Oh how I hate monopolies, MS has been on a buying spree and someone needs to stop them, but it will likely never happen. This is even worse, I can't believe someone is letting all of this slide...
Oh how I hate monopolies, MS has been on a buying spree and someone needs to stop them, but it will likely never happen.
"Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. [...] he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture."
This is even worse, I can't believe someone is letting all of this slide and a massive paycheck.
Right? It seems like this would be a great opportunity for him to step aside and use the purchase as an excuse. He should have been fired long ago for his handling of the abuse accusations but...
Right? It seems like this would be a great opportunity for him to step aside and use the purchase as an excuse.
He should have been fired long ago for his handling of the abuse accusations but this would have at least allowed him to save face.
Agreed he should have been fired, however.... I'm betting he will leave in the next year or two, but having a CEO depart in the middle of an acquisition doesn't really promote a sense of stability...
Agreed he should have been fired, however....
I'm betting he will leave in the next year or two, but having a CEO depart in the middle of an acquisition doesn't really promote a sense of stability so I'm betting him staying on for at least X time was probably part of the negotiation.
That is what he is doing. Once the acquisition is complete, Kotick is leaving the company and his former subordinates will report directly to Phil Spencer.
That is what he is doing. Once the acquisition is complete, Kotick is leaving the company and his former subordinates will report directly to Phil Spencer.
It's very common to keep a separate CEO for acquired companies especially if they run as subsidiaries. For example, the current CEO of Github is Thomas Dohmke, who reports to MS CEO Satya Nadella...
It's very common to keep a separate CEO for acquired companies especially if they run as subsidiaries. For example, the current CEO of Github is Thomas Dohmke, who reports to MS CEO Satya Nadella (I don't think there's a layer between the two).
And indeed, if the "purge" didn't happen, you could have had J Allen Brack (Blizzard CEO), reporting to Bobby Kotick (ATVI CEO), reporting to Phil Spencer (MS Gaming CEO), reporting to Satya Nadella (MS CEO).
At that point, it's just a different way of saying "Director of", or "Division Lead" or whatever. It also acknowledges the fact this was a separate company before, and management "wants it to remain independent".
Anyway, of course it wouldn't make sense to kick Kotick out immediately. But it's not unlikely he's only here transitionally.
TBH, I didn't feel too bad about them buying up a few of the minor companies, but this is basically a consolidation of two of the biggest, what, 5 game publishers? I didn't mind them buying up...
TBH, I didn't feel too bad about them buying up a few of the minor companies, but this is basically a consolidation of two of the biggest, what, 5 game publishers? I didn't mind them buying up indies, I didn't mind them buying Bethesda (considering they were on a downward spiral as well). Even though I don't play Activiton/Blizzard games much these days, that still feels a bit much.
If that's true, I may be able to play my old Blizzard games some time this decade, which would be nice, but I'll believe it precisely upon the day that bastard is out. Sadly, he won't be out on...
If that's true, I may be able to play my old Blizzard games some time this decade, which would be nice, but I'll believe it precisely upon the day that bastard is out. Sadly, he won't be out on the street, but he'll at least be out!
I can believe it. 2021 probably saved Microsoft a good 20b on the transaction. I'm sure shareholders are pissed. But deals are extremely slow and this deal won't close for over a year, and there...
I can believe it. 2021 probably saved Microsoft a good 20b on the transaction. I'm sure shareholders are pissed.
But deals are extremely slow and this deal won't close for over a year, and there will probably be obligations to keep old Activision staff around for a few months after that during the transition. So it will be a while.
I honestly think this acquisition will do good for Blizzard and its IPs. Microsoft studios have a good output, and I trust their ability. That may not be so good for PS5 owners, since there will...
I honestly think this acquisition will do good for Blizzard and its IPs. Microsoft studios have a good output, and I trust their ability. That may not be so good for PS5 owners, since there will be inevitably a bunch of exclusives.
Ditto. I totally understand people being angry when hearing about even more corporate consolidation happening in the world... but IMO this is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for....
Ditto. I totally understand people being angry when hearing about even more corporate consolidation happening in the world... but IMO this is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for. Activision Blizzard on their own were clearly never going to fix their toxic workplace culture issues, but MS isn't going to tolerate that shit, and once the acquisition transition period is over and Kotick "retires" MS can put someone at the top who isn't just going to continue ignoring those problems.
Plus, for purely selfish reasons I am also kinda happy about this news, since it means Acti+Bliz games getting added to Xbox Game Pass for PC. :P
Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978723
Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from the Activision, Blizzard and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush,” in addition to global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. The company has studios around the word with nearly 10,000 employees.
