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Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard
- Thread starter HockeyJon
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OutOfPhase
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I take this to mean...
Pitfall 3 confirmed!
Pitfall 3 confirmed!
shares a launch weekend with HL3, no way I have time for both.
Twisted Kidney
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I think I'm most disappointed they didn't make it a nice, round $69,000,000,000
or $69,069,096,069.69
Opportunity squandered.
or $69,069,096,069.69
Opportunity squandered.
Xbox and PC. All your games belong to us.
MS bribing government to look the other way. If our corrupt, uniparty government were actually functional, these tech companies would have been trust busted long ago.
Micro$oft products/IPs:
- Windows
- Azure
- Office
- SQL Server
- Exchange
- Xbox
- Teams
- Zoom
- Skype
- OneDrive
- Activision
- Blizzard
- Sierra
- Bing (it powers Yahoo!) as well
- Github
- Surface
- Windows Defender/Security (formerly GIANT AntiSpyware)
- PC Hardware
- Etc.
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DukenukemX
Supreme [H]ardness
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Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard is not good for consumers in the long run. Right now it's a good move because Bobby and his minions need to be fired, out of a cannon. Except the art team, they can stay. Especially for Sony Playstation owners who are now forced to buy a Xbox or PC to play their favorite Zenimax and Activision Blizzard titles. Instead of Microsoft creating new IP and funding new developers and studios, you know much like Valve did. Valve didn't buy Portal from another company, but hired a bunch of college students who had a really terrible demo of their game. They hired Counter Strike developers, DOTA developers, and etc. When nobody else did Valve stepped in. Microsoft is like how much for your entire franchise?
Personally, I'd like to see this never happen. Activision and Blizzard should just break apart and Bobby Kotick can go to his island with his wealth and snort coke off underage children, never to run another business ever again. Not that he needs to.
SecretStash
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Valve hires, then stops producing with those new devs they bought. Not saying MS will make the market better (I'm pessimistic too), but on the bright side, maybe more PlayStation fans will supplement themselves with more PCs. More PC gaming and games designed for PC! Could happen.
cageymaru
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Activision Blizzard Stockholders Approve Proposed Microsoft Transaction
https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...olders-Approve-Proposed-Microsoft-Transaction
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) announced that its stockholders approved Microsoft Corporation’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) proposal to acquire Activision Blizzard at the Activision Blizzard Special Meeting of Stockholders held earlier today. More than 98% of the shares voted at the Special Meeting were voted in favor of the proposed transaction with Microsoft.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...olders-Approve-Proposed-Microsoft-Transaction
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) announced that its stockholders approved Microsoft Corporation’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) proposal to acquire Activision Blizzard at the Activision Blizzard Special Meeting of Stockholders held earlier today. More than 98% of the shares voted at the Special Meeting were voted in favor of the proposed transaction with Microsoft.
LFaWolf
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Bloomberg reported that Wall Street thinks the Microsoft Actvision acquisition is three times more likely to fall through (government antitrust) than Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Hence, the stock price of Activion lingers in the mid-70s whereas the acquisition price is $94 a share.
So, that's where the feds are going to finally apply antitrust laws? After all the mergers just in telecom and media in the last 5-10 years, now seems like an odd time to remember those laws exist.
And for an entertainment company no less.
Flogger23m
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If this does go through it will be interesting to see what happens. I think for multiplayer games like Call of Duty, Microsoft might allow them on Playstation. Player count matters and micro transaction money is where a lot of profit is. For single player games, I can see them gate keeping those as exclusives.
It would effectively have to do that. As much as some folks like to fantasize about a total Xbox/PC gaming monopoly, the fact is that big multiplayer games from Activision Blizzard would wither and die as Xbox exclusives in a world where the PlayStation and Switch dominate.
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LFaWolf
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If I remember correctly the previous administration didn’t block many, if any, mergers and acquisitions based on antitrust issue. The current administration has been talking tough on antitrust and the words on the street is that this would be the one to exercise that motto.
Previous several administrations...
GoodBoy
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They built these markets themselves for the most part.
There's plenty of competition in this area: Playstation, Nintendo, PC, mobile gaming
I think they bought some of these, not sure. It's all part of providing office/productivity software, they make sense as acquisitions and even being owned by 1 provider. And there are competing offerings for these services anyway.
Depends what they do with these, but those studios have some different genre's of pc games that they make, so, all together it isn't really an anti-competitive concern that I can see. Blizzard: MMO's and RPGs, Activision: FPS's, Sierra: adventure and single player games. (what do they even make that's new?)
eh, it's weak competition against google. Ms is probably one of the few companies that can afford to try to get into that market. But them owning it in itself isn't anti-competitive.
meh, who cares
They haven't done anything anti-competitive with this
Plenty of competition in the laptops/tablets market.
There's competition in this market too.
Ton's of competition here, who cares.
Don't bother quoting to me shit Ms did in the 90's, that they lost the lawsuits over. That was 25 years ago. If you want to hold a grudge for 25 years, go for it. For me, not worth worrying about.
