If the regulatory agencies reject the M$ buyout

General Discussion
#1

Would you guys be open to Valve or Valve plus a few others buying out ATVI?

What do you think of Valve buying just Blizz + Battle net and taking it private? Activision could still go to M$ at a lower cost.

Valve has proven it can put out good quality games, and can go their own way (away from M$) and do very well (ex: proton). Valves games do way better in the eSports arena. On the eSports side the prize pools for Valve games are a night and day difference as compared to Blizz games.

Don’t confuse the real value of Blizz based on ATVI stock price. I would measure based on revenue. According to Google Blizz brings in about 34% of ATVI’s yearly revenue (approx. $2.72 billion).

#2

Microsoft is the perfect scenario for longevity of Diablo and aRPGs since they are investing heavily in AI.

Years ago I’d say Google, but they went astray. Facebook would be wild. Valve would be more of the same we already have.

1 Like
#3

Valve is not remotely large enough to buy ATVI. And wouldn’t make sense for multiple companies to buy it together. Would they take a piece each?

Afaik Valve has mostly proven that they are nearly incapable of putting out games these days.

1 Like
#4

This is the worst thing to happen to gaming since blizzard replaced blizzard north with new people.

2 Likes
#5

Anyone but Facebook. But in all honesty I believe this deal is all but done. Microsoft will buy them out.

#6

Damn you are so full of bad information you make FOX News look legitimate. Blizzard didn’t replace Blizzard North with new people. They closed the studio and shifted D3 development to Irvine.

4 Likes
#7

Ohh Yeah pleas cry some more for us, and tell us again how D4 is going to be console only, that’s the funnyiest part. I need to hear it a gain. :joy:

1 Like
#8

I think the funniest part is how he essentialy made his first “i quit D4” thread.

2 Likes
#9

Just be thankful it wasn’t Amazon.

1 Like
#10

Oh Hell yeaaah XD. No crybabyta in D4. I can imagine he’s going to be the only one whitout a copy of D4 to PC. Because he thinks it is going to be designed for consoles only. :joy:

#11

@Skelos:
Heavily invested in AI means absolutely nothing… especially with respect to running a PC and console game development company.

@Shadout:
Please explain how Valve can’t put out games? ATVI valuation is based on stock price. If you remove the stock value and look at revenue then their real value is $7 to $8 billion with 34% coming from Blizzard. I could see a collaboration of companies buying up ATVI (that are not M$, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, TenCent). Their games are already cross platform (Win, Mac, Linux, Andriod, iOS).

If you break out just Blizz from ATVI and only consider its revenue, which is below $3 Billion, then they could buy Blizz/Battle net. Its just that Kotick would not get a billion dollar golden parachute out of the deal most likely. At least with Valve, they are a game dev shop, a game distribution shop, they are in VR, Linux, and the handheld comes next month. Valve might actually bring current Blizz games to Linux as native ports, as well as deploy upcoming games to consoles as well.

@SeriaMau:
Replacing M$ with Amaz$on is basically the same.

@Everybody else:
Could you guys get on topic (including Bravata). I’m expect that you guys have insightful opinions.

#12

Empirical evidence? They have released one short VR game in 7 years or so?
MS is much more of a game dev than Valve is. No matter if they are a good or bad one.

Their value is much higher than that. They have a net income of like $2.5 billion per year. And seems like they have $10 billion cash on hand. Even in an extreme bear market, their value would be $30+ billion. Unless one was expecting Blizzard to melt down of course.

#13

How exactly? One has a successful games division. The other one keeps strugling to enter that market. One is clearly worse than the other when we’re talking about games.

1 Like
#14

No, but Activision selling out in pieces might be interesting.

#15

Boring comment, predictable, inaccurate, and unnecessarily political. 2/10, would not read again.

#16

Valve has a strange policy of having no internal structure, so people work on whatever they want whenever they please. Im not sure they are the right company.

Does Microsoft have a gaming department?

We can now forget about any Mac or Linux compatibility.

#17

No, they only have Xbox and everything it owns, like multiple game studios.

#18

Artifact is an online collectable card game base on the DotA 2 universe. It was released in 2018 and on release date it was available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The game visuals are stunning and there is parity across the 3 platforms. One would have to compare it to Blizzard’s Hearthstone online card game in terms of quality and polish.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/583950/Artifact/

If you can create a high quality game that is multi-platform on release date then you can put out good quality stuff. Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life 2 are all Windows, Mac, Linux. Blizz management is too lazy to even bother with Linux and Mac support in some cases, let alone build 64-bit native Linux game clients. You said that ATVI is much bigger than Valve, which further supports an argument that Blizzard has no excuse not to build native Linux game clients. DotA 2’s prize pool in 2021 was over $40 million. Kotick ran Blizzard’s eSports into the dirt. Some of Valves titles are on consoles and Android.

So Valve looks like they actually care about being in the PC gaming market and not just consoles (ahem Acti-Blizz-M$). Once M$ release the direct X box, they have been slanted toward their console much like Activision is a console game company with PC after thoughts.

Valve would be a good fit as compared to the evil swallow 'em up empire that has their eyeballs glued to the Metaverse. M$ sound like the completely out of touch Bezos and Brandson with their insane desire to exit the planet.

#19

Quite possibly the biggest flop from Valve.

#20

The online card game market is dominated to a large degree by Hearthstone, and not nearly as large as the FPS shooter market. It was a gamble that ended up being a proof of concept. Most, if not all, of their prior titles had Linux native ports some time after the original release date on Windows. Artifact hit Win, Mac, Linux on release date with full parity between the game clients. Its a big deal to plan and design for those 3 big platforms with their nuance, and the Linux clients are Vulkan enabled from the beginning.

You are calling it a flop but are ignoring the technical milestones.