The consolidation of the gaming industry will be just another tale of oligopoly in a capitalist society I guess. Yaaay.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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We're heading towards the balkanization of all digital content, DRM is the method they will use to enforce their rule.
Piracy isn't just moral at this stage, you're obligated to participate as a means to resist.
Despite not pirating PC games due to not wanting to risk viruses I am very invested in the cracking scene, since they lead to positive outcomes of some companies removing DRM earlier if a crack comes out. Used to be they'd just be left in indefinitely. Thank you pirates.
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The indie industry is also growing a lot these days
Agreed, besides for a few companies in the triple A space the indie scene has grown so much to the point where I don’t feel like I’m missing out on great gameplay, stories, and/or graphics anymore.
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I think everyone saying market consolidation is bad is missing the point for this particular one.
This isn't Google buying and killing another product. This isn't AT&T buying and merging something. This is the failed company Activision that bought Blizzard and tarnished its name and branding once again being sold off.
What's more, this is (effectively) the death of Activision. The bane on gaming since it first started mouthing syllables to the words "corporate profits".
I can only really see this as a good thing from pretty much any angle you try to look at it from. The fact that the only thing all the comments here have to say is that "consolidation bad" should be very telling. I'm no fan of Microsoft, but they generally let departments have a vision and execute them. They seem to have less awful stories than most tech cultures, so one would imagine that going from managers who don't care or are actively participating in hazing you to a place where you are given the space to foster your creative ideas... I'm gonna say this consolidation is probably a good thing if only because of the small chance that the workplace culture changes. In regards to the company, there may even finally be a litany of IP have a chance of seeing the light of day again!
Time will tell of course but I'd say all you need to do is read the timeline. The last decade has been nothing but awful actions from Blizzard leading up to the buyout, ranging from people doing multiple different boycotts against them for Blitzchang to their now parent company Activision just going full 1970. Microsoft will never be a golden pinnacle of perfection but they haven't been fostering workplaces where people feel fear and have their freaking bodily fluids stolen.
I guess I'll put it this way. Would you rather have the execs behind CoD and WoW or would you rather have the execs behind Halo and Starfield?
Both suck but one is clearly trying to allow space for heart to exist while having lots of skeletons and decomposing corpses in the closet while the other is whipping its junk out and rubbing it in your face while laughing about making skeletons... too much? lol
"Execs behind Starfield"
The same execs that bought the company already half way through development of Starfield, and rather than delivering anything new or of value, only wanted to make sure it was extinguished on other systems?
As for "execs behind Halo," the less said the better. I've never seen a series driven so hard into the ground.
Okay there... And before thay Sony was trying to lock Starfield away on their side so what's your point? The current market is driven by exclusives thanks very much to Sony and Nintendo.
I would argue there's a huge difference between, say, one year of timed exclusivity for one game, versus buying an entire publisher and making every single one of their future games exclusive.
On the flip side those who really dislike hardware locks requiring specific devices to run games would see a console only exclusive a bigger concern.
Since viewed from PCs it isn't just a Microsoft game, but one that can be played on Linux with Proton and possibly MacOS with their game porting toolkit with various different hardware configurations as opposed to a locked down proprietary one.
Once Sony shows a much bigger effort to embrace open hardware options as opposed to trying to funnel people to their proprietary one with unknown status of future ports I will be less wary of their attempts at acquisitions. And well Nintendo never will.
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It’s almost certainly a positive to see Bobby Kotick (boy do I struggle to maintain this site’s cardinal rule as far as he goes ) losing influence in the “AAA” games industry; but it’s not good to see MS buying every studio they can get hold of. Both these things can be true simultaneously.
My biggest concern with MS’s rampant acquisition spree is what happens when there’a an economic downturn (as already seems to be the near future); will those newly acquired studio be subject to the corporate euphemism that is ~dOWnSiZiNg~? How many working on moderately niche titles will be out of a job and their work indefinitely shelved?
