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[IFireflyl]

Man, a survey where they had to "incentivise" participants?
https://assets.publishing.service.g...nline_survey_research_report_DJS_Research.pdf

That doesn't change the outcome of the survey. It's not like people were incentivized to pick specific answers.

 

[feynoob]

Not familiar with surveys I take it?

Paying people to take surveys is normal.

I took a course class. Usually these surveys have a strong bias, considering the financial incentives which undermines the initial purpose of the survey.

 

[Three]

R reksveks what do you think of this survery behaviour? Wouldnt that deem this survey as bad survey, due to financial gain?

Why would it matter? It's not like they incentivise answering a certain way. They incentivise doing the survey, not to skew it.

 

[IFireflyl]

R reksveks what do you think of this survery behaviour? Wouldnt that deem this survey as bad survey, due to financial gain?

Why would this be deemed a bad survey? People weren't paid based on how they responded.

 

[feynoob]

Why would it matter? It's not like they incentivise answering a certain way. They incentivise doing the survey, not to skew it.

Why would this be deemed a bad survey? People weren't paid based on how they responded.

Because of the money.

An incentive of £10 was offered following an initial soft launch (where a £5 incentive was offered) and up to six reminders were issued to encourage a response.

Such actions invites invalid responders, as they have incentives to answer the survey in hopes of getting the money.

 

[baphomet]

I took a course class. Usually these surveys have a strong bias, considering the financial incentives which undermines the initial purpose of the survey.

Well, again, that class didn't teach you shit if that's what you went away with.

If they were paid for answering one specific way, then that would be the case, but they're paid for taking the survey.

This is basic level statistics. Maybe look into it.

 

[Three]

Such actions invites invalid responders, as they have incentives to answer the survey in hopes of getting the money.

Ok? that's the whole point of the incentive. Why would it make their responses invalid though?

 

[IFireflyl]

Because of the money.

Such actions invites invalid responders, as they have incentives to answer the survey in hopes of getting the money.

As has been mentioned, the incentive isn't based on the consumer's response. If I have you a survey and said, "I'll give you $10 to respond to this survey no matter what responses you give," how would that $10 I gave you affect the outcome of the survey? You have the option to answer honestly or dishonestly. You get $10 regardless.

 

[yurinka]

Man, a survey where they had to "incentivise" participants?
https://assets.publishing.service.g...nline_survey_research_report_DJS_Research.pdf

Yes, it's common to pay a bit (or give some kind of gift) for surveys in some places.

Same goes with playtestings and stuff like that. In my studio we gave some merchandising of our company or games that we had in the office to whoever came to our playtestings, focus testings, etc. Sometimes a tshirt, sometimes a cap, a pendrive, a mug... in our case they came without expecting anything in exchange.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

They will first attempt behavioral access remedies, one last time. Once that fails, they will likely walk away from the deal.

I don't see them utilizing the divestiture option.

Well, I had thought if MS could retain partial ownership of the divested company/asset, they could be more inclined with that option. But it seems like that would not be the case, although they can at least spin it off as something wholly independent and not sell it to another company (potentially a competitor).

But yeah, people riding hopium expecting behavioral remedies to be the top solution still are overdosing. It's such a small probability, it might as well not be entertained as an actual option.

No, the CMA survey was for UK PS CoD players, not all PS players and not all UK PS players. According to the CMA survey, 73% said that Call of Duty influenced their decision to buy a PS, and that 24% would leave PS if CoD goes exclusive.

Considering that only around 10% of (worldwide, not only UK) PS Monthly Active Users buy CoD, if that UK percentage would be representative of worldwide numbers, that would mean around 0.7% of the UK (or worldwide) PS MAU and around 0.24% of the PS MAU would leave PS if CoD goes exclusive.

See below:

As I remember they announced a year or so ago Activision said that CoD made their record yearly revenue of around $3B in a year, being around $1B from CoD mobile. So the other $2B would be splitted between the PS+XB+PC versions of that yearly CoD, Warzone and previous CoD.

Assuming that around half of that is from PS, Activision would make with CoD around $1B/year on PS (or less, since that was a record year). From digital copies, Sony gets 30% and the publisher gets 70% of the revenue. So if a year Activision makes around $1B, Sony makes that year less than half a billion from CoD.

Not couting the multibillion gaming business that Sony has in Sony Music, if we only look at the SIE (PS division) part, Sony makes around $25B/year in revenue.

Meaning, CoD makes maybe around 1 or 2% (or less) of the Sony PS division revenue.

Also, CoD games sell around 20-30M copies on their lifetime. If we assume that around half of that may be on PS, this means around 10-15M users buy CoD every year on PS. PS has 112M monthly active users, meaning around 90% of the PS active users don't buy CoD.

Thanks; nice to have these numbers. TBF, I can see how MS points to these very numbers and argues that COD isn't important (that much) to PlayStation, so as to gain favor in getting the deal approved and with as much control over the IP as possible.

