Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[Shifty Geezer]

We have huge consolidation every where when it comes to media. Disney bought Fox with a 72 billon dollar purchase. Sony bought MGM years ago also. Then we have Sony purchasing into the anime industry with Funimation in 2017 and Crunchyroll in 2021 which are the two biggest anime streaming companies in the world. We just had discovery purchase time warner for 40B and there are already rumors of Paramount shopping itself around.

I don't see how that response fits in with what I said. Yes, mergers happen, but none of those require a $300-400 access key for the content. It barely affects consumers which streaming service has which content as it's a $10 a month sub and they can swap freely between providers. All content plays on a generic screen.

The more console libraries are divided between two platforms instead of shared, the worse it is for consumers.

 

[Cyan]

getting the games ready to be added to gamepass?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1678977947821064192

 

[see colon]

What successful games (commercially successful) outside of indie space have released from a newly formed studio?

Did you look at my list of developers? West and Zampella made Call of Duty and then Titanfall. Warren Spector made Deus Ex. Ken Levine made System Shock 2. Kojima made Death Stranding. Yuji Naka... Ok, he's worked on mostly smaller titles and none of them were great successes. Inafune did Hyperdimension Neptunia. Tim Schafer did Psychonauts. Ron Gilbert did Putt Putt. Cliffy B... Yeah, ok. That's 2 examples of of failure in that list, though Yuji Naka has still made a living.

Something to remember is that assessments and decisions from other regulators are often not going to be that relevant, because the situations in different markets are different.

What I'm saying is that others have publicly released information that you can use if you are trying to build an argument against.

The difference is the same foods are everywhere

Try getting Crogan Bologna in London or Blood Sausage in Crogan.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Did you look at my list of developers? West and Zampella made Call of Duty and then Titanfall. Warren Spector made Deus Ex. Ken Levine made System Shock 2. Kojima made Death Stranding. Yuji Naka... Ok, he's worked on mostly smaller titles and none of them were great successes. Inafune did Hyperdimension Neptunia. Tim Schafer did Psychonauts. Ron Gilbert did Putt Putt. Cliffy B... Yeah, ok. That's 2 examples of of failure in that list, though Yuji Naka has still made a living.

I did, and did you read my post saying that in terms of people leaving well-funded places, most have had to significantly lower their gaming ambitions in of scale and budgets. And that is not going to improve with few independent publishers. Look where those punishers willing to take a punt on taking on a fleeing developers are now. Some are

Not sure I agree that none of the ones I listed were not AA, and I pretty much figured this would be the answer so i'll just let sleeping dogs lie.

Fair point. It feels like, particularly over the last few years, like many indie developers have been able to achieve a technical quality and presentation polish that previously were attributed to AA titles, somewhat blurring that line. For me anyway!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

None of these are AAA or AA games though, which is my point. Plenty of talented devs who worked on AAA titles have gone on to work on really smaller titles, including some really stellar titles like Firewatch. If the counter argument to consolidation limiting developer agency is the option for developers to leave these big publsihers/studios and create a new studios, then you have to compare like with like.

The fewer independent environments for AA and AAA games that exist, the fewer options there are for developers to create such games. We know from the FTC case how much money Sony spends on their AAA first party titles. Horizon Forbidden West has a budget of $212m and The Last of Us Part 2 had a bunched of $220m, both are which are ridiculous - like closing on half a billion dollars for two games.

I mean, @see colon provided perhaps the most famous example of ex-Atari developers forming Activision. Infinity Ward is small potatoes compared to that.

While he didn't work on a AAA title immediately prior to forming Shiny Entertainment, David Perry did work for a AAA developer (Virgin Games) immediately prior to forming Shiny Entertainment and before that he'd worked on a AAA title at Probe Software called "The Terminator".

Firaxis is probably cheating a bit since they had Sid Meier on board. But they immediately started to make AAA PC games, many of which were award winning.

ArenaNet was formed by Ex-Blizzard employees and immediately released the AAA title Guild Wars. No Western publisher would help fund their game so they went to S. Korea and got funded by NCsoft.

BTW - I'm leaving out Studios who's first AAA release was a flop and led to the demise of the studio. For example, Flagship Studios was formed by former Blizzard executives and developers which made the AAA title Hellgate: London which received massive hype and I regretfully dropped over 100 USD on for the collector's edition which included the bonus of forever access to any future content released for it. Unfortunately, it was so buggy and reception so poor that live services for it didn't last more than a year or two.

