Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 177 points – Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard
bbc.co.uk

Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard::It comes after the UK approved the $69bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, which makes Call of Duty.

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Probably paid for with the money they made not paying $29B in taxes over the last 20 years.

We ain’t even playing the game with the same rules and they don’t even need to pretend anymore.

Well hlf of it was used for that the rest came out of the couch cushions at Mr Gates summer retreat.

I don't know, maybe I should be angry or something. But Activision/Blizzard have been pretty shitty for a while now. This will just be more of the same and more of me continueing to not buying their games.

I grew up on Blizzard and Activision games, but the good feelings and nostalgia wore off when they started treating beloved franchises like DLC piggy banks.

Market consolidation 🥰🥰🥰🥰

"more choices" per the new CEO. Speech has absolutely been neutered by corporations in the last 30 years. Literally the opposite. "Product enhancements" announced by an airline, everyone starts looking for what is worse.

Whattttt. I love AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's.

Looking forward to see how this will improve the quality of Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard-EA-Ubisoft's games and those of the competito- oh, never mind. None left.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

After the competition watchdog blocked the takeover earlier this year, Microsoft's president Brad Smith hit out at the CMA's decision, which it said was "bad for Britain" and contradicted "the ambitions of the UK to become an attractive country to build technology businesses".

But the CMA's Ms Cardell said with the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, which makes Assassin's Creed, "we've made sure Microsoft can't have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market".

Under the restructured agreement, Microsoft has agreed to transfer the rights to stream Activision games from the cloud to Ubisoft for 15 years outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

The deal with Activision also means Microsoft will own its studio solely purposed for mobile games, with hopes of expanding on the successes of titles such as Candy Crush.

The takeover further cements Microsoft as a video game giant and could catapult it ahead of Nintendo to become the third-biggest player in the industry behind Sony, the owner of the PlayStation console, and market leader Tencent.

"[It will lead to] more choice, more innovation, better value and improved gaming experiences and a healthy, competitive market," said Ms Stewart, who is also a former head of ICT at the Cabinet Office government department.

The original article contains 932 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

So let me make sure I’m reading this right. They let the deal go through because Microsoft gave Ubisoft the cloud streaming right to activation for the next 15 years. The argument being this deal will stop Microsoft from becoming a monopoly due to cloud gamings speculative importance in markets future.

Call me crazy but cloud gamings gonna take at least 15 years to be an important part of the market if it ever gets there in the first place. I can’t tell if regulators are stupid or wholly corrupt.

RIP video games

ActiBlizz haven't made anything I've been interested in for some time. MS got some amazingly shitty games out of Bethesda tho, Redfall and Starfield are just case studies in despising your audience.

I'm not interested in their games either, my issue with it is that a lot of people are, and MS is trying their hardest to get a monopoly in the industry and/or turn everything into streaming-only subscription crap

It's never been a better time to be a gamer. Fantastic games are a dime a dozen and consoles have never been nearly as powerful for low end games. It's a fantastic time to be gaming.

Except Microsoft is building up a monopoly on gaming, buying what they can, consolidating its properties so they can then transition to a streaming-only model where nobody owns anything (I know you don't technically "own" the games you buy either but at least you can have them on physical media to keep, back up or sell) and the only way to play anything is to pay a monthly subscription fee and to use only what Microsoft allows you to use (i.e. no more Linux gaming)

What a fantastic imagination.

If you want to blame physical media going away and scream about monopoly you should go complain to papa Gaben.

Steam games are obtainable in other ways. Streaming-exclusive ones aren't.

You mean by stealing. You should just be clear with your language.

I don't exclusively mean piracy. You can still buy big budget games on disc, and you can buy most games from any other platform, including GOG and Itch which don't implement DRM. I only care about physical media in the sense that nobody can take it away from you, and DRM-free media achieves the same goal.

Not to mention that piracy isn't theft because you're not taking anything away from anyone, you're making a copy of some files 🤷‍♀️

The notion that piracy is theft is capitalist bullshit designed to manipulate people's emotions by equating a company not making as much profits as they theoretically could have to theft lol

I love it. You even said the line.

I'm glad you at least seem to enjoy the taste of boot 🤷‍♀️

Oh don't get me wrong, I pirate when it makes sense. I'm just not delusional about what I'm stealing.

Please look up the definition of theft lmao

I'm not "delusional" (maybe tone down the ableism btw) because I don't see theft as something universally bad, stealing from companies is good IMO.

But piracy is different because again, you're not taking anything away from anyone, you're making an unauthorized copy of it for yourself.

Eh, I’m of the opinion when the old giants get stale or acquired into a grand corporate strategy new studios will spring up to fill the vacancy in the market.

They’ve been dead. EA and Activision made sure of that long since.

That's not what I meant and you're literally wrong lol, incredible games are made every year. My problem with this is that Microsoft is trying to turn gaming into its corporate cloud-only monopoly.

Good games are still made, but the top shops, with respect to size and funding have priorities that aren’t aligned directly with enjoyment and story telling. There is a lot of requirement to be online, gambling addiction based mechanics, unfinished releases, MRR goals, and strong arm tactics by publishers for platform exclusivity. Perhaps I am literally wrong about my view, but it is my opinion nevertheless; wasn’t trying to start a debate.

User satisfaction is regularly an afterthought to profit, as is expected in capitalism but not always ideal for the consumer. And less competition doesn’t help.

Finally. Thank God that's over and I can get my free Diablo soon. Gamepass is fantastic!

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. You do you I guess.

I will say it’s not technically free, game pass has a fee, ergo you’re paying for it.

I don’t know enough, nor care enough to weigh in on the implications of this deal.

I play Minecraft Java and Factorio and really am not interested in any other games as I found these two be be good for what I enjoy and they don’t ask me for more money all the time.

Fair enough on free. But I spent $70 for 3 years of game pass. Might as well be free at that price point. Literally less than a gallon of milk.