But I do also think there is a qualitative value attached to COD that isn't tangibly measured in revenue, in terms of what it does for encouraging adoption of the brand favorably by the mainstream thanks in part to the marketing deals, and adding to the appeal of the brand to attract more customers, in that act alone helping encourage spend by customers into the platform ecosystem. It might be difficult to quantify that value, but it's certainly there and it goes beyond the raw money it contributes to PlayStation's bottom line.

Which I think is a big part of Sony's argument in COD's overall value to PlayStation.

As someone who primarily plays on Xbox, personally, I don't play Call of Duty or any Blizzard property really. I view this acquisition as a chance for Xbox to scare Sony out of complacency. The generation where Sony was getting their ass kicked, saw them bounce back like never before.

A rising tide lifts all boats. I'm surprised more of you aren't worried at the trajectory of Sony regardless of this acquisition. 10 GaaS (in 5 years was it?), worked on by a lot of their best studios. Chasing trends. How many GaaS actually hit and how many shut down after like a year or 2?

Anyways, if this does go through, maybe I'll have fun checking out Call of Duty on Gamepass, but that's not important to me. But selfishly, I'd rather Microsoft acquire something like Devolver Digital, much more excited for what they show in their showcase every year than Call or Duty. Maybe it would be cool to see what else these studios could work on, give Toys for Bob a shot at Banjo Kazooie. Give IW or Treyarch a shot at a new IP or maybe even a AA game. As it currently stands Activision has like 6 studios just churning out Call of Duty. I think that would be different under Microsoft.

There was an interview Todd did that basically said he'll work til he dies lol. I assume Todd, after the 20+ years at Bethesda have some protégé that would carry the torch. But regardless, Todd dying and leaving Bethesda to whomever is a scenario that would be worrisome even if they were independent. I see a lot of people saying Starfield being delayed is mismanagement, but the delay is something they probably wouldn't be able to afford if they were independent. The narrative has always been Bethesda games come out buggy as fuck. They were on a a shaky path after FO4 and FO76, it was really do or die for them with Starfield if they stayed independent, and that pressure was still there maybe Starfield would be rushed out in a typical Bethesda state.

Regardless, I think we should wait to see how Starfield turns out before we assume they're being mismanaged. The mismanagement narrative in general is slightly off I think. By and large I think Microsoft has a hands off approach, let's studios have the time they need under as little pressure as possible. This definitely has it's negatives as we saw with Halo Infinite, but my assumption is the extra time for Starfield is a good thing. Giving studios that ability/incentive to make gems like Penitent, Grounded, HiFi Rush is a good thing.

Truthfully, there are things I'd like to see Sony do more of. I'd like to see them do more with legacy IP, maybe in the AA space, and get creative with some of them. I do kind of miss the overall variety they had 1P-wise in the PS3 era and the first couple or so years of PS4. Not that they don't have variety today; they have the third-person epic cinematic story-driven games of course, but also sim racers, roguelike third-person action-shooters, action-platformers, god games (Dreams qualifies I suppose), platformers, sports games, etc. But it would be nice to see them do rhythm games again, puzzle games like Echochrome, or hard-to-define quirky games like Mr. Mosquito.

That said, I don't think Sony are "chasing trends" by making a few GaaS titles. Even Nintendo has a few games that could qualify as GaaS, like Mario Kart, Smash Bros. and Splatoon. Granted those can also be played offline, but they have GaaS elements in them. I don't even think Sony are going to literally make 10 GaaS titles; some will be full GaaS (as in, you have to be online to play them), some will be more like MLB or GT7 which have GaaS elements to them (in terms of having a healthy stream of new content made available and also having an online component), a couple may be F2P. For all we know one of those 10 games is Destiny 2, considering they own Bungie now. I also think Sony'll have some good genre variety among those GaaS/live-service titles, and they aren't going to stop making non-live service/non-MP centric games anytime soon.

I don't know if your example of studios like IW and Treyarch working on non-COD games under MS pans out, because part of the reason COD is such a big money generator is precisely because those studios, among others, are dedicated to making content for it & supporting the games. Any big changes there reduces the amount of content and maybe even the number of releases. Meaning COD isn't making as much revenue. Meaning there's a slim margin where MS can use that to argue it's a "better fit" for making it exclusive for Xbox consoles & PC, but at the expense of COD losing a lot of cultural relevancy, and I don't think MS would take that risk especially with the money they would have to spend to get ABK (assuming the deal even passes in a state where MS can retain COD).

