Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard to Bring the Joy and Community of Gaming to Everyone, Across Every Device

[Space Lynx]

I have no doubt it can survive, that's the problem. If it would simply die it could be broken up and the IP spread around to a couple of competitors, but they have a lot of money in the form of recurring revenue that will allow them to rot away very slowly into nothing which to me seems like a waste.

source: reddit

This graph is just brands, not revenue or other meaningful metric of size, but it still shows how consolidated the industry already is. I don't see Microsoft buying Activision as positive, but I can't see it as a complete negative either.

interesting pie chart... never heard of embracer group or anything in embracer group though... I am guessing that is a diff region of the world?

 

[trsttte]

interesting pie chart... never heard of embracer group or anything in embracer group though... I am guessing that is a diff region of the world?

Nordic games + THQ later on also bought Koch Media (Deep Silver) and eventually rebranded the hole thing under the umbrella Embracer Group

 

[windwhirl]

interesting pie chart... never heard of embracer group or anything in embracer group though... I am guessing that is a diff region of the world?

Embracer Group owns 4A Games, THQ Nordiq, Deep Silver, and Saber Interactive, among all those others.

 

[Space Lynx]

This knowledge is all the more reason I think Sony made a mistake buying Bungie, Sony could have acquired so many creative Indie devs and gave them the resources they needed to truly flourish and create lasting epic single player games, etc. Sony feels like it needs to be a part of the cool kids group, and tactics wise, I think that is a mistake. Sony has never followed anyone else in this industry, always been unique and creative... really a shame to see them buy Bungie out of fear, fear ruins everyone, hopefully I am wrong and Sony will continue to impress in the coming years.

 

[trsttte]

This knowledge is all the more reason I think Sony made a mistake buying Bungie, Sony could have acquired so many creative Indie devs and gave them the resources they needed to truly flourish and create lasting epic single player games, etc. Sony feels like it needs to be a part of the cool kids group, and tactics wise, I think that is a mistake. Sony has never followed anyone else in this industry, always been unique and creative... really a shame to see them buy Bungie out of fear, fear ruins everyone, hopefully I am wrong and Sony will continue to impress in the coming years.

The Bungie acquision seems like a fuck you to Microsoft since they were the original creators of Halo and were even bought and part of microsoft for a while during that time.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I have no doubt it can survive, that's the problem. If it would simply die it could be broken up and the IP spread around to a couple of competitors, but they have a lot of money in the form of recurring revenue that will allow them to rot away very slowly into nothing which to me seems like a waste.

source: reddit

This graph is just brands, not revenue or other meaningful metric of size, but it still shows how consolidated the industry already is. I don't see Microsoft buying Activision as positive, but I can't see it as a complete negative either.

All good points. Still going to stick with my previous statement as I think they would survive too. I also think they would come out of it all stronger and better than being merged into a beast that is just going to cannibalize their assets.

 

[big_glasses]

As long as you have "free" 3D game engines, like Unity and Unreal. Then it's a hard to make a true monopoly (+Blender and other free/open source tools)

Two of steams best earners last year being independent/small-scale
Valheim(Unity) and Dead by Daylight(Unreal), I believe are all independent/semi-independet/small scale studios.
and 2 Valve games, which are kind of outside that mess.
(source: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2021?tab=1)


GTFO, My current fav (Coop) game is also semi-independent. They did get a sizeable investemnt from Tencent during early access though

 

[Atomic77]

Oh my gosh I wonder what microsoft will do to the upcoming Diablo 4.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Oh my gosh I wonder what microsoft will do to the upcoming Diablo 4.

Hopefully, the deal will be quashed by regulators and they won't get a chance to screw it up..

 

[Ravenas]

Hopefully, the deal will be quashed by regulators and they won't get a chance to screw it up..

While I agree with you, this would only be quashed if this were an outside non-USA based firm.

 

[lexluthermiester]

While I agree with you, this would only be quashed if this were an outside non-USA based firm.

Not at all. US regulators have put an end to a number of problematic buyout deals in the last decade. This is very possible because of how big microsoft already is.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Hopefully, the deal will be quashed by regulators and they won't get a chance to screw it up..