Back to successful studios by former AAA developers.

Moon Studios, formed by former Blizzard developers, made a little known game called Ori and the Blind Forest.

Irrational Games was formed by Ken Levine (formerly worked on Thief: The Dark Project for Looking Glass Studios) along with a couple other former Looking Glass developers and made another little known title, System Shock 2. I'd say he ended up significantly larger than the studio he left behind. Irrational Games ended up being a larger and more influential studio than Looking Glass.

Ion Storm was founded by John Romero, Warren Spector and a few others. While John Romero helmed titles failed, they were still AAA projects. OTOH - Warren Spector helmed the creation of one of the most influential video games of their time, Deus Ex: Invisible War. Ion Storm might be a joke, but they had money, influence and budgets that dwarfed the vast majority of developers of that era.

Oh, and there was also Peter Molyneaux who left Bullfrog Productions to form Lionhead Studios.

Obsidian Entertainment was formed by former Interplay and Black Isle Studios employee Brian Urquhart and some other co-workers.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on throughout the 80's, 90's, 00's, and 10's.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The difference is the same foods are everywhere - you don't get exclusives. Want chicken? Go to Sainsbury's. want potatoes? Head to Tescos. Want a Sunday roast? Spend 2 hours driving around burning fuel to pick up all the ingredients from all the different stores. Cars use the same fuel - you don't get exclusives. "You want to use BP fuel? Okay, you'll need a Mazda or Toyota. What's that, they don't do a car that's appropriate? You want the Land Rover? Well, you'll just have to go with BP and get your fuel from Texaco. Can't have both." Consoles are nothing but their content and the more exclusives, the more need for two boxes which is expensive and wasteful.

I don't think there are any parallels are all. Every other media is cross platform. Closest we get is exclusive content on media platforms, not hardware.

I don't know that the whole market is going to be divided - I don't know how much money these companies have to throw at it and Sony certainyl can't spend like MS for years to come - but the future is one that is possible and different from other industries and why people are waving their arms around.

But there are exclusives. Champagne is exclusive to the French region of that name. I'm pretty sure some cheeses are also exclusive to certain regions and countries. There's likely more examples, but those are just a few. Hell, I wish I had access to some Japanese foods here in the US, but they remain exclusive to that region.

Similarly OLED is currently exclusive to a select group of TV manufacturers. If you (TV manufacturer) don't want to pay the premium to join that club, you can't have access to those exclusive panels. IE - similar to how if MS wants access to some of the exclusives that Sony has purchased, they'd have to pay enough money to convince the developer/publisher that Sony's offer isn't worth it.

It's not exactly the same, but exclusivity of product is certainly a thing in many markets. Sure you can get similar things that might taste similar. But that's like saying well there's no exclusivity of FPS games (genre) because anyone can make an FPS game. Well, yeah. But I like "this" FPS game. That's like there's a lot of canned Pasta products (genre) and anyone can make a canned pasta product, but I like "THIS" canned pasta product which is only available in this particular store.

Regards,
SB

 

[stu11]

We have huge consolidation every where when it comes to media. Disney bought Fox with a 72 billon dollar purchase. Sony bought 20% of MGM years ago, along with the likes of Comcast. Then we have Sony purchasing into the anime industry with Funimation in 2017 and Crunchyroll in 2021 which are the two biggest anime streaming companies in the world. We just had discovery purchase time warner for 40B and there are already rumors of Paramount shopping itself around.

FTFY oh and btw Amazon now owns MGM.

Did you look at my list of developers? West and Zampella made Call of Duty and then Titanfall. Warren Spector made Deus Ex. Ken Levine made System Shock 2. Kojima made Death Stranding. Yuji Naka... Ok, he's worked on mostly smaller titles and none of them were great successes. Inafune did Hyperdimension Neptunia. Tim Schafer did Psychonauts. Ron Gilbert did Putt Putt. Cliffy B... Yeah, ok. That's 2 examples of of failure in that list, though Yuji Naka has still made a living.

What I'm saying is that others have publicly released information that you can use if you are trying to build an argument against.

Try getting Crogan Bologna in London or Blood Sausage in Crogan.

