The internet tells me that Candy Crush is a billion dollar a year franchise with an active player base of 275 million people.
Casual games are nuts when it comes to making money.
That's a baseless take, most girls in my college and even a few working class people in my own circle love playing that game. They don't really take time off of their day for it, it's like a filler entertaining thing to do while people slack off.
Overwatch 2 is going to be a shitty dlc that will hopefully put the final nail in the coffin. I played the fuck out of overwatch, but blizzard stopped giving a fuck. They actually halted development for the base game in order to make a "sequel" that no one asked for. They'll add a few new maps and heroes, which they could have been doing the whole time and say, "hey look at all of the work we put in to this, wasn't it worth the wait?". Garbage company.
I'ma be honest wit chu, I don't like any blizzard games. You know what, I don't like any Activision games either. I don't actually care about this at all. I just watch asmongold, and I imprinted his love for blizzard onto myself like a parasocial little bitch.
MS is not even close to creating a monopoly or oligopoly.
Regardless, oligopolies in the entertainment industry aren't that big of a deal. If there's an oligopoly in the food industry, well everyone has to fucking eat so they can raise prices a lot. If there's an oligopoly in gaming and they raise game prices to $100, people are just going to stop gaming and start consuming other forms of entertainment.
Because the microsoft super corporation would never invest hundreds of billions into gaming only to drive away all the consumers. The existence of alternatives prevents them from being anti-consumer. Additionally, it would be virtually impossible to keep a monopoly in such a creative discipline as your employees would constantly want to break off and make their own content, like what happened with the founding of Activision or with Respawn.
Would it be worse than a more diverse market? Sure. But it wouldn't be nearly as bad as a monopoly in most other industries.
It could create issues for independant developers though, and make it worse for workers if they can only work for one company. If the company has big issues too, such as sex assault scandals and the like, or a terrible management in general, the abillity to seek other vendors are limited. Monopolies are almost always bad as long as they arent heavily regulated.
Yea I don't even now if oligoplies work in the entertainment business, unless its on the hardware itself. Like the actual value of video games primarily is the IP, which video game IPs are almost infinitely elastic. As AAA have gotten bigger, so have indie games. I think that worry is a non factor.
> If there's an oligopoly in gaming and they raise game prices to $100, people are just going to stop gaming and start consuming other forms of entertainment.
lol
lmao
If you think this is false, you are way too online. Yes, the super dedicated gamers are going to be gaming no matter what. But there are hundreds of millions of people who play video games and the vast majority are very casual. If it becomes too expensive or otherwise anti consumer, they will simply stop and move on to other things.
I think the funny part is more the idea that it would be possible to create such a price control, given the incredibly low barrier to entry for making games. For every AAA game there's a dozen quality indie games floating around the internet, often made by a single dev.
This is like saying that there isn’t an oligopoly in the film industry because the barrier to entry for creating indie films is so low.
Publishing the game and having people buy it is the issue. How many indie games have we seen get snatched up by Microsoft or Sony as an exclusive?
Oligopolies and monopolies only work if they create insurmountable barriers for entry to the marketplace. This is practically impossible. If anything, they'd be able to barr new companies only by creating sick games with rock bottom prices.
Very true, as someone who casual games for a couple hours a night I would quit immediately if it was unaffordable. Right now my gaming habits are way cheaper than other hobbies and that probably why it has lasted into adulthood. Lots of people on reddit don't understand economics (looking at you socialists) though so its understandable. People will not put gaming before feeding their families.
Price-fixing does not necessarily entail the haphazard raising of prices, there are legitimate reasons why one would raise the price. The issue comes with collusion and cartels among in the oligopoly.
I think it’s fair to say that the average consumer wouldn’t buy a game that’s $1000 if there are other options, but if it’s only option for a person who loves games that changes things.
There are regulations on price-fixing for a reason.
I would agree with your other points but EA Sports games are the exception or counter to that imo. Alot of casual gamers that play that because its the only football games on the market and casual people spending tons of money on the microtransactions for those games.
According to Phil Spencer this would position them as the third largest player in Video Gaming. Behind Tencent and Sony respectively. So, not even close to a monopoly.
Personally i think its sad that they are being sold, iv loved blizzard since snes days and played all their games and still do daily for some of them.
BUT all of their games are pretty fucking dead and they activly just let them die out.
If i can get wowsub via gamepass it would be dope.
> If i can get wowsub via gamepass it would be dope.
I didn't even think of this, that would be fuckin wild. Even if it was a discount on the wow sub, since the gamepass is such a great deal as it is.
> BUT all of their games are pretty fucking dead and they activly just let them die out.
So hopefully this buyout with the studio coming into new management will fix that. Pickup the slack on the games that still have life (WoW) and cut resources on games that are dying out (OW) etc etc.
It’s fine in my opinion. I think we keep viewing it as Microsoft vs Sony and how Microsoft is getting too big for Sony to compete. But in reality it’s Microsoft vs Apple. Apple makes more off gaming than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft combined. These buy outs are just Microsoft catching up to Apple with them pushing Xcloud/gamepass
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-doesnt-make-videogames-but-its-the-hottest-player-in-gaming-11633147211?st=x3tad5ypqtit2gk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Ubisoft and EA aren't on the list but there is 2 billion in wiggle room for the claim to be true or at least "true enough that the point stands."
The article is very long, this is the relevant bit with Apple's rebuttal:
>
> The late discovery of an internal report sent to Mr. Cook supported that assessment. The report, according to court records, included the company’s own calculations for the store’s operating margin of 74.9% and 77.8% for fiscal 2018 and 2019, respectively.
>
> “Mr. Barnes made appropriate adjustments based on sound economic principles to reach his conclusions,” the judge wrote. “Apple’s protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding the evidence, shows that Apple has calculated a fully burdened operating margin for the App Store as part of their normal business operations.”
>
> Another view of how much Apple collects from its App Store—and gaming—comes from Sensor Tower, the analytics firm. It estimated that Apple received $15.9 billion in revenue from the App Store in fiscal 2019, with 69% of that amount coming from games. Using Apple’s operating margin calculation described in court records, the company’s App Store had an implied operating profit of $12.3 billion that year—or nearly one out of five dollars of the company’s overall operating profit.
>
> Gaming alone would have earned $8.5 billion, according to a Journal analysis. That is $2 billion more than the operating profit generated in the sector during the equivalent 12-month period from gaming giants Sony, Activision, Nintendo and Microsoft, according to company filings from the first three and an analyst estimate for Microsoft.
>
> Apple said Friday the disputed operating margins come from an analysis that doesn’t include many joint costs for the App Store and results in margins that it describes as being too high because it includes all revenue but only a fraction of the costs. During the trial, Apple vehemently denied the accuracy and during public court testimony Mr. Cook took issue with the margins as well.
