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Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
Varteras

Varteras

Member
adamsapple said:
heroes-thats-what-heroes-do.gif





havoc00 havoc00 is a national treasure.
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You wear a mask of Satya and jerk off in the mirror, don't you? Do you talk dirty to yourself, too? "Whose the big daddy of a trillion dollar company? That's right, bitch. ME!"

It's okay to admit it. I promise you that I have way worse fetishes.
 
Sleepwalker

Sleepwalker

Member
Heisenberg007 said:
True. @Ginzeen at least has gone as far back as April 26, 2023 😄 WTF! 😄 And leaving laughing emojis on posts criticizing Florian / SoloKingRobert 🤔

E6H3vHX.jpg


XCHSaRS.jpg


Interestingly, he joined GAF around the same time when Florian got banned - June 2023.

q3w9L2j.jpg


tezqz13.jpg


It seems like the great Florian is back amongst us mere mortals, guys! :messenger_halo:
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My money was on this clown being sage but the alt was vox machina. Unless he has more than 1.

Will Ferrell Lol GIF by NBA
 
Bungie

Bungie

Member
Sanepar said:
Tell me how do u think is ok to pay $40 to access a rent 3 days before but not to buy and own the game for $70.
Click to expand...
Well it was closer to $30 if you have gamepass & also you get the DLC/premium items, I don't plan on getting rid of gamepass anytime soon because the amount of amazing games I've experienced that I never would have payed for in the first place, Also I personally do not care about owning a digital product to begin with, from the past two generations I owned digital games & they aren't played because I tend to 100% most games, even if I wanted to play them & didn't own them, they are all like super cheap by then anyways. I am getting to experience the new hyped thing all at a lesser price & earlier too. As long as I fully play the game or get my fix, why do I need to own it?
 
Topher

Topher

Identifies as young
Eotheod said:
Also I was laughed at for choosing structural changes. Whelp look at me now daddy!
Click to expand...

lol.....no one called this. Only folks that laughed at structural changes was the notion that MS would divest Blizzard or something like that. Those were the proposed options in the CMA report.

As far as I'm concerned, we all got this wrong.

Edit: Riky Riky if someone called Microsoft selling ABK streaming rights to another company then please show me. I must have missed it

Edit 2: No response? lol....ok
 
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havoc00

havoc00

Member
Topher said:
It will probably spike early on but the game is so damn repetitive that I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop quick. Either way, I doubt it will be on GP anytime soon after the deal is closed.
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Is it that eh? I was gonna buy it but forgot I never beat torchlight 2
 
Varteras

Varteras

Member
havoc00 said:
Is it that eh? I was gonna buy it but forgot I never beat torchlight 2
Click to expand...

The campaign is short. The story gets really lazy after the first couple acts. So many quality of life issues right off the bat that they've been dragging their feet on patching. Admittedly, I stopped following that a while ago so no idea how much they've covered. Endgame is virtually non-existent for normal characters. The endgame is more or less rolling a new seasonal character and doing the rather limited seasonal content every 3 months. Their goal for your normal characters to have anything else to do is yearly expansions that you'll probably be paying a decent amount for. The cosmetic seasonal gear is a joke and especially so if you didn't pay extra for the pass. Pretty much everything about the game feels like an excuse to get you to spend a bunch of extra cash. Also, after playing Baldur's Gate 3, even though Diablo 4 isn't exactly the same kind of game, it really made me see just how lacking it was. More so than I had already felt. How a game that took that long to make from such a huge company could somehow feel just so incredibly inferior by comparison.
 
Varteras

Varteras

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
Reports that Diablo 4 player count is down 99%.

MS sure knows how to pick em huh. Imagine not only spending $70 billion on ABK but also fighting regulators the better part of 2 years for the right to do it
Click to expand...

Solidus_T said:
Sheesh. To be fair, Blizzard still got their money.
Click to expand...

Ultimately, I don't think this acquisition had much to do with Blizzard to begin with. Anyone following that company knows a ton of its talent left already and they are struggling to retain staff in general. It is frequently having issues of some sort with each of its franchises. The ones it hasn't already abandoned. It takes longer than most companies to get a new game out. That used to mean a quality experience. It doesn't today. I would have not been shocked at all if the CMA had asked for divestiture specifically of Blizzard and Microsoft immediately jumped on it to get Call of Duty and King. They're just simply not what they used to be. I say this as a long-time Blizzard fan with 12,000 hours logged into World of Warcraft since its release alone. It honestly hurts to admit they're a shell.
 
