That depends, do you enjoy gigantic authoritarian corporations getting even larger and having even more of a presence in your hobby free time?
It will remain to be seen, but if we go by how Bethesda went, expect OW2 for consoles other than Xbox to be canceled and for them to never get another CoD(no loss there) or console Diablo. I’ll just hope they have the sense to make leadership changes and to kick Ion to the curb.
Blizzard now answers to the Ceo of Microsoft instead of Activision-Blizzard.
My opinions only-
Probably good for Activision long term. Could see the names of King and Blizzard lost.
Not so good for most people who work at Activision/Blizzards headquarters in Santa Monica unless they also own stock.
Could be good for Overwatch and Diablo IV. Might be good for Hearthstone. Status Quo or bad for WOW…
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A bit wary as to what’s going to happen on the employee front.
Acquisitions tend to be unpleasant in terms of layoff possibilities, reorgs, etc.
Kotick is safe for a couple of years and doesn’t really need to care much about PR anymore. Wouldn’t be difficult now for him to make life absolutely miserable for a specific subset of employees… or at the very least do absolutely nothing further to ‘resolve’ the HR problems as of late.
id pay 70 billion to remove a few things in this game
I’m shrugging because I don’t like to pull predictions out of my dooker. I will form an opinion after I see what comes of it but it’s not like my opinion will make a difference anyways lol.
o shiss, yes thats a good point, maybe this is their way of also killing gaming on linux
Sony is a non-factor in the future of gaming. They’re a small indie company that happens to make a more popular console that is quickly becoming irrelevant as we transition to cloud gaming and cloud libraries, and they don’t have the catalog or the relationships to make their future PS Now/Game Pass competitor as good as Game Pass.
The companies Microsoft is trying to squeeze out are Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. They each have their own gaming ambitions and they’re really the only ones who could’ve made a play against them.
It’s too soon to tell news.
Hopeful?
There are a lot of IP’s that Microsoft has in it’s portfolio now. I’m glad that they are investing in gaming, including PC and console.
It reminds me of some of the golden years in the past for the PC. Age of Empires, Microsoft Flight Sim, Forza, Halo, and now WoW.
Hopeful.
It’s not good or bad, really, it just… is.
In terms of us, as customers, it has potential to be good. Microsoft has far more funding, and the purchase will mean that hiring new talent will be easier than it likely has been for Blizzard in recent months. Overall they’ll probably become more efficient and better funded, which will mean at least a more competent product. In terms of game design, we likely won’t see much change, as Microsoft tends to be pretty hands off when it comes to that sort of thing.
Outside of us, it’s not really a good thing that there’s a massive monopoly now. It also crushes any hopes of unionizing at Blizzard, which puts workers entirely at the mercy of the company in terms of how well they’re treated.
Overall, we’ll likely see positive effects in the ‘short term’ (4-5 years) and any true negative effects won’t be seen until after that. Activision bought Blizzard back in 2008, but we didn’t see any true negative effects of that until maybe… 2013.
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Oh damn. This paragraph actually makes me think there may be hope for Starcraft now!
Before the merger, Actiblizz all but declared it a dead franchise. It was cancelling spinoffs left and right, pulled official support from SC2, neglected any mention of it in any messaging regarding the company’s future (mainly to stockholders), and caused the entire RTS team to start their own indie studio.
But now? If SC gets the official support Microsoft gave to AOE, there may well be bright days ahead for the franchise.
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It’s kind of neutral other than the possibilities of new opportunities like VR and a company that maybe communicates more than once or twice a year. These are all stretches though.
Hopefully, Microsoft throws the current development team. Microsoft will want WoW to produce more than one content patch a year.
Microsoft owns ESO too. Maybe a buy to play model with an extended cash shop. Not sure what they will do with the token if WoW goes on Game Pass.
Bad for anyone who actually thinks that hiring Bobby Kotick after he leaves is a good idea.
Microsoft wishes to complete with META… This is what they believe will be the ship for that… Blizzard is sitting on tested and mysterious things that are undisclosed and ready to sell.
I’m gonna go for shrug and wait and see what happens. Maybe I’ll whip up some popcorn as I watch GD go slobbering crazy with either wild claims of doom and gloom or premature jumps for joy because they think this game specifically will magically turn into exactly what they want it to be.
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If anything, Phil Spencer being CEO after the acquisition is complete is fine with me. He’s got a solid reputation behind him.
Look at what happened when they acquired Minecraft and Bethesda. The same will likely happen to acti-blizz (which is probably not much).
Aside from that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft will be transferring some of their experienced personal to help blizzard get back on their feet.
Really hoping good things will come out of this.
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If Microsoft cleans house from Kotick on down I’ll be cautiously optimistic.