I’m wondering if it might be worth it to re-use at the current price and then hope like heck Microsoft just grandfathers everyone with an active sub in for the same price instead of forcing them to do an Xbox Live or Gamepass sub.
This is going to get worse honestly.
I absolutely agree with this. I find it hard to imagine a reality where Microsoft drops almost $70 billion for the privilege of buying into ABK’s controversy doom spiral, but I’ve also learned to never underestimate the pants-on-head foolishness of corporate wheeling and dealing.
I doubt things can possibly get worse for Blizzard under Microsoft, but maintaining the status quo is nowhere near acceptable at this point and they need to meet those expectations. Not just with game quality, but living up to their “we are very concerned about these allegations” hand-wringing before this deal was struck.
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idk yall
but i think i just entered the “wait and see” phase
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As Chonga already said above, the similar acquisition of Zenimax didn’t affect ESO at all, so I suspect actiblizz will continue to have functional independence while Microsoft rakes in the profits (and possibly oofs play station by only releasing new games on xbox and pc)
This raises broader questions about the rapid and terrifying power growth of these huge companies, and how they are becoming more powerful than elected governments in some respects, but those questions have already been raised by big boys like Disney lol
Either way friends, we’re locked on this train, might as well see where it leads
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Keep calm and remember these words of wisdom. No matter what they do, or what they promise. Corporations are not your friends.
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This is the truth.
As much as I’m against big companies eating other big companies it’s no secret Acti-Blizz is a cesspool- and seeing how there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway I think I’m fully all in supporting this acquisition.
MS has done fine for a bit so I weirdly feel better about the cleanup of company culture under their helm-- and if the staff of Blizz (who, don’t forget, were the victims of this culture) might get the actual support needed to feel safer/more secure at work then wins all around.
This will also be a big boost to Overwatch 2 which I feel still struggled to prove why it needs to exist. Diablo 3 was huge on consoles so obviously MS is happy about that but if it means cross saving between PC and console for Diablo 4 then sign me up. I’ve aged out of my CoD days and the rest of Acti-Blizz wasn’t for me.
I know I’m just speculating but this is the first time I’ve felt there may be hope? Probably what they want me to feel but whatever. I’ve got covid and I just want a win.
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You’re over a hundred years late on that one.
I often find myself needing to remind people of this in the FF14 community. Yoshi-P is a treasure but he is NOT the owner of the game or the IP.
Square Enix the company is far from spotless, and we can’t choose to ignore that just because they made a game we like.
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Man, Sylvanas will never be a Disney princess now 
Chonga, you still playing? I drained some gold to log in, been thinking of H-side WrA if the next expac has dragons.
Holy crap Kotick is stepping down
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This just in, Activision officially creators of Tony Hawk, Tony Hawk’s parents shocked.
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I for one, welcome our new overlords.
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So now they can legally put Banjo Kazooie references into WoW and if they don’t then I’ll riot.
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I have a theory that the trial level will finally get raised for future marketing
And also that we’re more likely to see wow (and a few other missing ABK titles) show up on steam, potentially, before it gets a console port but 
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG World of Warcraft? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of Classic WoW and the award winning Burning Crusade expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime.
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While a meme, this might actually get people to play again.
Blizzard should just let trail accounts have no gold cap and see how many people will grind for token money and call it a market experiment.
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I really don’t know what to make of this. Honestly, it can’t get any worse and I am not currently playing so I got nothing to lose. Maybe things will get better?
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Microsoft has a ruthless HR and PR department, and I highly doubt they would make this deal without some pretty big eyes on making changes to the management structure. What this means for content, who knows, but clearly they see something in the IPs worth buying, and most of Blizzard’s stuff is still highly marketable but was throttled under Uncle Bobby’s insistence on CoD each year.
What I’m saying is bring back HotS
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