Its not the gamers fault. Its how the economy works. Gamers buy something gets saturated, developer/publisher needs to sell more to keep profiteering, the only way that can happen is either make a new product with a risk or improve the existing successfull one to give a good reason to buy again.
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13
- Thread starter Rangers
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Yep, and it sounds like the CMA issue is already addressed behind the scenes as well.
arandomguy
Veteran
I feel there's an interesting debate to be had on whether or not the overall game industry is actually more consolidated or just more "stretched out" depending on one's perspective. While I feel the biggest games/IPs are getting both bigger and more consolidated it seems like at the same time I feel there is actually more choice than ever before as well outside of those mega projects.
The market also to some extent is self correcting still and fills in under served gaps. Just bringing this up as example because it's drawn interest with me recently but take EA/Bioware's temporary exit from the AAA CRPG market and Larian filling that gap with the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3.
The market also to some extent is self correcting still and fills in under served gaps. Just bringing this up as example because it's drawn interest with me recently but take EA/Bioware's temporary exit from the AAA CRPG market and Larian filling that gap with the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3.
It sounds that way but MS can close and go through the rest of the process with the CMA
I've said before but with how easy new tools are create gamings has never been easier. The stumbling block is still likely art but you can already buy assets through a lot of these engines. You also don't need to worry about physical media as you can just release it on steam
Publishers provide more than manufacturing. They usually finance the cost of development as well as marketing which can come close to rivaling the budget for development.
which can now be done with crowd funding or other outside sources of money. Like I said publishers are becoming less and less important
The fact that Baldur's Gate is still a sequel of an existing IP and took 3 whole generations to see a third game is pretty telling of how difficult it is to see more AAA games.
Actually even if we do see big publishers funding new projects their own or other studios, while they are consolidating, we will be seeing more and more IPs practically being owned by fewer mega corporations.
It becomes even worse when they are owned by py platform owners. It is literally a war of eating each other out until final drop.
To support their games' as profitable projects they must have the biggest userbase possible. Its hard to sustain a title costing almost half a billion if accessibility is not mulĺti platfprm. Exclusives are what make consumers choose your platform over the other and bring you the big bucks by paying your services/subscriptions and buying third party games on it though.
ABK and Zenimax had freedom to support all platforms to turn their games profitable. Not the case anymore. Hence why Bethesda got annoyed by MS's mixed message with COD vs the push for exclusivity from Bethesda games. They limit the accessibility in accordance to MS' strategy. It is the case with Take2, EA,Capcom, Ubisoft etc to support all platforms. It wont be much of a case if Sony and MS continue the purchasing wars and buy them. This arms race is gonna create more consolidations, possibly destructive ones until only one can sustain it and practically becomes the mega owner of the market platforms and unchallenged reach
It becomes even worse when they are owned by py platform owners. It is literally a war of eating each other out until final drop.
To support their games' as profitable projects they must have the biggest userbase possible. Its hard to sustain a title costing almost half a billion if accessibility is not mulĺti platfprm. Exclusives are what make consumers choose your platform over the other and bring you the big bucks by paying your services/subscriptions and buying third party games on it though.
ABK and Zenimax had freedom to support all platforms to turn their games profitable. Not the case anymore. Hence why Bethesda got annoyed by MS's mixed message with COD vs the push for exclusivity from Bethesda games. They limit the accessibility in accordance to MS' strategy. It is the case with Take2, EA,Capcom, Ubisoft etc to support all platforms. It wont be much of a case if Sony and MS continue the purchasing wars and buy them. This arms race is gonna create more consolidations, possibly destructive ones until only one can sustain it and practically becomes the mega owner of the market platforms and unchallenged reach
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Your argument is completely outliers. VS is a random phenomenon, not a business model! And it's not AAA or anywhere close. It was a bedroom project with no budget, the same as a gazillion games that make no money whatsoever.
I thought the point being discussed was reduced opportunities for AAA games? Indies and smaller games aren't a problem.
Again you are missing my point. Any one of these companies can be the next Activision. Vampire survivors is extremely popular , a sequel in a 16 bit style or another project with a slightly higher budget and head count if successful can lead to another project that is bigger and so on and so forth. That is how Atari started and grew. It's the same with CGI as they can if Star citizen ever releases can grow into a larger studio and fund 3rd party games if they want to
Why would AAA games be reduced? ABK was barely funding larger scale 3rd party games at this point in time
Looking at the last 10 years of their publishing a bunch of it can be done by nickelodeon since its all other developers that activision just publishes and nick already publishes their own games on mobile platforms
Then you have platnium games that hasn't done anything with them since 2016 and now publishes their own stuff as well as nitnendo and square publishing thier stuff.
Destiny which is now owned by Sony , doubt they will go to ABK to publish anything even if they were still independent in the future.
They also published Sekiro which is made by Fromsoftware . From Software published it on their own in Japan. Looking at thier line up it seems Namco/Capcom/Sony publish a bunch of thier games and activision ws only used once. More to the ponit Sony now has a stake in the company so perhaps going forward sony will be getting those deals
There are plenty of other publishers that can fill the void. ABK was the 6th largest one by game revenue but you still have at least 17 others
But he has the right of it imo. In a discussion of why we don’t see more AAA titles, is it because the market is too saturated already with games or is it because not enough publishers are out there funding games to be made.
Games are fairly straight forward ROI calculations, they have release windows that directly coincide for maximum profit, you miss that window and things just start to slide.