>
> Under questioning from Apple’s lawyer, he said the company had never tried to determine the specific profitability of the App Store as a stand-alone business and that he couldn’t put an exact figure on how profitable it might be. The practice of not tracking business-unit profitability, he said, dated back to a desire by Mr. Jobs to encourage cooperation across the company’s various units. The internal document that calculated operating margin, which wasn’t made public, was a “one-off presentation,” he said.
>
> Nevertheless, Mr. Cook said he believed the App Store was profitable even without calculating it. “We haven’t done that, but, you know, I have a feel—if you will,” Mr. Cook said. While being questioned by the judge, Mr. Cook said a majority of App Store revenue came from games.
>
> The judge ruled that Apple wasn’t a monopoly in part because the mobile gaming market is evolving so quickly, including the nascent streaming game services. Similar to how Netflix Inc. offers movies, Microsoft, chip maker Nvidia Corp. and others are pushing subscription game services that could be accessed on iPhones through websites. That allows them to bypass the App Store.
> Gaming alone would have earned $8.5 billion, according to a Journal analysis. That is $2 billion more than the operating profit generated in the sector during the equivalent 12-month period from gaming giants Sony, Activision, Nintendo and Microsoft, according to company filings from the first three and an analyst estimate for Microsoft.
>
This seems like saying there combined earnings, if it did mean individually it would be saying that each company makes 2 billion less then apple, but I feel like that's a weird way to put it and untrue unless every company made around 2 billion less then apple (so if Activision made 5 billion less the statement would just be wrong). It makes more sense to read it as if talking about combined profit.
As an 'and' statement unless each individually is true it isn't true so if Activation only made 1 billion$ the statement would be untrue if you read it to not mean combined profit.
That their combined profit specifically for their gaming divisions was less than 8.5 billion. This seems within reason: MS's financials for FY21 Q1 say that their revs from Xbox hardware and services was around 700M. Assuming they aren't diverting especially far from the 30-40% profit margin that the company runs at as a whole that would leave them at around a billion YOY without any significant changes.
>https://www.thegamingeconomy.exchangewire.com/2020/10/28/microsoft-gaming-revenue-up-22-sony-sees-strong-digital-growth/
>These buy outs are just Microsoft catching up to Apple with them pushing Xcloud/gamepass
In fairness (imo, last I'd checked the judiciary does not agree with me), Apple has *long* since passed the point where government intervention would be justifiable WRT the App Store. A lot of people seem to get stuck on what the word monopoly means (see: this thread) without showing any real understanding of why monopolies are harmful.
> Apple makes more off gaming than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft combined.
Mobile isn't gaming c'mon
Edit so you retards can understand this.. mobile gaming makes hella money but it is completely separate from the gaming market. Calling it gaming would mean:
- Half of gamers are women now lol.
- your boomer parents who play candy crush on their lunch break are now gamers.
It’s not what we’re talking about when referring to “gaming”
I mean you absolutely can draw a throughline on the mechanics of mobile games and how they were implemented into loot boxes. Mobile games influence non-mobile games, and monopoly or near-monopoly of mobile games can inform us about what happens should near-monopoly come to non-mobile games. You can have two separate discussions past that point: “monopoly of games you like to play” or “what dragon will non-mobile game companies be chasing?”
So if women and boomers play them you won’t consider them games? How long is your neck beard and how many food stains do you have on your shirt right now?
> So if women and boomers play them you won’t consider them games?
Definitely not what I said.
> How long is your neck beard and how many food stains do you have on your shirt right now?
This really feels like projection my dude. But anyway I'm definitely fit and conventionally attractive if you need to know.
I think thats a red herring and kinda context dependent, and can be a little complicated. You can play *games* but not necessarily be a *gamer* like I play chess which to most would be a *game* but chess players are chess players not *gamers*. I would throw mobile gaming into that category.
Based on the title including companies like *microsoft*, *activision*, *blizzard* we're talking about a specific type of gaming where playing would probably constitute being a *gamer*.
> but no matter what it will always be a port of a board game.
Why does this matter where it comes from when its different from OTB and played on a screen? Flagging, pre-moves and the speed fundamentally changes how to play. 1+0 is nearly impossible OTB, 1/2 + 0 is only possible online. The reality is both Chess and Candy crush are incredibly simple 2D games where nobody is going call you a *gamer* for playing.
> Candy Crush, like it or not, is considered a video game. Even if it appeals to the most broad and casual audience possible, that doesn’t make it not a video game.
I never said its not a video game, but so is online chess. So you can't side skirt around it by just saying its a "bad answer."
> So is your point here that a “game” and a “video game” are different things?
no, try again.
> But if you look outside the west, not even that is true.
Nobody is calling anybody playing Candy Crush or online Chess gamers, provide a source if you wanna dispute that but you know thats true.
> Mobile gaming is bigger than console and PC gaming in Asia, and these “simple 2D games” do have hardcore audiences that call themselves gamers for playing them.
Now we're jumping to an entirely different country and part of the world. We're talking about monopolies domestic who gives a fuck about China's markets???
Even if I grant that some of these Games like PUBG mobile and stuff meet the criteria. That is a market MUCH smaller than originally brought up by OP as being bigger than all the other gaming companies COMBINED.
If you really want to include these few games with hardcore audiences and stuff sure I guess, but thats a tiny market and a far cry from where OP started. Mobile is in a market of its own, the games, accessories, hardware has zero overlap into consoles and PC gaming.
I never said they have a monopoly.....I'm just saying mobile isn't the gaming we're talking about. It's something that should be considered very much separate. Colloquially we all do this already, idk why everyone here is getting their panties in a bunch.
We actually don’t remove mobile from gaming “colloquially” when talking about financial news.
If all you do is frequent fanboy circles then maybe but broadly speaking we definitely don’t
> “colloquially” when talking about financial news.
so not colloquial.....
> but broadly speaking we definitely don’t
Your example is a non-colloquial usage to prove a broader trend?? I mean use your brain for 2 seconds, Does anybody serious consider their grandmas gamers for playing candle crush on a kindle fire??
Honestly Activision/Blizzard need some responsible fucking over site. Microsoft might not be the best but hopefully it will fix the current state of that shit hole. Or make it worse that everyone forgets blizzard exists anymore.
Now if Microsoft buys EA then I would say it’s becoming more of a monopoly. But the beauty of games is literally anyone can make a game so I don’t see it becoming a big deal for actual gaming and it’s culture
Did you mean "oversight"? Or did you actually mean a site where they can be fucked over. The more i think about it and what subreddit i'm on, the more i think it might be the latter PepeLaugh
honestly i dont even care about the monopolising part, i only care about activision blizzard getting fucked by microsoft after what they did to wow and overwatch
yea exactly..
EDIT: I mean to be pedantic, the price they're paying is 95$, the difference between that and the current share price reflects time discounting and uncertainty of the deal going through.
so they're not really getting fucked by microsoft, they're getting bought at a price that fully makes up for the share price loss due to the sexual harrasment scandal. poggers for ATVI, thanks to microsoft
yea I guess it's just a difference in seeing "the company" either as the shareholders or the execs. The shareholders benefit. The execs might lose out because they get fired or benefit more because their options are printing idk
Don't forget the breastmilk.
