Despite the somewhat confusing title, this is an analysis of the merger trial, and how it could continue. Definitely worth the read, it pulls back the curtain on what happens when two giant corporations are trying to fuse.
“The idea is to create a moat that nobody else can attack.” - Microsoft exec Matt Booty
I read this last night and thought it was a good article. I’m surprised by the lack of comments.
Probably in part that it’s irrelevant to most console and PC gamers. People are probably hoping to see some good old IP’s brought back to life instead of laying between Bobby’s cheeks and rot, and the only chance they are seeing is if Activision isn’t in control of them anymore.
Activision Blizzard is a mobile company, out earning PC and consoles combined. Blizzard is a shell of its former self, and Activision don’t know how to make anything but CoD, remake and a rare Crash game.
TLDR: Most people don’t care too much about this merger, and let’s be honest, the Zenimax one was more relevant to most people here.
I wouldn’t call it irrelevant. In my opinion it’s almost a given that long term, this is a bad deal for consumers. If you like video games, you should be rooting for competition, not consolidation.
Microsoft has in the past and will in the future abuse monopoly powers, if one lets them.
I doubt this deal will be bad for the consumers long term or short term. The mobile market is so f’ing massive that this deal won’t change shit for them, as MS footprint in that part of the gaming space is tiny.
And for consoles, (even if they made CoD exclusive), it would probably just spice the competition up a bit. Making it more fierce. For PC, it’s pretty much completely irrelevant. Both MS and ActiBlizz already focus on PC.
Currently, Activision is a CoD factory, and that is all they give a shit about within the console and PC space. Mobile is too big(Remember that mobile is 50% of everything Activision Blizzard is). Blizzard is… not so much the giant from the past. They are releasing a game as often as MS is releasing an OS, and the quality of what they release is not exactly top-notch, Diablo 4 came out to pretty good reviews, while users said: eh… this isn’t what we wanted as time goes.
At the end of the day, I feel this is MS throwing away a massive part of their war chest on mobile garbage. (from a PC player perspective), but on the upside, I might get to see some Hexen or Soldier of Fortune in the future. And if I don’t, well, nothing has changed, as it’s just rotting between those ass cheeks I mentioned earlier.
News about the merger being approved was being discussed on Beehaw and everyone was dogpiling on Microsoft saying they’re the devil for buying Activision Blizzard.
When I pointed out that Sony are also not innocent, as they regularly pay publishers to block release of games on Xbox, my comment was deleted.
At this stage Xbox is the underdog when compared to PlayStation and need a deal like this to not fall out of the market which would be a bad thing for everyone because it would mean less competition.
Of course it would be much better if no company was allowed to make exclusivity deals with publishers.
What Microsoft needed was to not fuck up for an entire generation with their first party output. The buying spree they’ve been on is to make up for their own incompetence. I won’t defend Sony buying so many timed exclusives but that’s not nearly the same as buying two publishers to make their content exclusive.
Microsoft is a billion dollar company, how are the the underdog when the have more than enough money to, oh I don’t know, make sure they don’t fuck-up their first party titles?
In the console market they are the underdog because their console has significantly less sales both in terms of units and game sales
How does that make it fine for Microsoft to buy two of the largest/ most prominent publishers in the industry and make their games exclusive? If their console and game sales are low maybe they should make games people want to play? Maybe they could have done to their first party titles what Sony did to theirs? Maybe they shouldn’t have tried to force drm, kinect, TV, and always online onto their customers and charge more than the competition on top of that? Maybe they shouldn’t market their console as the world most powerful console and then have no games to show off it’s capabilities?
Hmm I find it bit cherry picked.
The article omits how the analysis done by economist from FTC side actually had some flaws and actually supported some of the talking points from Xbox, and when questioned on the same, the economist dodged it multiple times to the point judge had to ask clearly, to no result.
“All this for a shooter” came up because FTC kept bringing CoD (and Switch) to the discussion, which Xbox already has signed deals to keep it multiplatform and has analysis to show how it doesn’t make economic sense, something which CMA and EU also agreed to.
When judge makes the comment on computer, she was actually asking FTC to explain it to her if it’s reasonable and even acknowledged that it could be her bias as she didn’t have a bargain of a computer. So calling her out of touch to enquire more about something she admitted she doesn’t know seems half true.
Saying that it’s a red flag when a Judge believes words of powerful executives is also cherry picked when it wasn’t just the words of executives, but stated from day one, penned in various deals sent to Valve, Nintendo, nVidia, Sony, and many other competitors, even acknowledged by Jim Ryan in internal emails that it isn’t about exclusivity, and even said by both executives under oath in the court. None of this ever happened with Zenimax, and they said they’ll not take games away and bring games to wherever GamePass exists, which has been true. (Starfield & Redfall were never announced for PS5, Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo’s PS5 exclusivity contract was respected, Doom Eternal got Ray Tracing update on PS5, Skyrim AE launched on PS5, ESO and Fallout 76 still get updates on PS5, even with a 60fps patch for PS5 and Xbox very recently).
Also saying that Xbox has raised prices of GamePass is incomplete in the sense it doesn’t tell it is the first increase since its launch, and not a big one either when compared to similar subscription services and competitors (Sony, the market leader, was the first to increase its console price and games price, even for previously announced $60 games; Horizon Forbidden West), right when entire globe is going through a recession. Of course prices will be increased, that’s how money works, and if it isn’t feasible, people won’t subscribe to GamePass and buy games instead. This case wasn’t about whether Subscription services are good or bad. All that nuance is missed in this article.
I’m not saying mergers are good, or that this deal shouldn’t be scrutinized with maximum intensity, but the article seems to be painting a picture that FTC made perfect points and arguments and Judge simply scoffed at everything and nodded with Mega Corporation blindly.
