A bit of wider industry news today. News which completely blows my mind - Microsoft are out to acquire Activision Blizzard. Pending all the regulatory approvals they need to go through which takes times and can be denied.
This continues the very worrying trend of these mega companies amassing huge resources. Microsoft now control a ridiculous amount of publisher and developer teams, easily helping towards more lock-in with Microsoft services and products. For Microsoft, it makes sense of course, since they can continue dumping titles into Game Pass and get more subscriptions for recurring revenue.
Activision Blizzard has been in a lot of hot water lately, which is probably a big understatement. Employees and investors have repeatedly called for the removal of the current CEO, Bobby Kotick. The press release is a bit vague on what will happen with Kotick, as it mentions Kotick "will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard" and then "Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming". So it somewhat makes it sound like Kotick might only be there until the deal is fully done but it's pretty vague. Probably intentionally vague due to the ongoing issues. Update: Kotick will remain, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed via email. Update #2: They tried to clarify again later that they were speaking generally about the acquisition so it's anyone's guess what will happen with Kotick (IGN).
This will be an "all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion" which is so much money I can't even begin to imagine it.
Microsoft will then own the likes of Activision, Blizzard and King studios with Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Candy Crash and global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. The press release states this will make Microsoft "the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony".
Since Microsoft isn't quite the same as the Microsoft of old, we might end up seeing more Activision Blizzard games come to Steam and so making it even easier to run them on Linux through Steam Play Proton. Imagine having Diablo, Starcraft, Overwatch, various newer Call of Duty games and so on being a few clicks away on Steam + Linux.
What do you think to this news? The deal is expected to close in 2023.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
rustybroomhandle Jan 19, 2022
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: rustybroomhandleI do hate this.I guess we'll find out whether they have enough extra to buy some spare legs.
But what did Microsoft spend this buttload of money on? Maybe 5 franchises, some of them on their last legs.
They need to sort out the workers issue first. I hope someone has reached out to some of them to see how they feel about all this.
Craggles086 Jan 19, 2022
When all the gaming legends of the 80s and 90s are either no more, or are all owned by two or three companies worldwide, it will be a sad day.
Hopefully there is still room for established names to publish on the indie scene. :)
I am sure they have a long term strategy. The time will come, when the MS owned games will be Windows/XBOX exclusive.
I am worried, that Gaben has just missed the point to also own a few important franchises/Studios, to compete. If you only have the plattform, you are fucked in the long term. At least when there is a content owner, who owns a majority of content and has big infrastructure/customer base like Windows.
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: RaabenIt's weird seeing so many think this is a good pattern and praising MS for being gamer friendly lately. Does no one else see these grabs as a great lock-in? Give it a little time, buy another beloved studio or three, then start the MS store exclusivity. With no other possibility from any of those shell publishers anymore, it will be a forced success - what Epic tried but with the capital to pull it off. And then, it could even be a simple swap to UWP and game over WINE/Proton.Seriously.
Within recent years; inXile, Obsidian, Bethesda. Now Activision/Blizzard.
Still laughing that so many journalists are rounding off to 70 Billion... ignoring the 1.3 Billion dollar difference between 70 and 68.7...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbVb63qPDQ8
Well they are not wrong. That it happens to be 68.7bn is just a side effect of Microsoft having to buy ActivisionBlizzard of the stock market, had they dealt with a single owner then it would have been 70bn and people like nice round numbers.
Quoting: GuestNext up Ubisoft?
Nah. Microsoft is highly opportunistic with its aquisitions. Unless it explodes in its hands -some angry Activision shareholders being able to fight this- this is obiously them getting Activision at discount price thanks to the recent exploits of the Bobby Kotick charming persona. Culture aside, Activision is a money printing machine.
They might not do good games (in the good old Blizzard sense of it), but they do games that sell a lot to the masses. Hadn't this abusive stuff exploded we would be here reading again how Bobby announces record profits, appoints himself a crazy performance bonus, how he thanks his eployees for their desperate crunches that made for another year of financial success and then fires them in mass to squeeze a little more profit now that development is not needed anymore.
Would Microsoft force their own store upon gamers, it would reinforce Valve's commitment in Linux even further.
As for UWP, even Windows gamers don't want it.
That's just my view on the subject though, only time will tell.
Short term: Meh. Whatever.
Long term: Fear of monopolistic shenanigans
kaktuspalme Jan 19, 2022
But I still hope Microsoft continues publishing Games to Steam.
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