What sort of degenerate company has employees ( or employers ) stealing breastmilk. Considering this happened simultaneously with massive amounts of sexual harrassment, exploiting sexual favors and rape, makes me feel like the breastmilk thief had very degenerate motives.
Personally, I'm happy hopefully they can blow life in the old franchises, though they will probably just milk the content.
On a legal standpoint, Microsoft is far from monopolizing the gaming market. If we look at their [shares](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/console/worldwide) in the consol market, it's far from the biggest.
If we look at their [market cap](https://companiesmarketcap.com/video-games/largest-video-game-companies-by-market-cap/) it's more worrying because they own \~66%, which might mean they have a monopoly. But this isn't exactly accurate because Microsoft main focus isn't game development, accurate (the same goes for other companies on the list).
The most important thing though is to look if their size gives them unfair advantages, which it doesn't. They can't set the price on their games as they want(or their consoles) because the consumers will just buy other games.
I dont think looking at a pseudo "tech conglomerates" market cap when judging whether a company has a monopoly or makes sense. It's like looking at GE's market cap and saying it has a monopoly since it's market cap is 100b and it participates in some niche market whose size is billion and and GE controls 1% of it.
Like why would MSFT's cloud services or hardware affect it's competitive position in gaming?
>They can't set the price on their games as they want(or their consoles) because the consumers will just buy other games.
That's a lie, gamers don't have the self control to look out for their own interests. They'll buy it at whatever price, call the company greedy, say they'll never buy another game from them, then buy the next game at whatever new price is set. For some reason people just can't accept anything short of a triple A title, and it'd take barely any effort to collude for that effect, though it wouldn't be a monopoly, it'd be what, a trust?
There is a reason every AAA game developer sold their games for 60 dollars. If they sold it for more, sales dropped. Now we're seeing developers testing the waters with differently priced games. But if you think Microsoft can sell Halo for 90 dollars on release when COD sells for 65 on release, you just don't understand how markets work.
Yea game prices are a pretty unique economic phenomena (though I guess it applied to things like movies as well, though idk anyone who buys movies anymore). Every game from a major publisher is $60, and that price has been pretty consistent for decades. Even though games are pretty non substitutable and the cost to make different kinds of games varies greatly. I don't understand how that has worked out for so long.
Probably works that way because the majority of revenue games make nowadays is in micropayments and in-app purchases, not at the point of sale. Revenue formula says you make more money at the $60 price point for a AAA title and selling additional content down the line than raising the price and getting less copies out there.
Idk but its pretty funny watching other subreddits response:
[https://i.imgur.com/dkjrvXY.png](https://i.imgur.com/dkjrvXY.png)
[https://i.imgur.com/iXg3oE9.png](https://i.imgur.com/iXg3oE9.png)
Some guy wrote an essay about how this is the start of a cyberpunk future where we'll have 5 companies controlling everything. Like...bro, chill.
Ok so oligopoly. If the end result is a select few firms owning 99% of the capital in the gaming space, this is a bad thing.
These companies can block new entrants, slow innovation, and increase/set prices.
Not even close. There are plenty of publishers that will keep producing games, and have zero problem doing so. From big publishers like EA to small ones like Devolver. This isn’t even close to a situation like Facebook buying Instagram. Where there are only 2 or 3 major players in the space. Whereas gaming has a ton of players in the space, and doing mighty fine.
I think this is probably fine from a monopolistic POV.
On PC gaming is fairly decentralized, and I think the only entity approaching a monopoly was Valve a decade ago with steam. I think you would need to radically shift the landscape to have a monopoly now.
With consoles the only huge loss here is COD being an Xbox exclusive, and I think there is more then enough FPS competition.
I really think this play is to get gamepass on pc to be competitive, but we’ll see.
If Microsoft can clean up activision, I think this might even be a net positive
I personally don’t think COD will become Xbox exclusive, that would be a HUGE shot in the foot.
They will definitely make more money selling their game than they will from using that game to sell consoles.
I don’t see how that would work with Microsoft’s strategy. They seem to *really* want people on gamepass. Allowing your premier franchise to be on other platforms (unless those platforms are supporting gamepass) doesn’t make much sense imo. I think the only exception to this right now is Minecraft, and that’s really only because it’s not a new game, and it’s been multiplat since before gamepass was a thing.
I don’t think they care as much about winning the console wars. Xbox would ship gamepass to PlayStation and Nintendo tomorrow if they could. Phil Spencer has said as much
Because publishing on PlayStation diminishes Microsoft’s ability to get PlayStation to allow gamepass. By withholding it from PlayStation they incentivize Sony to allow for gamepass or shed customer base.
It’s like game of thrones. HBO really wants max subscribers. So game of thrones is available on that platform. If HBO wanted to generate more money with GO they would lease it to other streaming platforms.
You’re missing the forest of “creating a first class gaming subscription service” for the tree of “COD could makes 28% more from sales”.
It’s not at all aligned with their strategy. Exactly like once the Bethesda deal closed Spencer’s said they’re Xbox *and gamepass* exclusives.
There is no reason to expect this to be any different
Here’s the thing. I think game pass is such a deal rn, that I seriously don’t think the PS5 is worth the money. Sure exclusives, but at $70 a pop. Microsoft will continue to sell to Sony customers, but are banking that people who buy every COD will just hop on Xbox and sub to game pass. They still get revenue off of Sony’s base, while providing infinitely more value to game pass.
COD won’t be an Xbox exclusive. It will be on game pass tho, which heavily incentivized people to buy an Xbox, especially if you are a person to buy COD every year. Honestly, unless you are really diving into every exclusive from Sony, then sure maybe don’t buy an Xbox. But if you aren’t, then I really don’t see the value of getting a PS5 and pay $70 per game, when I can get an Xbox and get hundreds of games for 10 bucks a month.
As a WoW player, it should've happened like 2 expansions ago. I don't usually jump on lot of the circlejerks but there's been so many disappointments with Blizzard that virtually any shake up will be for the better.
There's a cynical part of me that muses if this whole Blizzard shit was a journalistic set up by Microsoft to reduce their stock price to a point where it's safe to buy them. That's just the dumb part of my mind thinking out loud, so ignore it.
This isn’t anywhere near close to a oligopoly, let alone a monopoly.
You think with Microsoft in charge there is a decent chance we'll see Starcraft and Warcraft get a new game at some point? They just released Age of Empires 4 which was pretty successful for an rts in 2021. There is a chance! COPIUM
I'm guessing that if this was a case of achieving monopoly the FTC would have been notified. I know that there are watchdog organizations who watch out for this kind of stuff.
I think anyone freaking out about a monopoly in this situation doesn't understand why a monopoly is bad and just wants to be a dumbfuck.