Also I don't see how you can say MS aren't mismanaging the games division to some notable degree. The evidence is all around us: 343i (they're only just NOW trying to fix it, almost a decade after), The Initiative, Mike Brown & fellows' sudden departure from Playground Games (and more interestingly, their reasons as to why), the desert of a 2022 they had in game releases, the horrible string of bad PR they've been having since December 8th of last year, the choice to have literally nothing for the VGAs outside of lame Game Pass ads, the Bizarro Land messaging, seeing notable fiscal declines in all of their gaming segments when they should have been seeing gains...if you don't call that mismanagement what else can you call it? Their upper management in the gaming side of things is kind of f#$ked, and needs some massive shake-ups, but they're still kicking the can down the road for now.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

It is a bit strange to think that Sony could plausibly lose COD, but that them trying to make a successful GAAS is also a bad investment?

I think for sure some of them will hit, your success rate is higher the more attempts you make. But I mean, Avengers, Outriders, Anthem, Babylon's Fall, Gotham Knights..

Don't they have Naughty Dog working on an exclusive (was it called Mercenaries?) Multiplayer game based on The Last of Us? Guerilla is also working on a GaaS game if I recall correctly.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I think for sure some of them will hit, your success rate is higher the more attempts you make. But I mean, Avengers, Outriders, Anthem, Babylon's Fall, Gotham Knights..

Don't they have Naughty Dog working on an exclusive (was it called Mercenaries?) Multiplayer game based on The Last of Us? Guerilla is also working on a GaaS game if I recall correctly.

1. Naughty Dog (The Last of Us Online)
2. Guerrilla (Horizon Online)
3. London Studios (New Fantasy IP)
4. Firesprite (Twisted Metal - unannounced)
5. Haven Studios (new IP)
6. Firewalk's (new multiplayer shooter IP)
7. Deviation Games (new multiplayer shooter IP)
8. Bungie (Matter)
9. Insomniac (new multiplayer IP)
10. Arrowhead Studios (Helldivers 2 - unannounced)

These are the live-service games currently in production in PlayStation Studios off the top of my head. I might have missed one or two.

 

[Orbital2060]

Mismanagement is actually too nice a label to put on whats been happening at Xbox since about 2008, which coincidentally is when Phil Spencer took on the head of Xbox 1st party. Its very easy to lay the blame of the X1 on Mattrick's feet, but the real test of the X1 generation is what their software output turned into after the launch period. Even when the PS3 and the Wii U fell flat, you can see that their platform holders focused on ensuring really strong production pipelines for their software, to prepare them for their next generations. Sony's turnaround on PS3 sw was so strong that they actually took the marketshare lead from 360 WW before that generation was well and truly over. So many of the Wii U titles and output turned into an incredible year 1 & 2 software slate for the Switch. So what did Xbox One look like from 2014 - 2018; it was some of the worst years of the division in terms of exclusive output. The best thing that happened was Spencer convincing Nadella of his business plan in 2017 and thus 'saving' Xbox from basically getting spun out and sold.

The slate has been inconsistent at best, irrelevant at worst since 2011. As for Gamepass, convincing Microsoft to go all in on a new service is precisely what SAVED the Xbox division in 2017. From my colleagues at MS back then, I know the conversations that were had about Xbox devolved into 'Why are still trying to be a HW company? We have dropped almost all of our HW positions outside of Surface and even that has become a very selective audience we are catering towards. Why is this business plan still happening?'. The answer was to transition Xbox from hardware focused to Software & Services, which is precisely how the most lucrative Microsoft divisions operate.

Microsoft still secured timed exclusives after Tomb Raider. Spencer still tried - Dead Rising 4 happened AFTER Tomb Raider, for example. The reason why MS was unable to secure even more deals is because the price for them kept increasing. As the sales split kept growing in Sony's favor, the cost kept going up, and their budget expansion didn't really kick in until 2018.

The common denominator throughout all of this is how anemic and poorly managed the projects were turning out. Even the Xbox One X - tremendous waste of time and resources. The best selling launch of HW they had last generation was the X1S, by far. The X1X delayed their start of 'next-gen' by years, all so they could 'get the power crown' from Sony, a title which has helped them exactly 0 times when trying to compete against Sony, either last gen or this one.

Spencer gets roped into the worst narratives and decisions possible, and the fans bend over backwards to excuse him for it. The only silver lining I have about this deal, again, after having had some very recent convos with MS colleagues, is that Spencer and his crony management group is currently not set to survive should the deal get blocked. Its part of the reason why they have been radio silent this week. I know, take with a grain of salt and all that, but its just what i've heard. I think some of the growing mountain of complaints from regulators essentially stemming from comments Spencer has made are winding up acting as ammo to sink the deal. If I sunk nearly $20b into a division, almost sunk another $70b, and that still isn't giving me a position to actually compete in the markets i'm participating in, i'd probably axe the management group as well, no matter how well curated his support and PR is.

Im curious, are the people you mention laid-off staff or someone still working at 343? Sounds like a lot of salt coming out.

