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

[hughJ]

I expect Microsoft will want that game to be a showcase for the next Xbox hardware...

Bethesda absolutely need to overhaul key aspects of their tech...

Aside from some elements of Oblivion they've always been behind the curve. Artistically and technically mediocre graphics, but mechanically interesting game design. I also don't see any reason to presume the next-gen hardware will be anything more than a moderate spec increase from what we've got now, and what we've got now can't hold 60fps in Starfield. Even with, say, ~4x RT perf AAA games are still going to be a mixture of raster rendering with some RT shadows and reflections painted in, so it's not like they'd be throwing Starfield's renderer out and moving to pure RT/PT.

If MS wants to have ES6 be a technical flex for XBox and MS-corporate then they should figure out a way of tying in a ChatGPT back-end for NPC scripting (and not merely text generation for Radiant quests, but everything from NPC behavior and VO for PC<->NPC and NPC<->NPC interactions). If you could make a system like that work it would pretty much instantly antiquate every other open-world game. It might even grease the wheels for getting Game Pass subscriptions onto other platforms, as there'd be a cloud-based always-on element.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Aside from some elements of Oblivion they've always been behind the curve.

I would disagree with this. In terms of game worlds full of things you can interact with, and which have gameplay meaning and the full physics, I would say that Bethesda's engine has always been ahead of the curve. And their older RPGs had a lot more options for solving quests and puzzles.

Artistically and technically mediocre graphics, but mechanically interesting game design.

I could again disagree on these games being artistically mediocre, but would agree that technically they've been behind the curve.

In terms of what we'll see going forward, I think it's fool's errand to try and predict hardware capabilities three years from now. Almost nobody was predicting RT hardware in current gen consoles, nor SSDs as standard, even eighteen months in advance. What I would say is that Microsoft have all the technical resources for Bethesda to make a ground-braking RPG if they desire. Microsoft own ChatGPT, and you don't need a full ChatGPT model to have convincing AI dialogue in Elders Scrolls VI because ES6's world is narratively vastly simpler and therefore easier to model.

I'm not suggesting that any of these would make for a good game, but there is literally no tech company that has all the pieces should they decide to do that. It feels like over time Bethesda's games have diminished in gameplay ambition and I would like to see a reversal of that trajectory.

 

[cheapchips]

If MS wants to have ES6 be a technical flex for XBox and MS-corporate then they should figure out a way of tying in a ChatGPT back-end for NPC scripting (and not merely text generation for Radiant quests, but everything from NPC behavior and VO for PC<->NPC and NPC<->NPC interactions). If you could make a system like that work it would pretty much instantly antiquate every other open-world game.

MS have entered into a multi year deal with Inworld, who offer the kind of tools/functionality you're thinking about. They're not fully developed, so it'll be a brave move for any MS RPG developer that goes all in with it.

 

[hughJ]

I would disagree with this

I could again disagree on these games being artistically mediocre, but would agree that technically they've been behind the curve.

You just finished saying this:

Bethesda absolutely need to overhaul key aspects of their tech. Whilst faces have massively improved from the literal potato faces we had in Oblivion, Starfield is way behind the curve in, particularly the animation trying to belay emotion. Not to mention whatever is going on in Starfield with the random NPC's weirdly eyeballing you constantly. Starfield is an action-RPG and I think Bethesda have done a tremendous work on the action parts and, as I said before, their environmental procedural generation is really good. Environment interiors are also good and massively detailed, but the tech trying to support the RPG side of the game has really fallen behind. The faces are worse than two generation-old Mass Effect, not even mentioning Baldur's Gate 3 which was made by a small studio.

I don't think there's any technical secret sauce to not having ugly character faces, or wooden facial animations, or weird eyeballing, or whatever. You just need to care enough about what it looks like to fix it. I think it goes with the same rationale behind continuing to have the dialogue camera snap to the character and having it stare straight at you. Or having random VA accents scattered throughout the game. Or their piss-poor UI. It's a lack of 'giving a shit', which I'd be more inclined to consider an art/design issue than a technology one. The fact that these things tend to get addressed by modders with very little, if any, code kind of speaks to that.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't think there's any technical secret sauce to not having ugly character faces, or wooden facial animations, or weird eyeballing, or whatever. You just need to care enough about what it looks like to fix it. I think it goes with the same rationale behind continuing to have the dialogue camera snap to the character and having it stare straight at you. Or having random VA accents scattered throughout the game. Or their piss-poor UI. It's a lack of 'giving a shit', which I'd be more inclined to consider an art/design issue than a technology one. The fact that these things tend to get addressed by modders with very little, if any, code kind of speaks to that.