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To be clear, overall I don't disagree that more consolidation is bad. It's literally just this instance. Activision needs to die and be restructured.
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My main argument against the acquisition is that the morons behind Activision/Blizzard will get a ridiculous payout
These people should get a lifetime ban from executive positions, not a payout
Your comment made me step back a minute, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I tend to agree with your assessment after looking at this scenario more closely. I'm no fan of Microsoft but Activision isn't exactly a great studio. Only time will tell!
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Seriously though? They bought Bethesda and look what they're doing there. Now they get to add another massive developer as if they weren't already ridiculously huge? This monopoly stuff has to end. I don't just mean gaming either. Like 5 companies control our entire food supply. There can only be one internet provider in any area. It's insane.
This is the inevitable conclusion to free-market based economies. The market will pick winners, and those winners will then have a capital advantage over all new entrants, allowing them to outcompete anyone they want, and to use their size to control the market at large. It’s literally built into the system. The attempts at reform we try are rolled back eventually, and we end up in the same place again. Ma Bell broke up, and for a while we had competition across the industry and innovation. Eventually, market leaders were picked, and we end up where we are now, with few options, and little difference between the ones we have.
Oligopoly, not monopoly. Monopoly implies there's just 1 company. In gaming there is far from one company.
This monopoly stuff has to end.
Microsoft aren't a monopoly, especially in gaming. Even buying ABK they won't be even remotely close to a monopoly.
What did Microsoft do with Bethesda?
MS isn't even top 2 in a hardware market of 3. They're not even top 4 in publishers either. Hardly a monopoly.
On one hand this just means further consolidation of an already oligopolic industry. On the other hand, Activision is a terrible company run by a terrible man, so it's not like things could get much worse.
It's not really about Activision being bought though, it's about Microsoft buying them.
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As primarily a Playstation and Nintendo gamer, I think this acquisition is going to be 99% bad news for me. Oh well.
Can I ask why? Microsoft has a monetary incentive to push the games to other platforms wherever possible. Yeah they may hold a few back (see Starfield) to try and sell consoles but I don't expect them to withhold all. There were some interesting articles that this deal is more about the mobile gaming (King) rather than COD or other AB games.
As an Xbox and Nintendo owner I feel Sony/Nintendo have done more harm to the industry by reinforcing exclusives (both times and complete) than Microsoft. Wouldn't it be in Microsoft's right to do what the market leaders are doing and take advantage of exclusives to try and gain market share back? We also saw with testimony/discovery during the trial that Sony would often say one thing publicly and another internally. I think Sony only opposed this cause they wanted to stoke the fire of fandoms.
Microsoft are no longer interested in selling consoles necessarily, otherwise they'd be holding stuff back from PC as well. They're interested in getting people into their ecosystem through Game Pass.
And while I agree with you that Sony and Nintendo have used plenty of anti-consumer practices, Microsoft has also done so in the past and I think the only reason they've been more pro-consumer of late is because they've been the underdog for a long time now. I would be anticipating a change in their behaviour the more people they get to subscribe to Game Pass, and this Activision-Blizzard deal is a huge step towards that.
Exactly. Sony have spent years leveraging their market leading position to further put them in the lead via paying to keep content and games off Xbox. Their market position is their strength and they leverage it. Microsoft's strength is their financial power, and they're now finally leveraging it. Sony need to be pulled back to the pack and pulled in line with their anti-consumer practices. The more market share and dominance they get the worse they get for consumers, as they've shown many times.
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I still don't understand all the people who are cheering this on. Why is consolidation of the industry a good thing. Is it really just because you want the games on gamepass?
Edit: in retrospect, I do agree I would be happy to see the leadership be ousted from acti-blizz. Since the merger is happening, I may as well see the good in it (if they are indeed getting ousted, that remains to be seen). I do think it is a worrying trend overall though
It's less the focus on consolidation and more getting out the very problematic leadership from Activision (Bobby and his crew). Not that Microsoft is a bastion of progressive thought or leadership, but it's suspected they would be much less likely to have covered up things like the Cosby room, suicide due to harassment, or the theft of breast milk. Activision's leadership has some deep seated problems with sexism in general.
