Microsoft To Acquire Activision Blizzard

[Luke_Wolf]

Well I mean, Activision (Yeah I'm not calling it Activision Blizzard, it's just Activision, Blizzard died a long time ago) is sitting on a lot of good IP and not really doing anything with it, or well, doing things with it in the sense that they're just fucking it up and haven't done a good release for I so long I forgot when the last time was.

Honestly, Microsoft got a shit deal, even if there's a lot of good IP over there like Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, cod (weird how almost all their best IP comes from Blizzard...) but that's literally everything that Microsoft is getting here, everything else is absolutely worthless, it's a stretch to say Activision is worth even 10 billion, I wonder if this is just some huge money laundering op.

Oh sweet summer child... Activision owns Raven and Infocom, and they published games for a whole ton of interesting studios, from things like Vampire The Masquerade to Star Trek, The soldier of fortune games, the later Wolfenstein games before Bethesda picked up the rights... if anyone wanted to publish a game based on a movie or TV show they went to Activision. Heavy Gear was a strong competitor to MechWarrior, etc. Not to mention that there were a ton of IP from other companies that Blizzard bought out like Sierra who had previously been one of the biggest game developers and publishers and was highly regarded.

[bemerk]

Open source the battle.net client instead of pushing stuff to the closed steam ecosystem.
Would be the better move

[smitty3268]

I can see how people stuck in the past might think this is a great move, but this is one of the worst deals in the history of business, and while it definitely won't kill Microsoft, people are probably going to be fired over this.

Activision made $2.2 billion profit in 2020. It's not that bad an investment, once you get rid of all the bad press around the company.

Anyway, I think rather than targeting any specific game or IP, this was more about getting a bunch of product to sell MS's Game Pass to more people. They've already got 25 million people paying them monthly fees, and they're expecting this purchase to help that grow.

[geearf]

Vivendi was the holding company for Blizzard just the same as Zenimax is the holding company for Bethesda, that doesn't mean that it's not actually Blizzard and Bethesda running the show, It's just the holding company was created to separate the controlling studio from people they bought out.

Then why the closure of BN under Vivendi and not before if they were not running the show?

Not to mention that there were a ton of IP from other companies that Blizzard bought out like Sierra who had previously been one of the biggest game developers and publishers and was highly regarded.

Blizzard never bought Sierra Online, it was Comp-U-Card International that bought it along with Davidson (I'll be honest, before double checking now, I thought Davidson had bought Sierra).

[smitty3268]

They often start that way. The question is more whether the CEO (and others in the executive team) will be transitioned to an advisory roll after a year or so, and then will choose to spend more time with their family sometime later (taking their cash and stock options). It is all carefully choreographed in advance with such large acquisitions, although the details are behind various NDA agreements so the rest of us can only see the results far after the completion of the process.

Bobby Kotick is 100% gone as soon as this deal closes, or almost immediately after. You can tell by the way everyone is so quiet about exactly what his role will be in the new company, and everyone is confirming it unofficially already.

It's just that a deal this big takes a long time to go through, so he'll be here until then. Sounds like summer 2023 is when they hope to be done.

[Paradigm Shifter]

What part of the library was worth $69 billion to block from other platforms?

<snip>

I can see how people stuck in the past might think this is a great move, but this is one of the worst deals in the history of business, and while it definitely won't kill Microsoft, people are probably going to be fired over this.

No idea what the reasoning is. I was just throwing out some possibilities. I do know a businessman who, when he had the cash, bought out his nearest competitor simply to get rid of them. His business was still doing well, last time I checked, and I would imagine that that is a tactic used by more than just that one businessman.

You're not thinking like a multinational business, or a C-suite trying to consolidate control over a market. To pare down the competitors, someone at Microsoft obviously considers it a reasonable price to pay. Microsoft (and many other "Big" companies) have seen their valuations increase dramatically thanks to SARS-Cov-2, so whether or not it's a good idea.... time will tell. It seems mostly a mind-share thing. WoW is big (although I never understood why), Starcraft has a near fanatical fanbase, particularly in Korea... hm, that might be part of it; further expansion into Asia. And if it does cost them enough to fatally damage the company? Someone will bail them out (a la Microsoft and Apple) or outright buy them, so there are no downsides for the Microsoft C-suite.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Open source the battle.net client instead of pushing stuff to the closed steam ecosystem.
Would be the better move

Agreed.

Sadly, though, pigs will likely fly before that happens!

[carewolf]

Bad for consumers, so expect this acquisition to be approved.

Doubt they can run the companies any worse than they already were.

[bemerk]

Sadly, though, pigs will likely fly before that happens!

Maybe Steam will beat them to it with their Steamdeck.
OpenSource Steam Launcher would be cool as well.

[Michael_S]

This has been covered in other sites, but my understanding is that Microsoft knows this isn't profitable. They're just desperate.

First, MS has no presence in mobile gaming, and mobile gaming gets bigger each year. Candy Crush gets them a foothold.

Second, Sony and Nintendo are kicking Xbox ass. So this is a move to make sure Xbox has some popular exclusives and to boost the Windows store.

So less, "We'll be rich!", more, "We can't innovate and customers hate us, let's try to slow our decline."