I doubt Yuji Naka is too focused on developing games right now, he is too busy trying to avoid a jail sentence, he has just been found guilty and convicted of Insider Trading. 2.5 years suspended jail sentence, 4 years probation and 1.2 million dollar fine ... Ouch!

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I mean, @see colon provided perhaps the most famous example of ex-Atari developers forming Activision. Infinity Ward is small potatoes compared to that.

And the formation by Activision by the departure of developers, like David Crane, from Atari triggered a massive shift in game development for consoles.. 44 years ago. It was possible because most games were made by one person in a number of weeks. Pitfall took six months and that was considered a very, very long project. The cost? Paying David Crane for six months.

Looking back at how the market was 5, 10, 20 or 40 years ago is not the same how the market will be with further industry consolidated. Producing a game is not a matter of paying one guy for six months, it's nowhere near that. And there is now considerable risk on recouping investment.

People are looking backwards, they need to be looking forward when predicting how things will be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[stu11]

And the formation by Activision by the departure of developers, like David Crane, from Atari triggered a massive shift in game development for consoles.. 44 years ago. It was possible because most games were made by one person in a number of weeks. Pitfall took six months and that was considered a very, very long project. The cost? Paying David Crane for six months.

Looking back at how the market was 5, 10, 20 or 40 years ago is not the same how the market will be with further industry consolidated. Producing a game is not a matter of paying one guy for six months, it's nowhere near that. And there is now considerable risk on recouping investment.

People are looking backwards, they need to be looking forward when predicting how things will be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a great point. There has been a huge change in the way games are developed, even from 10+ years ago when West and Zampella left Infinity Ward and set up Respawn. Game development nowadays is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process, with games costing hundreds of millions of dollars and 5-7 years of development.

We keep being told, by people in favor of Microsoft buying companies like Bethesda and Activision instead of building their own new studios, that modern-day games take far too long to set up and it would be cost-prohibitive to build these teams and therefore it makes more sense to buy up existing companies with successful multiplatform IP.

With some AAA games taking up between 5 and 7 years to create, if a group of developers left Activision and tried to set up their own AAA studio what hope do they have of finding the funding and the patience to wait for the profits to come in from their new game, that assuming that the new game is successful.


In a hypothetical consolidation scenario where all the independent publishers like EA/Ubisoft /T2 get bought out by either platform holders or large tech companies, where are these people going to go if they don't like working for Activision being run by MS?
If they quit Microsoft/Activision, they'll be forced to go to one of maybe 3 or 4 other companies (Sony/Amazon/Google/Apple maybe)?

Therefore, they may end up being forced into working in a rival franchise "meat grinder" instead of building a "risky" new IP.

 

[AzBat]

I'm looking forward to Activision & Blizzard games in my Game Pass. So tasty!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But there are exclusives. Champagne is exclusive to the French region of that name. I'm pretty sure some cheeses are also exclusive to certain regions and countries. There's likely more examples, but those are just a few. Hell, I wish I had access to some Japanese foods here in the US, but they remain exclusive to that region.

So you're saying it's better that gaming becomes like regional food and instead of using digital tech to distribute all games to all platforms, it's better to have different boxes have different cultures and for people to have to own both, same as they have to fly around the world to sample different cuisine?

(BTW Champagne is available in my local supermarket. As is sushi.)

It's not exactly the same,

It's not. Those 'exclusives' (features) are caused by physical factors. OLED is proprietary to some manufacturers because there's only so many panels being made at whatever price they have to pay.

Looking at digital media, absolutely everything that can be platform agnostic is. Books, can read on any reader. TV and films, can stream on any device. I can stream Disney on Amazon and Amazon on Google and Netflix on everything. Music plays on every device - I can play Spotify on Windows or Mac or iOS and Android or TV OS.

There's no need nor particular physical limitation preventing games being cross platform, particularly when already being made cross-platform from cross-platform developers. For these developers to get swallowed up and then restricted to certain boxes is an artificial restriction of consumer options. It's a situation that doesn't currently exist in the industry and doesn't need to exist, so why would people be okay with it happening?? This is akin to France refusing to export Champagne and people having to fly to Champagne to buy it, and for Japan to ban sushi outside of Japan and people having to fly there to enjoy it. It's just a dumb concept! There's no sanity in taking stuff that loads of people can share in and reduce its availability.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm looking forward to Activision & Blizzard games in my Game Pass. So tasty!