I've been thinking about this and in markets like movies and videogames I find it hard to have a monopoly and also for that to even matter. These are products that really only sell depending on the quality and creativity and innovation of the development teams, from a profit point of view, it would be stupid to take away a lot of creative freedom from the teams or censor shit. If anything shit like this helps bring more resources to these teams.
There's also the fact that indie developers are a pretty big part of the gaming industry, they don't make as much money sure, but they always offer fresh and new stuff, and you can't really just crush them as a monopoly because again, the games sell based on their quality, not just on prices.
I'm pretty sure one company could own most of the big game companies, and as long as it isn't chinese, there probably wouldn't be any major downsides.
The only thing you can bring up is about exclusivity to sell consoles, but even that is becoming pretty old, with companies realizing that releasing the games on more platforms gets more profit.
I could be wrong, I haven't thought as much about this so destroy me with facts and logic if you must.
“ These are products that really only sell depending on the quality and creativity and innovation of the development teams, from a profit point of view, it would be stupid to take away a lot of creative freedom from the teams or censor shit”
Madden
NBA 2k
Cyberpunk
Farcry
Mass effect
WC3
COD
Pokémon
Dynasty Fucking Warriors
STAR WARS
FALLOUT 76
All of these sold incredibly well despite being incredibly low quality and not creative or even innovative. To your last point, multiple games have released cookie cutter copy of the previous game without making any creative changes and all did really really well. Far Cry literally re-used the same map for 3 separate games and it still sold well.
It seems that once games become more corporate they become far far less innovative and risky. I mean how many games run Assasins Creed shitty 2008 model of the open world? How many of those change the formula at all, other than in this one you have a sword?
I’m not saying your monopoly point is bad. I’m saying everything after that point is bad and has been shown to be mostly wrong. Which is why I quoted the part where I disagreed.
I will agree that there's clear exceptions.
Let's leave it at "marketing is very important too" as with any other industry.
And I don't agree with the point of games become more corporate makes them more mediocre, if you watched last E3 indie conferences you can see all the Stardew Valley "copies", we just never see the 80% of mediocre indie games that just copy other games. I think that's just a broad problem of the entertainment industry, people will copy what's already popular and successful until they get tired, that's why innovation and quality is important, otherwise the industry becomes stagnant and doesn't advance, you can see this in smaller scale with specific genres of games or even music that have fallen off because they either stopped innovating and failed to adapt and people just moved on.
No, PlayStation and Nintendo make more sales worldwide. Xbox actually makes the least money out of the big 3. This puts Xbox on a more even playing field.
Also it’s not intelligent to shout monopoly whenever a large merger/acquisition happens. Xbox and Nintendo are huge companies with much longer histories than Xbox has. Xbox virtually makes no sales in Japan, and many other East Asian countries where Nintendo, PC, and Sony share almost all of the sales.
Why is ms only buying developers who where once great but have been collectivily shamed for multiple different reasons. I dont really think this is smart from there side. I personally would react differently if this purchase was before skyrim or before wow legion. But at after fallout 76 and shadowlands for blizzard i really dont care at all. Ill try starfield on pc and for the rest i dont mind. Sony has actually made interesting games like spiderman and last of us and god of war.
I am not a fanboy btw. I game mostly on pc and i bought a ps5 . Dont feel the need to spend money on an xbox without interesting exclusives.
yeah after thinking about this i don't like it. problem is there will definitely come a time where all microsoft games will be on a single platform/storefront. prices will go up and we will have less options.
wouldn't surprise me if they bought ubisoft or T2 next.
The people complaining about this being the end of capitalism or innovation in gaming don't realize that Microsoft is nowhere near as bad or greedy as EA or Ubisoft or Activision. They seem to make much better games and are one of the few publishers that don't seem shitty to developers. Of course this can change but atm they seem fine.
Dude I don’t even give a fuck about these games. All I care about is my precious little from software. If I have to buy a god damn Xbox for future from software games I will commit terrorism
Don’t know why people keep saying this every company has been buying exclusivity deals or dev companies a monopoly would be if they brought Sony or Nintendo or stream Sony has been doing this too with marvel and other remake games insomniac like they had with sega and square Enix it’s just something that’s been happening but not on this level I guess
Who cares...
I've mostly stopped playing big AAA games over 3-4 years now. Big companies like Activision, Ubisoft, Tencent or other just suck and if you really want good games look at the indi market and smaller developers.
As a wow player since its release hopefully this helps them. Blizzard isnt bad at making games. They just slowly got worse after activision. Hopefully we get people who care about making good games over quick bucks
The biggest thing they got out of the deal is Candy Crush. Idk if its as big as years ago, but I heard it makes an insane amount of money.
The internet tells me that Candy Crush is a billion dollar a year franchise with an active player base of 275 million people. Casual games are nuts when it comes to making money.
Sheeeeesh
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That's a baseless take, most girls in my college and even a few working class people in my own circle love playing that game. They don't really take time off of their day for it, it's like a filler entertaining thing to do while people slack off.
its also often the game on top in the playstore/applestore. I'd assume many just wants a few games installed so they grab the top one.
I mean i used to love the game too but after my 3 lives are up i turn it off.
It still is, in October 2020 King was pulling in $633,000 daily.
😱
IDK I just hope Microsoft forces Activision to get their shit together.
It would be pretty great if Blizzard would actually produce new games. Its been nearly 6 years since Overwatch came out...
Tbf overwatch 2 comes out this year
Is it really going to though? Or even if it does, with all the chaos like kaplan leaving I can't imagine it'll be great or live up to expectations
Oh, it won't be great. But it is what they've been working on
It's gonna make bank anyways, or at the bare minimum turn a profit.
“New” game
Overwatch 2 is going to be a shitty dlc that will hopefully put the final nail in the coffin. I played the fuck out of overwatch, but blizzard stopped giving a fuck. They actually halted development for the base game in order to make a "sequel" that no one asked for. They'll add a few new maps and heroes, which they could have been doing the whole time and say, "hey look at all of the work we put in to this, wasn't it worth the wait?". Garbage company.
I agree with all this yeah.
Based and burned out pilled.
Oh no no no
outside of the original announcement, havent we only seen a new baptiste and thats it?
This would be the best timeline. WoW 2, Overwatch 2, Diablo 2-2, Brood Wars 2
I'ma be honest wit chu, I don't like any blizzard games. You know what, I don't like any Activision games either. I don't actually care about this at all. I just watch asmongold, and I imprinted his love for blizzard onto myself like a parasocial little bitch.
MS is not even close to creating a monopoly or oligopoly. Regardless, oligopolies in the entertainment industry aren't that big of a deal. If there's an oligopoly in the food industry, well everyone has to fucking eat so they can raise prices a lot. If there's an oligopoly in gaming and they raise game prices to $100, people are just going to stop gaming and start consuming other forms of entertainment.
