Videogames: New Year, New Thread

[Corvinus85]

I assume that the Blizzard execs are preparing to leave as soon as the deal is done. I wonder what their severance packages are. 

Windows 11 will be all about gaming, won't it?

[Kalbear]

From at least my vague internal view the main change in studios seems to be mostly cultural and more D&I based. This has meant some interesting things in studios to me at least - one thing that happened was Rare had a initiative called Project Spirit that focused on getting mental health care and support for employees driven by other employees - and this became popular enough that it's now spread to Xbox at large and to other studios. 

I suspect things like that will be more likely, but MS isn't going to dictate things like " you will use this tech for gaming" any more. 

[Kalbear]

Also, hee

 

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I assume that the Blizzard execs are preparing to leave as soon as the deal is done. I wonder what their severance packages are. 

Personally I'd give Kotick a cigarette and a wall to lean against.

[Durckad]

Jesus, this kinda sucks.

More consolidation of brands under a single, huge umbrella is just... not good overall, especially in gaming where the "big players" are so few in number already. 

I have no love for Acti/Blizz anymore, but man, what a kick in the balls. My ONLY hope is that this leads to some actual consequences for the sentient sacks of shit that ran Acti/Blizz, but I'm guessing the "worst" that will happen is they'll simply get booted out with generous severance checks in tow. 

Again, no real consequences for the rich and powerful, with more consolidation and less choice for the consumers. Yay capitalism.

[/doomer rant]

[Caligula_K3]

Wow. And I thought acquiring Bethesda was aggressive for Microsoft. I can't say I'm happy about all the AAA publishers becoming owned by the same three to four companies.

Still, quite the coup for Microsoft and a massive turnaround for them. Last generation, if I could afford it, between PS4 and Xbox the obvious answer would have been PS4 because of Sony's exclusives. Now it would be a much harder choice. Good thing I can't afford either!

[Kalbear]

To me, the biggest thing is that Game Pass will include Blizzard games.

That's cool for things like Diablo and Overwatch - but it might be absolutely shitballs amazing if WoW is included in that. $15/month gives you WoW AND Skyrim AND Starfield AND Dishonored AND Halo AND Diablo AND Overwatch?

That would be an absurdly great deal.

[Corvinus85]

And to think that Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax was only $7.5B. I didn't know Activision-Blizzard was so highly valued. (or is it valuated? )

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Corvinus85 said:

And to think that Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax was only $7.5B. I didn't know Activision-Blizzard was so highly valued. (or is it valuated? )

Basically, MS is paying cash for all outstanding Activision stock, at $95 per stock. Before the Kotick bullshit they were worth around $105, but they've dropped to $65. So either MS is paying a really crazy premium price over what they're actually worth now or they're getting a steal. 

But yeah, Activision/Blizzard was one of the most valued game companies around, with relatively good reason - multiple successful AAA franchises and tons of monthly users. 

[Corvinus85]

When it comes to games I'm still somewhat old school. I have my Steam account and play games on my PC. This thing doesn't particularly excite me. I've never tried game passes.

[Fez]

24 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

And to think that Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax was only $7.5B. I didn't know Activision-Blizzard was so highly valued. (or is it valuated? )

They are/were the largest third party publisher in the industry. IIRC Blizzard is actually the smallest of the three pieces of the company, behind Activision and King (the mobile games arm). 

[Kalbear]

33 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

When it comes to games I'm still somewhat old school. I have my Steam account and play games on my PC. This thing doesn't particularly excite me. I've never tried game passes.

I was a bit skeptical too, and for the most part I personally don't use the gamepass incredibly much (though I did get Hades through it, and that's been fucking rad). But it is an amazing deal if you have kids. We've discovered or gotten so many games that they would never have bought, and they play them for a while and then move on. It's absolutely a great deal. Just off the top of my head the kids have played TABS, Dicey Dungeons, Hades, Grounded, Golf with Friends...and looking at it, here's what we've also played:

• Among Us
• Astroneer
• Bridge Constructor Portal
• Cities Skylines
• Cluster Truck (big favorite)
• Deeeer Simulator (stupid game, but hilarious)
• Descenders (super great game, awesome music)
• Gang Beasts
• Human Fall Flat
• Injustice 2
• Katamari
• Maneater
• Avengers
• PvZ
• Rain on your Parade
• SuperHot (this is really cool)
• Rubber Bandits
• Scream Ride
• Stardew Valley
• Terraria
• Totally Reliable Delivery service

 

That is, IMO, one of the better things for the game industry - gamepass now is like Netflix was earlier, where it wasn't about exclusives nearly as much as being able to watch older series or indie things that were hard to find. Xbox has been so far pretty good about promoting indie titles on Gamepass and letting people discover things they might not have found and that's where I think it really excels. Of the above I know we've outright bought a bunch of those because they were so fun, but if you don't like them or don't care that much you just move on. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

And to think that Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax was only $7.5B. I didn't know Activision-Blizzard was so highly valued. (or is it valuated? )

Call of Duty shifts, what, almost a guaranteed 20 million units a game (sometimes twice that) every single year without fail. That's immediately makes them a much more formidable concern even than Bethesda, who are now going 6+ years between releasing games at all, and maybe 15 years in future between releases of their absolute top-tier franchises.

You then add Blizzard on top of that, who release new games infrequently but when they do, they also sell 20 million pretty much without fail with an immense long tail of monetisation. Of course, that was before almost the entire actual talent at the studio walked out, so what Blizzard can do in the future remains to be seen.

What is interesting is that Microsoft are probably a bit saner in their sales predictions, so they're not going to declare StarCraft a dead franchise because ~30 million sales of three games and a remaster is "not good enough," despite that being immensely profitable. So we could well see a StarCraft III or even a WarCraft IV on the horizon.

What is amusing is old PlayStation standbys Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon now likely becoming Xbox exclusives. 

[Darryk]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

So we could well see a StarCraft III or even a WarCraft IV on the horizon.

I would be really excited about a Warcraft IV.

Starcraft felt like it concluded the saga quite well with Legacy of the Void, but I guess they can still do more with that universe.

[Argonath Diver]

I'm down for some Blackthorne 2!

 

[The Anti-Targ]

I doubt the Acti/Blizz execs will even get the boot in any meaningful way. They simply understand that they can't stay on as is the normal case with almost any acquisition of this nature, they will resign with a nice golden parachute with an effective date of whenever the sale finally goes through.

Any remaining employee law suits outstanding that will be rendered null and void with this sale?

[IlyaP]

5 hours ago, Kalibuster said:

To me, the biggest thing is that Game Pass will include Blizzard games.

That's cool for things like Diablo and Overwatch - but it might be absolutely shitballs amazing if WoW is included in that. $15/month gives you WoW AND Skyrim AND Starfield AND Dishonored AND Halo AND Diablo AND Overwatch?

That would be an absurdly great deal.

Does this mean we might finally get all the Diablo games on Steam? That'd be nice.

[Kalbear]

Just now, IlyaP said:

Does this mean we might finally get all the Diablo games on Steam? That'd be nice.

Maybe? I doubt it'll happen any time soon because there are some technical things with their launcher that they would have to solve. 

[IlyaP]

Just now, Kalibuster said:

Maybe? I doubt it'll happen any time soon because there are some technical things with their launcher that they would have to solve. 

I can foresee a Day One solution to be a Battle.net integration much like what Steam did with Origin for Dragon Age 2 and 3.

[Gorn]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

What is interesting is that Microsoft are probably a bit saner in their sales predictions, so they're not going to declare StarCraft a dead franchise because ~30 million sales of three games and a remaster is "not good enough," despite that being immensely profitable. So we could well see a StarCraft III or even a WarCraft IV on the horizon.

I love StarCraft, but I don't want StarCraft III. As Darryk said, Legacy of the Void concluded the story well, and anything after that would be beating a dead horse. And any chance of WarCraft IV being developed disappeared when WoW became a hit, because no-one will mess with the ongoing WoW story now.

What I want is Blizzard using the immense resources and talent at their disposal to develop some brand new IP, instead of milking cash cows developed in the last millennium for the rest of eternity.

Some acknowledgement that exclusively single-player gamers exist and like to play games would also be nice.