The acquisition also bolsters Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass, which has reached a new milestone of over 25 million subscribers. With Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises, this acquisition will make Game Pass one of the most compelling and diverse lineups of gaming content in the industry. Upon close, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios, along with additional publishing and esports production capabilities.
I'm in the Microsoft gaming ecosystem exclusively and I really like Blizzard's games (although I haven't played any of them for so long due to variety of reasons) so this is great news for me....
I'm in the Microsoft gaming ecosystem exclusively and I really like Blizzard's games (although I haven't played any of them for so long due to variety of reasons) so this is great news for me. Having said that, while I celebrate this move in the short/mid term, I do worry about what its consequences might be in the long term.
No company should be entrusted with monopoly power, but Microsoft has especially a bad track record in this area. There's also not a clear-cut legal argument for why this might lead to Microsoft having monopoly power over the gaming industry, the US legal system has a different interpretation of what a monopoly is rather than, say, the EU so I don't see a world in which this acquisition is blocked. I was rather expecting them to buy Take-Two rather than Activision Blizzard (which didn't even cross my mind) but I guess AB also makes sense considering they already have a user base that's more than happy to be paying a monthly fee to access a game that might be an asset in the whole metaverse shenanigans.
Separately, Microsoft announced last week that it has hired an outside firm to conduct a review of the company’s sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies after a shareholder proposal pushing for the investigation was approved.
I'm not a big blizzard fanboy, so this hits me less than the ZeniMax acquisition. Still. There's absolutely no benefit in this to gamers while the platform restrictions are quite obviously making...
I'm not a big blizzard fanboy, so this hits me less than the ZeniMax acquisition. Still. There's absolutely no benefit in this to gamers while the platform restrictions are quite obviously making things worse.
The low price argument is so short-sighted. Short-term, okay, you might get a few more games cheaply with Game Pass but current pricing for it can't possibly be profitable. They'll wait until they get a target subscriber number (likely, they are close) and just raise it until you pay like 4 full priced games worth of subscription fees a year for... 4 full priced games releasing (even if you would have only bought 3 of them or waited for a sale). Every subscription service is raising prices, quite dramatically, recently.
Microsoft just throwing money at their exclusives problem feels like they're trying to fix a cultural problem with cash instead of introspection. If you look at Nintendo or Sony, their exclusives are either produced completely in-house or by companies that chose to work for their platforms exclusively for many years (sometimes decades) before they basically went "why pretend, let's make this official". There was flirting, dating and a relationship first, Microsoft is basically going for an arranged marriage. Looking at how previous game studio acquisitions by Microsoft let to them completely burning out, I'm worried that this will not only lead to forced exclusivity but creative stagnation.
In that regard, nearly all their huge purchases, lately, fit the pattern: Huge franchises, past their prime. The only game that we know of that generates hype comparable to the biggest Nintendo or Sony games announced is Starfield. They bought cash cows with CoD and Candy Crush. But Starfield is the only announced game that people might actually buy an Xbox for.
Because they need to get more people into their ecosystem. It's like the Epic Store literally giving games away for free. This is not a long-term strategy.
Because they need to get more people into their ecosystem. It's like the Epic Store literally giving games away for free. This is not a long-term strategy.
Games were cheaper on the Xbox One as well, with the bonus of retrocompatibility. I agree that it's quite possible that this strategy may change, but, even if it does, it will probably take long...
Games were cheaper on the Xbox One as well, with the bonus of retrocompatibility. I agree that it's quite possible that this strategy may change, but, even if it does, it will probably take long enough to have long lasting effects for the duration of the current generation.
Yea, ultimately, it will probably give you a pretty good deal for some big names this generation. I'll admit, I'm torn about subscription services. On the one hand, it makes total sense for "full...
Yea, ultimately, it will probably give you a pretty good deal for some big names this generation.
I'll admit, I'm torn about subscription services. On the one hand, it makes total sense for "full library" kinda offers. On the other, you'll mostly find games you like in at least 2 or 3 services, so you'd end up paying like $30+ a month to play all the games you actually want to play, which is not cheap at all and way more than what I typically spend on games a year (AAA games are often 50% off a couple of months after launch). A Spotify kinda situation where you have more or less every artist for $10 a month will likely never happen because every publisher is running their own service.
There is no separation between production and distribution, it's all fully vertical. I'm at a point where I'm seeing parallels to the Hollywood antiturst case of 1948, only with all regulatory bodies completely toothless.