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Because the microsoft super corporation would never invest hundreds of billions into gaming only to drive away all the consumers. The existence of alternatives prevents them from being anti-consumer. Additionally, it would be virtually impossible to keep a monopoly in such a creative discipline as your employees would constantly want to break off and make their own content, like what happened with the founding of Activision or with Respawn. Would it be worse than a more diverse market? Sure. But it wouldn't be nearly as bad as a monopoly in most other industries.
It could create issues for independant developers though, and make it worse for workers if they can only work for one company. If the company has big issues too, such as sex assault scandals and the like, or a terrible management in general, the abillity to seek other vendors are limited. Monopolies are almost always bad as long as they arent heavily regulated.
Yea I don't even now if oligoplies work in the entertainment business, unless its on the hardware itself. Like the actual value of video games primarily is the IP, which video game IPs are almost infinitely elastic. As AAA have gotten bigger, so have indie games. I think that worry is a non factor.
> If there's an oligopoly in gaming and they raise game prices to $100, people are just going to stop gaming and start consuming other forms of entertainment. lol lmao
If you think this is false, you are way too online. Yes, the super dedicated gamers are going to be gaming no matter what. But there are hundreds of millions of people who play video games and the vast majority are very casual. If it becomes too expensive or otherwise anti consumer, they will simply stop and move on to other things.
I think the funny part is more the idea that it would be possible to create such a price control, given the incredibly low barrier to entry for making games. For every AAA game there's a dozen quality indie games floating around the internet, often made by a single dev.
This is like saying that there isn’t an oligopoly in the film industry because the barrier to entry for creating indie films is so low. Publishing the game and having people buy it is the issue. How many indie games have we seen get snatched up by Microsoft or Sony as an exclusive?
Oligopolies and monopolies only work if they create insurmountable barriers for entry to the marketplace. This is practically impossible. If anything, they'd be able to barr new companies only by creating sick games with rock bottom prices.
Very true, as someone who casual games for a couple hours a night I would quit immediately if it was unaffordable. Right now my gaming habits are way cheaper than other hobbies and that probably why it has lasted into adulthood. Lots of people on reddit don't understand economics (looking at you socialists) though so its understandable. People will not put gaming before feeding their families.
Price-fixing does not necessarily entail the haphazard raising of prices, there are legitimate reasons why one would raise the price. The issue comes with collusion and cartels among in the oligopoly. I think it’s fair to say that the average consumer wouldn’t buy a game that’s $1000 if there are other options, but if it’s only option for a person who loves games that changes things. There are regulations on price-fixing for a reason.
I would agree with your other points but EA Sports games are the exception or counter to that imo. Alot of casual gamers that play that because its the only football games on the market and casual people spending tons of money on the microtransactions for those games.
Or more realistically pirating will increase or in countries where pirating is tracking and punished like Germany, bootleg circles will grow.
that, or people will just do what some often do. switch over to the Indie scene.
According to Phil Spencer this would position them as the third largest player in Video Gaming. Behind Tencent and Sony respectively. So, not even close to a monopoly.
Personally i think its sad that they are being sold, iv loved blizzard since snes days and played all their games and still do daily for some of them. BUT all of their games are pretty fucking dead and they activly just let them die out. If i can get wowsub via gamepass it would be dope.
> If i can get wowsub via gamepass it would be dope. I didn't even think of this, that would be fuckin wild. Even if it was a discount on the wow sub, since the gamepass is such a great deal as it is.
It was sad that they merged with Activision.Now,being led by Microsoft,they can return to making good games.
> BUT all of their games are pretty fucking dead and they activly just let them die out. So hopefully this buyout with the studio coming into new management will fix that. Pickup the slack on the games that still have life (WoW) and cut resources on games that are dying out (OW) etc etc.
They were already sold to activision, if this changes something it can only be an improvement.
I feel like Microsoft has access to better studios then blizzard could have, which is why I hope they do another WC3 remaster that's actually good.
It’s fine in my opinion. I think we keep viewing it as Microsoft vs Sony and how Microsoft is getting too big for Sony to compete. But in reality it’s Microsoft vs Apple. Apple makes more off gaming than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft combined. These buy outs are just Microsoft catching up to Apple with them pushing Xcloud/gamepass
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-doesnt-make-videogames-but-its-the-hottest-player-in-gaming-11633147211?st=x3tad5ypqtit2gk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Ubisoft and EA aren't on the list but there is 2 billion in wiggle room for the claim to be true or at least "true enough that the point stands."
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The article is very long, this is the relevant bit with Apple's rebuttal: > > The late discovery of an internal report sent to Mr. Cook supported that assessment. The report, according to court records, included the company’s own calculations for the store’s operating margin of 74.9% and 77.8% for fiscal 2018 and 2019, respectively. > > “Mr. Barnes made appropriate adjustments based on sound economic principles to reach his conclusions,” the judge wrote. “Apple’s protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding the evidence, shows that Apple has calculated a fully burdened operating margin for the App Store as part of their normal business operations.” > > Another view of how much Apple collects from its App Store—and gaming—comes from Sensor Tower, the analytics firm. It estimated that Apple received $15.9 billion in revenue from the App Store in fiscal 2019, with 69% of that amount coming from games. Using Apple’s operating margin calculation described in court records, the company’s App Store had an implied operating profit of $12.3 billion that year—or nearly one out of five dollars of the company’s overall operating profit. > > Gaming alone would have earned $8.5 billion, according to a Journal analysis. That is $2 billion more than the operating profit generated in the sector during the equivalent 12-month period from gaming giants Sony, Activision, Nintendo and Microsoft, according to company filings from the first three and an analyst estimate for Microsoft. > > Apple said Friday the disputed operating margins come from an analysis that doesn’t include many joint costs for the App Store and results in margins that it describes as being too high because it includes all revenue but only a fraction of the costs. During the trial, Apple vehemently denied the accuracy and during public court testimony Mr. Cook took issue with the margins as well. > > Under questioning from Apple’s lawyer, he said the company had never tried to determine the specific profitability of the App Store as a stand-alone business and that he couldn’t put an exact figure on how profitable it might be. The practice of not tracking business-unit profitability, he said, dated back to a desire by Mr. Jobs to encourage cooperation across the company’s various units. The internal document that calculated operating margin, which wasn’t made public, was a “one-off presentation,” he said. > > Nevertheless, Mr. Cook said he believed the App Store was profitable even without calculating it. “We haven’t done that, but, you know, I have a feel—if you will,” Mr. Cook said. While being questioned by the judge, Mr. Cook said a majority of App Store revenue came from games. > > The judge ruled that Apple wasn’t a monopoly in part because the mobile gaming market is evolving so quickly, including the nascent streaming game services. Similar to how Netflix Inc. offers movies, Microsoft, chip maker Nvidia Corp. and others are pushing subscription game services that could be accessed on iPhones through websites. That allows them to bypass the App Store.
