"In a ruling submitted today, Judge Corley said the following:
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED. "
I know a lot of people (rightfully) are against it . But the way Activision/Blizzard has been run has been shambles and needs at least some kind of change. Plus the scrutiny has lead to several concessions by MS that will help curtail future antitrust issues for the most part.
They’re run more effectively than Microsoft has run their gaming division for the past ~15 years or so… Microsoft’s gaming leadership has seen one of the most valuable gaming IPs, Halo, flounder again and again and again. They closed all their game studios and spent a whole generation with minimal first party exclusives, they did I don’t know how much damage to Arkane with Redfall…
More generally, Microsoft’s approach to leading their game studios is to leave them to run the way the studio was ran pre-acquisition. Activision-Blizzard is not going to see major changes to the way they run if this deal does go through (pending CMA). Microsoft will Activision to be run the way it is now, and only intervene if profits dip too much (considering Halo, though, that might take quite the dip).
I don’t get the assumption that Activision is going to see some major cleanup from this. They won’t.
Microsoft aren’t to blame for Redfall. Redfall started development in 2018 but Microsoft didn’t buy them til 2021. Redfall sucks because Arkane Austin made a bad game without any input from MS.
Microsoft didn’t close all their studios either. In fact they’ve barely closed any actual studios that have made xbox games. They closed ones that were bad though. Lionhead closed because Fable Legends was bad. I was in the beta, and it was not a good game. It would have absolutely flopped and killed the studio. They closed Ensemble almost 15 years ago. That’s about it really.
Devs can do no wrong, it’s always the publishers.
Well in that case it’s still not Microsoft, it’s Bethesda.
Well at least it’s gonna clean up the really horrible practices at Activision Blizzard with all the SA allegations. MS is infinitely better for the workers than ABK.
That only happens if Microsoft cleans house, which hasn’t been their MO yet. It could happen. It’s just not certain to happen. There’s no real reason to predict it will or will not happen in either direction.
You’re right , MS has been very hands off with their studios since Bungie (they may have overcorrected a little too much). But I think there’s been dialogue of this changing especially after the Redfall dev cycle (very surprised Bethesda forced Arkane into such a departure from their regular MO). This will be very necessary especially with ABK.
I haven’t seen anything from Microsoft to indicate this. What did you see from them that makes you think that?
The biggest sign was the upheaval of 343 leadership recently. Finally being rid of Bonnie Ross will do wonders for the team hopefully. I believe I’ve seen Matt Booty ( what a name) mention how they’ve given more power to the team who came in and fixed MCC. Plus they’ve recently mentioned how other dev studios might also get involved with the franchise.
found it
Plus they’ve recently changed the team responsible for Perfect Dark as well. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come (who would have thought people would be WANTING them to become more hands on).
Hmm are they ? Yes 343 has been meh. But I’ve enjoyed the new Gears games, Forza hasn’t missed a step, Psychonauts may have been my GOTY, Ori has become one of my favorite series’s of all time, HiFi Rush was a surprise hit as well as Pentiment. Also the issue with Arkane was Bethesda mandating them to make it a GaaS before their acquisition with MS; other wise they were hands off (which they’ve done to a fault).
Meanwhile ATVI recently has been Sekiro and Diablo? I’m probably forgetting some games for sure. And let’s not forget all the SA that have run rampant at that company unfortunately :(
I think after recent developments and from how MS has been changing their tune, it feels they’ve learnt from their extreme hands off position. At least I hope so. Hopefully they get to that perfect middle ground that Sony has achieved
On games side, ActiBlizz is much better than MS. I’m more concerned if they instead become like other MS studio, releasing games every few years and forgotten immediately
That’s a bit of a massive overgeneralization. The list of games studios under MS is pretty large now and a lot of them make great games:
343 Industries The Coalition Compulsion Games Double Fine Productions The Initiative inXile Entertainment Mojang Studios Ninja Theory Obsidian Entertainment Playground Games Rare Turn 10 Studios Undead Labs World’s Edge Xbox Game Studios Publishing Bethesda Softworks Alpha Dog Games Arkane Studios id Software MachineGames Roundhouse Studios Tango Gameworks ZeniMax Online Studios
The thing is, MS is usually hands off for a few years after they acquire a company. Game launches can be hit and miss based on how good the individual studios are. I don’t think just because they’re owned by MS is a good indicator of whether or not they make good games.
I wouldn’t expect Activision/Blizzard to change much. They’re a huge company. The only good thing would be maybe getting rid of Bobby Kotick
Based on the track record, they might not be the ones to whip Activision/Blizzard in to shape.
Honestly, I have my doubts that even call of duty will survive this.