The Latest in a long line of Microsoft studio grabs has the whole industry talking but what does this mean for us gamers?
Now, Unless you have been AFK for a few weeks, you have heard the big news coming from the gaming industry.
On January the 18th Microsoft made another Disney-style power play in the gaming world, buying Activision/Blizzard for a cool $70billion. For some context for any non-gamers reading this, it dwarfs Microsoft’s next biggest acquisition, LinkedIn for a modest $26billion in 2016.
How have they pulled it off? Despite Bill Gates’ near unlimited resources, why would a studio responsible for classics like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Diablo want to sell. With an active player-base of 450 million, why would you cash in? That’s where the perfect storm of circumstances come into play for Xbox CEO Phil Spencer and Microsoft.
Activision/Blizzard, regardless of its commercial success, has been steeped in controversy in recent months. Multiple accusations of sexual harassment and poor treatment of female employees has seen the company in big legal trouble and their stock price plummet as a result . Not too long after the allegations were made public, Phil Spencer told The New York Times they had “changed how we do certain things with the company”, a clear message that Phil wasn’t happy with what he was hearing about a company they work so closely with. It would appear “changing” things wasn’t enough so Microsoft made the Thanos play and decided to fix it themselves. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick may well have wanted to sell but clearly circumstances accelerated the process.
So what does this mean for gaming? Every exclusive worth having on Xbox or PC?
Worse games due to competing studios being brought under one banner? A hike in Game Pass prices now that Xbox has a lot of the great IPs? Probably nothing as drastic as any of that. The console wars are long gone as cross-platform comes to the fore not to mention Xbox hasn’t hoarded exclusives over the last few years despite adding *deep breath*: Bethesda, Compulsion games, Obsidian, Ninja Theory, InXile Ent, Playground games, Undead labs, Double fire productions and Minecraft’s Mojang studios to their ever growing roster of 32 studios.
Acquisitions that Game Critic at VGC and Editor in chief of Overlode Jordan Middler thinks we may not see the outcome of for some time: “ The tell will be in 10 years, to see not how many studios are shuttered but how many big names will leave these studios to form their own thing. When these studios get acquired the people at the top make a lot of money because they are shareholders. For someone like Todd Howard, the deal probably made him even more of a multi multi millionaire. So if he is still at Bethesda in 10 years, probably still working on Elder Scrolls VI that will tell you Microsoft is a good place. A good litmus test is Tim Schafer at double fine, he has been kicking a ball in the industry for 30 years, if he is sticking with Microsoft it seems like quite a good place.”
Most fans actually seem excited by the prospect of Microsoft taking over such a beloved but troubled studio. Call of Duty online and Warzone is in the worst state it’s been for years with little to no correspondence with fans or creators, so everyone is excited to see how Microsoft can improve that relationship as well as the games themselves. That’s before even mentioning Game pass which if it wasn’t great value already is bordering on too good to be true now. Over 100 games at your fingertips including day one releases for some of the biggest games out for just £12 a month, it’s easy to see how the service has already amassed 45 million users.
However despite acknowledging it’s clear upsides, Jordan isn’t 100 percent certain it bodes well for the nostalgic days of staying up for midnight releases: “I do wonder with everything going to game pass does it devalue games in some way. All these blockbuster, midnight releases, the type of games you would take a day off school for, the fact they are on this service is amazing from a consumer perspective. I just cant help but wonder if it is somewhat counterproductive. It would be like if everything in the cinema was immediately on Netflix. I mean When GTA V launched it was the most successful entertainment property in 24 hours, those stories just don’t happen with game pass. On the other hand if someone asks me which next generation console to buy and they can’t afford to spend £70 a month on a PS5 game then the series X or S is a no brainer.”
Now that Xbox controls another huge batch of titles, the value you are getting for your money is going to increase even more. The temptation to move console may never have been greater but Spencer and Microsoft remain committed to working with Sony, so PlayStation users can breathe easy, for now. The Xbox CEO told Bloomberg: “To players out there who are playing Activision/Blizzard games on Sony’s platform, it’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform.” A sentiment Jordan echoed saying: “Call of duty is safe. If you pull Call of Duty from PS you pull 60% of its audience. These games live and die by their audience and communities.”
Well Xbox had better keep their end as Sony had been working on a deal of their own in the background. Bringing one of Xbox’s maiden studios, Bungie, under the PlayStation banner for a fraction of the Activision money at just $3.6billion while announcing they too plan to keep their titles “generation spanning”. Will the truce hold? Or will the Console wars kick off again?
Jordan thinks keeping the peace would be beneficial for all parties, adding: “Buying Bethesda and making their next title exclusive will cost Microsoft the PS5 players £70 on day one but with Call of Duty you leave millions and millions out there with battle pass, skins, everything. There is no way they cut that off and it would then become a poker game. If MS pulls C.O.D, Jim Ryan will say well Destiny isn’t on Xbox. It’s a cold war. It loses both sides money. Some Activision stuff a tier below may go exclusive but C.O.D is safe. It would be like if EA went to a publisher and made FIFA exclusive.”
Comments