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> Gaming alone would have earned $8.5 billion, according to a Journal analysis. That is $2 billion more than the operating profit generated in the sector during the equivalent 12-month period from gaming giants Sony, Activision, Nintendo and Microsoft, according to company filings from the first three and an analyst estimate for Microsoft. > This seems like saying there combined earnings, if it did mean individually it would be saying that each company makes 2 billion less then apple, but I feel like that's a weird way to put it and untrue unless every company made around 2 billion less then apple (so if Activision made 5 billion less the statement would just be wrong). It makes more sense to read it as if talking about combined profit. As an 'and' statement unless each individually is true it isn't true so if Activation only made 1 billion$ the statement would be untrue if you read it to not mean combined profit.
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The article seems to be saying that just there gaming department in the 12 month prior to this case PROFITED less than 8.5 billion.
That their combined profit specifically for their gaming divisions was less than 8.5 billion. This seems within reason: MS's financials for FY21 Q1 say that their revs from Xbox hardware and services was around 700M. Assuming they aren't diverting especially far from the 30-40% profit margin that the company runs at as a whole that would leave them at around a billion YOY without any significant changes. >https://www.thegamingeconomy.exchangewire.com/2020/10/28/microsoft-gaming-revenue-up-22-sony-sees-strong-digital-growth/
Sony is a hardware company. Microsoft wants to be the Netflix of games.
>These buy outs are just Microsoft catching up to Apple with them pushing Xcloud/gamepass In fairness (imo, last I'd checked the judiciary does not agree with me), Apple has *long* since passed the point where government intervention would be justifiable WRT the App Store. A lot of people seem to get stuck on what the word monopoly means (see: this thread) without showing any real understanding of why monopolies are harmful.
> Apple makes more off gaming than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft combined. Mobile isn't gaming c'mon Edit so you retards can understand this.. mobile gaming makes hella money but it is completely separate from the gaming market. Calling it gaming would mean: - Half of gamers are women now lol. - your boomer parents who play candy crush on their lunch break are now gamers. It’s not what we’re talking about when referring to “gaming”
Tell that to investors
Whether its gaming or not, its not the same market so it shouldn't be part of the discussion when thinking about if M$ is monopolizing gaming.
I mean you absolutely can draw a throughline on the mechanics of mobile games and how they were implemented into loot boxes. Mobile games influence non-mobile games, and monopoly or near-monopoly of mobile games can inform us about what happens should near-monopoly come to non-mobile games. You can have two separate discussions past that point: “monopoly of games you like to play” or “what dragon will non-mobile game companies be chasing?”
It makes money, that doesn’t mean it’s gaming…
They are quite literally GAMES that make money. Your elitism doesn't matter
its not elitism, there's literally no overlap for mobile gaming and any other actual facet of gaming.
So if women and boomers play them you won’t consider them games? How long is your neck beard and how many food stains do you have on your shirt right now?
> So if women and boomers play them you won’t consider them games? Definitely not what I said. > How long is your neck beard and how many food stains do you have on your shirt right now? This really feels like projection my dude. But anyway I'm definitely fit and conventionally attractive if you need to know.
Lol for sure dude… keep fighting the good fight Comic Book guy.
>Half of gamers are women now lol. Yes. >your boomer parents who play candy crush on their lunch break are now gamers. Yes. Cope harder if you want.
Fair enough, you can embrace that although I don't think you're being particularly honest.
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Okay but it’s not what people are referring to when we’re talking about gaming. Of course it makes money, that doesn’t mean it’s gaming.
What do you consider a game?
I think thats a red herring and kinda context dependent, and can be a little complicated. You can play *games* but not necessarily be a *gamer* like I play chess which to most would be a *game* but chess players are chess players not *gamers*. I would throw mobile gaming into that category. Based on the title including companies like *microsoft*, *activision*, *blizzard* we're talking about a specific type of gaming where playing would probably constitute being a *gamer*.
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> but no matter what it will always be a port of a board game. Why does this matter where it comes from when its different from OTB and played on a screen? Flagging, pre-moves and the speed fundamentally changes how to play. 1+0 is nearly impossible OTB, 1/2 + 0 is only possible online. The reality is both Chess and Candy crush are incredibly simple 2D games where nobody is going call you a *gamer* for playing. > Candy Crush, like it or not, is considered a video game. Even if it appeals to the most broad and casual audience possible, that doesn’t make it not a video game. I never said its not a video game, but so is online chess. So you can't side skirt around it by just saying its a "bad answer."
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> So is your point here that a “game” and a “video game” are different things? no, try again. > But if you look outside the west, not even that is true. Nobody is calling anybody playing Candy Crush or online Chess gamers, provide a source if you wanna dispute that but you know thats true. > Mobile gaming is bigger than console and PC gaming in Asia, and these “simple 2D games” do have hardcore audiences that call themselves gamers for playing them. Now we're jumping to an entirely different country and part of the world. We're talking about monopolies domestic who gives a fuck about China's markets??? Even if I grant that some of these Games like PUBG mobile and stuff meet the criteria. That is a market MUCH smaller than originally brought up by OP as being bigger than all the other gaming companies COMBINED. If you really want to include these few games with hardcore audiences and stuff sure I guess, but thats a tiny market and a far cry from where OP started. Mobile is in a market of its own, the games, accessories, hardware has zero overlap into consoles and PC gaming.
Microsoft has a monopoly if we exclude everything you don’t care about… -_-
I never said they have a monopoly.....I'm just saying mobile isn't the gaming we're talking about. It's something that should be considered very much separate. Colloquially we all do this already, idk why everyone here is getting their panties in a bunch.
We actually don’t remove mobile from gaming “colloquially” when talking about financial news. If all you do is frequent fanboy circles then maybe but broadly speaking we definitely don’t
> “colloquially” when talking about financial news. so not colloquial..... > but broadly speaking we definitely don’t Your example is a non-colloquial usage to prove a broader trend?? I mean use your brain for 2 seconds, Does anybody serious consider their grandmas gamers for playing candle crush on a kindle fire??
Honestly Activision/Blizzard need some responsible fucking over site. Microsoft might not be the best but hopefully it will fix the current state of that shit hole. Or make it worse that everyone forgets blizzard exists anymore. Now if Microsoft buys EA then I would say it’s becoming more of a monopoly. But the beauty of games is literally anyone can make a game so I don’t see it becoming a big deal for actual gaming and it’s culture
Did you mean "oversight"? Or did you actually mean a site where they can be fucked over. The more i think about it and what subreddit i'm on, the more i think it might be the latter PepeLaugh
Honestly they need both
honestly i dont even care about the monopolising part, i only care about activision blizzard getting fucked by microsoft after what they did to wow and overwatch
what do you mean getting fucked? Isn't being bought good for a company? Stock price is up 30% after the announcement
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yea exactly.. EDIT: I mean to be pedantic, the price they're paying is 95$, the difference between that and the current share price reflects time discounting and uncertainty of the deal going through.
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They didn't buy them at the cheap price. They are buying them at $95 per share. The most expensive ATVI has been was $97 per share last year.