Why would regulators care about one bing bing wahoo comapny buing another bing bing wahoo company in a field FULL of bing bing wahoo companies? People can never seem to explain all the other developers and publishers out there.

The Bungie acquision seems like a fuck you to Microsoft since they were the original creators of Halo and were even bought and part of microsoft for a while during that time.

It's a pretty big self own, if that's the case. The people who made bungie great have all left the company, and bungie is busy suing the few whos tuck around. Destiny was the meh heard roudn the world. There's a reason activision, the crazy control freaks, let bungie go and take the destiny IP with them.

 

[Ravenas]

Not at all. US regulators have put an end to a number of problematic buyout deals in the last decade. This is very possible because of how big microsoft already is.

Won’t happen. It doesn’t corner consumers and it’s not a outside country buying out an American company.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

As long as you have "free" 3D game engines, like Unity and Unreal. Then it's a hard to make a true monopoly (+Blender and other free/open source tools)

Two of steams best earners last year being independent/small-scale
Valheim(Unity) and Dead by Daylight(Unreal), I believe are all independent/semi-independet/small scale studios.
and 2 Valve games, which are kind of outside that mess.
(source: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2021?tab=1)


GTFO, My current fav (Coop) game is also semi-independent. They did get a sizeable investemnt from Tencent during early access though

Precisely. The importance of publisher houses is becoming increasingly irrelevant every year. Activision is a big fish, but the pond keep growing in size. When project wingman came out in late 2020, it hit #2 on the best sellers list, jsut behind cyberpunk 2077. CP2077 come sfrom CDPR, of course, but project wingman was one guy. In fact the only AAA publisher title ont he list that month was red dead online, a portion of RDR2.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Why would regulators care about one bing bing wahoo comapny buing another bing bing wahoo company in a field FULL of bing bing wahoo companies? People can never seem to explain all the other developers and publishers out there.

Won’t happen. It doesn’t corner consumers and it’s not a outside country buying out an American company.

It would seem the two of you are missing the finer points of AntiTrust legal statues and concepts.

 

[windwhirl]

It would seem the two of you are missing the finer points of AntiTrust legal statues and concepts.

Microsoft already has experience with anti-trust and monopoly laws, so I'm pretty sure whatever paperwork they're making for this already has a considerable amount of concessions meant purely to please the regulators so that the deal goes off without a hitch.

Still, it will be interesting to see how this goes. No matter how much they try to accommodate the regulators, I'm sure they will be at least asking some questions to Microsoft.

 

[Space Lynx]

Microsoft already has experience with anti-trust and monopoly laws, so I'm pretty sure whatever paperwork they're making for this already has a considerable amount of concessions meant purely to please the regulators so that the deal goes off without a hitch.

Still, it will be interesting to see how this goes. No matter how much they try to accommodate the regulators, I'm sure they will be at least asking some questions to Microsoft.

M$ probably thought the same thing when they won that 8 billion dollar contract with the government, then Amazon Web Services sued and won if I remember correctly. M$ no longer has the power they used to, especially with Linux and games being more and more easy to play on Linux

there is a big chunk of users they risk losing to Linux, M$ can't bully anymore I recommend Linux Mint, its great.

 

[windwhirl]

Amazon Web Services sued and won if I remember correctly

Sort of. They don't have the exclusivity, since the new contract is multi-vendor.

Though, it seems that in reality Trump basically pushed for Microsoft out of spite for the Washington Post or whatever, which is owned by Bezos, who owns Amazon.

M$ no longer has the power they used to, especially with Linux and games being more and more easy to play on Linux

?? Don't see what it has to do with this. Antitrust doesn't give a shit about that because, let's face it, Linux has a rounding error presence in the market outside of server deployments.

 

[Space Lynx]

?? Don't see what it has to do with this. Antitrust doesn't give a shit about that because, let's face it, Linux has a rounding error presence in the market outside of server deployments.

oh it has lots to do with this, M$ used to use Directx as hostage for gaming and was able to bully the gaming industry into using certain OS version or force upgrades as getting latest Directx was the only means to do so, even though it was proven on a couple of occassions no upgrade to a new OS was actually needed for that Directx variant in question.