The end game, from what I am seeing, is to discontinue individual game sales for many major franchises and essentially force people who want to play them into a subscription service. Microsoft would probably flat out say this and claim it's a positive development. The moment this happens, we'd suddenly see the monthly price creep into $20 territory (Game Pass "Ultimate" already is $15) with headlines like "$5000 worth of (old) games for only $20 (a month)!". But not the games from competitors who'll never be part of it. And actually you're signing an auto-renewing contract to spend $240 a year.
I don't think subscriptions will replace purchased games, simply because Sony, Microsoft, and game studios make a lot of money that way. They'll coexist, like they do today. A Game Pass...
I don't think subscriptions will replace purchased games, simply because Sony, Microsoft, and game studios make a lot of money that way. They'll coexist, like they do today.
A Game Pass subscription can be worth it depending on the types of games you play, how often you play, and how much of a colectionist you are.
A friend of mine has a huge collection of Xbox games, both physical and digital. When there's games on GP he wanna play (but not purchase) he subscribes. When he's done with the games, he cancel the subscription.
The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate currently serves more than 100 430 games just on consoles, and many of those are pricy, highly sought titles. It's not so bad.
That's quite bad. Microsoft now controls a majority of major video game franchises. Honestly, the only things I can think of that would be on PS5 and Switch now are smaller studios, indies and...
That's quite bad. Microsoft now controls a majority of major video game franchises. Honestly, the only things I can think of that would be on PS5 and Switch now are smaller studios, indies and companies owned by the manufacturer. I'm not even trying to be hyperbolic.
I'm not so sure. Look here - you add them two up by revenue, they beat tencent. Only one left is Sony. Looking at them, I think they basically sell their hardware and then publish the games for...
I'm not so sure. Look here - you add them two up by revenue, they beat tencent. Only one left is Sony. Looking at them, I think they basically sell their hardware and then publish the games for that platform. Meaning as a publisher, I'm not sure they actually own those franchises in any meaningful capacity, except where they produce platform exclusives. Though to be fair, you could argue that to an extent about MS.
Certainly seems to me that they're not far off from being the absolute top dog now.
Sure, but in order for Microsoft to "control a majority of major video game franchises", they would need to own more major IPs than all other companies on that list combined.
Sure, but in order for Microsoft to "control a majority of major video game franchises", they would need to own more major IPs than all other companies on that list combined.
I'm thinking in terms of cross-platform IPs, as exclusives were always exclusive. The size if the IPs they control is the concern: WoW, CoD, Overwatch, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Crash Bandicoot,...
I'm thinking in terms of cross-platform IPs, as exclusives were always exclusive. The size if the IPs they control is the concern: WoW, CoD, Overwatch, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon (these two are more recent ports). There are a handful of mega-studios still standing, and their IPs may have the same market share that is now, but having all of that under one company is something I'm willing to say is a bad thing.
At least this form of consolidation is relatively harmless if you're not playing solely AAA games. It's like Disney and summer blockbusters -- you're kind of stuck with them if that's all you're...
At least this form of consolidation is relatively harmless if you're not playing solely AAA games.
It's like Disney and summer blockbusters -- you're kind of stuck with them if that's all you're into but otherwise there are so many alternatives in the world of film that the "monopoly" doesn't really affect you.
As much as I hate Microsoft's buying spree (partially because of platform restrictions, partially because of their history of fucking game companies over), there's still Electronic Arts, Take Two,...
As much as I hate Microsoft's buying spree (partially because of platform restrictions, partially because of their history of fucking game companies over), there's still Electronic Arts, Take Two, Epic, Ubisoft and a handful of Japanese companies.
Oh how I hate monopolies, MS has been on a buying spree and someone needs to stop them, but it will likely never happen.
This is even worse, I can't believe someone is letting all of this slide and a massive paycheck.
Right? It seems like this would be a great opportunity for him to step aside and use the purchase as an excuse.
He should have been fired long ago for his handling of the abuse accusations but this would have at least allowed him to save face.
Agreed he should have been fired, however....
I'm betting he will leave in the next year or two, but having a CEO depart in the middle of an acquisition doesn't really promote a sense of stability so I'm betting him staying on for at least X time was probably part of the negotiation.
That is what he is doing. Once the acquisition is complete, Kotick is leaving the company and his former subordinates will report directly to Phil Spencer.
On the other hand,
so we'll see how long it actually lasts.
It's very common to keep a separate CEO for acquired companies especially if they run as subsidiaries. For example, the current CEO of Github is Thomas Dohmke, who reports to MS CEO Satya Nadella (I don't think there's a layer between the two).