Hero of Spielberg

Hero of Spielberg

Member
Varteras said:
Ultimately, I don't think this acquisition had much to do with Blizzard to begin with. Anyone following that company knows a ton of its talent left already and they are struggling to retain staff in general. It is frequently having issues of some sort with each of its franchises. The ones it hasn't already abandoned. It takes longer than most companies to get a new game out. That used to mean a quality experience. It doesn't today. I would have not been shocked at all if the CMA had asked for divestiture specifically of Blizzard and Microsoft immediately jumped on it to get Call of Duty and King. They're just simply not what they used to be. I say this as a long-time Blizzard fan with 12,000 hours logged into World of Warcraft since its release alone. It honestly hurts to admit they're a shell.
Click to expand...
The IPs still have a lot of pull (but probably less goodwill these days). Blizzard is probably just a nice cherry on top for the deal.
 
MasterCornholio

MasterCornholio

Member
havoc00 said:
I wish, u wanna pay me? Imagine the engagement royalties id get just from you alone following my every word
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Nah I really don't obey you.

For example I won't get gamepass because you want me to.

See?

Just don't see the need for you to advertise it everywhere if it isn't your job. It's like if I post in every gamepass thread and tell people I don't use it because I buy my games. Its just annoying after a while.
 
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S

SABRE220

Member
So its done huh, Pandoras box has officially been opened:messenger_confounded:. Now that the precedent has been set that there's nothing really stopping MS from buying the biggest publishers since everything is smaller than Activision, Im not really sure what is stopping MS from steamrolling here long-term. Initially they might face halfhearted resistance from regulators but as we have seen with the CMA basically falling over themselves to get the deal closed within microsofts timeline in the last hearing said regulations would just be facesaving measures MS has too much pull and they have roundabout measures to get things through.

Sony cant handle the finanical pull needed to pull off a gamepass scenario so will be forced to go for smaller studios and publishers leaving Microsoft to gobble up the bigger ones leaving almost zero independent studios which is just sad for the industry. Sony has a good legup in its current position which will carry them until the latter stages of this gen but once COD, doom, diablo, fallout, ES and the other shit that MS consolidates falls day 1 on gamepass....yeah worrying times ahead.

Also before people start laughing kindly look up Microsoft's history of consolidation in markets and see how damn successful they are in this strategy. In the short term Sony will compete and will win this gen overall but longterm..
 
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Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
SABRE220 said:
So its done huh, Pandoras box has officially been opened:messenger_confounded:. Now that the precedent has been set that there's nothing really stopping MS from buying the biggest publishers since everything is smaller than Activision, Im not really sure what is stopping MS from steamrolling here long-term. Initially they might face halfhearted resistance from regulators but as we have seen with the CMA basically falling over themselves to get the deal closed within microsofts timeline in the last hearing said regulations would just be facesaving measures MS has too much pull and they have roundabout measures to get things through.

Sony cant handle the finanical pull needed to pull off a gamepass scenario so will be forced to go for smaller studios and publishers leaving Microsoft to gobble up the bigger ones leaving almost zero independent studios which is just sad for the industry. Sony has a good legup in its current position which will carry them until the latter stages of this gen but once COD, doom, diablo, fallout, ES and the other shit that MS consolidates falls day 1 on gamepass....yeah worrying times ahead.

Also before people start laughing kindly look up Microsoft's history of consolidation in markets and see how damn successful they are in this strategy. In the short term Sony will compete and will win this gen overall but longterm..
Click to expand...
Longterm most of these studios will be divested, shut down (Lionsgate), stop producing games (The Initiative), or remain as a shell (Arkane). Look at what's happening with Embracer.

Sony will be fine amidst all this; their strategy is solid. The only problem with Microsoft's strategy is that the overall industry will suffer.
 
PaintTinJr

PaintTinJr

Member
Now that the dust has settled on the CMA change of position, I think the decision looks to have been done by government intervention.