I find all this talk about management weird since theyve been doing a great job so far with Xbox Games Studio and shipped a lot of great games so far.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Truthfully, there are things I'd like to see Sony do more of. I'd like to see them do more with legacy IP, maybe in the AA space, and get creative with some of them. I do kind of miss the overall variety they had 1P-wise in the PS3 era and the first couple or so years of PS4. Not that they don't have variety today; they have the third-person epic cinematic story-driven games of course, but also sim racers, roguelike third-person action-shooters, action-platformers, god games (Dreams qualifies I suppose), platformers, sports games, etc. But it would be nice to see them do rhythm games again, puzzle games like Echochrome, or hard-to-define quirky games like Mr. Mosquito.

That said, I don't think Sony are "chasing trends" by making a few GaaS titles. Even Nintendo has a few games that could qualify as GaaS, like Mario Kart, Smash Bros. and Splatoon. Granted those can also be played offline, but they have GaaS elements in them. I don't even think Sony are going to literally make 10 GaaS titles; some will be full GaaS (as in, you have to be online to play them), some will be more like MLB or GT7 which have GaaS elements to them (in terms of having a healthy stream of new content made available and also having an online component), a couple may be F2P. For all we know one of those 10 games is Destiny 2, considering they own Bungie now. I also think Sony'll have some good genre variety among those GaaS/live-service titles, and they aren't going to stop making non-live service/non-MP centric games anytime soon.

It's just a worry of mine. I really like Sony's output. I like the way that they are pushing the industry into a direction that is not "maximize profits with shiny things that keep our players on an eternal grind."

I worry that Sony might be viewing their success and wondering how they can extract more money from it. Like "How can we sell a game that does God of War numbers but also has players spending money in that game month over month?" They're a business, they're thinking these things.

I don't know if your example of studios like IW and Treyarch working on non-COD games under MS pans out, because part of the reason COD is such a big money generator is precisely because those studios, among others, are dedicated to making content for it & supporting the games. Any big changes there reduces the amount of content and maybe even the number of releases. Meaning COD isn't making as much revenue. Meaning there's a slim margin where MS can use that to argue it's a "better fit" for making it exclusive for Xbox consoles & PC, but at the expense of COD losing a lot of cultural relevancy, and I don't think MS would take that risk especially with the money they would have to spend to get ABK (assuming the deal even passes in a state where MS can retain COD).

If they're able to pull off the miracle, and get all of ABK (with the caveat of Call of Duty being available for all platforms that want it), I could see them going to an every other year release (at least down the line). Especially if from that decision, sprang to life a new IP that could be a new system seller.

Activision needs that Call of Duty yearly release. Gamepass needs a big release every quarter (that's their goal). There are a lot of studios that could pick up the slack on a Call of Duty off year.

We could argue about how that is unlikely because Xbox can't get games out as it is, but the rationale behind it is sound.

The incentive is there to make exclusive games. The risk/reward would probably be worth not releasing a Call of Duty every year. And I'm not talking about "stop making Call of Duty and make Duty Calls", I'm talking about IW or Treyarch or any of the Activision studios pitching a new IP. Call of Duty losing cultural relevance over time would be fine in Microsoft's eyes as long as new IP, new games gained cultural relevance and drew people to their ecosystem.

Also I don't see how you can say MS aren't mismanaging the games division to some notable degree. The evidence is all around us: 343i (they're only just NOW trying to fix it, almost a decade after), The Initiative, Mike Brown & fellows' sudden departure from Playground Games (and more interestingly, their reasons as to why), the desert of a 2022 they had in game releases, the horrible string of bad PR they've been having since December 8th of last year, the choice to have literally nothing for the VGAs outside of lame Game Pass ads, the Bizarro Land messaging, seeing notable fiscal declines in all of their gaming segments when they should have been seeing gains...if you don't call that mismanagement what else can you call it?

I'd call it not-management. As in, the leash is so long, studios aren't pressured to hit milestones and deadlines. Ultimately it is a failure of management, but not because where management is leading these developers/studios. The hands off approach is a double edged sword that has clearly backfired.

 

[Orbital2060]

Man, a survey where they had to "incentivise" participants?
https://assets.publishing.service.g...nline_survey_research_report_DJS_Research.pdf

 

[SneakersSO]

I think for sure some of them will hit, your success rate is higher the more attempts you make. But I mean, Avengers, Outriders, Anthem, Babylon's Fall, Gotham Knights..

Don't they have Naughty Dog working on an exclusive (was it called Mercenaries?) Multiplayer game based on The Last of Us? Guerilla is also working on a GaaS game if I recall correctly.

So, I figured i'd just respond to this post since you mentioned me in one of your mentions about Sony's GaaS titles. Honestly, I know a little bit about some of the GaaS games Sony is investing in, and I would say that they are pretty far removed from the cookie-cutter formula a lot of underwhelming GaaS was cut from, specifically the titles you mentioned.