If they still had the same board and CEO then perhaps, but every time the CEO changes or the board gets reshuffled it's a whole new company with whole new objectives and a whole new outlook. Except for you know actual Outlook, that shit hasn't really changed since 2007.
OutOfPhase
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And I'm fine with that. It works. Never once had any issues with lost data in ol Outlook.
mvmiller12
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Naw, man... it's got Dark Mode in the reader pane now...
All new then, forget about all Outlook of the past this is the new dark Outlook, 100% broodier and moodier than any Outlook before it. Fresh for the post-Covid Apocalypse!
FTC Seeks to Block Microsoft Corp.’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc.
“Agency alleges that maker of Xbox would gain control of top video game franchises, enabling it to harm competition in high-performance gaming consoles and subscription services by denying or degrading rivals’ access to its popular content”
Not all that shocking, if I'm honest. Microsoft can commit to cross-platform Call of Duty support as much as it likes, but that's not going to alleviate worries that it will purposefully worsen the experience for non-Microsoft platforms and withhold other major franchises.
Also, what is it with Microsoft and bad acquisitions (attempted or otherwise)? Yahoo, Nokia, this... while the company is better about this under Nadella than it was under Ballmer and Gates, it still seems to have that '90s/'00s dream of buying its way into market dominance of a given category. Like it's still sore about Apple and Google thwarting its bids at monopolizing mobile and the internet.
KazeoHin
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I'm actually more happy to have Actibliz be absorbed and redistributed under Microsoft than for them to continue being what they have been.
They've been such a shit stain of a company that Microsoft's management looks pure and innocent by comparison
They've been such a shit stain of a company that Microsoft's management looks pure and innocent by comparison
Vultures are circling the deal, and If/When the Microsoft deal falls through they are all lined up for a piece of A-B and each of them is worse than the other.
Microsoft taking over activision-blizzard-king is like Numénor capturing Sauron.
i.e., not a good thing™
What of value would be lost?
Darunion
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None of these companies buy eachother to provide us with a better experience. They see a potential to squeeze profit out of it and thats why. Dunkin donuts could buy activision for all i care, which would probably be okay cuz i would get a dlc code with my donuts.
UnknownSouljer
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I don't think it matters. Here's another "unpopular" UnknownSouljer position: we more or less can consider all of the properties and the studios under these banners as dead. And an even more unpopular position: it doesn't really matter.
The games industry is very similar to the film industry in the sense that there has never been a single individual that has been able to do their entire career under the banner of one company. With few notable exceptions in specifically the console industry like Miyamoto. In terms of "modern gaming of the mid 2000's and up? There aren't even enough people to age into retirement that have started their careers in that time and every person has a list of jobs/studios a mile long.
The point? All this will do is redistribute talent. Some people will stay with Microsoft for the comfortable check and stability that it brings. All of the people that want creative control (basically everyone with a name) will eventually leave.
Case study? Look at people such as Brian Fargo and the creation of inXile. They went back to the Wasteland IP because what they created through Interplay (Fallout) was purchased by Bethesda. They eventually partnered with Microsoft to get the money, but it was about creating games with their vision. Similarly Obsidian, which was the other half of Interplay (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky) had the same issue of Bethesda now owning the Fallout IP, and decided to create a new IP, the Outer Worlds.
Another case study: Konami and Kojima. I won't rehash this one, but let's just say Konami killed the golden goose when they decided to destroy all of their single player IP in order to make Pachinko and Gatcha machines rather than a new MGS title and Silent Hill title with one of the best directors and creative teams. Kojima now does his own thing. His first time at bat as a solo studio wasn't for everyone, but his work was never broad market to begin with.
If Microsoft buys all the IP, fine, let them. The value is in good talent and good games, not IP, and not studios. And both of those things will eventually redistribute themselves in time. Microsoft owning CoD doesn't mean anything. You think some third party can't make a generic FPS action shooter if Microsoft's version goes to shit? (it arguably already has, but just for the sake of argument)
In terms of companies like Blizzard, they're already circling the drain. Do all of you really doubt that some other studio couldn't make an IP similar to Diablo (*cough* PoE), or Overwatch (and Overwatch 2 is a flaming unbalanced turd), or StarCraft (which has some significant clones being built by companies that are former Blizzard employees), or HotS? (Frankly more people play League anyway). WoW is perhaps the only title they've made that can't be easily replicated, and frankly I can't see that many people caring about it after 20 years of basically the same game/grind.
The only company perhaps worth anything is id Software. And that has more to do with their talent, ethos, and engineering. Doom 2016 revitalized the genre and was special and the Wolfenstein series has done very well for itself. Credit where it is due. But it's not as if those same people can't/couldn't leave and do the same thing elsewhere. "Doom" as a name, probably has the greatest legacy of all this stuff, but caring about it is the same thing as caring about the name "Atari". The name doesn't matter, the fact that it's a good game does.
There is no IP in this deal that ultimately matters. Good studios and new ideas will form. The Witcher was "nothing" in 2015. CP2077 wasn't an IP, and now it is. We could also look at Rockstar whose IP's are all relatively newly created works or otherwise just distinguished by making good games and not because they have some "special" IP banner.
