To those thinking Microsoft is going to make a difference

General Discussion
#1

They won’t. Hear me out. When they bought Bethesda and Mojang they left them to go their own way. I am not privy to the agreements but unless it’s for console exclusives, don’t expect much of anything to change. Minecraft still runs on Linux. We might see a push to play together. Console parity for future titles. Wow on Xbox. But structurally, how Blizzard does things will remain largely unchanged. For better and for worse. They take a largely hands off style of business decisions.

All that being said, they’ll likely have a larger budget for hardware and being hosted on those amazing ocean servers, means less lag wherever you play from. Microsoft is a good collaboration company. They just seek domination. They don’t care how you do things as long as they own you doing it.

4 Likes
#2

I don’t think that’s completely true. Just sit back and observe. We might be in for some suprises.

1 Like
#3

Lol sure, with your post history…

2 Likes
#4

IMO, it’s a good thing that MS bought them. Now Kotick is not the ultimate boss and that may result in good things. Remember that MS brought back Age of Empires. They may salvage WC3:R. They have EXTREMELY deep pockets. 100m for WC4 or 200m for WoW2 is peanuts to them.

#5

I’m not so sure I’d go so far as saying it’s a good thing. There may be some pluses. As you said, they’ve got deep pockets. And I have a deep appreciation for what they’ve done with the Age of Empires series which I grew up with and still enjoy. Generally, I think Blizzard have been good stewards with SC and SC2. I’m not sure there’s quite the same market to fix WC3:Refunded. While they could, they’d need to make money, and that typically means new DLC, but WC3 is done and should stay done, content-wise. Anything new in that IP was directed to WoW.

Mainly, I’m hoping they can get proper project management in place to get D4 completed, balanced, and working well prior to release.

But, the downside is that they’re octopus-ing. They’re taking over all the gaming studios and the monopolistic behavior is terrible for gamers because you simply won’t have choice. There’s no competing option. And as we continue to see the consolidation, the barriers to entry into the market for a new studio just keep getting higher and higher.

The other thing is that I kept hearing about a metaverse. FB just changed their name to that, which caught my attention. We’re looking at an enormous project here to generate highly addictive content to hook people into a digital alternate reality. Having been addicted to games in the past, this is a very real danger with societal implications that need to be talked about.

I’m not a fan of seeing these giant tech mergers.

1 Like
#6

i don´t like the monopoly-trajectory either but better MS than tencent.

i hope Phil Spencer warms up to crossplay. rumour is he´s not atm.

3 Likes
#7

I don’t know man, but those heroes of the storm players in the HoTS Reddit already believed that Microsoft will revive their dead game to the former glory. :rofl:

If anything, Microsoft is probably doesn’t even know about the existence of HoTS or even care to do anything with it.

#8

Best thing that happened in this company for the last 20 years besides Diablo 4 going into production.

2 Likes
#9

This is how I see it too, Microsoft being the ultimate boss won’t be worse than Activision already has been for Blizzard

I don’t think we’ll see “WoW2” but I do expect WoW for Xbox and Wow Sub included in gamepass.

Most Blizzard games will keep a focus on selling cosmetics because MS will want the games to be always on gamepass.

Some future titles will probably become Xbox/PC exclusive but none of the currently in production products are going to drop off Playstation.

Microsoft is slowly but surely moving every aspect of their business into a service industry position and Blizzard games have always been long-term support live products. Blizzard will actually be owned by an entity that supports its historical development strategy (the one it built its reputation on).

2 Likes
#10

From my own experience having been bought out by another company and us buying a smaller company, I don’t believe change will come quickly. There are way too many reasons to list here on what Microsoft intentions are by buying Activision. Could be content, expending their player base, increasing their share of the market etc. What I can guess with some certainty, they didn’t buy Activision with the mindset of making big changes on the gaming side right away.

I personally believe Microsoft saw an opportunity to buy Activision since it was mired in all this controversy and an opening to increase their gaming footprint.

So I would think, when you buy a profitable company, change will come slow. No one wants to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Yes, there will be some consolidation, but that’s normally personnel and such. We will not know their full intention until years down the line. AS for now, I believe it will stay business as usual for the foreseeable future. This is my guess.

3 Likes
#11

It’s definitely going to change because its a complete contrast in the motives behind the ownership. It’s still going to be 3-5 years before any impact is felt.

AB has basically been milking stock gains out of its IPs at the cost of their quality and to the detriment of the brand for more than a decade. This unsustainable path of sacrificing long-term growth for short-term gains was done with the understanding that once things went south something like this would give them an out.

MS’s motives are reversed. They are willing to absorb short-term loss to acquire long-term growth and scale. They want the IPs, the platform, and the market share on the prospect of how the industry is going to continue to evolve and grow, which means there is more importance in the health of these things than the next quarterly report.

It’s still all about money, but its a difference between cashing out and buying in.

#12

It already has made a difference.

1 Like
#13

I disagree. Indie studios have been thriving over the past decade (e.g. Valheim was created by a 5 person team and has received a lot of praise and attention). Their products are easily brought to the market via Steam or Epic. Furthermore, Steam has more competition now so they reduced their cut, which further benefits Indie devs.

If anything, barriers are being removed. GGG was able to compete with Blizzard with some success (Ten Cent bought them).

The only time we need to worry about competition is if a monopoly controls the marketplace or governments get involved and create barriers to new companies such as excessive license fees (e.g. state governments used to require a license for braiding hair, which helped the big salons but hurt new startups).

1 Like
#14

In perception perhaps, but not in any real way. Hell, the deal, even if it goes trough is a year+ away.

#15

It has, as we already know that, should it actually pass control boards, Kotick (and likely many more) are gone. That alone causes some to have hope, a renewed interest, and also, on a semi-related note… ask Sony if losing $20 billion in stock value is meaningless.

#16

Which is entirely based on perception. For us, the gamers, nothing has changed, and won’t for at least a couple of years. It’s not like MS will change stuff instantly when and if they take over.

#17

Perception != individual impact.

I did not say it reached out and yellow paged every gamer on the planet.

There have been ripples. They will get larger. Or, they will be quelled. But, the announcement alone created them… we’ll have to see what happens from it, but saying “nothing happened” is inaccurate and blatantly false.

#18

It is way way too early to draw that conclusion about Bethesda.

They already announced future Bethesda games will only be on Xbox and PC.

It kinda is.
The reason for why they lost the stock value is not meaningless, but the stock value itself, eh, doesnt matter much unless they were going around with plans to sell new shares.

Now, for the people holding Sony stocks, it might matter. Though less so if they were also holding ATVI :smiley:

#19

I never said nothing happened, I said nothing changed, for us, the gamers.

#20

oh they’ll do something. It’s just a matter of what.