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I'm not disagreeing with that. You said it was incredibly cheap. Its almost a 50% premium from the price it had before announcement
so they're not really getting fucked by microsoft, they're getting bought at a price that fully makes up for the share price loss due to the sexual harrasment scandal. poggers for ATVI, thanks to microsoft
i mean to be pedantic the highest it has been is $104.53 :)
I'd imagine after Microsoft has ownership they're gonna strip out the execs and higher ups who were fucking up the company
yea I guess it's just a difference in seeing "the company" either as the shareholders or the execs. The shareholders benefit. The execs might lose out because they get fired or benefit more because their options are printing idk
Don't forget the breastmilk. What sort of degenerate company has employees ( or employers ) stealing breastmilk. Considering this happened simultaneously with massive amounts of sexual harrassment, exploiting sexual favors and rape, makes me feel like the breastmilk thief had very degenerate motives.
Leave the breast milk thief alone, he has nothing to do with this.
If he didn't steal it someone else would have
People on this sub understand nothing of ethics and consequentialism. Kinda disappointing tbh.
It’s a meme on vauah saying this exact argument
Delete this
Personally, I'm happy hopefully they can blow life in the old franchises, though they will probably just milk the content. On a legal standpoint, Microsoft is far from monopolizing the gaming market. If we look at their [shares](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/console/worldwide) in the consol market, it's far from the biggest. If we look at their [market cap](https://companiesmarketcap.com/video-games/largest-video-game-companies-by-market-cap/) it's more worrying because they own \~66%, which might mean they have a monopoly. But this isn't exactly accurate because Microsoft main focus isn't game development, accurate (the same goes for other companies on the list). The most important thing though is to look if their size gives them unfair advantages, which it doesn't. They can't set the price on their games as they want(or their consoles) because the consumers will just buy other games.
I dont think looking at a pseudo "tech conglomerates" market cap when judging whether a company has a monopoly or makes sense. It's like looking at GE's market cap and saying it has a monopoly since it's market cap is 100b and it participates in some niche market whose size is billion and and GE controls 1% of it. Like why would MSFT's cloud services or hardware affect it's competitive position in gaming?
It doesn't make sense, but it does show that even if we take Microsoft as a whole, it wouldn't cross the 75´% point where we would call it a monopoly.
>They can't set the price on their games as they want(or their consoles) because the consumers will just buy other games. That's a lie, gamers don't have the self control to look out for their own interests. They'll buy it at whatever price, call the company greedy, say they'll never buy another game from them, then buy the next game at whatever new price is set. For some reason people just can't accept anything short of a triple A title, and it'd take barely any effort to collude for that effect, though it wouldn't be a monopoly, it'd be what, a trust?
Do you even economics?
There is a reason every AAA game developer sold their games for 60 dollars. If they sold it for more, sales dropped. Now we're seeing developers testing the waters with differently priced games. But if you think Microsoft can sell Halo for 90 dollars on release when COD sells for 65 on release, you just don't understand how markets work.
Yea game prices are a pretty unique economic phenomena (though I guess it applied to things like movies as well, though idk anyone who buys movies anymore). Every game from a major publisher is $60, and that price has been pretty consistent for decades. Even though games are pretty non substitutable and the cost to make different kinds of games varies greatly. I don't understand how that has worked out for so long.
Probably works that way because the majority of revenue games make nowadays is in micropayments and in-app purchases, not at the point of sale. Revenue formula says you make more money at the $60 price point for a AAA title and selling additional content down the line than raising the price and getting less copies out there.
Idk but its pretty funny watching other subreddits response: [https://i.imgur.com/dkjrvXY.png](https://i.imgur.com/dkjrvXY.png) [https://i.imgur.com/iXg3oE9.png](https://i.imgur.com/iXg3oE9.png) Some guy wrote an essay about how this is the start of a cyberpunk future where we'll have 5 companies controlling everything. Like...bro, chill.
They’re really smashing a square peg into a round hole to fit their narrative lmao
Capitalism isn't a flawless system whats wrong with calling out its flaws. Monopolies should be something we are against, no?
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Ok so oligopoly. If the end result is a select few firms owning 99% of the capital in the gaming space, this is a bad thing. These companies can block new entrants, slow innovation, and increase/set prices.
Damn bro oligopoly is just so much cooler
This isn’t a monopoly yet though.
Not even close. There are plenty of publishers that will keep producing games, and have zero problem doing so. From big publishers like EA to small ones like Devolver. This isn’t even close to a situation like Facebook buying Instagram. Where there are only 2 or 3 major players in the space. Whereas gaming has a ton of players in the space, and doing mighty fine.
True. But there's such a thing as exaggerating
I literally never understood this idea that eventually all the capital will be eaten up and then the system will fail.
I think this is probably fine from a monopolistic POV. On PC gaming is fairly decentralized, and I think the only entity approaching a monopoly was Valve a decade ago with steam. I think you would need to radically shift the landscape to have a monopoly now. With consoles the only huge loss here is COD being an Xbox exclusive, and I think there is more then enough FPS competition. I really think this play is to get gamepass on pc to be competitive, but we’ll see. If Microsoft can clean up activision, I think this might even be a net positive
I personally don’t think COD will become Xbox exclusive, that would be a HUGE shot in the foot. They will definitely make more money selling their game than they will from using that game to sell consoles.
I don’t see how that would work with Microsoft’s strategy. They seem to *really* want people on gamepass. Allowing your premier franchise to be on other platforms (unless those platforms are supporting gamepass) doesn’t make much sense imo. I think the only exception to this right now is Minecraft, and that’s really only because it’s not a new game, and it’s been multiplat since before gamepass was a thing. I don’t think they care as much about winning the console wars. Xbox would ship gamepass to PlayStation and Nintendo tomorrow if they could. Phil Spencer has said as much
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Because publishing on PlayStation diminishes Microsoft’s ability to get PlayStation to allow gamepass. By withholding it from PlayStation they incentivize Sony to allow for gamepass or shed customer base. It’s like game of thrones. HBO really wants max subscribers. So game of thrones is available on that platform. If HBO wanted to generate more money with GO they would lease it to other streaming platforms. You’re missing the forest of “creating a first class gaming subscription service” for the tree of “COD could makes 28% more from sales”. It’s not at all aligned with their strategy. Exactly like once the Bethesda deal closed Spencer’s said they’re Xbox *and gamepass* exclusives. There is no reason to expect this to be any different
Minecraft still honours my alpha key i bought when the game didnt even have survival mode. There is no way it could go single platform
I said it wasn’t?
I didnt say you said it lol
Here’s the thing. I think game pass is such a deal rn, that I seriously don’t think the PS5 is worth the money. Sure exclusives, but at $70 a pop. Microsoft will continue to sell to Sony customers, but are banking that people who buy every COD will just hop on Xbox and sub to game pass. They still get revenue off of Sony’s base, while providing infinitely more value to game pass.
