Microsoft Has Officially Acquired Activision Blizzard

[Dragon Lord]

Microsoft announced that its next acquisition is Activision Blizzard, which includes King and studios like Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Toys for Bob. It paid $68.7 billion in “an all-cash transaction.” The initial announcements noted Bobby Kotick will remain CEO, however, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer will be in charge.

This deal covers Activision and Blizzard Entertainment, as well as the mobile King Games. The studios covered include Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, and Treyarch. IP included are Diablo, Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Crash Bandicoot, Overwatch, Skylanders, Spyro the Dragon, Starcraft, Tony Hawk, and World of Warcraft. The move means titles will appear on Xbox Game Pass. There is no date for when they will start to be added.

I don't really play any Activision Blizzard games, so from that point of view this doesn't effect me at all. However, I am becoming worried about the fact that Microsoft is attempting to monopolize the entirety of the gaming world. Especially since this could cause Sony to go out and do the same, perhaps acquiring a company like Square Enix. 

I get it from Microsoft's point of view. They can't complete with Sony or Nintendo at all, so go out and buy up everything in an attempt to take away those third-party games from them in hopes that maybe you can climb ever so slightly closer to them on the ladder. I don't it's going to end up working, as Nintendo and Sony's first party titles will still smack the shit out of everything Microsoft attempts to throw at them for competition, but we're heading in a dangerous direction where all third-party devs will end up being owned by one of the "big three", and only Indie games will remain as games free to go where they want. 

I don't see CoD leaving PlayStation though. The playerbase on PS is way too big, they'd lose out on a lot of money by making CoD Xbox exclusive. Diablo I see becoming Xbox/PC exclusive though. The saddest news out of all of this though is that Microsoft is now going to own the rights to Spyro... and we've seen the nightmarish way that Microsoft has handled Banjo-Kazooie. Big yikes for Spyro fans.

[Moonface]

$70 billion. By far the largest transaction for a purchase in gaming history and I expect this will go down as one of the biggest acquisitions of the decade in gaming.

Spyro and Crash is all I really care for from Activision, unless they own the rights to Sekiro in which case any sequel to that could become an Xbox exclusive.

I don't see CoD going Xbox exclusive just because of the player base it has on PS4. Unless they do it to try and persuade Sony to offer Game Pass on PlayStation consoles, which I've been seeing tossed around as something Microsoft have apparently been trying to do by people commenting on this story around social media. No idea how much weight there is to that tale since this is the first I've heard of it.

Microsoft will hopefully clean out the shit from Activision so it goes back to being a decent company to work for again. That's the one good thing about this purchase. The bad thing is as you said DL, the monopolization of the industry with moves like this. In a year Microsoft has now absorbed two massive publishers and even if they didn't lock a single one of those games into their own ecosystem, that's a large amount of the industry sitting under one umbrella.

[Dragon Lord]

Sekiro is owned by Fromsoft, so no worries there. Activision only published the game in the West, they don't own the IP.

It doesn't seem like there will be any "cleaning house", at least not right now. The deal won't be finalized until summer 2023 and there won't be any firings until then. Though by the wording of the articles, it doesn't sound like they intend to do any of that anyways. At most, Activision Blizzard will have to report to Phil Spencer as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Though we'll find out once the acquisition becomes final next summer, unless something happens to cause the deal to fall through before then.

Though even if they do fire whats-his-face, I imagine they're going to give him a pretty huge payout to go quietly off into the sunset. They're going to give him a "golden parachute" as people like to say.

[Moonface]

As current CEO I expect Kotick will have already got his paycheck just from this buyout. Same with the board that backs him. It would be stupid of Microsoft to condemn the actions of Activision though and then just do nothing once they have full control over the company in relation to that.

I wonder if things like Blizzcon will remain as they are or if that will turn into some Microsoft expo now, since they have more than enough stuff to just hold an entire expo to themselves now.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, like I said, once they fully take over, I expect them to let him go out very quietly. They're not going to make it a huge publicity thing. "Hey man, sorry, but you have to go. Here's $500,000,000, go enjoy life."

The funniest thing from all of this is that people think this is suddenly going to let Microsoft "dominate" Sony now. Uhhhh, one big problem with that -- Microsoft sill can't sell the Xbox any where outside of the United States. It's always been the "dudebro" console and will continue to be so. Especially since most people will likely just opt to play Xbox games on PC if they really want to, instead of going out and buying an actual Xbox.

Also I forgot to comment on your Gamepass thing. No way Sony lets Game Pass on their consoles when they are revamping PSNow to be a competitor of Game Pass. Especially when they have a much richer history of games to utilize in the revamped PSNow that will make it very appealing for a lot of people.

I fully expect Nintendo and Sony to continue their dominance of Xbox in the long run. Thankfully apparently there's laws in Japan that prevent a non-Japanese company from coming in and buying them out. From what I read, the original company would need to retain majority share. So if Microsoft wanted to buy Square Enix, they could only theoretically have 49.9% of the company, with Square Enix retaining a majority hold at 50.1%.

[Moonface]

I don't think it'll matter how quiet Microsoft try to be about it, the instant Kotick leaves it'll be known and it only takes one person in Activision who wants to see him thrown under the bus to know what deal he got and that'll come out too. Unless zero money is involved I don't see how Microsoft can have Kotick leave the company and not end up with bad publicity to deal with.

As for dominating, Microsoft doesn't give a shit about unit sales. They're all in on subscriptions and so long as that continues to grow, I don't think they care what platform anyone is using to use that subscription. I can't see it remaining at the price it is now though with Bethesda and Activision games being added to it, unless King is going to be utlised to make back the money given how insane the revenue for Candy Crush alone is. I think that game pulls in over a billion dollars a year just by itself.