Stop licking your console.

 

[Nesh]

But there are exclusives. Champagne is exclusive to the French region of that name. I'm pretty sure some cheeses are also exclusive to certain regions and countries. There's likely more examples, but those are just a few. Hell, I wish I had access to some Japanese foods here in the US, but they remain exclusive to that region.

Similarly OLED is currently exclusive to a select group of TV manufacturers. If you (TV manufacturer) don't want to pay the premium to join that club, you can't have access to those exclusive panels. IE - similar to how if MS wants access to some of the exclusives that Sony has purchased, they'd have to pay enough money to convince the developer/publisher that Sony's offer isn't worth it.

It's not exactly the same, but exclusivity of product is certainly a thing in many markets. Sure you can get similar things that might taste similar. But that's like saying well there's no exclusivity of FPS games (genre) because anyone can make an FPS game. Well, yeah. But I like "this" FPS game. That's like there's a lot of canned Pasta products (genre) and anyone can make a canned pasta product, but I like "THIS" canned pasta product which is only available in this particular store.

Regards,
SB

You seem to enjoy the lack of access and want even less access

 

[eastmen]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679516187649011714

So they are using their own FTC precedent to try and stop the MS merger. She says they are appealing because of staff opinion , however in questioning we find out she personally approves everything and changed the rules to limit the commission votes that could control her authority.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679508932442595329

Kevin Kiley is a U.S representative from California's 3 congressional district and part of the Republican party


Allegedly she is also delinquent on her registration fees

Which of course leads to this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679503751764164610

Don't worry about the tweet just watch the videos. But allegedly this was illegal.

Hangeman is a U.S Representative from Wyoming and part of the republican party


It's interesting to me how much she is using the fact that they filed an appeal to side step any questions on the matter since its pending litigation. Almost like it was planned that way.


Dang

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679469323025260545

On a side note of twitter

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679540470106447887

They are asking twitter from every communication from musk through twitter. They also want to know every journalist that has talked to musk since purchase of twitter. Jordan is saying he thinks its a First amendment violation

The independent assessment auditor said in a deposition that he felt the ftc conduct made him feel that they were trying to influence of the outcome before they started. In conversations with the FTC there were discussions on what the findings should be before they started the assessment . Filed today by the ftc in court.

edit - updating with better sourced tweets when I can.

 

[Cyan]

Turkey Unconditionally Approves Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition

Activision Blizzard CCO and EVP Corporate Affairs Lulu Cheng Meservey via Twitter has announced regulators in Turkey have [...]

www.vgchartz.com

 

[eastmen]

So Activision attempted to extended the COD marketing agreement that expires in 2024 but Sony said no and hoped that the regulators would do their job and block the deal.

Mr Ryan is the same person who said the transaction was not an xbox exlusivity play at all and he was pretty sure we will continue to see COD on playstation for many years to come.


So Sony was not only offered COD to continue to stay on playstation but also the marketing agreement and still refused to sign.

 

[AzBat]

Stop licking your console.

It was an inside joke. LOL

 

[see colon]

I doubt Yuji Naka is too focused on developing games right now, he is too busy trying to avoid a jail sentence, he has just been found guilty and convicted of Insider Trading. 2.5 years suspended jail sentence, 4 years probation and 1.2 million dollar fine ... Ouch!

He left his job defrauding gamers using nostalgia to hitting the AAA insider trading space. Another fine example.

People are looking backwards, they need to be looking forward when predicting how things will be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Right. The past has never been prolog. And there clearly haven't been any new video game studios formed in the last few years. There are never going to be more studios for people to work at.

 

[eastmen]

Motion is denied as expected. Now we wait to see if an appeals panel picks it up or not. The appeals panel would have to pick it up and rule on it before 11:59PM PST tomorrow night. So we are about 15 hours out.


And MS's response to the new motion for injunction

https://t.co/0D8fKbXph4

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Right. The past has never been prolog. And there clearly haven't been any new video game studios formed in the last few years. There are never going to be more studios for people to work at.

New studios spring up all the time. But we're talking about the consolidation of the big publishers who are willing to fund the development of AAA games.

How many new publishers producing AAA games have formed in the last ten years?