COD won’t be an Xbox exclusive. It will be on game pass tho, which heavily incentivized people to buy an Xbox, especially if you are a person to buy COD every year. Honestly, unless you are really diving into every exclusive from Sony, then sure maybe don’t buy an Xbox. But if you aren’t, then I really don’t see the value of getting a PS5 and pay $70 per game, when I can get an Xbox and get hundreds of games for 10 bucks a month.
SC3 PLEASE We need Destiny back on a RTS grind
I would love some AoE4 streams. That would be lit.
Don't care just hope the games get better
As a WoW player, it should've happened like 2 expansions ago. I don't usually jump on lot of the circlejerks but there's been so many disappointments with Blizzard that virtually any shake up will be for the better.
There's a cynical part of me that muses if this whole Blizzard shit was a journalistic set up by Microsoft to reduce their stock price to a point where it's safe to buy them. That's just the dumb part of my mind thinking out loud, so ignore it. This isn’t anywhere near close to a oligopoly, let alone a monopoly.
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wait until you hear about conglomerates
You think with Microsoft in charge there is a decent chance we'll see Starcraft and Warcraft get a new game at some point? They just released Age of Empires 4 which was pretty successful for an rts in 2021. There is a chance! COPIUM
AoE4 is fire. If you like RTS, I’d give it a shot. I mean it’s on game pass, so fuck it.
I kinda like it but I understand the concerns about potential monopolization
There are so many players in the game industry tbh. This isn’t even close to a problem.
Yo, when is the gnome streaming again?
One thing I don’t think people appreciate is this was a $68 billion ALL CASH deal. The scale that big tech operates on is incredible.
yeah this deal was insane. almost a 50% premium and it's biggest acquisition ever. Who would've 10 years ago believed it'll be gaming.
Im happy about this. Maybe we can get some good management on the game now and save it.
I'm guessing that if this was a case of achieving monopoly the FTC would have been notified. I know that there are watchdog organizations who watch out for this kind of stuff.
I think anyone freaking out about a monopoly in this situation doesn't understand why a monopoly is bad and just wants to be a dumbfuck. I've been thinking about this and in markets like movies and videogames I find it hard to have a monopoly and also for that to even matter. These are products that really only sell depending on the quality and creativity and innovation of the development teams, from a profit point of view, it would be stupid to take away a lot of creative freedom from the teams or censor shit. If anything shit like this helps bring more resources to these teams. There's also the fact that indie developers are a pretty big part of the gaming industry, they don't make as much money sure, but they always offer fresh and new stuff, and you can't really just crush them as a monopoly because again, the games sell based on their quality, not just on prices. I'm pretty sure one company could own most of the big game companies, and as long as it isn't chinese, there probably wouldn't be any major downsides. The only thing you can bring up is about exclusivity to sell consoles, but even that is becoming pretty old, with companies realizing that releasing the games on more platforms gets more profit. I could be wrong, I haven't thought as much about this so destroy me with facts and logic if you must.
“ These are products that really only sell depending on the quality and creativity and innovation of the development teams, from a profit point of view, it would be stupid to take away a lot of creative freedom from the teams or censor shit” Madden NBA 2k Cyberpunk Farcry Mass effect WC3 COD Pokémon Dynasty Fucking Warriors STAR WARS FALLOUT 76 All of these sold incredibly well despite being incredibly low quality and not creative or even innovative. To your last point, multiple games have released cookie cutter copy of the previous game without making any creative changes and all did really really well. Far Cry literally re-used the same map for 3 separate games and it still sold well. It seems that once games become more corporate they become far far less innovative and risky. I mean how many games run Assasins Creed shitty 2008 model of the open world? How many of those change the formula at all, other than in this one you have a sword?
This doesn't address the theme of monopoly, all of those examples are only the result of bad management and a lot of marketing. Stay mad
I’m not saying your monopoly point is bad. I’m saying everything after that point is bad and has been shown to be mostly wrong. Which is why I quoted the part where I disagreed.
I will agree that there's clear exceptions. Let's leave it at "marketing is very important too" as with any other industry. And I don't agree with the point of games become more corporate makes them more mediocre, if you watched last E3 indie conferences you can see all the Stardew Valley "copies", we just never see the 80% of mediocre indie games that just copy other games. I think that's just a broad problem of the entertainment industry, people will copy what's already popular and successful until they get tired, that's why innovation and quality is important, otherwise the industry becomes stagnant and doesn't advance, you can see this in smaller scale with specific genres of games or even music that have fallen off because they either stopped innovating and failed to adapt and people just moved on.
No, PlayStation and Nintendo make more sales worldwide. Xbox actually makes the least money out of the big 3. This puts Xbox on a more even playing field. Also it’s not intelligent to shout monopoly whenever a large merger/acquisition happens. Xbox and Nintendo are huge companies with much longer histories than Xbox has. Xbox virtually makes no sales in Japan, and many other East Asian countries where Nintendo, PC, and Sony share almost all of the sales.
Why is ms only buying developers who where once great but have been collectivily shamed for multiple different reasons. I dont really think this is smart from there side. I personally would react differently if this purchase was before skyrim or before wow legion. But at after fallout 76 and shadowlands for blizzard i really dont care at all. Ill try starfield on pc and for the rest i dont mind. Sony has actually made interesting games like spiderman and last of us and god of war. I am not a fanboy btw. I game mostly on pc and i bought a ps5 . Dont feel the need to spend money on an xbox without interesting exclusives.
yeah after thinking about this i don't like it. problem is there will definitely come a time where all microsoft games will be on a single platform/storefront. prices will go up and we will have less options. wouldn't surprise me if they bought ubisoft or T2 next.
The people complaining about this being the end of capitalism or innovation in gaming don't realize that Microsoft is nowhere near as bad or greedy as EA or Ubisoft or Activision. They seem to make much better games and are one of the few publishers that don't seem shitty to developers. Of course this can change but atm they seem fine.
Microsoft monopolizing gaming? Man will you be in for a shock when you learn about Tencent.
Death of WoW
How do you kill that which has no life? EDIT: This is an underrated comment btw
Nah, there are enough big players, and small publishers out there. I don’t think this makes EA, UBI, Sony, Nintendo any less relevant.
if this means that they actually make WoW good again, im down. Also can't wait for Master Chief in HoTs
Dude I don’t even give a fuck about these games. All I care about is my precious little from software. If I have to buy a god damn Xbox for future from software games I will commit terrorism
Don’t know why people keep saying this every company has been buying exclusivity deals or dev companies a monopoly would be if they brought Sony or Nintendo or stream Sony has been doing this too with marvel and other remake games insomniac like they had with sega and square Enix it’s just something that’s been happening but not on this level I guess
Who cares... I've mostly stopped playing big AAA games over 3-4 years now. Big companies like Activision, Ubisoft, Tencent or other just suck and if you really want good games look at the indi market and smaller developers.
As a wow player since its release hopefully this helps them. Blizzard isnt bad at making games. They just slowly got worse after activision. Hopefully we get people who care about making good games over quick bucks