[Karo]

Holy fucking shit! I didn't see this coming at all. Honestly though I don't think this is going to change anything at all they might let Kottick go, but Blizzard reputation has been tarnished by all the allegations. I'm not sure how smart of a move this was reputation wise, but business I'm sure it'll be really good for Microsoft's profits. I do hope they don't do anything bad to WoW I hope WoW continues to exist and I shall always look on and remember what could have been.... 

I will continue to not touch any blizzard games with a ten foot poll for the forseeable future. (Unless Pink Mercy comes back then I will go and make my donation to charity and then log off my blizzard account )

[Moonface]

I think if all the problematic people are removed, people won't be so against supporting Activision games again. The trouble right now with buying those games is you support the developers who make the games that are stuck in a company filled with awful people, but at the same time you're giving money to a company that harbours those awful people. Remove the people who don't deserve to keep their jobs and there's no longer a negative attached to buying Activision games again, at least ethically (you can argue things like CoD just being a cash cow that shouldn't be as heavily supported as it is by wallets but that's kinda whatever).
WoW would probably be left alone to continue as it is now, since it can't really be thrown into Game Pass or anything. I don't know the state of the game itself to know what it needs, if anything, that Microsoft could assist with.

[Karo]

That honestly the goal, but I think you'd need to get rid of Bobby Kottick first to really see much big change as he is the one that let it happen under his watch so get rid of them and him and frankly then I don't see why anyone would hesitate to buy a Blizzard game anymore, but of course the people that are on the board don't want to get rid of him and they won't because he tickiling their bottom line more cash! I honestly suspect that Microsoft will probably make it worst. I really don't have much experience with Microsoft run games, but they will be sure to get on any new exciting trends in game so I'm suspecting maybe some sorta NFT thing they'll probably help blizzard add to WoW cause really WoW need some NFT so you can say you really own that virtual item in game!

[Moonface]

That honestly the goal, but I think you'd need to get rid of Bobby Kottick first to really see much big change as he is the one that let it happen under his watch so get rid of them and him and frankly then I don't see why anyone would hesitate to buy a Blizzard game anymore, but of course the people that are on the board don't want to get rid of him and they won't because he tickiling their bottom line more cash! I honestly suspect that Microsoft will probably make it worst. I really don't have much experience with Microsoft run games, but they will be sure to get on any new exciting trends in game so I'm suspecting maybe some sorta NFT thing they'll probably help blizzard add to WoW cause really WoW need some NFT so you can say you really own that virtual item in game!

As far as I know the board is practically done, if not now then when Microsoft finishes this up in 2023. People are already speculating he is done after the transition because of how everyone will report to Phil Spencer as the CEO, so he won't be retaining his position it seems and if the board is gone, that was basically all that was protecting him.

Phil Spencer has also said he isn't a fan of NFT's so I don't think they'll be tossing those into Activision games because they don't want it in anything right now. Even Activision hasn't announced adding those things and they are way more likely to have done that than Xbox would.

[Karo]

I am hoping so but we shall have to see!

I could be wrong of course I don't really know much about Mr. Spencer as I don't really use xbox or microsoft itself for any gaming really....I do hate how they want me to sign into my windows now though. >.> I just want to be anonymous without Microsoft having to link all my stupid accounts together! D:

I guess be cautious but optimistic!

[Dragon Lord]

I think the only game this would really effect for me that I might care about is Diablo 6, but with a gaming PC now, I would be getting that on there regardless. Not that Diablo 3 was "unplayable" on PS4, but it'd be so much better having all the extra buttons to use for shortcuts and such.

Though I haven't heard anything about them getting around to fixing all the mechanical/performance issues with the Diablo 2 remake, so I don't know how willing I'm going to be to dive into Diablo 6.

[Moonface]

I am hoping so but we shall have to see!

I could be wrong of course I don't really know much about Mr. Spencer as I don't really use xbox or microsoft itself for any gaming really....I do hate how they want me to sign into my windows now though. >.> I just want to be anonymous without Microsoft having to link all my stupid accounts together! D:

I guess be cautious but optimistic!

I think the only thing to be concerned for with what Xbox is aiming for is trying to get everyone into their ecosystem, similar to how Apple does. They want you to access games through their services first and foremost, and the more ways and reasons they can find to do that the better for them. A worst case scenario would be everything being accessible only through subscriptions and online (a little like the original XBO pitch) so it can't be avoided, or just putting everything behind a Microsoft account as they've done with Minecraft recently.

Also, I doubt this will shock anyone but Kotick is claiming that the stock was affected by OW2 and Diablo 4 not being released when originally planned, and CoD having an off year, and that he chose to sell the company to make a good investment to shareholders in light of that. Absolutely nothing to do with all those sexual abuse allegations and other horror stories about working at this company. Nope.

[ShiraNoMai]

Bro, FUCK Kotick.

That is all.

[Moonface]

I don't see CoD leaving PlayStation though. The playerbase on PS is way too big, they'd lose out on a lot of money by making CoD Xbox exclusive. Diablo I see becoming Xbox/PC exclusive though. The saddest news out of all of this though is that Microsoft is now going to own the rights to Spyro... and we've seen the nightmarish way that Microsoft has handled Banjo-Kazooie. Big yikes for Spyro fans.

I can't tell if it's staying only while the contract Sony has with Activision for CoD is still active, or if it will be staying multi-platform permanently:

I'm going to say it can go either way and the wording is purposefully ambiguous to allow for that.