Previously I was thinking it was claiming a win, and difficulty of the inquiry group to argue their position clearly, despite it being correct, but considering there is still a further process of feedback, and this is the first time the CMA have been at the point of approval, it seems really out of place that Cardell has made a statement about the remedies as though they actually satisfy the concerns, when counter arguments about this switch of position haven't even been heard by the CMA, which could trigger a reversal, again or phase 2.

Her remarks since make it sound like further feedback is going to an empty inbox, overly playing the remedies as a win, and so maybe they lack autonomy of the government, now to block or enter a phase 2, or that even if they did have autonomy, career wise she has chosen to take the false win and is shutting the process down.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Heisenberg007 said:
Longterm most of these studios will be divested, shut down (Lionsgate), stop producing games (The Initiative), or remain as a shell (Arkane). Look at what's happening with Embracer.

Sony will be fine amidst all this; their strategy is solid. The only problem with Microsoft's strategy is that the overall industry will suffer.
Click to expand...

Not according to Jimbo.

metro.co.uk

PlayStation can’t survive without Call Of Duty claims Sony

Sony is still doing its best to stop Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard and insists they can’t be trusted over Call Of Duty exclusivity.
metro.co.uk metro.co.uk
 
HoofHearted

HoofHearted

Member
PaintTinJr said:
50% the last sentence, which I was expecting. The CMA claiming the false victory, and 50% the inquiry group feeling like they've got backed into a corner and need further ammo to get to move to a phase 2. The latter of which(feedback) was something I said I wasn't going to send.
Click to expand...

It’s been pretty clear that this entire process over the past month or so since the CAT hearing was to afford a way for the CMA to reverse course in some form or fashion in order to save face …. especially given the tone of the judge during the hearings..

It‘s all been about optics..

At some point earlier this year, it seemed to be there was an underlying focus simply to stop this deal based on the size of the transaction.

There was an opportunity here for both the CMA and FTC to work out significant changes in the industry to provide for a true “open” solution that would benefit both smaller dev shops as well as consumers to ensure a true competitive landscape would be maintained.

Instead - both organizations failed miserably in doing the one thing they’re both tasked with doing …

This was always a long term play by Microsoft for this particular acquisition… and they will have effectively accomplished that goal in a mere 15 years …
 
PaintTinJr

PaintTinJr

Member
HoofHearted said:
It’s been pretty clear that this entire process over the past month or so since the CAT hearing was to afford a way for the CMA to reverse course in some form or fashion in order to save face …. especially given the tone of the judge during the hearings..

It‘s all been about optics..

At some point earlier this year, it seemed to be there was an underlying focus simply to stop this deal based on the size of the transaction.

There was an opportunity here for both the CMA and FTC to work out significant changes in the industry to provide for a true “open” solution that would benefit both smaller dev shops as well as consumers to ensure a true competitive landscape would be maintained.

Instead - both organizations failed miserably in doing the one thing they’re both tasked with doing …

This was always a long term play by Microsoft for this particular acquisition… and they will have effectively accomplished that goal in a mere 15 years …
Click to expand...
I agree that the CMA front of house(and legal team) look compromised and have been playing optics, but I still doubt the inquiry group have been got at.

As for the idea that any remedies could have been brought to stop, the now inevitable IMO transference of Microsoft's OS monopoly to AAA Cloud gaming serving, and eventually the whole of cloud and mobile OS too via DirectX foreclosing Vulkan/Opengles in the next 15years, so I don't believe there was any remedies that could been offered that Microsoft could be trusted to keep that stopped them monopolizing, and would instead just pay a fine.

The moving of essential content like CoD to Microsoft APIs exclusively is an old school EEE play by them and Nvidia here, IMO. What remedies could have been sought to completely eliminate that? All the rest of the world use unix-style linux derivate OSes and Khronos Group derived graphics APIs (especially the duopoly in smartphone OSes) and now every one of those competitors looking to compete are 2nd tier solutions to CoD on Microsoft APIs, just like Minecraft is on anything but Windows.

How do they compete without being at Microsoft's OS and Nvidia's API mercy selling a parity experience with CoD, now, competing with Microsoft and Nvidia in cloud gaming?
 
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