https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/uk-antitrust-regulator-clears-microsofts-acquisition-activision-2023-10-13/
Xbox maker Microsoft closed its $69 billion deal for Activision Blizzard on Friday, swelling its heft in the video-gaming market with best-selling titles including "Call of Duty" to better compete with industry leader Sony .
Just stop buying their “games”
Oh I mean “live services” that are broken on release, designed to charge you for everything and will be taking offline the moment it’s no longer profitable.
How about gamers stop throwing money away and enabling this shit company to absorb everything around it and making worse and worse games. But that won’t happen. Y’all have the conviction of sliced bread when it comes to preordering.
Pick up some good indie games already.
So you choose to give that money to a large corporation subscription instead of just buying the game from the indie devs?
You are exactly why these companies are getting away with whatever they want.
Look at how Epic was doing business. They threw around hundreds of millions of dollars to buy exclusivity. And Epic was small time compared to MS. What happens when they do the same but on a larger scale? They buy exclusivity to Game Pass forever? They're already buying gaming powerhouses, indie games are a drop in the bucket.
This merger should be opposed by everyone. It's a dark sign of things to come. They've already shown they WILL cut out all competition once they buy competitors.
Fuck Sony, they're even worse with exclusivity to the point of making hardware that's difficult to port to and hard to design games for.
They kind of can't buy any competitors at this point. They got through this acquisition by the skin of their teeth and have to cool it, and after all that, I doubt this leads to a future where they've got a larger market share than PlayStation. There's also just far too much competition in the gaming space for them to approach a monopoly. Epic couldn't will their store into superiority over Steam, especially when they're not doing anything to solve problems for their customers, and Microsoft still has to make good products to get you to buy them too.
Eh, I'm not that hopeful. the FTC asked them questions but it was never really going to stop them. MS has the capital to buy Sony, if it was feasible to do so. I expect them to continue to buy stuff up until they are actually denied. They have the lawyers to throw at the government in perpetuity.
That's far more cynical than I can meet you at, and it's probably why the merger isn't "opposed by everyone". Microsoft is already dancing right up to the line of antitrust, though I suspect that if they're broken up, the video game division remains in one piece, not several.
@Neato @Shatur @MelodiousFunk @BroBot9000 @SuiXi3D I mean, I would oppose it... but it turns out I hate acti-blizz leadership more than I fear Microsoft.
Yup! They are trying to build their own walled garden like Apple.
This and all other massive company mergers need to be stopped and undone.
No one forced indie devs to put their games on gamepass, why is it my fault? I will pay for what I feel is worth my money, and gamepass has surpassed that ten fold. When they decide to go the way of netflix by jacking up prices and reducing offerings then I will stop paying for it just like I did with netflix.
When they decide to go the way of netflix by jacking up prices and reducing offerings then I will stop paying for it just like I did with netflix.
Then it will be too late.
You are the frog slowly getting boiled.
I’ll give them money as long as they offer me a fair service. “Puts on clown makeup”
If they misbehave like Netflix I’ll stop paying them.
“Puts on clown nose”
I don’t mind that I have no other choice now because the console I bought is only subscription based.
“Puts on clown wig”
Nobody could have done anything right…
Not sure what you are even on about, I don't even own an xbox. I use gamepass on PC. I have other choices, I also have a Steam account with over 1000 games on it. You just sound like a jaded asshole.
2069 - Disney acquires Microsoft. Doomguy and the Master Chief are now Disney princesses.
I can understand this comment for something like an abusive mineral miner in Africa selling electronics parts, or a food corporation that makes shared ingredients. Video games, though, are much more of a finished product, and easy to find competition for.
I was disappointed to hear allegations of toxic work environments in Moon Studios, the people who made indie darling Ori and the Blind Forest. So while abusive employers are certainly an important issue, it doesn't appear to be one that's specific to large companies. Furthermore, it was never going to get solved under the supervision of Bobby Kotick - a man who was never going to leave unless something like the Microsoft deal happened.
There's lots of horrible companies in the world, and I salute anyone's efforts to boycott the ones doing horrible shit. Part of the reason I'm ambivalent about the merger is, I don't even buy (or care about the success of) Activision games. But I don't see that as a topic directly relevant to corporate merging/growth. Two publishers merge, that hasn't added to the amount of employee abuse going on in each of their studios.
lol. Mister why bother with anything over here.
You can make decisions on what you support. You don’t have to be perfect and boycott literally every company to make a difference.
People don’t have control over every choice but enough to matter. Especially in regards to entertainment.
Yes literally every screen, console and movie player is built on abuse, so let’s not do anything about the companies that do openly abuse their employees and customers. It’s all bad anyways so might as well do nothing with your thumb up your ass.
Nestle does horrible things and literally has killed children but let’s do nothing and buy their products anyways. Not like there are multiple nestle boycott groups all over the internet spreading awareness. No they are just wasting their time.
You can stand up against abuse from one company while being unable to do much about another.
Doing nothing gets you nowhere. I’m not saying choosing to support a company or not is the end all be all but it is the damn minimum you can do. Unions and laws against monopolies is what we need.
god i hope not. they would not make it right
for reference, almost nobody that was at obsidian for new vegas is still there, so its not going to be magically good
it'll be a bug filled mess though thats for sure
Meh let the new kids take a crack at it. Not like the old guys from Obsidian are coming back.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Xbox maker Microsoft (MSFT.O) closed its $69 billion deal for Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) on Friday, swelling its heft in the video-gaming market with best-selling titles including "Call of Duty" to better compete with industry leader Sony (6758.T).
Britain finally cleared Microsoft's acquisition of Activision earlier in the day after it forced the Xbox owner to sell the streaming rights to address its competition concerns.
But the regulator ripped up its play book by reopening the case after Microsoft agreed to sell the streaming rights to Activision's games to Ubisoft Entertainment (UBIP.PA), with remedies to ensure the terms were enforceable.
Microsoft announced the deal in early 2022, aiming to boost its growth in console, mobile, PC, and cloud gaming to compete with the likes of Tencent as well as PlayStation-owner Sony.
The British government only offered limited support to the CMA, with the Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt saying that while he did not want to undermine its independence, regulators also needed to focus on encouraging investment.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator had "delivered a clear message to Microsoft that the deal would be blocked unless they comprehensively addressed our concerns and we stuck to our guns on that."
The original article contains 641 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Xbox maker Microsoft (MSFT.O) closed its $69 billion deal for Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) on Friday, swelling its heft in the video-gaming market with best-selling titles including "Call of Duty" to better compete with industry leader Sony (6758.T).
Britain finally cleared Microsoft's acquisition of Activision earlier in the day after it forced the Xbox owner to sell the streaming rights to address its competition concerns.
But the regulator ripped up its play book by reopening the case after Microsoft agreed to sell the streaming rights to Activision's games to Ubisoft Entertainment (UBIP.PA), with remedies to ensure the terms were enforceable.
Microsoft announced the deal in early 2022, aiming to boost its growth in console, mobile, PC, and cloud gaming to compete with the likes of Tencent as well as PlayStation-owner Sony.
The British government only offered limited support to the CMA, with the Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt saying that while he did not want to undermine its independence, regulators also needed to focus on encouraging investment.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator had "delivered a clear message to Microsoft that the deal would be blocked unless they comprehensively addressed our concerns and we stuck to our guns on that."
The original article contains 641 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!