot of the other Devs who are not happy with Blizzard/WoW's direct) left the company to create their own studios (Frost Giant Games, Dreamhaven, Notorious Studios, Uncapped Games Studios). All these teams are looking to basically recreate the magic from the original Blizzard titles that they worked on which brings a lot of hope to those who like their older games.

With everything going on over the last few years in regards to their internal issues (sexual harassment, suicide, low pay, firing whole QA teams, being literally investigated & sued by the State of California... the list goes on), I'm surprised to see that Microsoft has chosen to acquire them, or anyone in that matter. Nintendo, Sony, Lego & Microsoft themselves already distanced themselves from them in public statements and Lego have even put their Overwatch 2 sets on hold (not that that means much as the game isn't even out yet lol).
When the news first broke, I assumed that they got it for a steal which the company was burning to the ground, but the reports say that it's for $70 Billion lol. I mean, from Microsoft's perspective, they have just grabbed an insane amount of extremely high-profile IPs, and can now do what they want with them (I love how Blizzard basically disowned Starcraft 2, and hasn't talked about it for years, and then Microsoft put it in the acquisition image <3).

Honestly, I've pretty much lost hope in Blizzard, the people who made it great have left to do their own things (which I'm very much looking forward too) and the money hungry run the company now, but if someone going to sort out the mess that remains, I have high hopes for Phil Spencer and Microsoft. Give me a Starcraft 3 and I'll be happy, also fire that shitbag of a CEO Bobby Kotick once everything is finalised :p
 
That is an obscene amount of money and rather tone deaf considering the crap that's going on at the company. I felt dirty spending £20 for the Crash/Spyro trilogy. I loved my Xbox and Xbox 360, but when they moved away from Japanese games, I had no interest anymore. I also find Game Pass not for me as I like to own the games I play.

To be honest, this doesn't affect me much as almost all the games I play are Japanese based, but I can't help but feel that the way the wind is blowing is not a good one. The hobby i've loved for almost 3 decades feels almost unrecognisable now.

NFT's, loot boxes, predatory practices, entitled gamers...and Bobby Kotick will no doubt get a ginormous payout through it all. it's a bit of a sad day really.
 
Sony will be bought by one of the Big Four (gafa), that's probably the next step. And in future the Big five (gafam) will run the video games industry.
 
Entering the dark ages of gaming. I'm hoping Microsoft, like they do many of things, completely mess this up and we return to a situation where console developers have a handful of first party studios and the rest are independent developers supporting multiple consoles.

With that money, Microsoft could have built a couple hundred studios from the ground up.
 
It's also just wild to me that Crash Bandicoot and Spyro (two IPs that pretty much defined the original Playstation) are now Microsoft/Xbox properties.
 
I don't like the idea of a monopoly in anywhere much less in gamming.
Even tho I don't like Microsoft much as a company, xbox in particular seems to want to provide good services and experiences to gamers, so i don't know. Sony also buys tons of studios!
Exclusives will be a no brainer even if they deny it now. Trust me.
 
all-activison-microsoft-companies-1024x576.jpg

Saw this listing for all the companies Microsoft have purchased recently - While I don't care for most of them the idea of future Crash & Spyro games not being on Playstation feels wrong... But then over since the PS3 generation as a PlayStation fan I feel the games which defined the PS1/PS2 era have all goen multiplatform - Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Crash Spyro, Tomb Raider, Tekken etc. I could deal with that as long as the games were still being built to a high standard on both systems but for games to jump ships like this does rub me the wrong way.

Also still a little sore about Bethesda/Arkane, hoping we still get Wolfenstein III on PS5.
 
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In general i'm really not a big fan of these ... i dont know ... company battles.
Microsoft vs Sony vs Nintendo and who has the biggest numbers and biggest exclusives and the best hardware
and this and that ... the gaming market as a whole is so big and mainstream now, that i sometimes feel like
all of these gaming events, news and announcements arent actually about games or for gamers
and not made by gamers. Because the market is so big, i feel like the business behind it
has actually overtaken the experimental, adventurous, surprising part of gaming.

Like 90% of todays big new releases feel like completely calculated games based on the success of something else,
not projects where people actually had an idea to make exactly this game.
Gaming has become a really shallow thing where everything is only about having the biggest IP,
the most players, the biggest open world ever, the longest campaign ever, ...
everything has to be at the absolute maximum otherwise theres no hype.
Oh no this game only sold two million copies, oh what a fail.
Pretty much the same thing that happened to blockbuster summer cinema.