Yeah this is how I feel. I don't think that stopping this merger is going to make triple a games a much less hyper-capitalistic hellscape but I feel like forcing a change of hands might mean better conditions for the abk devs, because from what I've heard from friends that have worked at Microsoft's studios they've got a decent track record for employee care. Nothing remarkable, mind, but if it gets the devs away from toxic hypermasculine leadership and also gives them more security to make better games, I'm willing to nod the merger along. ABK's games have long had a human cost that I'm not super keen to see them continue to pay yknow
is there any indication that microsoft intends to clean house?
Like @Lockely@pawb.social mentions, they did intend to clean house by dropping the board with a buyout.
I, personally, am not too bothered by the consolidation of game studios. There are plenty of AAA game developers and indie devs are filling other niches (and sometimes become AAA themselves). It's a different industry from something like making cars with high production costs and huge barriers to entry.
A ton of the shit comes straight from the board of directors, who will no longer have a board because MS is absorbing and buying out all shareholders.
We know Bobby is leaving for a fact as well, as he has a buyout clause in his contract.
Short term, this is excision of a cancer from the industry. Long term this kind of consolidation is bad for competition. I'll be happy when MS gets inevitably trust busted.
I think that's a fair perspective. The leadership there is very problematic and I would be glad to see them gone. I just hope the industry doesn't continue down this path
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So how long until Microsoft restricts all Activision or Blizzard games to being only on Xbox or PC?
I think they might go the other way and use it as leverage to push Sony to release cross platform games
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Boooo. Competition is always better in capitalism. Even Activision blizzard as terrible as they are, is competition. No one should be happy about this after how they've gobbled up a huge chunk of the gaming market.
How long until we're forced to log into these games with Microsoft accounts and pay for Xbox live
Normally, I would not be happy about this, but this is the exception. Even as a Mac gamer (and please don’t at me - I have had decades of sass coming from the PC community. Let me enjoy my platform. I get what I need) this is a win. Activision was always poison for Blizzard. At the bare minimum, Microsoft will enforce corporate HR standards - may not be awesome standards, but it’s a lot better than Activision turning a blind eye. And it’s in Microsoft’s best interest to support native Mac development where it exists (and while I don’t see Blizzard ramping up their Mac dev team to previous (if meager) levels, I expect that the games I enjoy will continue to work fine on my machine, which is a modest ask.
I mean, if Microsoft bent over backwards to prop up Apple in those dark days (and you could have concussed me with a feather when Gates announced MS was investing in Apple IIRC on stage during an Apple keynote) they’ll support other platforms.
Should all gaming fall under several big umbrellas? No. But getting the Activision Board and C-suite out of the “day to day” of studio development can’t hurt.
From what I've heard, Blizzard's C-suite and company culture was already poison before Activision. I'm not sure Microsoft will care about much more than getting a profit out of the deal.
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I'd like to see this go through just to get Bobby Kotick out.
This is just the fight for the preliminary injunction. The FTC can still use antitrust proceedings to prevent/unwind the merger.
We often forget that big companies have been broken up before.
When was the last time that happened? It's not really a thing anymore in our current environment.
According to this article, in the US, it looks like 1982. It was AT&T. But it looks like they are currently trying to break up Meta.
I thought Microsoft had split too, but they mention that in the article and say they never actually split. I thought Intel was also split at one point, but it's not listed here, so I'm probably wrong.
Microsoft lost an antitrust lawsuit a long time ago regarding making internet explorer a required part of Windows, so they had to allow other browsers in Windows for competition's sake, but they didn't get broken up. That might be what you are thinking of. I can't think of anything Intel related though.
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What kind of games does Activision Blizzard release besides the obvious ones? COD, WOW, and Diablo? I mainly buy indie games but I know those are giant series.
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