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[Draugoth]

https://www.windowscentral.com/gami...-million-due-to-the-overwatch-league-shutdown

• The Overwatch League's 20 teams are currently voting whether or not they want Activision Blizzard to dissolve the league.
• Most are expected to vote to end the league. If this happens, Activision Blizzard — now under Microsoft's wing — will pay each $6 million. This adds up to $120 million in total.
• Each team reportedly paid $7.5 million in fees to play in the league, and millions more in operating costs.
• The Overwatch League has been on the decline for some time now. Activision Blizzard is expected to work with ESL FACEIT Group for the 2024 season of Overwatch esports.

According to a report, Activision Blizzard approached the Overwatch League's 20 franchises with a plan for the future of Overwatch 2 esports, along with a request to cast votes for or against the continuation of the existing league, in October. Though the company hasn't received every organization's proposal yet, it's expected that most will vote to dissolve the Overwatch League.

 

[intbal]

$120 million

That's how much the janitors vacuum out of the couches at Microsoft HQ at the end of each day.

 

[SlimySnake]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Damn. MS is on track to make around $70,000,000,000 profit ($70 billion). Not sure if they can afford $120,000,000.

 

[poppabk]

Return $120 million if the article is accurate.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

I wonder how successful all these e-sports/gaas tournaments really are. I think there is a publicly traded stock that focuses on this and it's been losing money for years goofing around at a stock price of like $2.

 

[Sleepwalker]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

Blizzard? Real games?

 

[Moriarty1889]

All Live service games should die off and be replaced by offline SP games. MP components can always be included but SP games should always be the focus with good stories and characters to pull the gamer into its world. That is what always made games special not online frag fest rubbish.

 

[Topher]

Bobby Kotick.....

 

[midnightAI]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

Fortnite Smashes Player Record Again - By More Than Two Million

(Don't judge GaaS off of Overwatch, and I'm not even a massive GaaS fan)

 

[Spyxos]

I loved playing Overwatch 1. Then they stopped supporting it. I then played a bit more, but the fun was out of it. And then they released this weird Overwatch 2. Nobody wanted it, nobody asked for it. I have never seen such a popular Mp game being driven so consequently against the wall. Just let it die.

To be frank, I'm surprised that there is still a league at all.

 

[Magic Carpet]

start a new league but only charge 1 million while holding up your pinky finger.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Bobby Kotick.....

With how Ybarra told me Bobby likes to take the company heli everywhere, even out to lunch just across town its more like..

 

[LazyParrot]

That league was doomed to fail from the very start, especially if you consider how it was originally envisioned. Lots of people have forgotten about this, but they originally planned to have the teams be based in the cities they represented and then make them travel all over the US (and even the world) for matches every week. The entire concept was unbelievably stupid.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I love this prevailing concept that Microsoft can just take Ls and there won’t ever be impact to them.

Stop confusing Microsoft and Xbox. At some point you have the board of directors at Microsoft take a real look at the profitability of divisions and studios.

These detail might not be shared with stockholders but they are shared with the board.

There isn’t a company on the planet who can lose 120 million and there aren’t consequences for that.

 

[mckmas8808]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

Yes PLEASE!!!!

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

I can't say I'm going to miss the league at this point, but I do think that the very first season was fantastic. OW was in a good place and I found myself watching quite a bit. Puckett was on fire as the host; losing him for Season 2 was rough. Pretty much was downhill from there.

 

[Fake]

Good. Keep burning. To hell with GaaS defenders.

 

[Syphon Filter]

whoa didn't take long for MS fanboys to cope and damage control in this thread.

 

[ManaByte]

Good. Keep burning. To hell with GaaS defenders.

This isn’t anything to do with GaaS but esports dying.

 

[geary]

I like how the article mentions Microsoft instead of Blizzard. It's like saying that a flop Playstation first party is impacting Sony Group Corporation...Or that Armored Core sales impacted Kodakawa...

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Damn. MS is on track to make around $70,000,000,000 profit ($70 billion). Not sure if they can afford $120,000,000.

At 2 billion profit per year? Unless their games grow like crazy, that’s a long time to make 70B

 

[diffusionx]

Overwatch League was always so fake and forced. A-B was butthurt about losing DOTA and tried to ram this through. The game is horrible for spectating and the way every team is a bunch of Koreans that are pretending to represent American cities was so, so stupid. Anyway, I am sure MS included this in their financial analysis of the transaction, but the way so many gamers talk about MS like they can just keep throwing money away endlessly because they sell Office - it doesn't work that way.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Microsoft losing 120 mil is like me losing a fiver, they'll be fine.

 

[tmlDan]

I play OW almost everyday, its sad its come to this - it has so much potential and OW2 is on the right path

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I wonder how successful all these e-sports/gaas tournaments really are

I think unlike real sports, e-sports really failed to get much profitability.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

At 2 billion profit per year? Unless their games grow like crazy, that’s a long time to make 70B

We had this discussion in the other thread where you dont understand asset value.

As I said before which you avoided, Sony invested money into Jade Raymonds company and so far it's at zero sales and all loss. So feel free to do your math on annual losses.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

All Live service games should die off and be replaced by offline SP games. MP components can always be included but SP games should always be the focus with good stories and characters to pull the gamer into its world. That is what always made games special not online frag fest rubbish.

How to destroy 70% of the industry in one fell swoop.

 

[MarkMe2525]

With how Ybarra told me Bobby likes to take the company heli everywhere, even out to lunch just across town its more like..

