Microsoft has acquired Activision-Blizzard for $68 billion dollars, making it the third largest video game company. This surprising acquisition has had mixed-reactions some say it's good and some say it's monopolistic. This isn't Microsoft's first major acquisition, they acquired Skyrim/Fallout publisher, Bethesda last year and said future games will be Xbox-PC exclusive. Activion-Blizzard merged in 2008, then acquired King, there known create iconic franchises such as Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush.
For a recap, Microsoft is headquartered in Washington, Activision-Blizzard in California and Bethesda in Maryland.
Reminds me of what Disney (and the other studios) had done in the 1990's and 2010's in the movie industry. Disney (and the others) bought-up popular indie film studios like Lucasfilm, CastleRock, and Dreamworks to monopolize. It has happened before with the music and book industry, now the game industry.
Some people are concerned about anti-trust issues, DRM, exclusivity, woke crap and monopolies in the gaming industry. I don't believe Microsoft's Acti-Blizz purchase is a good thing at all just like the Disney-Fox merge, when Former U.S. president Donald Trump said "It was a good thing, it will create thousands of new jobs" but Disney laid-off hundreds of Fox employees and gained a chunk of market share of the film/TV industry.
A opinion from @Retropixel
"As I figured.. all the retards on youtube are hyped and excited MS is forming a monopoly in the gaming industry. "Sony is dOOmEd!" Sigh... millennials are such retards. Of course the more "yay!" videos that pop out, the more youtubers will make their own fake "yay" videos. This is how sports teams in USA act.. they're frightened to say anything bad about China. Why? China owns their asses now. Same here.. gamers are afraid to say hey, this acquisition? Might not be a GOOD thing.
These idiots are NOT gamers.. they don't understand gaming, or these companies, nor the bigger picture in the sense of the global elite and why they're picking at/on movies, games, music and comic books lately. This wasnt just a maniacal corporation buying viddy game studios... this is something more sinister.
The "acquisition" as they keep dubbing it, will NOT stop the fact that black lesbian trans wheelchair characters ARE going to be in more games. MS has made it clear with their push for Forza to have this kinda communist sh** in their games that the agenda IS on schedule.
Next... I'm waiting for the "nextbox" next gen to come out earlier than usual and see the whole camera/mic/forced online debacle is BACK. Once MS buys up the gaming landscape.. they can mow it how ever they want, including making you swipe a thumb print on a pad just to log ON to their service to play games. "That's far fetched!" Really? MS just announced that by 2023, they want ALL laptops to have Windows 11 AND high def cameras with auto focus AND mics built in AND you cant use windows without these things. Next? Xbox. They tried it in 2013 and failed, but are coming back hardcore on it, wait and see.
What do you hear in the utube videos from the weak casuals? "Dis is guud 4 gamingz!" Ok! Watch as your hobby sh**s the bed, rolls over and quits. ONE corporation buying up MAJOR AAA devs is NOT good! I hear NO one saying this hardly. People are like "maybe MS will make blizzard git guud and make guud games again!" Nope! It'll be woke trash the whole way and guess what.. if MS does indeed eventually rule the gaming scene? They'll be the only choice.. all you're ever get IS woke trash from that point on. "But.. Nintendo!" Nintendo is run by tired old conservative rich japanese business men... the best they'll do is pop out Mario Kart 75, or whatever number its on now. "PC gaming!" Nope.. it's trapped in a Steam digital dungeon where half the lobby for any CoD or Battlefield game is nothing but aim botters.
Gaming isnt even gaming any more.. it's Hollywood whoredom now. It's being bought, fragmented and sold off. "I'll go back to retro games!" Nice sentiment.. but good luck affording Duck Hunt when it one day goes for $500 because scam artists are purposely seeding fake cartridge grading schemes all over the net to artificially drive up the prices of retro games."
I've been reading these same kinds of "hot takes", and it's nonsense. The more the world-- not just video games, but everything-- becomes consolidated into these giant, global conglomerate mega-corporations, the more we'll see stuff like the WuFlu ("brought to you by... Pfizer").
The world needs to move towards _decentralization_. This event is regressive for the world. Not to mention, the bigger publishers get, the more the games are "board room designed". Creativity is already in the toilet, now it'll just get even worse.
I don't like big acquisitions such as this, but in 1990 Nintendo controlled 90% of the industry and wouldn't let stores sell games for other systems if they wanted NES games and Sony controlled 85% of the industry in 2003, I think Microsoft has a ways to go before they match that.
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| Art by Klobrille |
Another opinion from @matsudaira
"This purchase from Microsoft is very unfortunate. I don't think any company should have this much power over an industry. I know that indies exist, but it's the AAA publishers that really define the industry and give purpose for all the money we invest into hardware. Microsoft's flex to purchase what they can't make (which is RIDICULOUS with the money they have when they can drop $70B at the tip of a hat) is monopolistic in nature and should be scrutinized by everyone. This will not lead anywhere good if these games become exclusive to their platforms. I am not into the Game Pass excitement. It's great for something I'm paying for with my monthly payment for the Series X, but I would rather BUY a game. I am not keen on all of these massive titles (and even their "smaller" ones like Sekiro and Crash Bandicoot) being exclusively available on a rental basis, essentially, through Game Pass. Especially if Microsoft expands Game Pass to other platforms and the only way you can enjoy the games is to stream the damn things.
In other words. This is fucked up and a true move of anti-consumerism - and that's not something I usually throw around, "anti-consumerism"."
As this situation is very concerning, the more they monopolize the gaming industry with woke BS, the more indie games will shine and the easier it will be to get into the industry, because everyone will be begging for fresh, and good games.
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