And indeed, if the "purge" didn't happen, you could have had J Allen Brack (Blizzard CEO), reporting to Bobby Kotick (ATVI CEO), reporting to Phil Spencer (MS Gaming CEO), reporting to Satya Nadella (MS CEO).
At that point, it's just a different way of saying "Director of", or "Division Lead" or whatever. It also acknowledges the fact this was a separate company before, and management "wants it to remain independent".
Anyway, of course it wouldn't make sense to kick Kotick out immediately. But it's not unlikely he's only here transitionally.
TBH, I didn't feel too bad about them buying up a few of the minor companies, but this is basically a consolidation of two of the biggest, what, 5 game publishers? I didn't mind them buying up indies, I didn't mind them buying Bethesda (considering they were on a downward spiral as well). Even though I don't play Activiton/Blizzard games much these days, that still feels a bit much.
He will reportedly be out after the deal closes.
If that's true, I may be able to play my old Blizzard games some time this decade, which would be nice, but I'll believe it precisely upon the day that bastard is out. Sadly, he won't be out on the street, but he'll at least be out!
I can believe it. 2021 probably saved Microsoft a good 20b on the transaction. I'm sure shareholders are pissed.
But deals are extremely slow and this deal won't close for over a year, and there will probably be obligations to keep old Activision staff around for a few months after that during the transition. So it will be a while.
I bet they'll only keep him for the time being to facilitate transition. From what I can gather the purchase is not even final yet.
I honestly think this acquisition will do good for Blizzard and its IPs. Microsoft studios have a good output, and I trust their ability. That may not be so good for PS5 owners, since there will be inevitably a bunch of exclusives.
Ditto. I totally understand people being angry when hearing about even more corporate consolidation happening in the world... but IMO this is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for. Activision Blizzard on their own were clearly never going to fix their toxic workplace culture issues, but MS isn't going to tolerate that shit, and once the acquisition transition period is over and Kotick "retires" MS can put someone at the top who isn't just going to continue ignoring those problems.
Plus, for purely selfish reasons I am also kinda happy about this news, since it means Acti+Bliz games getting added to Xbox Game Pass for PC. :P
Game Pass is going to kick ass, for sure!
Alright, I'll keep you to it. Gimme my THPS1+2 linux native. Thankyouverymuch.
You probably can with some godawful streaming service that only works on Chromium based browsers or something
I think I hate you now./s
Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978723
Some context on numbers via a tweet.
Microsoft’s biggest acquisitions:
Activision Blizzard: $68.7 billion
Linkedin: $26.2 billion
Nuance: $19.7 billion
Skype: $8.5 billion
ZeniMax: $7.5 billion
GitHub: $7.5 bilion
Nokia phone unit: $7.2 billion
aQuantive: $6.3 billion
Mojang (Minecraft): $2.5 billion
As much as I have a strong distaste for corporate consolidation, this is probably a net improvement for the state of affairs at ActiBlizz.
I'm in the Microsoft gaming ecosystem exclusively and I really like Blizzard's games (although I haven't played any of them for so long due to variety of reasons) so this is great news for me. Having said that, while I celebrate this move in the short/mid term, I do worry about what its consequences might be in the long term.
No company should be entrusted with monopoly power, but Microsoft has especially a bad track record in this area. There's also not a clear-cut legal argument for why this might lead to Microsoft having monopoly power over the gaming industry, the US legal system has a different interpretation of what a monopoly is rather than, say, the EU so I don't see a world in which this acquisition is blocked. I was rather expecting them to buy Take-Two rather than Activision Blizzard (which didn't even cross my mind) but I guess AB also makes sense considering they already have a user base that's more than happy to be paying a monthly fee to access a game that might be an asset in the whole metaverse shenanigans.
From this Washington Post article today Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard, the embattled Call of Duty, Warcraft publisher, for $68.7 billion
I like the possibility of more games on gamepass even though they'll probably raise the price as a result. I don't like monopolies.
I'm not a big blizzard fanboy, so this hits me less than the ZeniMax acquisition. Still. There's absolutely no benefit in this to gamers while the platform restrictions are quite obviously making things worse.
The low price argument is so short-sighted. Short-term, okay, you might get a few more games cheaply with Game Pass but current pricing for it can't possibly be profitable. They'll wait until they get a target subscriber number (likely, they are close) and just raise it until you pay like 4 full priced games worth of subscription fees a year for... 4 full priced games releasing (even if you would have only bought 3 of them or waited for a sale). Every subscription service is raising prices, quite dramatically, recently.