Publishers have no problem funding more games if they were all guaranteed successes, but green lighting failures will kill your business. Having more publisher doesn’t change that reality
Problem is, games became too big and complex to maintain, therefore businesses become less sustainable, which led to less big players. Which brings the subject of game pirtfolio management. Which now made consolidations/acquisitions have bigger effects than they used to, with a few players buying substantial chunks of the market. And there, you have boards of directors having control of a larger selection of market defining IPs making decisions about maximizing shareholder value.
We're talking about the ongoing consolidation if the industry, not just ABK. This acquisition is setting a precedent for more and fewer large, independent publishers. Projecting forwards, we risk losing independent publishers which would result in fewer AAA titles as there's no meaningful way to get AAA title funding outside of large publishers.
I doubt the effects of the merger are any bigger. The main culprit we don’t continue to see more innovation and more investment into the AAA space is because it’s just too expensive to make. It’s not a publisher problem, it’s a return issue. If you don’t know if a developer studio can deliver why would you green light a new independent studio that does not have a track history on being able to deliver? You are literally staking 200M on a project to fail makes no sense.
Having more publishers doesn’t change this calculation. Any publisher reckless enough to do that likely won’t be in business long after 2 flops.
Your argument is a paraphrase of what I posted, while maneuvering around the phenomenon of the gradual super acquisitions by very few companies, by talking in general about many vs few publishers. What is happening now is the production of AAA games approaching closer the burst of the bubble. Call it natural progression of the gaming industry if you want. That doesnt change the fact that these are phenomenons of the production of AAA games reaching closer the burst of the bubble where the industry is heading to a problematic economic model to sustain itself.
The phenomenon is not caused by mergers and acquisitions however. Which is my position here. Gamers demand games with exceedingly higher levels of fidelity for the same price point which is a labour problem , people want to have a Ferrari paying Civic prices; this is not an issue around the number of independent publishers out there.
AAA titles will only be green lighted for as much as the market can sustain as a whole. Think about how many games
Are made annually that never get purchased or how many AAA games are cancelled.
M&A didn’t cause that to happen. I think my position is pretty clear here; and I don’t believe yours is. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, if you want to insinuate that ABK is going to cause an arms race that will lead to less independent AAA games being funded, that’s a hell of an argument you are going to try to prove. You’re basically arguing at extreme end points which means there are only platform holders left. I don’t see the value in discussing on a future so far away that anything could impact that forecast.
It’s hard to take this as anything more than goalpost moving. We go from, this is going monopolize and the market regulators won’t allow it to, this is going to kill all independent AAA titles as a result of a future arms race that hasn’t happened.
I don’t know what the future holds, but why lock all conditions and keep one constant and use that as an argument to the future?
As other posters have brought up, it’s a dynamic market and other companies will step up to fill up gaps as a result of any big market plays. EA was certainly enthusiastic about the merger, likely because it opens the door for Battlefield further in their eyes. And new models for funding and revenue are in constant change.
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People dont want a ferrari. People want a better and improved Civic. A Civic in the 80s is not the same as the Civic in 2023. A Civic in 2023 is still not the same as any Ferrari that ever existed.
The phenomenon is caused by both. Actually three reasons. The industry's inability to scale and reduce costs, the common incentive to standardize for easy profits by people in suits who see only numbers, dont understand the industry and make bad business decisions that work only theoretically, and the acquisitions by very very select players with very particular business strategies. The phenomenon is going to get worse especially if these continue under the interests of very select platform owners.
As much as we are trying to present the market as if it functions in an ideal fashion that only improves and always knows whats best that will trickle down to the consumer, reality is different.
I keep reading this statement, but is it really setting a precedent? Wouldn't the Zenimax acquisition be the real precedent setter. They were also a well known 3rd party, multiplatform publisher who, in recent years, concentrated more on publishing their own IPs developed by their own studios. Even during the Activision hearings, Zenimax was cited as precedent of how Microsoft would treat Activision IP, even if there were contracts signed that contradicted that narrative.
Bethesda used to publish other developers' games. They haven't really done that in years. Activision used to as well. Again, they haven't really done that recently either. The 3rd party publisher most in the publishing space, excluding in house projects, are EA, followed by Ubisoft and 2K. Maybe some of the Embracer owned publishers, but they own enough studios now that becoming less common. Devolver is big in this space also, but they are hardly a huge player in the market. Though I would argue Zenimax and Activision's withdrawal from publishing independent games has likely given Devolver enough space to grow to what they've become. Activision had withdrawn from that space and mostly moved all of it's development to COD and remasters of IP they own. Even without Microsoft buying Activision and Zenimax, there was already a contraction of publishing output for independent (as in, games made by not publisher owned developers) games. But, at the same time, there is a deluge of indie and AA quality games being released.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
I think that is why this would really be the precedent. Under the Zenimax acquisition Microsoft presented the same narrative - that "it made no commercial sense" to make IP exclusive to Xbox - to all regulators.
Now it's known that was a nonsense, regulators are taking decisions on the basis that Microsoft probably won't support other platforms beyond any legal commitments they feel makes their acquisition look better in the short term. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fundamentally, the value of an IP is intrinsically tied to what revenue it can generate so if Microsoft want to restrict IPs from one or two console platforms (Nintendo and Sony), then lack of revenue will defect devalue those IPs. Not that I think Microsoft care, these acquisitions aren't about long-term investments, they're to bolster the appeal of Xbox, whatever that is - console, Windows app, cloud delivery.
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