I’m thinking of all the weird UK sex slang that Whitta has in his head but is alien in America.
there is no dearth of competition in the video game industry. From a software standpoint there are plenty of studios, big and small, creating games across multiple platforms, and Microsoft owning Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo , and Starcraft isn’t going to change that.
Yes, again, being a monopoly is not illegal. There are all sorts of natural monopolie. It is the abusse of monopoly power that is illegal.
The point is that Microsoft does not currently have a monopoly in gaming and this acquisition does not change that fact.
Though it is also true that antitrust regulators will generally block or impose conditions on mergers that would create a monopoly. This isn’t one of those.
They allowed Disney to purchase Fox so… I don’t see how they can allow that and stop something like this.
Fair enough, but that kind of describes any commercial competition, at least as I see it? You try to make a more compelling product in order to drive more business your way, and that increased business can be at the expense of your competitors.
I’m probably just being unintentionally pedantic and maybe misreading to boot, but the way it was worded made it sound (to me) like it was a $68 billion dollar sabotage of Sony which I found to be silly. Microsoft’s weak spot for a while now has been lack of exclusives compared to Sony. Sony has been really good at locking up compelling exclusives that move units. If you’re MS and looking long-term at Game Pass, this is a pretty amazing (and amazingly expensive) acquisition. Call of Duty refreshes could absolutely drive Game Pass subs going forward, not to mention all the other titles and IPs they’ve acquired.
In terms of exclusives, this is one giant step where Microsoft has thrust themselves back into the game. Perhaps will take the lead in that area a few years down, depending on how Sony responds. Like I’ve said upthread, I’m not fond of exclusivity as all as a consumer but exclusives are what sells consoles. Something that has been brought up repeatedly when comparing the PS5 and Series X on this forum and elsewhere.
This. I can see Sony not releasing games for XBox, but ignoring PC gaming for the most part irritates me to no end.
That’s a trying to save your job manuever, given that FB knows nothing about gaming.
I’m a little confused on the narrative here, I’ve seen articles saying MS offered a deal to Activision, but this article seems to indicate Activision approached MS last November looking for a deal.
Certainly possible, the article logically supports its point. Tight labor market, Activision had poor morale, and people didn’t want to work there. Also it’s independently verified that they talked to Facebook too.
Prediction time!
- Will Microsoft keep Activision and Blizzard co-mingled in their org? I say that will get unwound very quickly after the acquisition.
- Will Microsoft keep the Activision org in tact like they seem to be doing with Bethesda. I think they will not. I think they will absorb some marketing and admin staff but otherwise fold Activision’s studios into the Microsoft Studios team. I don’t think Activision adds enough value for them to keep as a front-line brand.
- For how long will Activision be on the box for Call of Duty? I think it’ll be on there for the 2022 installment and that’s it. After that it’s the Microsoft logo.
- Will Microsoft keep the Blizzard team in-tact and as a brand? Yes, I think they will for the foreseeable future.
I wonder if they’d stuck them in the same reporting structure as Zenimax: the online fantasy game people.
My guess is they will remain comingled, with Mike Ybarra leading. Remember he came to Blizzard from MS two years ago, after reporting to Phil Spencer. He’s a known quantity. He’ll be in charge.
Yeah. I wasn’t taking bets on who would report to whom, but I forgot about Ybarra.
Does 343 or the Coalition make a CoD game? Who makes CoD in general going forward? That’s tougher to answer than at first blush, Activision has had multiple studios rotating on it for years now with still others getting turned into CoD support.
That makes sense to me. Blizzard has real brand identity and customer loyalty (or at least it has historically). Activision is mostly just a random publisher from my point of view. I guess if you go back to the Atari 2600 days, I thought of them as a brand, but they’ve become completely diluted in my mind so they don’t really stand for anything anymore.
Activision is just a publisher now, yep, and their name is tainted.
Blizzard is also a developer and while their name is dirt, perhaps not irrevocably.
I had never heard of her, so I googled the name. Wow. This thread yields untold benefits…
Congrats @Woolen_Horde!