Some of the titles/ideas are very traditional, others not so much. Some of these titles, btw, have also been cancelled. This is a thing you'll typically do when exploring new ideas for your publishing slate - they offered all of their biggest studios a chance at pitching some ideas and producing some milestones out of these pitches, and some of them even got far along to get some playable vertical slices up. My understanding on this push is that Sony really wanted to take the strengths of their SP catalog, which focuses on things like characters/settings/adventures, and putting them within MP and GaaS frameworks.

FWIW, i've heard some pretty solid feedback from folks who have played Factions 2 and Deviation's game. I think the big trouble with a lot of modern GaaS/MP titles is they tend to aim for content suites that are closer to F2P titles, but are quick to launch with season passes and battle passes, then run out of depth and width of experiences their MP suite can enable. This is why offerings like some of the ones you mentioned always get dinged on simply lacking loads of content when they launch, and wither on the vine as the team plays catchup. My understanding is that the games Sony will be producing are not intended to be lacking content, whatsoever. And Bungie has been instrumental, apparently, in ensuring that their production pipelines for these titles are properly configured to produce ongoing content at a healthy clip. Its one of the reasons some of the reveals and release dates got pushed into this year, btw.

 

[Orbital2060]

So, I figured i'd just respond to this post since you mentioned me in one of your mentions about Sony's GaaS titles. Honestly, I know a little bit about some of the GaaS games Sony is investing in, and I would say that they are pretty far removed from the cookie-cutter formula a lot of underwhelming GaaS was cut from, specifically the titles you mentioned.

Some of the titles/ideas are very traditional, others not so much. Some of these titles, btw, have also been cancelled. This is a thing you'll typically do when exploring new ideas for your publishing slate - they offered all of their biggest studios a chance at pitching some ideas and producing some milestones out of these pitches, and some of them even got far along to get some playable vertical slices up. My understanding on this push is that Sony really wanted to take the strengths of their SP catalog, which focuses on things like characters/settings/adventures, and putting them within MP and GaaS frameworks.

FWIW, i've heard some pretty solid feedback from folks who have played Factions 2 and Deviation's game. I think the big trouble with a lot of modern GaaS/MP titles is they tend to aim for content suites that are closer to F2P titles, but are quick to launch with season passes and battle passes, then run out of depth and width of experiences their MP suite can enable. This is why offerings like some of the ones you mentioned always get dinged on simply lacking loads of content when they launch, and wither on the vine as the team plays catchup. My understanding is that the games Sony will be producing are not intended to be lacking content, whatsoever. And Bungie has been instrumental, apparently, in ensuring that their production pipelines for these titles are properly configured to produce ongoing content at a healthy clip. Its one of the reasons some of the reveals and release dates got pushed into this year, btw.

Your first couple of posts in this thread seemed level-headed but it turns out youre just another console warrior. I dont buy your Oh lets talk about this nice guy approach. Microsoft bad, Sony good. We get it.

Youre a lot better than most warriors in terms of expressing yourself, though. I appreciate that.

 

[MasterCornholio]

He seems to be a bit quiet lately.

He's preparing for something.

He has to tell us something soon. He's probably just waiting for them to tell him what to say.

Good.

Though he was on Twitter promoting Age of Empires 2. Besides that though, nada.

I think he's become a liability to MS in trying to get the ABK deal cleared.

He definitely shouldn't have said some of the things he did. I was actually surprised that a high ranking executive would make statements like that.

Especially if they only want to push for behavioral remedies.

Regulators will definitely use it as an anti Minecraft example. If they need ammo to argue what Microsoft would do with a large multiplatform publisher Bethesda is it.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Unless they got paid to answer a certain way, incentives for surveys are normal.

Man, a survey where they had to "incentivise" participants?

To do what?

Take a survey or vote in a certain way?

There's a clear difference between the two and I don't believe they are paying people to be against the acquisition. Simply paying them to take the survey so they can get more data.

 

[baphomet]

Acting like them paying for people to take their survey is some sort of master plan for people to answer a specific way.

Did you even look at the report?

They offered 40,000 people money to take a 5 minute survey, and had less than 1,500 answer it. Now imagine how many would have answered without any sort of incentive. They likely would have gotten 200-300 at most.

Thus the reason EVERYONE offers some sort of incentive to respond to a survey.

 

[DenchDeckard]

All this over call of duty, kind of embarassing that after all the years that that's the game WE get to define our hobby.

The most important game in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[reksveks]

R reksveks what do you think of this survery behaviour? Wouldnt that deem this survey as bad survey, due to financial gain?

Nah, it perfectly normal to have incentive for consumer research survey.

I don't think it meaningfully impacts the result. There isn't a good way to determine which what the financial incentive would have skewed the responses.

I am wondering about the result of 24% 'switcher' of PS COD players and how they have used that stat and if Microsoft are going to try and push back on it. It just feel rather a cherry picked stats (shock horror /s)

This week, in theory should be rather quieter but we do have the ftc subpoena deadline of the 15th.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

All this over call of duty, kind of embarassing that after all the years that that's the game WE get to define our hobby.

