Xbox bought blizzard?

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Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by iNcog »

Is this alternate reality? Does this mean starcraft 3 confirmed?

also lmao at this graphic, candy crush and starcraft side by side: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJYzHjtVEAQ ... name=large
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I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by edeholland »

That sucks honestly

But also damn, biggest acquisition in gaming history? Almost as much as Disney buying Fox. Wonder if they put WoW on Steam or game pass, that could be a huge influx of players.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by aaryngend »

edeholland wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 14:50
That sucks honestly

But also damn, biggest acquisition in gaming history? Almost as much as Disney buying Fox. Wonder if they put WoW on Steam or game pass, that could be a huge influx of players.
No, this is amazing!
Blizzard is a sinking ship, this might revitalize things for them.

I don't think anyone could have ever predicted this acquisition :ship:

On the other hand, I don't want them to cease the Blizzard App. Blizzard games on Xbox Live would feel hella weird to me.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by edeholland »

aaryngend wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 15:01
edeholland wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 14:50
That sucks honestly

But also damn, biggest acquisition in gaming history? Almost as much as Disney buying Fox. Wonder if they put WoW on Steam or game pass, that could be a huge influx of players.
I don't think anyone could have ever predicted this acquisition :ship:
Not sure if trolling but a lot of people predicted it after the recent controversies.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by aaryngend »

edeholland wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 15:07
aaryngend wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 15:01
I don't think anyone could have ever predicted this acquisition :ship:
Not sure if trolling but a lot of people predicted it after the recent controversies.
I mean in the greater scheme of things. Think 3, 5 or 10 years ago.
With the recent blow that was dealt to Blizzard all of this still seems sorta surreal, but much less than before and in the realm of possibility. Then that happened.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by gibson »

Yea this is good
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Mr_Bramboy »

Of course itโ€™s not good lol, itโ€™s bad for competition. Microsoft wants to become the netflix of gaming, only difference being that Microsoft would own all of the rights and would not have to bother with licensing fees. Game pass costs a few cents a month now, but give it a few years and see if you still like the mega corporation.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Dolan »

This is bad because it's yet another consolidation of megacorps like Microsoft buying up entire chunks of industries.
Microsoft is basically becoming a transnational infrastructure that owns big parts of your time: what you do at work and what you do at home.

Let me just list a couple of big acquisitions that they made so far:

Bungie
Ensemble (bought it and destroyed it)
aQuantive
Fast Search & Transfer
Skype
Yammer
Nokia (bought it and destroyed it)
Minecraft / Mojang
LinkedIn
Github
AT&T Technology Network Cloud
Activision-Blizzard

And consumers are cheering.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by n0el »

Agree that this is probably bad for game development in general and for blizzard game players. Not sure how this plays out in the long run, depends on how they integrate the blizzard studio into the family.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by gibson »

Dolan wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 15:56

And consumers are cheering.
I am cheering
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Yall talk about competition as if it didn't bring us subscription models, predatory DLCs, lootboxes, terrible forms of monetization, NFTs and unfinished games under the guise of games as a service. As far as I am concerned, competition doesn't seem to bring the customer anything.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by gibson »

Yea increased competition in the gaming sector has not benefited the consumer. Games donโ€™t really have direct competitors in the same way other products do.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Dolan »

RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 16:30
Yall talk about competition as if it didn't bring us subscription models, predatory DLCs, lootboxes, terrible forms of monetization, NFTs and unfinished games under the guise of games as a service. As far as I am concerned, competition doesn't seem to bring the customer anything.
Most of those were not brought by competition, but by the post-2008 environment. Companies started going for subs and f2p once it became clear that there's a generation of millennials who either can't afford to pay much or could be persuaded to pay but only small fees every now and then, instead of a bigger one-time fee.

I don't think this has much to do with competition. There's actually less and less competition, since these megacorps are buying left and right. There's only competition between the big corporations, but even that is more cartelised than real competition. For example, Microsoft and Facebook teamed up to have an ocean cable across the Atlantic that would carry their server data between US and Euro-Asia. Do you think MS and FB actually compete on social media, chatting or gaming if they do projects like this together? I think it's more like cartelisation.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Im not saying these things are because of competition, but the fact is that these consumer unfriendly practices became a thing despite there being competition. You guys talk so highly of the competition, but it isnt preventing consumer unfriendly shit.

