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Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal approved by UK regulators (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 80 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Oh boy, can't wait for more average but poorly managed games!

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (25 children)

    Don't forget console exclusive.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Or just windows store exclusives..

    I'll eat my fine leather hat before I use that dog shit store again.

    Keep in mind that that's extra special because I don't own a fine leather hat, so I gotta buy one first.

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    • [–] 61 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Laws against monopolies don't exist, anymore, eh?

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Because this won't give MS a monopoly in the slightest. There's still tons of Devs and publisher's out there on various states of first, second and third party relationships with MS, Sony and Nintendo and new indie Devs pop up almost weekly. It gives them a massive advantage having CoD as a first party Gamepass title, yes, but that's not what a monopoly means.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    After this deal MS will STILL be in third place.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    3rd place in... What? I'm trying to search around to see what you're referring to here, but I can't find anything.

    By total market cap, Microsoft already blows these companies out of the water. By just videogame divisions, Sony and Nintendo are way farther ahead because of hardware sales, but that doesn't really make sense to include in the conversation about acquiring a publisher. I can't find any solid numbers either way isolating publishing, other than that the top 5 in recent years seems to be Tencent, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Activision/Blizzard (with EA hanging around too). Seems like any of those two merging is going to be bad for everyone other than shareholders.

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    • [–] 30 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Usually I am against huge mergers like this because they rarely benefit the customer, but ActiBlizzard was about as bad as it gets anyway.

    Selfishly I hope maybe at least one decent RTS might come from this before everything gets enshittyfied again.
    I realize though that OG Warcraft/Starcraft were not the big motivators for MS so the chance is probably slim.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You should look into Stormgate.

    It's an upcoming rts from frost giant studios which consists of some of the original blizzard team responsible for StarCraft.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Microsoft still supports AoE2, and that game is going on 22+ years. Some of the other stuff they've released has been a bit hit and miss, but they at least tried to do something fresh.

    I'll take that over ActiBlizz dropping support for the SC2 pro scene for no good reason other than "profitability" any day.

    Hell, maybe they can fix WoW classic while they're at it, and say what you will about the guy but if I understand correctly even Chris Metzen is coming back.

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    • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Out of all these studios I suppose I like Microsoft's games the most, but I still think it's bad that the regulators didn't shoot down this merger from the view of competitiveness.

    I don't think the gaming market is healthy when only a handful of corporations like Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA Games and SquareEnix hold what I assume to be 75% of the gaming AAA market. It restricts creativity and stifles competition and the ones paying the price are going to be us consumers.

    Even worse if they go and start vendor locking games to Windows, which sucks for us Linux gamers or Xbox which sucks for Playstation gamers.

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  • [+] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Steam Deck has put a small thorn in their OS side. It used to be ridiculous to have a Linux gaming computer, but it’s become much more viable thanks to the Deck’s existence.

    Basically to say Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull a massive move like requiring Windows subscription prices without a lot of gamers going to Linux.

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    • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How many new AAA studios could be created from scratch with this money?

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    • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Rip

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Blizzard was already dead

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I mean for gamers in general. This merger will not benefit consumers.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Activision Blizzard was already about as anti-consumer as possible, so in this particular case at worst nothing will change, at best Microsoft might actually clean house and there might be some improvements for the consumers...

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I genuinely love your optimism.

    Microsoft will use this purchase to further restrict releases to non Xbox consoles, no matter when they agree to to industry bodies. It is in Microsofts interest to only release on their platforms as releasing to PS or Switch will cost them in Xbox purchases.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Yeah, sorry, I was thinking from a PC standpoint and sort of ignored the whole console perspective (though, frankly, the console market seems to have been absolutely fubared from its inception, from a consumer standpoint, so anything Microsoft does will probably be as relevant as farting into an ocean of shit...)

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    • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I didn’t even get D4 yet (but planned to) and all my friends have stopped playing it already ☠️ I don’t think they have anything else up their sleeve at this point. Seems they haven’t made anything new since warcraft.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Overwatch was amazing under Jeff.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You say this, but Jeff was there when they started OW2. He was the one who even announced it and their plan to forcibly replace Overwatch.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    D4 was dead the moment they announced D2R. Why would I pay $80 for a game with microtransactions and battlepass when I can pay $50 for a game that comes complete in box?

    They should have taken D2R kept the mechanics and just rolled new classes, maps, and items.

    I don't want a new game, I just want more content.

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    [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    That merger reminds me of this sketch: Halo: The Future of Gaming https://piped.video/JFtoanBDjOE

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