It also must not be all that easy. Most games that have customization just have either 1 fixed facial shape or at most maybe a handful that you can choose from. I don't have the game, but from videos, it seems like Starfield allows for extensive customization of facial shape and size and just not picking from a couple handful of facial shapes or sizes.

Most games I've seen that actually have extensive facial feature customization/alteration do not have spoken dialog by the main character. Perhaps making believable facial animations proves too difficult or too costly with that amount of variation.

Regards,
SB

 

[hughJ]

It also must not be all that easy. Most games that have customization just have either 1 fixed facial shape or at most maybe a handful that you can choose from. I don't have the game, but from videos, it seems like Starfield allows for extensive customization of facial shape and size and just not picking from a couple handful of facial shapes or sizes.

Most games I've seen that actually have extensive facial feature customization/alteration do not have spoken dialog by the main character. Perhaps making believable facial animations proves too difficult or too costly with that amount of variation.

Regards,
SB

Yup, they'd all be the same facial rig. I think the norm would be to let animation be driven procedurally by dialogue, and then go in and tune by hand to give more TLC to the 'hero' characters. I feel like there's so many things working against them that it may not actually be worth doing. Like... if you took a typical BGS game and replaced all the character dialogue with FMV of live actors, but forced them to remain perfectly upright, perpendicular to the camera, and only emote via facial expressions without manipulating their neck or torso it would still look like an uncanny/stilted BGS game. Nobody speaks that way in real life outside of maybe an ISIS beheading video.

 

[Davros]

Question : I remember seeing a headline country x has approved the merger - It was that long ago that I cant remember any of the details, what I do remember is thinking "what the hell has it got to do with that country"
That got me thinking what countries have to approve the merger and what if one of them says no ?
I meant to post this question ages ago but forgot all about it...

 

[pcchen]

Question : I remember seeing a headline country x has approved the merger - It was that long ago that I cant remember any of the details, what I do remember is thinking "what the hell has it got to do with that country"
That got me thinking what countries have to approve the merger and what if one of them says no ?
I meant to post this question ages ago but forgot all about it...

My understanding is that if a country has laws regarding merger control, you may need their approval if you are doing business in that country.
If one of the country says no, it's possible to simply stop doing business there but it might be incompatible with some laws.

 

[Davros]

By "doing business in that country" what do you mean by that, do you mean sells product in that country (for example every country that steam operates in because they sell Activision games) or do they have to have employees in that country.
In my mind Microsoft is an American company Activision is also an American company so why would (New Zealand for example) have any say in the matter?
It's hard to find a complete list of the countries that approved the merger but I think the total is 37

 

[pcchen]

By "doing business in that country" what do you mean by that, do you mean sells product in that country (for example every country that steam operates in because they sell Activision games) or do they have to have employees in that country.
In my mind Microsoft is an American company Activision is also an American company so why would (New Zealand for example) have any say in the matter?
It's hard to find a complete list of the countries that approved the merger but I think the total is 37

I'm not sure about New Zealand but for example in Taiwan both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have regional offices here. It was approved by the TFTC in October without much discussion AFAIK.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You just finished saying this:

I gave specific an example, which is the facial animation system. I took your "Artistically and technically mediocre graphics" to be broader criticism of the games, whereas - excepting BethesdaFace(tm) - I think Bethesda have done interesting things in terms of game art. For example the paint world in Oblivion, making distinct parts of the Capital Wasteland feeling distinct, Blackreach in Skyrim. I think the biggest step tumble was PBR in Fallout 4, which didn't feel quite right.

I don't think there's any technical secret sauce to not having ugly character faces, or wooden facial animations, or weird eyeballing, or whatever.

Well it's definitely not easy unless you go with full mo-cap - which is time consuming. Without mo-cap, models need to have the animation range of all the emotions you need to convey, that there is a lot going on there and a lot of games don't do a great job. Not to mention the tech needs to accommodate multiple spoken languages, getting approximately accurate lip-syncing seems to be a challenge for many games, let alone doing that while always trying to convey emotion.

There's still a lot of uncanny valley even amongst games that are prioritising this tech.

