Microsoft Boss Continues Tirade Against UK Market Regulator, Following Blocking of Activision Blizzard Takeover

[Hammerman]

The USA and UK are supporting each other on this. The EU may also join in. MS wont last long if they boycott these regions.

Regulators taking a tough line is good for the economy and people. The well has dried up and big tech has been a liability for sometime now.

 

[Vayra86]

Pentiment would not have existed if not for MS money. Psychonauts 2 would be a much lesser game if not for MS money.

I mean yeah in a perfect world all devs are doing well on their own and capitalism doesn't exist and hasn't sucked the blood out of everything but that is not the reality we live in. Are we barreling towards the Games as a Service wasteland and yet another damned remake of Bioshock and Skyrim Again? Yes, and this block will not do a thing to stop that. The only thing stopping it is revolution. In a way we're already there with AAA gaming. It's all doomed anyway, but so far MS has done good so I say embrace the athropy.

I'll agree right away MS isn't the worst partner in crime (apart from their buy strategy; they dó want to produce some idea of sense and progress, make stuff work right), and MS hás fueled new franchises too, but only because it had bought studios really. Its a big, corporate publisher, simple as, and sure they also release decent things. Even EA does, ever so rarely.

The problem however with this kind of consolidation is that we shift too much power to corporations. They don't need it to survive, let thém get creative instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with capping the power level - it keeps ya sane.

I mean let's take small look in the mirror at what the Activision - Blizzard merger brought us. Boy oh boy. But perhaps D4....... But even if they hit home with that... nothing of the kind we know Blizzard by. No new Starcraft, no Warcraft RTS (even though indies are flooding the market with pretty strong contenders), scrapped plans for MMO and third person shooter... Instead we got TCG's, a pretty limited competitive shooter, and some failed clones of shit we already had.

 

[InVasMani]

Netease has a different issue. WOW in the Chinese market was solely operated by Netease. When Activision said they will pull out, that would mean no support for Netease and no more WOW for the Chinese market. Netease paid a large sum to buy sole rights to run WOW and now they will lose everything, that's why they sued Activision.

Fair enough point I was more meaning to allude to that as a example of international operations that's common place among corporations. The ARM merger situation that involves China and other countries though another example similar in nature to the Microsoft merger and was likewise merger related.

In terms of should the merger go thru or fail over concerns issued that's up for debate and depending on who you ask are valid concerns or invalid ones. It's a contentious subject with multi-billion dollar corporations like Microsoft. It's not uncommon for mergers to involve multiple countries and for monopoly concerns over giant corporations to be raised over them.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Microsoft should be fined heavily for ranting against an institutional decision.

 

[InVasMani]

That seems a bit extreme their entitled to rant and vent a bit within reason and besides it won't do them any favors if that's all it is and has very little substance.

 

[Kapone33]

My issue with MS is Gamepass. Before people jump on me let me expand. How many Games have been released in the last year that you could play with your Gamepass subscription on Day one? That might seem like a good thing for users that pay $1 or the full $13.99 but it does not help the developer in any way. Combine that with Epic giving away free Games every Friday and the incentive for a developer seems bleak to make a Game that may not be very lucrative.

On a secondary note they are obviously afraid of Sony as the PC space (look up Armored Core 6 on TPU) will be getting (Thanks to GTA5) what made the PS what it is. Japanese Content. Anyone who has played Genshin Impact or some of the free Games like Phantasy star on Epic know what I mean but I know that anyone who enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn is salivating for Horizon Forbidden West.

On a 3rd note the cost of Games is stupid but contrary to the narrative the quality that can be found in every genre is crazy. Do you like Tower Defence? Orcs Must Die 3 will blow you away. Do you like ARPG? Grim Dawn is arguably the best ARPG ever made made POE is free. Do you like RTS? TWWH3 or COH3 are killer. Do you like Turn based RPGs like Xcom? There are plenty of Great games there too like Warhammer Chaos Gate. Do you like Racing Games? Project Cars 2 is so huge that you will totally enjoy that sim but Grids Legends will have you finish it in a weekend. Like MMO FPS? Try Hell Let loose or Angels Fall. The thing is most of those Games I found on the best service for developers and Gamers Humble Choice. Tomorrow I will be playing Aliens Fire Team and giving my nephew a copy of Death Stranding.

