Laws against monopolies don’t exist, anymore, eh?
Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal approved by UK regulators
Submitted 11 months ago by thehatfox@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23796552/microsoft-activision-blizzard-cma-approval-uk
Comments
jerome@lemmy.world 11 months ago
NuPNuA@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Because this won’t give MS a monopoly in the slightest. There’s still tons of Devs and publisher’s out there on various states of first, second and third party relationships with MS, Sony and Nintendo and new indie Devs pop up almost weekly. It gives them a massive advantage having CoD as a first party Gamepass title, yes, but that’s not what a monopoly means.
toastus@feddit.de 11 months ago
Usually I am against huge mergers like this because they rarely benefit the customer, but ActiBlizzard was about as bad as it gets anyway.
Selfishly I hope maybe at least one decent RTS might come from this before everything gets enshittyfied again.
I realize though that OG Warcraft/Starcract were not the big motivators for MS so the chance is probably slim.Damdy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You should look into Stormgate.
It’s an upcoming rts from frost giant studios which consists of some of the original blizzard team responsible for StarCraft.
andxz@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Microsoft still supports AoE2, and that game is going on 22+ years. Some of the other stuff they’ve released has been a bit hit and miss, but they at least tried to do something fresh.
I’ll take that over ActiBlizz dropping support for the SC2 pro scene for no good reason other than “profitability” any day.
Hell, maybe they can fix WoW classic while they’re at it, and say what you will about the guy but if I understand correctly even Chris Metzen is coming back.
gataloca@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Out of all these studios I suppose I like Microsoft’s games the most, but I still think it’s bad that the regulators didn’t shoot down this merger from the view of competitiveness.
I don’t think the gaming market is healthy when only a handful of corporations like Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA Games and SquareEnix hold what I assume to be 75% of the gaming AAA market. It restricts creativity and stifles competition and the ones paying the price are going to be us consumers.
Even worse if they go and start vendor locking games to Windows, which sucks for us Linux gamers or Xbox which sucks for Playstation gamers.
kadu@lemmy.world 11 months ago
[deleted]Katana314@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Steam Deck has put a small thorn in their OS side. It used to be ridiculous to have a Linux gaming computer, but it’s become much more viable thanks to the Deck’s existence.
Basically to say Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull a massive move like requiring Windows subscription prices without a lot of gamers going to Linux.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Rip
Zoldyck@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Blizzard was already dead
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I mean for gamers in general. This merger will not benefit consumers.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
They’ve been dead since Activision needed with them.
kandoh@reddthat.com 11 months ago
How many new AAA studios could be created from scratch with this money?
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Not too mention losing all the devs who’ll probably leave due to the nether anyway.
LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Finally. Screw the UK for holding this up. 100% pissy I ended up posting for Diablo instead of having it on gp.
timception@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I didn’t even get D4 yet (but planned to) and all my friends have stopped playing it already ☠️ I don’t think they have anything else up their sleeve at this point. Seems they haven’t made anything new since warcraft.
Deceptichum@kbin.social 11 months ago
Overwatch was amazing under Jeff.
verysoft@kbin.social 11 months ago
You say this, but Jeff was there when they started OW2. He was the one who even announced it and their plan to forcibly replace Overwatch.
timception@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oof sorry I forgot about that one.
RobertOwnageJunior@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They are still pumping money like crazy though.
nathris@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
D4 was dead the moment they announced D2R. Why would I pay $80 for a game with microtransactions and battlepass when I can pay $50 for a game that comes complete in box?
They should have taken D2R kept the mechanics and just rolled new classes, maps, and items.
I don’t want a new game, I just want more content.
Carighan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Get D4 (Dungeons 4) instead! It’s coming out soon!
theKalash@feddit.ch 11 months ago
Nice, let’s get this on the way!
fuggadihere@lemmy.world 11 months ago
RIP ABK franchises
NuPNuA@lemm.ee 11 months ago
All three of them that actually get any focus under ABK at the moment? If anything we might get to see some of the ones usually ignored have a day in the sun if MS wants to diversify their Gamepass offerings. We may get that Tony Hawk’s 3&4 remake rather than Volition being thrown in the CoD mines, a Crash or Spyro game with Rares involvement, etc.
ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 11 months ago
This is just "imagine the X-Men in the mainline Marvel cinematic universe!" moment...
BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
That merger reminds me of this sketch: Halo: The Future of Gaming piped.video/JFtoanBDjOE
aluminium@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh boy, can’t wait for more average but poorly managed games!
slazer2au@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Don’t forget console exclusive.
Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 11 months ago
Or just windows store exclusives…
drekly@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s not so bad now gamepass is a thing, usually they’re on pc at launch