 

[Caayn]

Question : I remember seeing a headline country x has approved the merger - It was that long ago that I cant remember any of the details, what I do remember is thinking "what the hell has it got to do with that country"
That got me thinking what countries have to approve the merger and what if one of them says no ?
I meant to post this question ages ago but forgot all about it...

Any country in which you operate can object the merger if they have the appropriate laws.

Officially selling a product usually equals operating within that country. Thus selling Call of Duty through Steam in New Zealand would qualify you for needing approval if New Zealand demands it through their merger laws.

What "the country of a company" is doesn't matter, otherwise countries such as Panama would not only be a tax haven but also a merger haven.

What happens if an approval isn't granted depends on the country and its laws. In the worst case the merged company can be banned from operating (and thus selling its products and services) in said country. This of course is a double edged sword for both parties as the countries other business can be negatively impacted or the merged company essentially giving a market to its competitors.
A country can also give demands in exchange for an approval such as we see with the MS-ABK-Ubisoft cloud deal we see as a result of the UK's CMA.

 

[Davros]

So no country can prevent the merger they can only prevent that companies products being sold in that country?
ps: regarding steam who is it thats doing business in new zealand is it activision or is it steam ? (maybe steam was a bad example because of the way they operate) so if i use keytogame instead https://keytogame.com/
if they sell to people in new zealand does that also count as activision doing business in new zealand?

 

[Caayn]

So no country can prevent the merger they can only prevent that companies products being sold in that country?

Exactly. However it isn't that black&white as far as I understand.

It's not just not being able to sell Call of Duty in a specific country but, depending on how everything is structured and the laws in place, a ban on selling Xbox and potentially Windows and Azure as well. Which, in this case, is a double edged sword for all parties involved.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Officially selling a product usually equals operating within that country. Thus selling Call of Duty through Steam in New Zealand would qualify you for needing approval if New Zealand demands it through their merger laws.

So no country can prevent the merger they can only prevent that companies products being sold in that country?

I know nothing about New Zealand's system but in the US and Europe, the merger regulation absolutely can and do prevent mergers and the 'trigger event' is generally a change in circumstances for a business owner or a company as a whole.

It's also not about selling a product in a region, it is about where the parties are established. Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard needed to obtain approval from all merger regulators in countries which this type of merger legislation in which both companies were established. It doesn't even matter where a company is headquartered, e.g. Microsoft's global HQ is Seattle, USA and their European HQ is in Munich, Germany, but both Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard were established in the UK (and a lot of other places) which is why we had all the CMA drama. Microsoft UK and Activision-Blizzard UK are legal parts of both of those larger companies and that is how control is exerted extra-territorially.

Where both companies are not established in lots of countries, it's much simpler. Take for example Sony acquiring Bungie, Bungie were only established in the US, so it was only the FTC that had to rule on that despite Bungie selling games globally.

 

[Davros]

O.K thanks everyone.....

 

[Caayn]

It seems like the FTC isn't done with the merger. The FTC filed a new complaint, this week, regarding the termination of roughly 1900 jobs within Microsoft's gaming division and asks the court to temporally pause the merger.

FTC complained: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453.117.0_1.pdf
Microsoft response: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453.118.0_1.pdf

 

[fehu]

Microsoft response: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453/gov.uscourts.ca9.344453.118.0_1.pdf

8/10 of the response is basically "BAAAM! Loooooooseeeeers!"
1/10 is "Fuck off and deal with it"
the remaining 1/10 is the lawyer's signature

I'm impressed

 

[eastmen]

8/10 of the response is basically "BAAAM! Loooooooseeeeers!"
1/10 is "Fuck off and deal with it"
the remaining 1/10 is the lawyer's signature

I'm impressed

even more so now that more first party games are coming to the playstation

 

[pharma]

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro studio ‘Toys for Bob’ going independent - KitGuru

Toys for Bob were one of Activision's hidden-gem studios, having done fantastic work on the Spyro an

www.kitguru.net

In an announcement today, the Toys for Bob studio confirmed that it is breaking up with Activision to go independent. However, this does not necessarily mean a break-up with Microsoft, as the studio is also in talks to partner with Microsoft on future projects.
...
Apparently, both Activision and Microsoft were supportive of this move. Presumably, the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro IP will be staying under Activision's control, but if this new independent version of Toys for Bob is partnering with Microsoft on a new game, then there is a chance they could continue working on those franchises.