What a boss

 

[MarkMe2525]

At 2 billion profit per year? Unless their games grow like crazy, that’s a long time to make 70B

They didn't loss 70B that they must recoup in the acquisition. They acquired assets that they valued at being worth 70B (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with their evaluation.) The point is, they aren't in the hole 70B.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Glad this is dying off. OW league was always forced and cringe. Giving away items to boost the stream numbers.

 

[March Climber]

That league was doomed to fail from the very start, especially if you consider how it was originally envisioned. Lots of people have forgotten about this, but they originally planned to have the teams be based in the cities they represented and then make them travel all over the US (and even the world) for matches every week. The entire concept was unbelievably stupid.

I definitely remember. They wanted e-sports to be like a basketball league, when it should have always been structured more like Tennis. OWL’s failure is also one of the many reasons why investors started pulling out from e-sports.

 

[Alebrije]

120 millions is nothing for Microsoft...specially on a Gaas game..

 

[HoodWinked]

The wrong game died...

Overwatch league season 1 was incredible. Alot of unfortunate things happened since like COVID which killed audience attendance, Jeff Kaplan leaving and Overwatch 2.

Figures a game like Valorant continues to get more popular despite kernel level spyware which just happens to be owned by a Chinese corporation. And Fortnite which is responsible for everything wrong in this industry.

 

[StereoVsn]

Bobby Kotick.....

Here is a picture of Activision execs.

 

[squidilix]

I mean
They pay Ninja for 50 millions or IDK for (remember!) Mixer...
120 millions is nothing for MS.

 

[Games of Today]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

Thank fucking God. It's amazing to be that they made a second Overwatch and no one gives a shit about it. Absolutely hilarious.

 

[PanzerCute]

All Live service games should die off and be replaced by offline SP games. MP components can always be included but SP games should always be the focus with good stories and characters to pull the gamer into its world. That is what always made games special not online frag fest rubbish.

Thats just, you know, your opinion man.

Millions of people have been playing Counter Strike or other games for 20+ years and they could not care less about SP games.

Always funny to have some narrow-minded comments like that. So childish.

 

[tmlDan]

The beginning of the end of GaaS. Make some real games next please.

44 million Fortnite players a couple of days ago would like to have a word.

 

[SJRB]

Chump change, honestly.

 

[Three]

I mean
They pay Ninja for 50 millions or IDK for (remember!) Mixer...
120 millions is nothing for MS.

I hate to be the bear of bad news instead of GigaBowser but Mixer died so it must have been enough for them to not keep doing it.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Microsoft to ABK:

 

[wipeout364]

People are confusing esports with GaaS which is going nowhere since that is where all the big money is. Also:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2023-Q4/press-release-webcast

according to this their revenue was 198 billion with a net income of 73 billion for year end 2023.

 

[Mister Wolf]

That's chicken change to them.

 

[SABRE220]

Its heartbreaking what they did with overwatch. The franchise at inception was legit a gamechanger with the potential to be a megafranchise. I still remember the hype of seeing just the lore trailers people were expecting them to basically make a marvel like verse for animations/movies etc and keep enhancing the game....and then blizzard dropped the ball so hard no one even wants to look at the game anymore.

 

[Taur007]

All Live service games should die off and be replaced by offline SP games. MP components can always be included but SP games should always be the focus with good stories and characters to pull the gamer into its world. That is what always made games special not online frag fest rubbish.

Yeah if this was 2006 still, you need a healthy mix of both with the cost of game dev today.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Nice. MS going bankrupt.

 

[Schmick]

All Live service games should die off and be replaced by offline SP games. MP components can always be included but SP games should always be the focus with good stories and characters to pull the gamer into its world. That is what always made games special not online frag fest rubbish.

Why can't we have both. I'm having an awesome time playing Counter Strike 2 and Spiderman Remastered.

There plenty of room for both and plenty of room to avoid what you don't like.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

We had this discussion in the other thread where you dont understand asset value.

As I said before which you avoided, Sony invested money into Jade Raymonds company and so far it's at zero sales and all loss. So feel free to do your math on annual losses.

You don’t understand asset value. You said they would earn back that $70B. Those are two separate things. Profitability vs. asset (book) value

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You don’t understand asset value. You said they would earn back that $70B. Those are two separate things. Profitability vs. asset (book) value

And thats what myself and MarkMe2525 have been trying to teach you. You think MS needs 35 years to break even on the deal. lol. So you trying to act like a know it all after the fact is a laugh.

Its obvious you dont own a home or stocks. But when you do eventually buy in, you should know that if you buy a house for $1,000,000 on a 25 year mortgage, it doesn't mean the house is worth zero and you need 25 years of payments to break even on it. Nor if you buy a stock for $50 paying a $1 dividend per year, it doesn't mean you break even at year 50.

Game Dev - Forbes: Bungie would have been in jeopardy if it weren't for Sony purchase

Thats not who we are. With games like Hogwarts and Elden Rings making $800 million in a month, their stupid decision to settle for $100-200 million a year is blowing up in their face right now. I wouldnt be surprised if the revenue is down to $50 million per year since only the whales are...

www.neogaf.com

So it’ll take close to 35 years for them to break even on Activision assuming those profits don’t decrease substantially. Not a good investment on paper

Bethesda had Redfall and Starfield, both underperformed and will have poor legs. Ghost wire, death loop, and HiFi all failed to sell well.

GamePass is a massive cash burn for them and they acquired 20,000 heads or more of payroll costs