If you want to release a new game you have to give it to sponsored streamers
who then stream it to hundred of thousands of people. People that are completely oversaturated by all this content,
watching this stuff like any other random video content with no value.

Companies buying other companies like its nothing for billions of dollars.
I mean if your own catalog doesnt have anything, just buy a whole publisher that already
comes with ten popular IPs and then tell everyone that its awesome and great to support these studios ...
Its so cool that you wont be able to buy the next Elder Scrolls or COD on Playstation anymore
even tho they were always multiplat before. But clearly that has nothing to do with baiting people.
Oh this publisher lost its value because of their leadership, great time to make them an offer.
I mean, its a free market, just have as much money as we do, wheres the problem? Dont you have 100 billion dollars?
And all of this is for us - the gamers. Yeah. Sure.

And then we gamers can battle each other in the name of multi billion
dollar companies that dont even know who we are.
Also everyone is a gamer now ... lets give away free games on every platform and every launcher.
Lets make a lot of games subscription services so that you can play thousands of games for 5/10/15 USD a month.
Eating up games like cheap popcorn in a bucket. All of this big modern entertainment stuff
has completely lost its value. Its a market for the bored masses.

I dont know, i'm just really tired of this whole modern hype gaming entertainment business in general.
Every event each year just gets more boring because everything is so calculated.
Sorry for the random text.
 
I knew it! I knew this would happen.

I love the idea of having all their games in gamepass.

Would WoW change their business model and would be free in gamepass only with paid expansions and skins? That'd be nasty (in the good sense).
 
After thinking about it more, if this continues and Microsoft just continues buying everything, I'll become a PC gamer and just use the PS5's controller with it.
 
Sony also buys tons of studios!
I was literally just gonna post this. I get that this and the Bethesda buyouts are different, but in a way, it's better. Unless you have a PlayStation maybe, but I haven't got to play the Uncharted games or Shenmue III yet, so idc.
 
It's also just wild to me that Crash Bandicoot and Spyro (two IPs that pretty much defined the original Playstation) are now Microsoft/Xbox properties.
Wait, are those Activision's brands? Last time I touched those two IPs was in the 90s, so I don't know.

But 70 billion $ just like that? Insane stuff right there, and Sony does not even play in the same league money-wise. And Nintendo even less. M$ really mean business. I mean, they could just buy up Sony next, hahahaha.
 
I knew it! I knew this would happen.

I love the idea of having all their games in gamepass.

Would WoW change their business model and would be free in gamepass only with paid expansions and skins? That'd be nasty (in the good sense).
Damn dude, i didn't even remember about WoW.
Activision really has a freaking ton of IP's in their catalogue, mainly because they also used to buy game studios and shred them to pieces. (I still havent forgot about Bizzare Creations who made the lovely Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast,(wich I love so dearly), as well as Project Gotham series for Xbox.)
So it's kind of a big irony, they used to be the big bully, now they got owned themselves hahaha

I was literally just gonna post this. I get that this and the Bethesda buyouts are different, but in a way, it's better. Unless you have a PlayStation maybe, but I haven't got to play the Uncharted games or Shenmue III yet, so idc.
yeah, it's absolutely true man, I'm a playstation user but i'm not a fanboy.
It is what it is, fanboys gonna cry. First the big bethesda, then activision... Fanboys are really sad.
Just imagine, the next doom, the next (hopefully good) Fallout, the next COD all xbox exclusive and possibly free on gamepass.
hahaha some dudes are melting on twitter and i understand why.
 
It's alright Xbox buying up all these companies, but we now need to see the results. Their first party output has been pretty appalling the last few years, save a handful of games.
 
I do not care about Micrsoft or Activision both brands do not click with me and I could live with if these games are not available on playstation I would not buy them anyway but it is sad how lazy Sony acts now. Sony says nothing and Microsoft buys and buys. Of course these purchases have not shown any worthwile results yet but Sony seems to work very hard on killing the consumer trust. If the consumer trust is over Sony is becoming the new Sega. No matter what good things they do in the future they will still suck in the eyes of masses. I am not sure if we have reached the point of no return yet but we are close.

Sony has no marketing that makes sense. They make the same games over and over again. We do not know if thtey are working on new genres that are not a open world story driven game and so forth. I am a die hard playstation fan and always will be. MS and Nintendo does not click with me. I am gonna buy Playstation products as long as they exist but still I have say Sony keeps failing and failing.

The die hard fanboys will soon change sides if they keep doing the stuff they are doing with is nothing.
 
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