EDIT: Said another way, the only way that this can possibly matter to any given individual is if they're emotional about it. If you're emotionally tied to these IP's due to them having some special place in your heart or time in your life then you'll see this as all doom and gloom. But if you're able to step outside that and look at this objectively, this will have little effect on gamers in general and gaming as a whole. Even if Microsoft tries to control everything through IP, all that will do is cause more people to leave and look for any and all alternatives. I don't have faith that the average gamer knows what good games are. But I do have faith that annoyed people will seek alternatives.
These guys get it.
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KazeoHin
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Yeah, but they would probably just flip it to Yum! then they would form a partnership with Pepsi and it's all downhill from there.
Armenius
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The FTC is buying the arguments of the #2 console manufacturer (Sony) by a factor of 3 compared to the distant #3 competitor (Microsoft). If the FTC were truly concerned about competition, they would let the acquisition go through.
UnknownSouljer
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Again, I don't think any of this matters (see my long post above), but Sony does have a point about IP purchases being a way to gate content (even if said content is garbage and doesn't really matter). The irony is I think that Sony overestimates how much cross-platform CoD sales matters to the future of their consoles. And doesn't see the opportunity to make a similar title using Unreal Engine, purchased assets, and hiring/consulting people to do balancing as well as map designing.
If they made such an IP and crossplayed it themselves with Microsoft/Nintendo/PC, they could reap all of the money and likely the support of all the gamers. And also likely make a game better than the CoD trash that has been coming out and likely could spin-up a studio to make said title within 2 years. With most of that time probably going towards mechanics and game design. Everything on top being "generic".
Geforcepat
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Lol@ FTC and Sony.
I don't think Sony is fighting this fight for CoD or any of that, I think they just don't want Microsoft to have it. Sony and Tencent are working together in a lot of places, they have been doing so for Movies and Music since 2014, and since 2020 they have been working together in purchasing minor stakeholder positions in a bunch of developers, most recently EldenRing's FromSoftware. But they have been working very closely in the gaming space since Tencent bought Wakeup software, Sony has also been working very closely with Netease since they setup Nagoshi Studio.
And I know there is some bad blood between Netease and Activision/Blizzard currently but the Idea of Tencent and Netease buying it has a really nice FU ring to it that I can't shake.
Tencent and Netease have also been very public about their desire to look outside of China to purchase controlling stakes in gaming studios and publishers since the Chinese government has begun cracking down hard on the market within China.
Should the Microsoft deal fall through I have no doubts at all that Tencent and Netease will be right there to swoop in with a new offer, probably with some Saudi backing as well as one of their major investment groups has recently announced that they have $13B set aside to purchase into "A leading game publisher".
https://www.pcgamer.com/saudi-arabia-wants-to-spend-dollar13b-to-buy-a-leading-game-publisher/
https://pandaily.com/tencent-acquires-japanese-game-studio-for-44-million/
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/busin...jority-investments-in-overseas-game-companies
GotNoRice
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This just seems insane to me. You have massive un-checked monopolies such as Google for example. You have people who are using a Google/Android phone, a Google/Android tablet, a Google/Android TV, a Chromebook as their computer, running Chrome browser, using Google search to search for anything on the internet, purchasing all of their apps/games through the Google Play store, using a Google Internet connection, using Google Maps for navigation, using Gmail for their email, storing their files in Google Cloud, using Google Docs to type documents, using Google Pay to pay for stuff, watching videos on Youtube (owned by Google) all day, using Google Assistant for voice inquiries, all while being blasted by ads served by Google, etc, etc. Literally the worst monopoly that this planet has ever seen, where a single company can control every facet of your entire life....
....but the government puts their resources toward stopping Microsoft from trying to buy a game company instead...
Gulkor
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What would be better way for government to spy on everyone? create company that sells you everything from phones to t.v's to software, its best sky company in world.
I never seen google get in trouble or be stopped from buying companies.
I never seen google get in trouble or be stopped from buying companies.
The government has a hate boner for Microsoft because they have a long history of telling them to get stuffed when they ask for information. Regulators have a lot of past history with Microsoft too, they are an easy target.
But this deal is only getting the heat it is because Sony and other 3’rd parties are paying lobbyists to make it a problem.
KazeoHin
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That, and Google owns most of the government at this point.
I figure having their own search history hanging over their heads as leverage would be enough to keep most of them quiet.
schoolslave
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Sure, but when's the last time Google tried to purchase two industry powerhouses (Zenimax/Bethesda + Activision/Blizzard) in a relatively short period of time - let alone a single acquisition for $69 billion? Google is a huge problem itself don't get me wrong, but lets not pull a whataboutism here. This is about Microsoft trying to outright control a huge chunk of the "gaming" market and just maybe the FTC can actually stop it. Legislating Google requires anti-trust busting and insane political capital which sadly will not happen in the USA any time soon. Blocking this acquisition is preemptive and therefore "cheap" and only a net positive for consumers. Nothing "insane" about it unless you're an M$ executive.
EDIT: It's $75B now?
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