I'll say it again baby, Linux to the moon!!!! how easily others forget Microsoft and its history with gaming, the first company to introduce DRM for games? Microsoft. hehehe

I just switched to Linux Mint (latest beta release) I AM FREAKING IN LOVE!!! TAKE CARE WINDOWS 10 and 11 LMAO

So first impressions so far today... it's smooth!!! So smooth! It's very user friendly... I have already installed Steam with two clicks, updated all my drivers from the welcome window that pops up on first install, installed proprietary Nvidia driver, got gsync working. Steam has an awesome...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[windwhirl]

oh it has lots to do with this, M$ used to use Directx as hostage for gaming and was able to bully the gaming industry into using certain OS version or force upgrades as getting latest Directx was the only means to do so, even though it was proven on a couple of occassions no upgrade to a new OS was actually needed for that Directx variant in question.

I'll say it again baby, Linux to the moon!!!! how easily others forget Microsoft and its history with gaming, the first company to introduce DRM for games? Microsoft. hehehe

I just switched to Linux Mint (latest beta release) I AM FREAKING IN LOVE!!! TAKE CARE WINDOWS 10 and 11 LMAO

So first impressions so far today... it's smooth!!! So smooth! It's very user friendly... I have already installed Steam with two clicks, updated all my drivers from the welcome window that pops up on first install, installed proprietary Nvidia driver, got gsync working. Steam has an awesome...

www.techpowerup.com

Again it hardly matters.

Linux has a minimal presence outside of whatever happens with Steam deck, and even then it can basically emulate the games anyway, so it's literally nonsense to think Linux has anything to do here.

 

[trsttte]

M$ probably thought the same thing when they won that 8 billion dollar contract with the government, then Amazon Web Services sued and won if I remember correctly. M$ no longer has the power they used to, especially with Linux and games being more and more easy to play on Linux

there is a big chunk of users they risk losing to Linux, M$ can't bully anymore I recommend Linux Mint, its great.

Amazon didn't win/Microsoft didn't exactly loose, amazon simply did what it does best and unleashed whining lawyers at the government until they got tired and canceled the contract entirely. To avoid such problems, they made a new program that was split among several vendors (including Google if I recall correctly).

They also tried that with NASA and the moon lander contract and weren't successful.

 

[plastiscɧ]

I now take the liberty to point out that the company blizzard, although a pearl, but only for microsoft to become even larger. with all the negative consequences that brings a takeover so for customers. customer service goodbye!
the once great game with their cool GameMasters (legends until today) belongs in parts to a now transfigured past.

[and sorry i am upset until now]

my last experiences:
(the conversation was automatically translated)

after two days of unanswered mail you may also see where the journey possibly goes. But Data is now the KEY!!!

1200 pages regarding the past 3 years. I am 15 yrs now ingame...


THE CONVERSATION:

---

hello! greetings!
i would like to contact you today in two ways! please don't take it personally a persona but i will complain to you very much now:

what happened to your customer service in the past when you can't get any ingame support at all?
only formal things concerning the account. is this called outsourcing or puny?
i have been with you permanently for 15 years now and have not been able to address my problem, which i will do in a moment;

i am EXTREMELY and beyond annoyed that their game design allows, dammit, not to grey out or lock a 278 item that exists in catalyst to a trivial other 278 item with no significant improvement...!

it says cooldown 7 days. nothing else. no warning nothing.

is it possible to get my old item back, instead of armreife of the celestial? i want my vault arm splints back.

of course you can. one mouse click for you like before. why is there no help from GM anymore? ingame i couldn't even send the message because you use automated filters that block people if certain keywords fall under your --not help possible-- regulations or you just want to dump them in writing because the staff has been abolished.
i am really disappointed.
can you undo this? please!
i ask out of desperation alone

best regards
..........

---

---

Hello and greetings from the emerald island!

I'm sorry you converted the wrong item in the Creation Catalyst.