 

[dyonoctis]

My issue with MS is Gamepass. Before people jump on me let me expand. How many Games have been released in the last year that you could play with your Gamepass subscription on Day one? That might seem like a good thing for users that pay $1 or the full $13.99 but it does not help the developer in any way. Combine that with Epic giving away free Games every Friday and the incentive for a developer seems bleak to make a Game that may not be very lucrative.

On a secondary note they are obviously afraid of Sony as the PC space (look up Armored Core 6 on TPU) will be getting (Thanks to GTA5) what made the PS what it is. Japanese Content. Anyone who has played Genshin Impact or some of the free Games like Phantasy star on Epic know what I mean but I know that anyone who enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn is salivating for Horizon Forbidden West.

On a 3rd note the cost of Games is stupid but contrary to the narrative the quality that can be found in every genre is crazy. Do you like Tower Defence? Orcs Must Die 3 will blow you away. Do you like ARPG? Grim Dawn is arguably the best ARPG ever made made POE is free. Do you like RTS? TWWH3 or COH3 are killer. Do you like Turn based RPGs like Xcom? There are plenty of Great games there too like Warhammer Chaos Gate. Do you like Racing Games? Project Cars 2 is so huge that you will totally enjoy that sim but Grids Legends will have you finish it in a weekend. Like MMO FPS? Try Hell Let loose or Angels Fall. The thing is most of those Games I found on the best service for developers and Gamers Humble Choice. Tomorrow I will be playing Aliens Fire Team and giving my nephew a copy of Death Stranding.

I think that the deal that Microsoft got with the devs must have some kind of clause that makes it profitable for the devs. A lot of devs took a stand against nvidia geforce now because they had concerns about a lower revenue.
Why Nvidia’s GeForce Now has become so controversial with game developers - The Verge

 

[ZoneDymo]

Oh please...
We have a rich history of companies sitting on a release of X or Y so they can make more money with last-year's Z.
We have a history of Google and Apple buying start-ups to add to their semi-walled gardens. Start ups with great innovative ideas. You're right, you get the ideas, still, but now disguised as a Google or Apple product.

You mention EA, and 'sure is notorious for'... exactly. Bioware is one very good example of how its corporate control quickly destroyed a talented studio. EA buried more studios than the economy did by now I reckon.

Even just the way releases are going to be timed is in MS hands, so they can maximize exposure for all their filler content. Activision no longer competes with whatever shooter MS was going to make either, so MS might just not make one right now, they have CoD.

Do you need more examples? I can fill three pages without blinking if you need it. If you have the slightest grasp of how business works, you can too, its not hard...

no need for name calling etc, I said what I said and I think im being more then reasonable in that statement, nothing of what you said so far is disputing it either.
The idea of MS making a competing product to CoD if they could not buy CoD is a possibility sure, but at the same time, they might just want to buy it because they know they are not going to be able to compete, heck look at how gamers treat the very existence of the Epic Store, here you have competition and everyone hates them for it....
And if a CoD clone would come people would lable it as a lame clone and stick with CoD, is it possible to clone CoD and market it in such a way that people gravitate to that instead? probably. Will MS or any company even attempt it? no, waste of time and money most likely.

So why not just buy CoD and just like I suggested, be one company above it, then it does not matter for the consumer.

and I once again would like to hammer on the fact that this has NOTHING to do with cloudgaming so that UK argument is just silly.
Nor the idea of choice because they and you as well insinuate there would/will be competition (that currently does not exist either) if the deal is canceled, which is one hell of a baseless crystal ball argument.

And actually sure, give me those three pages without blinking, games that would have been totally awesome and numerous if they werent bought by big corporations, heck you could ask why they would even need those big corporations to own them in the first place....

EDIT: actually nvm on the last part, this is a silly argument all in all.

You are talking about big business consuming even more businesses, height of capitalism, bad stuff and in general I do agree with that.
Its just in this case that I think literally nothing of value is lost or gained from MS buying A/B apart from maybe that scumbag company becoming slightly less scumbaggy.
A/B produce shitty games that drain people purposely from their money, praying on those mentally less strong, personally I would see them gone rather bought up, but I dont see any possible negative consequences from this purchase emerging.
Worst case is no CoD competitor, oh no....whatever shall we do....

 

[Imouto]

My issue with MS is Gamepass.

Game Pass users don't realize they are strangling their own platform by not buying games and making the whole ecosystem less and less attractive to publishers outside the service. Microsoft is somehow making ends meet by getting more suscriptions but software sales are lower and lower each quarter.