Microsoft just throwing money at their exclusives problem feels like they're trying to fix a cultural problem with cash instead of introspection. If you look at Nintendo or Sony, their exclusives are either produced completely in-house or by companies that chose to work for their platforms exclusively for many years (sometimes decades) before they basically went "why pretend, let's make this official". There was flirting, dating and a relationship first, Microsoft is basically going for an arranged marriage. Looking at how previous game studio acquisitions by Microsoft let to them completely burning out, I'm worried that this will not only lead to forced exclusivity but creative stagnation.
In that regard, nearly all their huge purchases, lately, fit the pattern: Huge franchises, past their prime. The only game that we know of that generates hype comparable to the biggest Nintendo or Sony games announced is Starfield. They bought cash cows with CoD and Candy Crush. But Starfield is the only announced game that people might actually buy an Xbox for.
Besides Game Pass, games on Xbox are consistently cheaper than on PS5 in my region, sometimes by a lot
Because they need to get more people into their ecosystem. It's like the Epic Store literally giving games away for free. This is not a long-term strategy.
Games were cheaper on the Xbox One as well, with the bonus of retrocompatibility. I agree that it's quite possible that this strategy may change, but, even if it does, it will probably take long enough to have long lasting effects for the duration of the current generation.
Yea, ultimately, it will probably give you a pretty good deal for some big names this generation.
I'll admit, I'm torn about subscription services. On the one hand, it makes total sense for "full library" kinda offers. On the other, you'll mostly find games you like in at least 2 or 3 services, so you'd end up paying like $30+ a month to play all the games you actually want to play, which is not cheap at all and way more than what I typically spend on games a year (AAA games are often 50% off a couple of months after launch). A Spotify kinda situation where you have more or less every artist for $10 a month will likely never happen because every publisher is running their own service.
There is no separation between production and distribution, it's all fully vertical. I'm at a point where I'm seeing parallels to the Hollywood antiturst case of 1948, only with all regulatory bodies completely toothless.
The end game, from what I am seeing, is to discontinue individual game sales for many major franchises and essentially force people who want to play them into a subscription service. Microsoft would probably flat out say this and claim it's a positive development. The moment this happens, we'd suddenly see the monthly price creep into $20 territory (Game Pass "Ultimate" already is $15) with headlines like "$5000 worth of (old) games for only $20 (a month)!". But not the games from competitors who'll never be part of it. And actually you're signing an auto-renewing contract to spend $240 a year.
I don't think subscriptions will replace purchased games, simply because Sony, Microsoft, and game studios make a lot of money that way. They'll coexist, like they do today.
A Game Pass subscription can be worth it depending on the types of games you play, how often you play, and how much of a colectionist you are.
A friend of mine has a huge collection of Xbox games, both physical and digital. When there's games on GP he wanna play (but not purchase) he subscribes. When he's done with the games, he cancel the subscription.
The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate currently serves more than
100430 games just on consoles, and many of those are pricy, highly sought titles. It's not so bad.That's quite bad. Microsoft now controls a majority of major video game franchises. Honestly, the only things I can think of that would be on PS5 and Switch now are smaller studios, indies and companies owned by the manufacturer. I'm not even trying to be hyperbolic.
This is hyperbolic, as I'm sure it is not true by any reasonable metric.
I'm not so sure. Look here - you add them two up by revenue, they beat tencent. Only one left is Sony. Looking at them, I think they basically sell their hardware and then publish the games for that platform. Meaning as a publisher, I'm not sure they actually own those franchises in any meaningful capacity, except where they produce platform exclusives. Though to be fair, you could argue that to an extent about MS.
Certainly seems to me that they're not far off from being the absolute top dog now.
Sure, but in order for Microsoft to "control a majority of major video game franchises", they would need to own more major IPs than all other companies on that list combined.
Fair. Suppose I was using an alternative facts definition of majority there.
If I remember my SAT words correctly, I think plurality would make sense instead of majority.
I'm thinking in terms of cross-platform IPs, as exclusives were always exclusive. The size if the IPs they control is the concern: WoW, CoD, Overwatch, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon (these two are more recent ports). There are a handful of mega-studios still standing, and their IPs may have the same market share that is now, but having all of that under one company is something I'm willing to say is a bad thing.
At least this form of consolidation is relatively harmless if you're not playing solely AAA games.
It's like Disney and summer blockbusters -- you're kind of stuck with them if that's all you're into but otherwise there are so many alternatives in the world of film that the "monopoly" doesn't really affect you.
As much as I hate Microsoft's buying spree (partially because of platform restrictions, partially because of their history of fucking game companies over), there's still Electronic Arts, Take Two, Epic, Ubisoft and a handful of Japanese companies.