Community MetaSteam | January 2022 - With a new year comes great responsibility, BOY!

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MomoVideo

ķ͕͕̍̅͋ḭ̼͂̕lļ͓̞̙̀͗͆̊ ͉͛m͕̲̮̆̒̐̍͢e ͠
Apr 5, 2021
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What about Vicarious Visions that was merged into Blizzard? Is there any hope for this talented studio? Their recent work was outstanding. I wish they made proper Warcraft 3 remaster.
 

ScreamingTrees

Junior Member
Dec 12, 2018
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Microsoft buying actiblizz is crazy. I think I had the same wtf reaction as everyone else. I don't like big publishers going away and would've preferred actiblizz to have cleaned up their shop. I still play StarCraft every few days! I prefer MS getting them than Sony as at least they'll still come to PC.

Positive, I guess the games coming back to Steam. COD on gamepass might be nice as while I never play the multiplayer, I usually like a quick play through of the single player and I haven't played the last few. Some dormant IPs might get updates now instead of almost everyone working on COD.
 
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Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
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On the one hand... maybe they clean up Actiblizz
On the other hand.... holy shit the industry gets narrower and narrower

On the one hand... maybe the worse option would have been that Tencent bought it
On the other hand.... holy shit the industrythis is a massive antitrust issue
Yeah, consolidation sucks but at the same time this is the best chance we'll ever get to see Kotick yeeted off the industry.

ActiBlizz games no longer being exclusive to Bnet is a bonus too, I guess...
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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At first glance I would just say why ? For this much ? I mean, AB has a lot of golden goose IP, sure, but they are getting long in the tooth (WOW), unused (RTS) or aren't selling like they used to (COD). For 70 billions ?
Then I daydream about MS righting the ship on HR and greenlighting WOW 2 or other huge projects.

Divisive move but interesting potential.
 

--------

bye
Sep 20, 2018
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At first glance I would just say why ? For this much ? I mean, AB has a lot of golden goose IP, sure, but they are getting long in the tooth (WOW), unused (RTS) or aren't selling like they used to (COD). For 70 billions ?
Then I daydream about MS righting the ship on HR and greenlighting WOW 2 or other huge projects.

Divisive move but interesting potential.
I imagine if there ever was a chance to get ActiBlizz for "cheap" it was now, so Phil went for it.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
2,170
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Is embracer subject to american anti-trust laws if it's incorporated in Europe?
European Commission can similarly break up big tech companies if they're deemed to act anti-competitively. I suppose Embracer is pretty narrowly focused in one area, and they're also not yet making any global moves about their games' availability. Guess we just have to wait and see.
 

Le Pertti

0.01% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
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lepertti.com

In the news article, written by Phil I guess, they write it like this, so I wonder if ActiBliss approached Microsoft.

As we pursue that mission, it is incredibly exciting to announce that Microsoft has agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Also I'm surprised how gender diverse the xbox leadership is.

 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,177
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Bobby will be out once the ink is dry, but unless he is personally named in a future lawsuit regarding the harassment suits, he will make his exit as monetary painful to MS as possible
 
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LEANIJA

MetaMember
May 5, 2019
2,997
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Austria
Oh joy. More industry consolidation. Thanks MS, I hate it!

Can't wait for them to pull their game catalog from Steam and release everything exclusively on Battle.net. :upside-down-face:
Consolidation is crap, indeed.
But I wouldnt fear MS making everything BattlNet-exclusive, theres no reason for that. MS already has the Windows Store, the Xbox app, XCloud, the Xbox itself (and BethesdaNet technically still exists, right?) – why would they suddenly put their stuff on that clunky launcher? I mean, sure, BattleNet "works", but its not something anyone would choose to use, and MS wouldnt really have a reason to suddenly use that exclusively. If they wanted that, they'd just use the Xbox app.
Now that fear might be more reasonable, but as long as Phil Spector is at the helm, we're probably safe for now.

On the other hand, I also wouldnt count on ActiBlizz games all coming to Steam suddenly. That might take a while. First of all, the deal need to actually go through. Then they gotta sort out technical stuff – Blizzard games for example have a lot of account-bound stuff, so you'd probably need that client on top of Steam anyway.
 
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Dinjoralo

None shall remember those who do not fight.
Dec 6, 2018
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Oh god, my computer's still having issues... It's becoming clear somethings either wrong with my GPU, or my PSU. I'm trying to play through Control's DLC stuff and it keeps crashing, sometimes completely locking up the PC such that I have to do a hard reset. Ossacionally I get an error window saying D3D device removed or something like that, which typically means the GPU is siezing up.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,177
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shamelessly stollen



the question is, will microsoft hold on with the yearly cod releases by 3 teams?
without warzone or whatever their BR is called, I would have given it a 50/50 chance, but they have the BR mode, so Cod could survive on a 2-year or 3-year cycle
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Ms to sony:

Suuuuuuure we will allow Cod to release on Playstation.... If you allow Gamepass on Playstation
 
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gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
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I don't really care too much about consolidation.
Microsoft's prooooobably the best bet in terms of cleaning up Activision, methinks.
Consolidation is the only part about this that has any real value. Shrinking the industry isn't worth it 'for CoD on mah gamepass!'. Let Actard burn to the ground instead and the staff found new studios free of the terrible problems they were working under
 

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
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Remember when MS bought Mojang/Minecraft for like 2.5 Billion and everyone thought they were absolutely insane to pay that much?

Then they made their money back in like 3 months.

So I'm looking at the franchises pictured in the tweet and noticed Candy Crush.

Is this another one of those deals where you have a monster legacy mobile title that continues to print big money in the background while no one (in our circles) is really paying attention?

Wonder if this deal is Minecraft Part Deux on the financial front.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,177
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Consolidation is the only part about this that has any real value. Shrinking the industry isn't worth it 'for CoD on mah gamepass!'. Let Actard burn to the ground instead and the staff found new studios free of the terrible problems they were working under

The mantra that we shouldn't let awful companies go under because of a few bad apples always grates on my nerves. Think of all the people who would lose their job! etc.
Not only would 99% of those people find another job relatively quickly, the needs of the many should not outweigh the abuse of the few. If we let a company and the culture within continue for decades with abusing and harassing individuals, just because we don't want other people losing their jobs?
 

Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
2,717
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Well, Microsoft made a really good RTS sequel (Age of Empires 4) so there's finally hope for Starcraft!
I'm not so sure about that, with all humongeous gaming IP catalogue Microsoft might feel more enticed and empowered than ever to push a locked down OS / shop
Nah, their absolute focus is on Game Pass. The will probably keep that exclusive to their Xbox app and release the games on Steam to keep core gamers happy.
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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Less choice for consumers - you - is not something you care about?
But I’m not getting less choice, there’s just a different person signing the cheques now. Call of Duty is still coming anyway.

And it’s not like it’s any different in movies or music either after all. This is what happens with big industries over time 🤷‍♂️
 
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ezodagrom

JELLYBEE
Nov 2, 2018
1,702
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Less choice for consumers - you - is not something you care about?
Depends on what kind of choice you're talking about. ActiBlizzard games were already exclusive to Battle.net on PC anyway, this acquisition will likely result in their future games being available on the MS Store/Gamepass and Steam, and so more choice.
(Previous games may still need Battle.net though, like how previous Bethesda games still need the Bethesda launcher, at least so far).

On another note, taking into consideration the abuse that happened inside ActiBlizzard, if being bought out by Microsoft will result in the teams being treated with respect, I don't care about the consolidation in this case.
 
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