The most important game in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

It barely rates a mention outside this thread lol

 

[MasterCornholio]

All this over call of duty, kind of embarassing that after all the years that that's the game WE get to define our hobby.

The most important game in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

Well there's no denying that COD is a huge franchise. Its why regulators are focusing on it.

 

[The_Mike]

You realize CoD has a campaign right? Not everyone plays multiplayer.

99 percent of Cods players only play multiplayer

 

[DenchDeckard]

COD must have that bombass P*ssy/B*ssy that got these lawyers going cray cray for a piece of that pie.

Lulu crazy but she's the COD pimp. Imagine a three way with those two.

 

[Nothing1234]

I mean COD, FIFA, GTA are the top selling games every year for a reason. Let's not try downplay them.

 

[bitbydeath]

All this over call of duty, kind of embarassing that after all the years that that's the game WE get to define our hobby.

The most important game in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm old school hatin COD, when back in the PS3/360 gen many devs tried imitating it.

 

[SneakersSO]

Your first couple of posts in this thread seemed level-headed but it turns out youre just another console warrior. I dont buy your Oh lets talk about this nice guy approach. Microsoft bad, Sony good. We get it.

Youre a lot better than most warriors in terms of expressing yourself, though. I appreciate that.

Must've ignored the post where I specifically praised MS' expansion into gaming via Azure, or all the resources they still continuously provide, or how I think they have an incredible pitch for truly turning the division into a Software/Services division and simply dropping the HW focus. In any event, just ignore me. I'm not quite sure how sharing what i'd heard about some of those GaaS titles makes me a console warrior, but to each their own.

 

[MasterCornholio]

COD must have that bombass P*ssy/B*ssy that got these lawyers going cray cray for a piece of that pie.

Lulu crazy but she's the COD pimp. Imagine a three way with those two.

Can't blame Microsoft for wanting COD.



Its a huge deal to make it exclusive or available day one on gamepass. They certainly saw the benefits of that which is why they gunned hard for this.

 

[Sony]

I mean COD, FIFA, GTA are the top selling games every year for a reason. Let's not try downplay them.

Well, the main reason is mass appeal certainly. But what adds to that is that no other shooter has cracked the formula of military shooter with a low TTK.
Battlefield had de best receipts but the completely f*cked 2042, and CoD had nothing to do with that.

 

[Sony]

Can't blame Microsoft for wanting COD.



Its a huge deal to make it exclusive or available day one on gamepass. They certainly saw the benefits of that which is why they gunned hard for this.

I highly, highly doubt a day 1 gamepass CoD alongside a regular buy to play CoD will sway over a decent amount of people from PlayStation to Xbox.
Anecdotally: In the group of friends we usually played Warzone with - group of 7 - there were only 2 playing on Xbox, one of which was me.
None of the other 5 have said to move over to Xbox for any GamePass shenanigans.
Besides, one of the biggest moneymakers for Acti was Warzone, which is free to play.

Sony has nothing to fear with regard to CoD being in the hands of Microsoft because of the promised parity.
Microsoft is offering parity in:
- Content: no exclusive content for Xbox players for the coming 10 years
- Pricing: Xbox versions of CoD will be the same price as PlayStation versions for the next 10 years
- Features: Xbox versions will not have more features than PlayStation versions for the next 10 years

So to both sides:
Xbox fans won't feel the benefit of this merger for the next 10 years
Sony fans won't lose anything for the next 10 years

Like, what the hell is Sony afraid of? Microsoft is taking the hits here. Parity prohibits Microsoft from leveraging CoD in a any meaningful way for the coming 10 years. Xbox players also won't "feel" the advantages of the merger with respect to CoD for the next 10 years.
Other than outright blocking the deal, you basically cannot castrate this deal more than that.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I highly, highly doubt a day 1 gamepass CoD alongside a regular buy to play CoD will sway over a decent amount of people from PlayStation to Xbox.
Anecdotally: In the group of friends we usually played Warzone with - group of 7 - there were only 2 playing on Xbox, one of which was me.
None of the other 5 have said to move over to Xbox for any GamePass shenanigans.
Besides, one of the biggest moneymakers for Acti was Warzone, which is free to play.

Sony has nothing to fear with regard to CoD being in the hands of Microsoft because of the promised parity.
Microsoft is offering parity in:
- Content: no exclusive content for Xbox players for the coming 10 years
- Pricing: Xbox versions of CoD will be the same price as PlayStation versions for the next 10 years
- Features: Xbox versions will not have more features than PlayStation versions for the next 10 years

So to both sides:
Xbox fans won't feel the benefit of this merger for the next 10 years
Sony fans won't lose anything for the next 10 years

Like, what the hell is Sony afraid of? Microsoft is taking the hits here. Parity prohibits Microsoft from leveraging CoD in a any meaningful way for the coming 10 years. Xbox players also won't "feel" the advantages of the merger with respect to CoD for the next 10 years.
Other than outright blocking the deal, you basically cannot castrate this deal more than that.