Microsoft must have some genius plan up their sleeve by appealing to broke customers who don't buy games or consoles that would make a healthy ecosystem. Same goes for Epic with the EGS. Making your store's only appeal the free games is nuts and only attracts cheapos.

 

[Easo]

I really do not get the the UK's argument that cloud gaming is at stake. It just looks more than strange that they chose this as the big no-no.

 

[Giddy]

According to tonights TheGuardian article, Activision makes £700million of its £6billion global revenue from UK market.
So a country with less than 0.8% world population still manages 11% revenue for a global company.
What a small insignificant country, no company cares about such little revenue and can easily pull out!!

 

[Hammerman]

Game Pass users don't realize they are strangling their own platform by not buying games and making the whole ecosystem less and less attractive to publishers outside the service. Microsoft is somehow making ends meet by getting more suscriptions but software sales are lower and lower each quarter.

Microsoft must have some genius plan up their sleeve by appealing to broke customers who don't buy games or consoles that would make a healthy ecosystem. Same goes for Epic with the EGS. Making your store's only appeal the free games is nuts and only attracts cheapos.

The CMA report is good reading and mentions this for Gamepass. Sales of packaged games collapsed. The others (FTC and EU) will say the same.

MS are already in the lead for cloud gaming and will stay there as it is.

The lobbying by MS has been rather overt with biased research, academics, lawyers, adverts, politicians etc.

According to tonights TheGuardian article, Activision makes £700million of its £6billion global revenue from UK market.
So a country with less than 0.8% world population still manages 11% revenue for a global company.
What a small insignificant country, no company cares about such little revenue and can easily pull out!!

The rest of the world will back the UK not MS. The UK and USA share a similar position. It is unrealistic to entertain this.

 

[Blitzkuchen]

I think it would be an great idea to give Activision Blizzard to Microsoft,
99,5% where Microsoft was the publisher are junk games so why not Activision Blizzard is a Junk Company.

Best example in the new COD there are Skillbased Hitboxes

But YEAH the press is mostly too garbage and try to hide this fact and do not publish it.


COD the new Candy Crush Saga

 

[mechtech]

“ the incensed executive continues to express anger about the nation's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) preventing his company's proposed buyout of Activision Blizzard. “

execs not use to hearing no I suppose??

 

[Wye]

Microsoft does not need approval from 200 countries for this merger. Each country has a different legal Microsoft company. The consequence of denial in a specific country is that Microsoft cannot operate in that country while it claims to own Activision Blizzard. If the decision is final - which is not at this time.

For big companies($1bil+), organic growth(by hiring individual people) is not realistic/possible. Buying smaller companies is the only way to grow. Asking a 2 trillion company to grow organically is simply ridiculous.

I'm sure the reasons for denial are hogwash - Sony lobbied (read: paid them) for sure. But be that as it may, Brad(and all Microsoft & Activision Blizzard executives) need to restrain from emotional outbursts and focus on facts to be able to deliver this merger.

 

[Ravenmaster]

If Microsoft finally manages to overturn the decision and acquires Activision Blizzard, the only good thing that would become of this merger is that they’d likely get rid of Bobby Kotick.

 

[NoneRain]

MS will just buy the UK

 

[Dr_b_]

MS hasn't made a rational, well reasoned argument why buying up all the game development real estate on the board does anything but create less competition, instead, MS, through this individual, has lambasted an entire nation, their business climate, and regulatory bodies, of which have at least some elected representation. MS, a convicted monopolist, should never be allowed to consolidate any markets. This tirade is very unprofessional, and reflects poorly on the company. They are mouthing off to US regulators as well through their lawyers in similar tones. Can't win an argument? Just throw a temper tantrum! Maybe the UK and the US would be better off without their spyware masquerading as an OS, and their ultimate play here which is to lock out any competition from alternate OS gaming.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

That is true of every country. Does all 200+ countries have to sign off on every merger now? Why does UK get to have a say on this, but not Korea or Japan or Brazil or Australia...

Who do they think they are?

There's a list.

We do think highly of ourselves, that's true but then the free world is free in large part due to them, and they also did invent computers and have a say in a lot of what followed, did you enjoy the industrial revolution btw, and John Dalton gave adequate Ip research to give the basic start to ALL things chemistry.

And that's mostly just Manchester

I think less of the rest of the UK but it is still Great IMHO.

 

[KLMR]

Oh god. Please EU, follow up on the British wisdom and block this too.

The arrogance. The gall. Wow

+1