Microsoft To Buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

[Hawg]

Microsoft has a lot of smart people working for it. Those people would not have agreed to buy ATVI at a 47% premium solely to make slight tweaks to ATVI's current library of game titles. For the acquisition to make sense at this price point, there must be something else that ATVI offers MS that MS doesn't already have (or is struggling to develop). What is that? It's probably MS betting on the "metaverse" .

What is the most "metaverse" item in ATVI's library? Probably WoW with its "persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you're not playing". Despite all the troubles with WoW, it still remains in a relatively unique place. It has managed to maintain millions of subscribers despite being 16+ years old (granted it has lost millions too). WoW is really unrivaled in this level of staying power.

When I don't log into COD for a month, it doesn't really matter. I can jump right back into the game and I haven't missed a thing. With WoW (particularly freshly after an expansion), when you can't log in for a month, you are missing out on progression and events and your friends and guildees' activities and progress.

So imagine taking that a step further. Having the worlds of flight simulator, Azeroth, Call of Duty, halo, diablo, etc, being persistent and ongoing - perhaps even interlinked to some extent. The worlds of those games keep evolving and changing even when you are not logged in. That would drive an entirely new kind of "desire" for game-players to engage with those titles (and perhaps the combined interlinked worlds). People fundamentally don't want to miss-out, so they will log in more.

Its that sort of experience from ATVI that makes them an attractive acquisition for MS. The value of the current games library is just the cherry on top. The real meal for MS is buying the talent that can make MS' vision of the metaverse a reality.

[SinR]

Microsoft has a lot of smart people working for it. Those people would not have agreed to buy ATVI at a 47% premium solely to make slight tweaks to ATVI's current library of game titles. For the acquisition to make sense at this price point, there must be something else that ATVI offers MS that MS doesn't already have (or is struggling to develop). What is that? It's probably MS betting on the "metaverse" .

What is the most "metaverse" item in ATVI's library? Probably WoW with its "persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you're not playing". Despite all the troubles with WoW, it still remains in a relatively unique place. It has managed to maintain millions of subscribers despite being 16+ years old (granted it has lost millions too). WoW is really unrivaled in this level of staying power.

When I don't log into COD for a month, it doesn't really matter. I can jump right back into the game and I haven't missed a thing. With WoW (particularly freshly after an expansion), when you can't log in for a month, you are missing out on progression and events and your friends and guildees' activities and progress.

So imagine taking that a step further. Having the worlds of flight simulator, Azeroth, Call of Duty, halo, diablo, etc, being persistent and ongoing - perhaps even interlinked to some extent. The worlds of those games keep evolving and changing even when you are not logged in. That would drive an entirely new kind of "desire" for game-players to engage with those titles (and perhaps the combined interlinked worlds). People fundamentally don't want to miss-out, so they will log in more.

Its that sort of experience from ATVI that makes them an attractive acquisition for MS. The value of the current games library is just the cherry on top. The real meal for MS is buying the talent that can make MS' vision of the metaverse a reality.

get off MMO-C Forums.

You're too smart for this place. You deserve better.

[Hawg]

get off MMO-C Forums.

You're too smart for this place. You deserve better.

lol not true but thanks. I'm just "working" from home at the moment so have this other computer tempting me with interesting threads like this one.

[Renedric]

I have extremely bad feelings about this. Activision burried Blizzard really deep...and I feel like Microsoft is going to bang the final nail in its cofin.

When you're at the bottom of the barrel already, you either go up or stay there. Either nothing changes, or things improve. It's good news if you ask me.

[Kumorii]

Twitter link

If this is true, maybe it holds water that it might get better when Kotick gets removed... though I reserve my judgement considering the age we live in where it's all about throwing people under the bus to avoid responsibility.

[Super Kami Dende]

Doesn't really matter. The old Blizzard guys that made the great games of the past have nearly all gone now anyway. It's not like Blizzard will suddenly return to its roots because someone else owns them.

[Kralljin]

If this is true, maybe it holds water that it might get better when Kotick gets removed... though I reserve my judgement considering the age we live in where it's all about throwing people under the bus to avoid responsibility.

Considering that person also cheers for a victory (in another tweet, she literally wrote "we outlasted you, we won, bye") that they haven't really won (after all, it is MS that basically pays out Bobby), the fact that Bobby walks off with something like 300M and that they have not even the slightest clue how the new management will operate, makes this declaration of "victory" rather naive.


Disregarding that she also insults Kotick by calling him incompetent, insecure and a narcissist (despite the fact she likely never interacted with him directly) doesn't make her look like an objective observer.
Not even mentioning that saying you've "outlasted" a person who has been CEO for over 30 years also comes across as ignorant no less.

Let's just entertain one scenario for a moment: What if MS decides to hand over some (not all) of Blizzards IP's to other studios within the X-Box umbrella? Perhaps they have little confidence that the Blizzard team(s) responsible for those IP's can deliver continous updates or simply view the structure of the team as unsalvageable / not worth salvaging?
Over the past years, the term "brain drain" have often been mentioned when talking about Blizzards emplyoment situation, maybe MS wants to move some IP's to companies that have those "brains" now?
Rather than throw down even more money at Blizzard in order to regain what they've lost over the years?

[Caprias]

They couldn't prevent sub loss when they were doing quality work. Blizzard mentioned that they had over 100 million accounts created for wow when there were currently 12 million active accounts. At that point 7 times as many people had already left than stayed. It's not about milking it. It's about adapting to the changing gaming market to stay relevant.

That's actually pretty normal, most new players didn't make it to level cap or just realized a few hours/days in it's not for them, there's a reason studies show that the first 2 hours impression is the most important to hook a player.

[Kumorii]

Considering that person also cheers for a victory (in another tweet, she literally wrote "we outlasted you, we won, bye") that they haven't really won (after all, it is MS that basically pays out Bobby), the fact that Bobby walks off with something like 300M and that they have not even the slightest clue how the new management will operate, makes this declaration of "victory" rather naive.


Disregarding that she also insults Kotick by calling him incompetent, insecure and a narcissist (despite the fact she likely never interacted with him directly) doesn't make her look like an objective observer.
Not even mentioning that saying you've "outlasted" a person who has been CEO for over 30 years also comes across as ignorant no less.

Let's just entertain one scenario for a moment: What if MS decides to hand over some (not all) of Blizzards IP's to other studios within the X-Box umbrella? Perhaps they have little confidence that the Blizzard team(s) responsible for those IP's can deliver continous updates or simply view the structure of the team as unsalvageable / not worth salvaging?
Over the past years, the term "brain drain" have often been mentioned when talking about Blizzards emplyoment situation, maybe MS wants to move some IP's to companies that have those "brains" now?
Rather than throw down even more money at Blizzard in order to regain what they've lost over the years?

Oh no, I agree... I don't think this reflects well onto herself either. I find these sort of tweets kind of awkward at best and nefarious at worst.

however, if this meddling caused lots of experimentation that later gets scrapped. It would explain why everything takes forever, and when it gets released it's very little. Blizzard do however have that as background in general. "Release when it's ready" etc etc...but it has gotten worse. But yeah, next person isn't guaranteed to make things better and considering plenty of the developers tweets in the current drama, I don't really have high hopes for the dev team even if they get free reign without much involvement of upper management wasting their time.

She clearly didn't like the guy, and they as devs were clearly the victims and that's why everything is shit nowadays... etc etc. Typical defense nowadays. But then again, it might be true. I mean that's what I'm hoping for. I wish Blizzard would release more stuff faster which they should be able to do. But I doubt it.

[Itisamuh]

So imagine taking that a step further. Having the worlds of flight simulator, Azeroth, Call of Duty, halo, diablo, etc, being persistent and ongoing - perhaps even interlinked to some extent. The worlds of those games keep evolving and changing even when you are not logged in. That would drive an entirely new kind of "desire" for game-players to engage with those titles (and perhaps the combined interlinked worlds). People fundamentally don't want to miss-out, so they will log in more.

The flip side to this is that a lot of people also despise feeling like they have to play all the time to avoid falling behind or missing out. Shooters in particular tend to attract a market of those who just want to play whenever they feel like it and where the only downside to not playing for a while is rusty reflexes. As long as the persistent changes had nothing to do with grinds or player power it would be alright though.

[Kralljin]

She clearly didn't like the guy, and they as devs were clearly the victims and that's why everything is shit nowadays... etc etc. Typical defense nowadays. But then again, it might be true. I mean that's what I'm hoping for. I wish Blizzard would release more stuff faster which they should be able to do. But I doubt it.

For me personally, i just get the impression that less competent developers want use this opportunity to basically blame everything onto one guy.