And after 10 years?

 

[mrmustard]

And after 10 years?

Nobody knows, COD could be dead in 5 years. Nobody makes forever deals, but i have a feeling that Sony would even decline a forever offer.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Nobody knows, COD could be dead in 5 years. Nobody makes forever deals, but i have a feeling that Sony would even decline a forever offer.

Of course they would. The very idea of MS owning COD is problematic for them.

 

[Sony]

And after 10 years?

After 10 years a lot of the people who are arguing about this on message boards probably won't even be gaming anymore.
All (semi) jokes aside, after 10 years they of course can leverage the deal. The 'unfair' advantage the authorities are concerned about should dissipate after 10 years.
- You give the cloud gaming market chance to develop
- Sony will have 10 years time to develop competition to CoD, while at same time retaining access to CoD. You're essentially giving Sony time 10 years to prevent CoD from hurting them IF it becomes exclusive (which it won't).

10 years is a long-ass time in gaming land. CoD could be irrelevant in 2 years, who knows? That's also one of the reasons why it's impossible to offer parity contracts forever.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

- You give the cloud gaming market chance to develop
- Sony will have 10 years time to develop competition to CoD, while at same time retaining access to CoD.

10 years is a long-ass time in gaming land.

Everyone has had 15+ years to create something like COD, and no one has succeeded

 

[mrmustard]

Of course they would. The very idea of MS owning COD is problematic for them.

In my opinion the whole deal is problematic for them. COD is just the excuse.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

In my opinion the whole deal is problematic for them. COD is just the excuse.

Lol if COD wasn't part of the equation they wouldn't be fighting this hard

 

[mrmustard]

Lol if COD wasn't part of the equation they wouldn't be fighting this hard

I don't think so.
Just in theory: Who could force Microsoft to make COD forever? What if they decide at some point to burry the name COD and make almost the same game with the same team under a new name?

But we will most likely never know who was right.

 

[Sony]

Everyone has had 15+ years to create something like COD, and no one has succeeded

Which is completely on them. It's not Activisions fault that BF2042 is shit. Nor is it Activisions fault that 343i could not retain its player base due to a lack of content.
There is also something paradoxal about this, because if EA for example created a game that was identical to CoD, but with a different name. That game would still be reviewed worse than actual CoD because "it's too similar to CoD".
The challenge therefore is to offer something that is as good is CoD, without being CoD. Isn't that what the purpose of competition is about?

Sony is also a platform holder. They can create a shooter that can leverage the hardware of the platform like no other can and most importantly, Sony can leverage their position to increase exposure for their CoD competitor. Let's call it SonyCOD.
Sony can market SonyCOD and bundle it without extra costs, third parties have to play a lot of money for exposure like that.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Which is completely on them. It's not Activisions fault that BF2042 is shit. Nor is it Activisions fault that 343i could not retain its player base due to a lack of content.
There is also something paradoxal about this, because if EA for example created a game that was identical to CoD, but with a different name. That game would still be reviewed worse than actual CoD because "it's too similar to CoD".
The challenge therefore is to offer something that is as good is CoD, without being CoD. Isn't that what the purpose of competition is about?

Sony is also a platform holder. They can create a shooter that can leverage the hardware of the platform like no other can and most importantly, Sony can leverage their position to increase exposure for their CoD competitor. Let's call it SonyCOD.
Sony can market SonyCOD and bundle it without extra costs, third parties have to play a lot of money for exposure like that.

You're right, they can all keep trying to create their own COD competitor (even though they'll all fail) including Microsoft, because that's what competition is about.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I don't think so.

Of course they wouldn't

King is a mobile developer. Blizzard can't even ship games any more, and they're more PC centric anyway.

Bethesda was more relevant to PlayStation than the pair of them combined, and they hardly ever made a fuss over that

Just in theory: Who could force Microsoft to make COD forever? What if they decide at some point to burry the name COD and make almost the same game with the same team under a new name?

But we will most likely never know who was right.

No one can. If they did that they'd lose the benefits associated with the COD brand.

 

[SneakersSO]

After 10 years a lot of the people who are arguing about this on message boards probably won't even be gaming anymore.
All (semi) jokes aside, after 10 years they of course can leverage the deal. The 'unfair' advantage the authorities are concerned about should dissipate after 10 years.
- You give the cloud gaming market chance to develop
- Sony will have 10 years time to develop competition to CoD, while at same time retaining access to CoD. You're essentially giving Sony time 10 years to prevent CoD from hurting them IF it becomes exclusive (which it won't).

10 years is a long-ass time in gaming land. CoD could be irrelevant in 2 years, who knows? That's also one of the reasons why it's impossible to offer parity contracts forever.

There are significant workarounds to the 10 year deal that MS could get. The CMA states in their findings that certain licensing agreement behavior remedies are basically a non-starter, and thats because a company who wants to get around this, very well could.

