• Plume (She/Her)@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Let’s hope it doesn’t happen. I don’t know why some people get excited. Monopolies are never a good thing and Microsoft is ONCE again getting too big…

    • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      Except Microsoft is in a distant third place in the gaming market - Sony has had the crown for that for years, and has actually used its market position in the past to make things worse for competitors and for gamers in general.

      • Sancorso@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Kinda like Nintendo back in the day.

        Sure, i don’t like monopolies, but pushing Sony of his comfort zone and making things a little better for users in the way.

      • GreenAlex@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Sony buying everything is just as much a problem as MS doing it. I think the main difference is that they’ve stayed under the radar by doing smaller purchases, but I want someone to push the brakes on them equally as much.

      • KaiserFill@lemmy.studio
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        1 year ago

        Microsoft can do that by actually competing. Throwing money around solely to take things away from people who don’t buy their products to entrench themselves in the market is anti-competitive. Allowing that sort of thing means any behemoth can come and muscle their way into any market they want to. This is a bad future.

        • tiltmachine@compuverse.uk
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          1 year ago

          Throwing money around solely to take things away from people, like Sony does? So it’s fine if it’s small enough and affects less people (Xbox users)? Or the other illogical line of thought of “they’re both not okay but don’t let them do what the smaller guy who controls more of the market does”.

          Microsoft is only bigger because Xbox isn’t separate, they’re not even second biggest after the purchased.

  • Briongloid@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    I’m torn, because normally I wouldn’t want a company like microsoft to buy such a big publisher, but what Activision did to Blizzard was so bad that Microsoft would be an improvement.

    • AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Very much in the same boat. Can’t stomach their shitty policies and their garbage CEO aynmore. If MS purged these people after buying, I could finally think about going back to their products. And I don’t see that happening without MS. Even with MS it’d be only a tiny chance.

    • Khalic@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      When, in the whole history of gaming, has an acquisition improved on the company they bought?

    • a_cat@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      This is exactly my take. I can’t in good conscious buy a Blizzard game right now, so I kind of wanted this to go through.

      Every other part of me did not want this to go through. With how popular game pass is, and how many studios they’re buying, this is just a recipe for a bait and switch and a bad situation for gamers down the road.

    • whelk@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Right, I was actually hoping it would go through so I could potentially lift my boycott of ActiBlizz that I started during the Blitzchung incident and only solidified as more information came out about the horrible things going on at Blizzard with some of their employees. Weirdly enough, I really want to play Heroes of the Storm again.

    • nosyfpedestrian@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure Microsoft could really save Blizzard at this point in time. Microsoft also does not have the greatest trackrecord of buying other game publishers. Instead of it becoming a toxic environment, it often just slowly becomes less and less of what made it unique and fun in the first place. So yeah. torn as well. I really like your take.

      • DarkenLM@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        And unfortunately, we just need to take a look at Mojang to see how they’re starting to fall from grace lately.

    • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Microsoft might improve Blizzard and the rest of Activision, but it will be a net loss for the industry. Microsoft has too much power in the market already, and that will only grow over time as they use their power from other segments to take over more. I see it in the business world already. They basically took over the entire market for business email, then pretty much dropped their self hosting options, leaving most business with only the option of M365. Which is great, until they decided to change partner terms on a dime and increase prices and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to stop it. Our options are either leave for Google(who’s business tools absolutely suck), or look to FOSS, which has a rather high maintenance cost. Microsoft has that industry captured, and it is almost impossible to break out of.

    • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think Microsoft as a company is trying to pivot away from game development and instead becoming game publisher. Which all things considered, isn’t a bad thing. WIth improvements to AI, I imagine being a game creator is going to become much easier, so much easier, that AAA game studios just won’t be able to compete.

      So being in charge of the marketplace is a good business strategy in that context.

  • GreenAlex@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Slightly pains me to say that this is a good thing. As much as I hate what’s happened to Blizzard but especially Crash and Spyro, monopolies are only going to end up making things so much worse.

  • Otome-chan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I think this is a good thing. I’m not at all a fan of activision-blizzard, but I just can’t see any benefits from microsoft buying them.

  • bored_pistachio@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I am happy to hear that. Microsoft hoarding all major publishers under one umbrella is extremely bad for a customer on a long run. We need competition.

    • tiltmachine@compuverse.uk
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      1 year ago

      Except they really aren’t merging into the biggest market player, not even second. Do you force someone with bigger budget to buy a Vios because this other guy can only buy the same? “Well Microsoft needs to make better games”.

      Duh?! But they can also buy what they can afford to buy without shit regulators blocking stuff because “cloud gaming” or aome shit about COD. Sony is blocking 3RD PARTY GAMES from going to Xbox, fuck that shit and fuck you!