I'm not saying that Kotick is innocent - he highly likely fostered the enviroment that causes a decline in quality, but i'm not buying that this is a situation of "Lions led by donkeys".
WoW in itself is proof of that, i don't buy for one minute that Kotick (or any of this direct subordinates) told the WoW team to implement Covenants, Conduit Energy, the Maw (in its original state) or any of the really poor design decisions of the last 6-8 years.
These were terrible ideas, hatched by the WoW team, blew right in their faces - while also throwing player feedback criticizing those decisions into the bin.

If anything, Kotick created (among other things) an enviroment where people that were woefully unqualified for the job were hired (because skilled people tend to decline jobs with shitty pay) or people were promoted to a position way above their qualifications due to variety of reasons.
While one can obviously blame that on Kotick, it also comes with the concession that those people are not suited for their respective jobs, which is something *new management* has to deal with one way or another.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Twitter link

If this is true, maybe it holds water that it might get better when Kotick gets removed... though I reserve my judgement considering the age we live in where it's all about throwing people under the bus to avoid responsibility.

Just one tweet down she says he hid behind scapegoats so it’s safe to say she’s just making up that he had any hand in it because she rightfully hates him.

The idea that he was micomanging overwatch projects and it wasn’t just designers flip flopping just like they did with project Titan seems laughable.

[munkeyinorbit]

That's actually pretty normal, most new players didn't make it to level cap or just realized a few hours/days in it's not for them, there's a reason studies show that the first 2 hours impression is the most important to hook a player.

Thank you for your supportive post.

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wow/diablo is saved Microsoft def will put love into these franchises

Or they will do a Disney and put out a lot of titles that "the real fans" hate but make it seem as though 70B was way too low of a price.

[DragonsBeard]

They bought it for activision, blizzard is just a bonus

- - - Updated - - -

The real comedy here is people thinking no Kotick is suddenly going to affect WoW at all

Dude probably knew literally nothing about the game aside from how much money it made, people at microsoft will be no different

Game is still at its lowest point and showing no signs of recovery, and you'd have to be blind to not see that

We don't know what they are actually after, if it's just Activision, that's a waste of 70b. if it's just King, that's a waste of 70b. If it's just Blizzard, that's a waste of 70b. It's also bad for business to buy a problem company for 70b and let the status quo continue. You wouldn't buy a failing Restaurant and let the current people running it continue as if nothing has changed. To assume NOTHING will be done to improve anything is ignorant.. That said, the fate of WoW is pretty unclear. They will likely have someone look at the state of things, and the cost to make it more profitable. It's entirely possible they think the game is making as much as it can and call it a day. Or they could look at where it was and where it is, then decide it's got more value with better people in charge of the project. Or they could think it's dead and shut it down. We don't know.

But again, to assume nothing will happen at all with WoW after this is silly. You don't by a company for 70b and NOT assess the current projects that produce profit of any kind.

[Niwes]

We don't know what they are actually after, if it's just Activision, that's a waste of 70b. if it's just King, that's a waste of 70b. If it's just Blizzard, that's a waste of 70b. It's also bad for business to buy a problem company for 70b and let the status quo continue. You wouldn't buy a failing Restaurant and let the current people running it continue as if nothing has changed. To assume NOTHING will be done to improve anything is ignorant.. That said, the fate of WoW is pretty unclear. They will likely have someone look at the state of things, and the cost to make it more profitable. It's entirely possible they think the game is making as much as it can and call it a day. Or they could look at where it was and where it is, then decide it's got more value with better people in charge of the project. Or they could think it's dead and shut it down. We don't know.

But again, to assume nothing will happen at all with WoW after this is silly. You don't by a company for 70b and NOT assess the current projects that produce profit of any kind.

well spoken and imo 100% correct.

- we simply cant and dont know what will happen (heck, even they dont know clearly yet). correct.
- noone is using 70b without closely watching his investment and doing ANYTHING. correct.

being in that business as sw dev for 20+ years, so yes, 100% agree.

[Roar-Powah]

Since Blizzard and A$$tivision merged shit went down hill fast in all Blizzards IPs, lets see how MS can clean this crap up.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is expected to leave after the deal closes.
More like he got the ass, he has a very bad name in the gaming world and it would've been so stupid not to fully remove him.

[czarek]

Since Blizzard and A$$tivision merged shit went down hill fast in all Blizzards IPs, lets see how MS can clean this crap up.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is expected to leave after the deal closes.
More like he got the ass, he has a very bad name in the gaming world and it would've been so stupid not to fully remove him.

They did merge in 2007 (starts in 2007 finished in 2008) i think in that time no one could say shit is goin dow the hill.