-MS could very easily change CoD and get the studios to explore new IP development for a new IP that is CoD in all but name. The deal wouldn't even apply to this new IP. One of the reasons they are recommending divestment is because in that scenario, the studios who work on CoD also must be divested, which means MS couldn't just turn around and do this very strategy.
-MS could very easily come in and reduce CoD output to levels that are below the yearly cadence that we currently get.

Theres a plethora of other options at their disposal if they wanted it. Based on some estimates in here, the valuation of CoD is probably close to something like $30b - is it worth it to MS to purchase ATVI and not get CoD? Not even begin to maximize on the deal, but not get it at all?

All of this is besides the point: the CMA is probably not going to accept any form of licensing agreement because they know it can be worked around. Their stance is pretty clear - MS can either have CoD and its studios, or have Blizzard/King and divest CoD, but not both.

 

[Ar¢tos]

All this over call of duty, kind of embarassing that after all the years that that's the game WE get to define our hobby.

The most important game in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

World events define it, with constant wars and daily mass shootings I'm not really surprised.
I would prefer something like Myst to define our hobby.

 

[mrmustard]

Of course they wouldn't

King is a mobile developer. Blizzard can't even ship games any more, and they're more PC centric anyway.

Bethesda was more relevant to PlayStation than the pair of them combined, and they hardly ever made a fuss over that

Bethesda's revenue is a joke compared to Activison's. Sony does not want that Microsoft becomes too powerful.

No one can. If they did that they'd lose the benefits associated with the COD brand.

Depends on how they are making it. Imagine the new game droping in 2027 and the 2025/2026 games will be heavily used for marketing the new game. Every COD player would know about it. Then a big marketing campaign in 2027 'The new game from the creators of the famous COD'.

I don't think this will happen, but maybe we will see who was right if Microsoft passes on COD or offers it forever. If Sony accepts then, i'm gonna eat my crow.

 

[Sony]

You're right, they can all keep trying to create their own COD competitor (even though they'll all fail) including Microsoft, because that's what competition is about.

That doesn't make any sense. Microsoft is a platform holder, why would they risk creating a competitor to CoD, a third party? Right now they have no reason to develop a direct competitor.
It's no coincidence Microsoft or Sony haven't developed direct CoD competitor. Rather, what both Sony and Microsoft have been doing is competing for the CoD player base through marketing and content deals.
That's a whole different discussion though because in the case CoD becoming Microsoft property, Sony will have to compete.

 

[Warablo]

Forever contracts are stupid, what if in 7 years Sony changes its percentage take at a abnormal amount which literally would be worthless for CoD to release on there?

This is why business's don't do forever deals. No one knows what the market will look like in the future, especially 10 years in a tech industry.

 

[Sony]

There are significant workarounds to the 10 year deal that MS could get. The CMA states in their findings that certain licensing agreement behavior remedies are basically a non-starter, and thats because a company who wants to get around this, very well could.

-MS could very easily change CoD and get the studios to explore new IP development for a new IP that is CoD in all but name. The deal wouldn't even apply to this new IP. One of the reasons they are recommending divestment is because in that scenario, the studios who work on CoD also must be divested, which means MS couldn't just turn around and do this very strategy.
-MS could very easily come in and reduce CoD output to levels that are below the yearly cadence that we currently get.

Theres a plethora of other options at their disposal if they wanted it. Based on some estimates in here, the valuation of CoD is probably close to something like $30b - is it worth it to MS to purchase ATVI and not get CoD? Not even begin to maximize on the deal, but not get it at all?

All of this is besides the point: the CMA is probably not going to accept any form of licensing agreement because they know it can be worked around. Their stance is pretty clear - MS can either have CoD and its studios, or have Blizzard/King and divest CoD, but not both.

And those terms will have to be negotiated. None of the workarounds you mentioned are actual workarounds though. What do they actually work around to?
- The 'Duty Calls' scenario will be something adressed by CMA because in their remedies proposal, they proposed (i) Divestiture of the business associated with Call of Duty; What is business associated with CoD? Is it just the IP, or also the development studios? Because in case they have to divest the IP, the studios can still develop Duty calls.
- The second point, reducing CoD output, what exactly does that work around to? Both Microsoft and both Sony will have a lesser number of CoDs and actually, fewer CoDs give more opportunity to competitors to take its space. By your logic, Microsoft release 2 CoD's in 10 years is somehow bad for Sony. Why?
If Microsoft has any ambition of leveraging CoD in the future, then they need to keep CoD relevant, not reduce its relevancy.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Forever contracts are stupid, what if in 7 years Sony changes its percentage take at a abnormal amount which literally would be worthless for CoD to release on there?

This is why business's don't do forever deals. No one knows what the market will look like in the future, especially 10 years in a tech industry.

That's why they are asking for a divestment.