Microsoft buying activision blizzard

is this a good thing or a bad thing for sc2?

Neither, probably. I doubt SC2 will see any affect at all. It could have interesting implications for what types of games are made in the setting though. IIRC Microsoft also has significant stakes in Age of Empires, so we may not see another RTS in the Starcraft setting for a while, to avoid competing with yourself. Could see a shooter or something though.

They cared about age of empires and other games.

I don’t know if the bees are good or bad tonsc3,probsbly nothing will change in the short-mid term.In several years?,who knows.

While not being a fan of MS Operating Systems, hearing such stupidity causes a “General Protection Fault” error on me…
I am restarting on Safe Mode after this enormity from this imbecile.

There is no way the FTC allows this acquisition to go through.

AOE Elephants VS StarCraft Ultralisks will become CANON :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain:
…
That doesn’t answer the question, rather that re-ask it :crazy_face:

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You know, the funny thing is there might very well be a balance patch for 2023 if Microsoft really does decide to pour life into these games again.

SC2 is over a decade old. If and when somebody decides to invest more resources into the franchise, it will almost certainly be an entirely new game rather than additional content for one that sees genuine issues due to its age.

Age is irrelevant on a strategy game.

When the game is too old to correctly utilize modern hardware that didnt exist when it was originally developed, age is an issue.

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Ah, from that POV no one can disagree. Just now i saw the latest news from FrostGiants and they had decided to use the UR 5 engine for their incoming game that would be released this year.
The King is dead, long live the King.

This is likely a good thing but definitely not a bad thing. We don’t know how good but things weren’t going to improve at all under the current Activision Blizzard leadership. At the very least it gives the developers a new chance to request that Classic Games be restored beyond the current skeleton crew and maybe even be allowed to complete work on some of the content that got started but was brought to a halt over a year ago.

There are already some encouraging signs of a Starcraft II picture being part of the announcement and the official Xbox twitch channel almost immediately featuring a Starcraft II stream. Microsoft is very supportive of PC gaming and we’ve seen them support the Age of Empires series despite the common belief that the RTS genre just isn’t profitable. There are also a good number of developers working under Xbox who previously were involved with the Starcraft and Warcraft RTS games. Microsoft also has shown a lot of interest in finding a place in the esports scene.

At best this could be a return to some competent support of both Starcraft titles and even the possibility of new games down the road. At worst…Well, they’re not going to be able to make any further cuts to the Starcraft games without taking them off the digital store. The only major problem I can picture is this possibly affecting the esports partnerships with ESL and AfreecaTV but we weren’t sure what would happen with those after IEM Katowice 2023 anyway.

Aoe3 was considered a dead game for years but since de it’s receiving regular updates and paid dlc’s. If a game that small is getting updates I think there’s a good chance we’ll get one for sc2… eventually.

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You think we may get the Windows flag as a portrait, or even a Microsoft/Windows console?

We know that Microsoft greatly incentivizes internal teams to prepare projects for submission. and we know very well that many Blizzard employees have complained that Activision’s leadership from 2016/2018 has imposed a progressive cut in investments on game development. including the disbandment of teams dedicated to certain franchises in favor of others (Overwatch and Diablo, currently). it would be a big win if Blizzard had the incentive to return to keep more teams from multiple franchises consecutively, including StatCraft, HotS, and a ransom for W3 Reforged.

but honestly for SC I think it’s time to start making the identity leap that warcraft had done long ago with WoW. I don’t know, maybe the ghost project.

in any case, the example with age of empires is correct: Microsoft recognizes the historical value of IPs, and if many are discussing the future of Crash or Spyro … then StarCraft is also worthy of this attention. and if that also includes giving a ransom to W3 Reforged’s shame headstone, so much the better for the RTS genre.

Hope they improve SC2, it can’t be worse than what is happening nowadays.

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There is hope.

The game will be treated better and will be for a long time. StarCraft 2 will change in a minor way probably but the StarCraft IP be developed in a way for Games, Television, etc. Microsoft is a huge company and will stay on the top of the echelon for a very long time.

Cannot wait for Ages of Warcraft with at least 8 different civilizations per side (Horde and Alliance)!

Remove Heroes, keep only 2 resources, but make trading and slower Town building like in AoE2, add in a Medieval based counter system and unit types (Horde Wolf Archers, Alliance Pikemen, Night Elf Forest Prowlers, Catapults and Cannons that 1-shot blobs…), and you get a winning combination.

Fun fact: around the same time announcement of the buying appeared, the ads and stuff on the main screen of my Battle.net application stopped working :grin: