Gaming

We're heading towards the balkanization of all digital content, DRM is the method they will use to enforce their rule.

Piracy isn't just moral at this stage, you're obligated to participate as a means to resist.

The indie industry is also growing a lot these days

"Execs behind Starfield"

The same execs that bought the company already half way through development of Starfield, and rather than delivering anything new or of value, only wanted to make sure it was extinguished on other systems?

As for "execs behind Halo," the less said the better. I've never seen a series driven so hard into the ground.

To be clear, overall I don't disagree that more consolidation is bad. It's literally just this instance. Activision needs to die and be restructured.

I don't see this as a bad thing but it's also not a great thing. It's like watching one village-crushing giant team up with another village-crushing giant because one of the giants isn't crushing enough villages to be healthy. So they will now crush villages together in hopes both can eat a lot better.

It's like aww, they found family... But also they'll probably crush us at noon so there is that.

My main argument against the acquisition is that the morons behind Activision/Blizzard will get a ridiculous payout

These people should get a lifetime ban from executive positions, not a payout

Your comment made me step back a minute, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I tend to agree with your assessment after looking at this scenario more closely. I'm no fan of Microsoft but Activision isn't exactly a great studio. Only time will tell!

This is the inevitable conclusion to free-market based economies. The market will pick winners, and those winners will then have a capital advantage over all new entrants, allowing them to outcompete anyone they want, and to use their size to control the market at large. It’s literally built into the system. The attempts at reform we try are rolled back eventually, and we end up in the same place again. Ma Bell broke up, and for a while we had competition across the industry and innovation. Eventually, market leaders were picked, and we end up where we are now, with few options, and little difference between the ones we have.

Oligopoly, not monopoly. Monopoly implies there's just 1 company. In gaming there is far from one company.

This monopoly stuff has to end.

Microsoft aren't a monopoly, especially in gaming. Even buying ABK they won't be even remotely close to a monopoly.

It's not really about Activision being bought though, it's about Microsoft buying them.

To be honest, this is why I've been of two minds regarding the whole thing.

ActivisionBlizzard needs a complete structural change. That's not going to happen without someone else acquiring them, which they were seeking out themselves.

That it's Microsoft who did that kind of sucks, but if not them, it probably would have just been someone like Embracer who's also currently consolidating a lot of IP. Tencent is another option.

If Sony acquired them, it would have led to the same fight, only it'd be Microsoft complaining.

I understand why Microsoft is probably one of the worse options here, due to Game Pass and having their own console, but I don't think there was ever going to be a good outcome for everyone here. It was ActBlizz who wanted to sell and it was never going to be a cheap acquisition.

Some other deal would have gone through (and be challenged), and I think people would still have issues with it regarding their market share.

Can I ask why? Microsoft has a monetary incentive to push the games to other platforms wherever possible. Yeah they may hold a few back (see Starfield) to try and sell consoles but I don't expect them to withhold all. There were some interesting articles that this deal is more about the mobile gaming (King) rather than COD or other AB games.

As an Xbox and Nintendo owner I feel Sony/Nintendo have done more harm to the industry by reinforcing exclusives (both times and complete) than Microsoft. Wouldn't it be in Microsoft's right to do what the market leaders are doing and take advantage of exclusives to try and gain market share back? We also saw with testimony/discovery during the trial that Sony would often say one thing publicly and another internally. I think Sony only opposed this cause they wanted to stoke the fire of fandoms.

It's less the focus on consolidation and more getting out the very problematic leadership from Activision (Bobby and his crew). Not that Microsoft is a bastion of progressive thought or leadership, but it's suspected they would be much less likely to have covered up things like the Cosby room, suicide due to harassment, or the theft of breast milk. Activision's leadership has some deep seated problems with sexism in general.

People like my friend Dave, I guess. He's got Game Pass practically for life (bought through one of those insane 'convert all your Xbox Gold time to Game Pass for $1" deals) and he wants as many "free" games as he can get. Like Call of Duty, last time he bought a Call of Duty game was probably 10 years ago, but he's still very excited about the prospect of Call of Duty on Game Pass.

im still waiting to play spider-man and god of war

I think they might go the other way and use it as leverage to push Sony to release cross platform games

From what I've heard, Blizzard's C-suite and company culture was already poison before Activision. I'm not sure Microsoft will care about much more than getting a profit out of the deal.

We often forget that big companies have been broken up before.