This is the final regulatory hurdle for the $69 billion deal.
  • Jaeger86@lemmy.worldEnglish
    171·
    1 year ago

    Consolidation is bad for consumers, this would never have gone thru pre-reagan admin

    • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.socialEnglish
      619·
      1 year ago

      Counterpoint: Consolidation in such a fast paced industry with a low barrier to entry isn’t as bad as physical goods consolidation. If Microsoft acts in bad faith, people just won’t buy games from that studio anymore, developers will just leave the company and start a new studio, free lance, or work for another party. It’s not like ABK was lighting the market on fire either. Microsoft is buying a trash heap and hoping to turn the internal culture around to bring back neglected IPs

      • ArgentRaven@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        1 year ago

        Counter-counterpoint: When Activision bought and consolidated Blizzard an Blizzard North, they made it worse and people still slave away for them, and enough people buy their objectively inferior products to keep them going on life support to be sold again.

        They became a poster child of what’s wrong with the industry (Diablo Immortal) and nobody learned anything. Baulder’s Gate 3 did more to further a healthy ecosystem than any merger has.

          • vokkez@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            And how many dozens of indie games came out that same week whose studios folded afterwards? Or how many devs didn’t even release their first games because they ran out of money during development? Or how many smaller studios who were making fun games got irresistible offers from big studios to buy them out? What about the engines that are becoming increasingly more hostile towards devs?

  • lustyargonian@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    Let’s hope they can chew what they’ve attempted to eat. They can barely manage their first party studios, and now they’re going to attempt to manage one of the biggest publisher/studio.

    • Neato@kbin.social
      8·
      1 year ago

      Manage? They just want the money from King and to prevent games from releasing on PlayStation.

      • lustyargonian@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean yeah, that’s how acquisitions and exclusivity works. It’s not like PlayStation bought Bungie to lose money or make exclusivity deals with third parties to bring games to Xbox. That’s just how this industry works.

        By manage I mean, they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.

        • Neato@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.

          No they don’t. As we’ve already seen, MS doesn’t have to do anything in regards to development. Promotion, marketing will get a boost but they can be hands off most of the technical details and still make bank. Bethesda, King and Activision are all quite profitable on their own. Now they simply can’t develop for Sony and they get distributed on Game Pass day 1.

          Also, exclusionary buy-outs are bad for the market and should not have been allowed. MS buying up huge game competitors and then restricting their choice on which platforms to develop for is clearly anti-competitive behavior.

          • lustyargonian@lemm.eeEnglish
            21·
            1 year ago

            You’re right, they’ve been hands off and basically done bare minimum for marketing and promotion. And it hasn’t been working well for them at all, exhibit A: Halo Infinite, exhibit B: Redfall. Clearly they can’t sustain this anymore.

            Starfield has been probably the first example where they actually got invested in the production, delayed a game by a year, got their entire QA team test it. Layoffs from top to bottom at 343 is probably another example of them intervening.

            Regarding exclusionary buyouts, I don’t know if you aren’t aware of it. But it has been a thing in this industry for decades. This is how Sony got where it is today, by being highly competitive by making exclusionary deals and buying studios with whom they had exclusionary deals with for years. Sony entered this industry out of nowhere and bought their way into success, and everyone agrees that only made the market more competitive. Xbox had no games and was not bringing competition in market, and now that it has more games, it’s anti competitive?

            The difference with MSFT is that they bring their games to PC (an open platform) via Steam, and to Xbox, along with a price accessible service of GamePass, so it doesn’t force a gamer into first buying a $400 console and then a $70 game to play on it.

            We can agree to disagree, my original point is primarily around lack of confidence in MSFT’s ability to manage these studios and do justice to their legacy. Sure making workspaces less toxic and inclusive for everyone is a massive win, but will employees stick around under a new management that seems pretty incompetent to eff up their own flagship series (Halo).