At least microsoft, so far at least, is reasonably consumer friendly. I'd rather have them be in charge of some of the games I enjoy than Blizzard-Activision.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Horsemen »

GOLDMAN SACHS SOLE BUYSIDE ADVISOR :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by n0el »

Personally think that F2P games with micro transactions are great and a great competition driven market trend
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Horsemen »

n0el wrote: โ†‘
19 Jan 2022, 02:43
Personally think that F2P games with micro transactions are great and a great competition driven market trend
Games-as-a-Service is the best thing to ever have happened to gaming
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by n0el »

RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 17:35
Im not saying these things are because of competition, but the fact is that these consumer unfriendly practices became a thing despite there being competition. You guys talk so highly of the competition, but it isnt preventing consumer unfriendly shit.

At least microsoft, so far at least, is reasonably consumer friendly. I'd rather have them be in charge of some of the games I enjoy than Blizzard-Activision.
Honest question, you'd rather have a game that is 60$ and likely going to still have DLC content that isn't feature rich at launch or a F2P game that has microtransactions like unit skins?
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by princeofcarthage »

n0el wrote: โ†‘
19 Jan 2022, 13:54
RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 17:35
Im not saying these things are because of competition, but the fact is that these consumer unfriendly practices became a thing despite there being competition. You guys talk so highly of the competition, but it isnt preventing consumer unfriendly shit.

At least microsoft, so far at least, is reasonably consumer friendly. I'd rather have them be in charge of some of the games I enjoy than Blizzard-Activision.
Honest question, you'd rather have a game that is 60$ and likely going to still have DLC content that isn't feature rich at launch or a F2P game that has microtransactions like unit skins?
$60 game. A f2p game having microtransactions will in all possibility be a multiplayer game of some sort. A $60 game will be content rich story driven game of some sort like rpg which is a more immersive experience for me. No truly f2p game has managed to blend story/content driven experience with microtransactions. It just doesn't work. New World tried that but failed.
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by n0el »

That's fair, but that's not what everyone is looking for. I don't want to play a single player game for example.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by RefluxSemantic »

n0el wrote: โ†‘
19 Jan 2022, 13:54
RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
18 Jan 2022, 17:35
Im not saying these things are because of competition, but the fact is that these consumer unfriendly practices became a thing despite there being competition. You guys talk so highly of the competition, but it isnt preventing consumer unfriendly shit.

At least microsoft, so far at least, is reasonably consumer friendly. I'd rather have them be in charge of some of the games I enjoy than Blizzard-Activision.
Honest question, you'd rather have a game that is 60$ and likely going to still have DLC content that isn't feature rich at launch or a F2P game that has microtransactions like unit skins?
If the 60$ game is actually a well made finished product, then I choose the 60$ game.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by RefluxSemantic »

I think thats missing the point though. As far as I can tell, in the past decade of video gaming, the existing competition between video game companies has not led to consumer friendly practices at all. If anything it seems like this alleged competition leads to companies trying to outgreed eachother by introducing and normalizing various predatory elements while treating their employees like shit. The entire idea that competition benefits the customer seems outdated when one looks at the world in 2022.
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by fightinfrenchman »

RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
19 Jan 2022, 15:25
I think thats missing the point though. As far as I can tell, in the past decade of video gaming, the existing competition between video game companies has not led to consumer friendly practices at all. If anything it seems like this alleged competition leads to companies trying to outgreed eachother by introducing and normalizing various predatory elements while treating their employees like shit. The entire idea that competition benefits the customer seems outdated when one looks at the world in 2022.
You can't only point to the negative things. It benefits consumers when there are more high quality free to play games, even if I find the associated micro transactions cringe
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by Dolan »

RefluxSemantic wrote: โ†‘
19 Jan 2022, 15:25
I think thats missing the point though. As far as I can tell, in the past decade of video gaming, the existing competition between video game companies has not led to consumer friendly practices at all. If anything it seems like this alleged competition leads to companies trying to outgreed eachother by introducing and normalizing various predatory elements while treating their employees like shit. The entire idea that competition benefits the customer seems outdated when one looks at the world in 2022.
That's not because of competition but because there is less and less competition, since the big players in game development are consolidating. They're getting bought by megacorps like Microsoft or Tencent.
So, since they don't feel like there's any real pressure on them, they can shape the consumer, rather than competition and consumers shaping them.

But, as I said, in a way these patterns were created by the post-2008 world in which consumers don't want to spend much, that's why f2p appeared. So that companies can give you a more piecemeal deal: pay as much as you can afford to, starting from nothing. In this way, we can still get some trickle of money even from the poorest consumers that don't afford to pay 60 bucks, but would be ok with buying a skin for 12 bucks. By lowering the barrier to entry for gaming, companies get access to any level of purchasing power
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Re: Xbox bought blizzard?

Post by gibson »

Its not because of "less and less" competition lol

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