A bit of wider industry news today. News which completely blows my mind - Microsoft are out to acquire Activision Blizzard. Pending all the regulatory approvals they need to go through which takes times and can be denied.
This continues the very worrying trend of these mega companies amassing huge resources. Microsoft now control a ridiculous amount of publisher and developer teams, easily helping towards more lock-in with Microsoft services and products. For Microsoft, it makes sense of course, since they can continue dumping titles into Game Pass and get more subscriptions for recurring revenue.
Activision Blizzard has been in a lot of hot water lately, which is probably a big understatement. Employees and investors have repeatedly called for the removal of the current CEO, Bobby Kotick. The press release is a bit vague on what will happen with Kotick, as it mentions Kotick "will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard" and then "Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming". So it somewhat makes it sound like Kotick might only be there until the deal is fully done but it's pretty vague. Probably intentionally vague due to the ongoing issues. Update: Kotick will remain, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed via email. Update #2: They tried to clarify again later that they were speaking generally about the acquisition so it's anyone's guess what will happen with Kotick (IGN).
This will be an "all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion" which is so much money I can't even begin to imagine it.
Microsoft will then own the likes of Activision, Blizzard and King studios with Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Candy Crash and global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. The press release states this will make Microsoft "the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony".
Since Microsoft isn't quite the same as the Microsoft of old, we might end up seeing more Activision Blizzard games come to Steam and so making it even easier to run them on Linux through Steam Play Proton. Imagine having Diablo, Starcraft, Overwatch, various newer Call of Duty games and so on being a few clicks away on Steam + Linux.
What do you think to this news? The deal is expected to close in 2023.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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1. The bad news:
The bad news can be essentially three things:
- We might see something become reality that some folks (including economic professors) predict for years, which is subscription service only. If Microsoft (and others like Sony) do(es) this, we will see a whole new way of gaming economy and it won't be the good kind, very especially for Linux Gaming, Mods etc. it won't be any good.
- We might see this whole thing imploding, which means, Microsoft will close down many studios if this doesn't work out for them (not enough revenue and/or bad games). This could lead to a video games industry crisis in the worst case, but even in the best case (of this scenario), we could see some franchises die forever.
- We might see Microsoft becoming a very aggressive monopolist, which will be bad on many terms, including bad games, higher prices, less player freedom etc.
2. the good news:
There is a hopeful side though as well, even though it is limited in time...
- We might see that Microsoft really wants to use the whole potencial of their new franchises and companies.
In the best case we might even see big improvements, new games for loved franchises, maybe even new franchises etc.
The biggest caveat in this scenario is not even Microsoft itself (because we have already seen this scenario with Sony which tries to make at least some very good games), but with the studios, especially Blizzard is not the company of masters, it used to be, so I'm sry, but I doubt that the team of today can do great...
But two possibilities have to be mentioned here as well:
- maybe some better developers will come (back)
- maybe other teams are interested and allowed to do something with the franchises
In the end, we will see soon enough what will happen.
Last edited by dr_jekyll on 20 Jan 2022 at 10:40 am UTC
Recent history showed people want to use Steam as they consider it the superior storefront.Maybe, but having a monopoly situation where everything is dependent on Steam is no good outlook.
Especially if you can't start the game without the launcher being open is a bad habit these days.
It also makes using a nice alternative more difficult as you have to chain stuff together.
slaapliedje 20 Jan 2022
They will have then ZeniMax (Bethesda, id software, Arkane Studios, MachineGames) bu also Activation Blizzard.
You forgot inXile and Obsidian... pretty sure they own like 90% of the developers known for RPGs.
Technology wars...
From the tech usage perspective, this will definitely mean more DX API and less Vulkan API, as an example...
Last edited by Boldos on 21 Jan 2022 at 11:47 am UTC
I don't think it will change much of anything regarding API usage. It's not like Vulkan was being utilised in games coming out of Activision-Blizzard anyway.
You are correct - Activision-Blizzard were not using Vulkan.
But Bethesda *did* used it, on DOOM franchise.
So not only a Vulkan-enabled franchise was lost to DX, but Microsoft also ensured that all those other franchises will never get any other port than Windows, and will never get Vulkan in the future, ever.
(And on top of all that, think about e.g. streaming platforms: (currently) all technologically built around Linux+Vulcan. Those ports are never happening too for all these franchises...; all those platforms and their Linux-based technologies are forbidden territory now, and for the future)
Last edited by Boldos on 21 Jan 2022 at 4:32 pm UTC
Liam Dawe 22 Jan 2022
I'll say again: there's better places to dump your politic thoughts on stuff like socialism, this isn't it.
Same goes for correction reports: use the built-in feature, no need to fill comments with it.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 22 Jan 2022 at 9:19 am UTC
This is sad news. Not that Activision Blizzard is a good company or anything, but Microsoft is already way too large. I hope antimonopoly regulations prevent this from going through.
your propic is familiar where is this from?
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