Microsoft/Xbox to aquire Activision Blizzard

Wyrmrest Accord
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So, I was curious about the game studios Microsoft has had under it for some time and I did some light googling. Granted, it was difficult to find articles that weren’t talking about either this or their previous acquisition and opinion pieces on the two deals.

343 Studios, the group currently behind Halo, has recently reduced the prices of microtransactions in Halo: Infinite after several months worth of player complaints. This article (and others) states that they will continue to lower pricing on the various items in the cash shop, though as I do not play that game I cannot speak to if it is exclusively cosmetics like the WoW shop, although the article does make note of cosmetic items having their prices changed. Granted that is through tweets and given my extremely limited knowledge of the game, correct me if I am wrong.

I found this studio particularly interesting considering the playerbase’s reservations about the WoW shop (perhaps not unfounded considering whose pockets it has been filling-- Kotick and the developers, including those who the scandal likely involved). It could be that once the handover is complete we might see some sort of changes to the cash shop. Given the current PR disaster that is ABK and the otherwise positive/neutral views of Microsoft’s other studios at the moment, I can see Microsoft making some changes. Perhaps the shop will be one.

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November 19th, 2083

The sky above Orgrimmar is crisp – sparse clouds dotted with wyverns, weaving between docking and departing airships with grace.

Two Orcs stand at the foot of Drygulch Ravine, enthralled by the city’s majesty.

“Zug zug! Right? That’s the phr—”

“Ya, zug zug. Man, look at all those spikes.”

“Nevermind that, look at this,” the greener Orc says, flexing.

“Yeah, we’re jacked.”

“It feels amazing, huh? This has to be one of the tightest rigs I’ve hopped in months.”

The browner Orc shrugs. “Microsoft, man. Step into one of their worlds, get that androst-tri-diazepam through your synthfeed. They own the patent so all their buff rigs feel perfect.”

“Right, right…” the greener Orc adds, sniffing the air, “it sure is lively.”

“Well, where to now?”

“We keep going, to the city. We have a billion more things to do to level up.”

“Nice. I want to get to that tower. My grandfather loved that when all this was just a game.”

“Karazhan, right? I heard you can die in real life in that place.”

“Yeah but it’s worth the risk… some of Microsoft’s rarest interoperable NFTs drop there.”

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They have lowered some prices in Halo Infinite, yes. And more changes are (I think) slotted for the next update. They are all cosmetic, other than the XP boosts you can buy - which mostly just help you gain more cosmetics.

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theyre cosmetics confirmed. nothing that enhances or changes gameplay.

sparkly stuff, emblems, armor mogs

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I mean look, the bottom line is money, everyone knows this. When you got workers in HORRIBLE conditions that is not only morally and ethically wrong, you are going to get out of it sub-par products that don’t sell as well. Personally, I care way more about the well-being of the Devs on a moral ground but also the byproduct of better treatment is a better product.

As a business owner (no where near as big as MS) I am not going to risk a massive investment in buying something that people do not like how it operates then keep it all the same.

As for the store mounts…who cares…Seriously, so long as it stays cosmetic it’s a complete non-issue and does not affect game quality.

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The article I linked confirms as much! It quotes the Senior Community Manager saying the very same.

Thank you both for the clarification!

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I get this might be more of just a funny meme and maybe you did not want it taken seriously but seriously no one knows that.
No one knows whats going to happen and given the current circumstances, I think people are right to hope for a better outcome. Further more I would say its more realistic to do so.

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I know people clarified this already, but one of the thing that made the mp community mad was that the flights for Infinite’s multiplayer shop wasn’t quiet as bad as what we got in beta with… a 10 usd knife. The battle pass still felt like a slog the last time I played, which also got worse from flight to beta/release until they started readjusting xp gains from matches. Though the most annoying thing from all of this, I’d say, is 343 selling cosmetics for specific armor cores that make no sense to separate. The color red, for example.

This comes down more to 343’s failings in general though with trying to market a free MP while keeping it profitable. The armor core system sucks. It’d be akin to WoW going in more on selling cosmetic tmog sets and having augments and specific dyes to said sets at 10-20 usd a pop. If any of that makes sense.

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Aaaah, I see now. It sounds like there was a bit too much greed in the beginning on 343’s part-- although am I safe to assume there’s still a bit of greed even with the current price reductions?

But I digress-- they are making… some change, which is more than can be said for WoW and its current failings.

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I would say yes, as long as the armor core system is there. Armor permutations and colors didn’t rely on you having a base suit of specific spartan armor before, you had a lot more freedom of mix and matching pieces you unlocked or bought, and quite a few base colors iirc while the colors sold were merely skins/patterns. With armor cores, you may not have the same color available across all your base suits, and I think part of what was happening is that they’d sell colors for specific cores in bundles instead of just going " buy this color for every core for x price".

They are certainly showing commitment to making changes, yeah, which is good. But most of the community, especially from the flights, will say the same things a lot of us do about poor choices that are found in alpha/beta that make it through to live.

They already had the feedback to tell them this was a poor choice from the start. They just wanted the live data to confirm/deny.

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Unfortunately QA and CS are the two areas most often cut first since it’s not clear how much money they can make. These things making it to live is a general ailment of the video game community of a whole-- while not everyone suffers from it, nearly all do especially when you do not include indie.

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Actually yeah, assuming there’s anything similar happening there that happened here I wouldn’t doubt the higher ups knew and quashed any feedback for the moment. My blame for things like this never rest on QA and CS, they’re definitely not the ones making the calls that have put infinite mp in such a weird spot. Like the online play is fun, but the xp gain for regular levels and battle pass levels got shortened from flight to beta/release, and then tinkered with even more to whatever it’s at now.

I know others in and outside of this thread have mentioned how MS isn’t much better with the treatment of their QA and CS, so I know things won’t get worse with WoW in that regard, but it sucks that it likely won’t get better either on for both sides of this. Employees and players. We really need CS that are more involved (with the pay to boot) to deal with the junk that gets thrown around in WoW, rp servers especially.

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I’m scared that this was actually a possibility at some point. A very close one at that.

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I’m not one to defend Kotik and his poor leadership of the company, but I believe too many people lend responsibility of Activision-Blizzard’s poor business practices and handling of its franchises on him too much. He’s not the sole reason why everything we have seen in the past 5-6 years been nothing but garbage.

The behavior of employees deviancy, the HR nightmare, and the like. We would need a deeper cleaning of the people designing this game. And I’ve no faith in Microsoft to be the ones to fix it.

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better MS than EA or Facebook lol

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In that case, I mean, who else then?

Don’t forget to they did in fact let go of a lot of people who were responsible for what happened. Bobby was the last person who was also responsible and with him gone this is going to be a huge step in fixing that company.

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By no means do I want to be dismissive but the cultural effects of being a glorified asset farm under the C suite of ABK while being subjected to weekly controversy and intense harassment is a way bigger deal and worth celebrating change than like…your favorite class not being optimal right now.

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Remember when Microsoft Game Studios made the excellent 2003 space sandbox Freelancer that was swell they should just have the fellow who made that game take Ion’s job, and also put Freelancer on steam because idk if you can even buy it anymore

Hang on I looked it up and the guy who made Freelancer is the same person who is making Star Citizen now so forget it

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Maybe in another 10 years with another $400 million Star Citizen will be ready for beta testing

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