We at Customer Service do not exchange items that have been accidentally converted. We also do not refund flux or reset the cooldown of the catalyst.

If you convert an item on a slot that is not part of the tier set (cape, bracers, belt, and boots) the converted item will not count towards the set bonus.
Also, please keep in mind that the item's stats will change.
You can read more about this at https://www.wowhead.com/guides/creation-catalyst-crafting-tier-sets-shadowlands-patch-92.

But next week will come for sure and then you can convert the right item.


With kind regards,

Game Master ..........
Customer Service
Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Support

---

---

thank you for nothing!
your external website not belonging to the group, you can nail to the (with respect) to the hat!
there is nothing even remotely responsive to my overall problem.
do you think that your answer is satisfactory when i have further earned an answer and draw attention to your meager customer service...?
seriously now? what has become of you?

---

---

 

[zlobby]

I now take the liberty to point out that the company blizzard, although a pearl, but only for microsoft to become even larger. with all the negative consequences that brings a takeover so for customers. customer service goodbye!
the once great game with their cool GameMasters (legends until today) belongs in parts to a now transfigured past.

[and sorry i am upset until now]

my last experiences:
(the conversation was automatically translated)
after two days of unanswered mail you may also see where the journey possibly goes. But Data is now the KEY!!!

View attachment 243674

THE CONVERSATION:

---

---

hello! greetings!
i would like to contact you today in two ways! please don't take it personally a persona but i will complain to you very much now:

what happened to your customer service in the past when you can't get any ingame support at all?
only formal things concerning the account. is this called outsourcing or puny?
i have been with you permanently for 15 years now and have not been able to address my problem, which i will do in a moment;

i am EXTREMELY and beyond annoyed that their game design allows, dammit, not to grey out or lock a 278 item that exists in catalyst to a trivial other 278 item with no significant improvement...!

it says cooldown 7 days. nothing else. no warning nothing.

is it possible to get my old item back, instead of armreife of the celestial? i want my vault arm splints back.

of course you can. one mouse click for you like before. why is there no help from GM anymore? ingame i couldn't even send the message because you use automated filters that block people if certain keywords fall under your --not help possible-- regulations or you just want to dump them in writing because the staff has been abolished.
i am really disappointed.
can you undo this? please!
i ask out of desperation alone

best regards
..........

---

---

Hello and greetings from the emerald island!

I'm sorry you converted the wrong item in the Creation Catalyst.

We at Customer Service do not exchange items that have been accidentally converted. We also do not refund flux or reset the cooldown of the catalyst.

If you convert an item on a slot that is not part of the tier set (cape, bracers, belt, and boots) the converted item will not count towards the set bonus.
Also, please keep in mind that the item's stats will change.
You can read more about this at https://www.wowhead.com/guides/creation-catalyst-crafting-tier-sets-shadowlands-patch-92.

But next week will come for sure and then you can convert the right item.


With kind regards,

Game Master ..........
Customer Service
Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Support

---

---

thank you for nothing!
your external website not belonging to the group, you can nail to the (with respect) to the hat!
there is nothing even remotely responsive to my overall problem.
do you think that your answer is satisfactory when i have further earned an answer and draw attention to your meager customer service...?
seriously now? what has become of you?

---

---

View attachment 243673

Wait, what?

 

[plastiscɧ]

Wait, what?

yes! you may only pay but no longer ask for help, which has always been the case.

 

[Vayra86]

yes! you may only pay but no longer ask for help, which has always been the case.

Blizzard isn't what it was ever since Diablo 3. The RMAH was the most blatant sign corporate money was going to win over solid business 'with' customers. The business from that point onwards was going to happen one way or another, customer happy or not. Why? Because it showed them how stupid kids with money are, and how easily they keep asking for more even if you take it from them. They also learned a thing or two about the public and popular opinion: 'If we look like, and tell customers that we are listening to them all the time, they believe it'.

They forgot that trust was built over the course of decades and has probably been completely lost over the course of less than a few business decisions.

That's why they asked us if we didn't have a phone. New markets bro! New idiots to fool! New trust to build and betray!