Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[Uncle Mike]

What a fucking crock there from Kotick. Regardless of your views on the merger, him trying to plead that Activision are shit, actually (his final words), and also pretending to be surprised that Sony aren't all that interested in exploring "future opportunities" with a company that's shortly due to be owned by their main competitor and likely see the entire exec team leave seems like not a genuine argument.

 

Should Sony be investing in loads of deals now to tie up all the Activision content so they end up like they were with Deathloop and Ghostwire? I imagine it wasn't in their plan when they obtained those exclusive deals that everyone knew they'd be on Game Pass exactly a year later. And trying to do that sort of work would quite undermine the Sony argument anyway, wouldn't it? It's weak argument from someone who should be better at this sort of thing? I assume Kotick's quite personally invested in getting the deal through - the price tag seems very generous given 2023's outlook, and presumably he'd be expecting a massive golden goodbye. But it's just a third company (after MS and Sony) all crying in public about how shit and meaningless their companies are from a Zoom call on their gold-plated toilets.

[Majora]

They should say they'll divest the Call of Duty brand from the business, keep the main talent from the studios, then get them to make a totally new and unrelated franchise named Call of Honour. It's a foolproof plan to trick the regulators 

 

[Uncle Mike]

It obviously wouldn't be that easy, but I do think the "divest COD" remedy is likely the least effective, if the goal is to somehow ensure everyone gets it. How much of COD's success is the brilliance of the game, and how much is Activision's support sledgehammering it into the public consciousness every year? How much does belonging to that giant behemoth a benefit that you can't replicate outside?

 

I don't care one jot for COD, so don't really know any of that. But I did see the difference with Destiny inside and outside of Activision, and they really clearly and visibly started struggling to produce the volume of work they needed to do, and generate the income they needed for a good while after they left.

[JohnC]

Maybe a lot more people shot not return Bobby Kotex calls. 

[Popo]

2 hours ago, Majora said:

They should say they'll divest the Call of Duty brand from the business, keep the main talent from the studios, then get them to make a totally new and unrelated franchise named Call of Honour. It's a foolproof plan to trick the regulators 

 

Dutycall. 
 

They could get the Allsaints to record the theme song. 

[bear]

I wonder if at some level MS are now looking at the deal along the lines of "fuck it, give Activision their $2Biillion and pull out of the deal, it'll have been money well spent considering it helped kill Stadia and drive Google out the door" .

 

[rgraves]

And I can't see Acti being that cosy with Sony going forward now regardless, some bridges will deffo have been burnt at exec level.

 

if it doesn't go through, the ultimate troll would be MS signing a 'marketing' contract to get CoD on GP day 1 and not allowing it to go on PS Plus for at least a year as well.

[Superunknown]

Sony aren't going to be talking to them in the usual manner because of the proposed merger and regulator involvement. I doubt any bridges have been burnt; it's just business-as-usual corporate stuff - if the merger doesn't go through Activision still want to make money, Sony still want to make money. At any given time they're all just doing and saying what they believe will maximise profit and shareholder value.

[Sarlaccfood]

Yeah anyone that breaks their fiduciary duty to make as much money as possible for shareholders will be sacked and face legal action. 
 

There’s no room for “trolling” in the same way that there’s no room for massive companies to do the morally right thing when it comes to environment, workers rights etc. 
 

 

[MidWalian]

Founder of the dev studio behind "Metal Hellsinger" not looking happy about Microsoft saying one thing to developers and another to regulators.

For those who can't see the tweet for a variety of reasons Spencer said in the past that a game going on gamepass is good for future sales, internal documents say otherwise. As for MAUs, I think it's safe to say they are giving a false impression there...not necessarily a lie but lawyer friendly like "we have no intention to...".

[Flanders]

One of the more amusing aspects of these investigations has been how the frequent obvious bollocks that Phil Spencer had been spouting off to gullible games media for years has been immediately unpicked by people in the real world who are unmoved by T-shirts with logos on them. 

[MidWalian]

Microsoft subpoenas Google, ActivisionBlizzard doing the same to Nintendo.

 

Source:

 

[Uzi]

These companies won't return our calls!!!

[Broker]

12 hours ago, deerokus said:

Again, isn't it better to have a more competitive third place?

That’s not really how it works with competition regulations though. If Microsoft want to compete, they should do it by running their business well. Constantly just buying out more successful game developers because your parent company happens to make money from every office in the western world is considered anti competitive. Plus they’ve already bought tonnes of developers and still aren’t managing to compete, and are apparently tanking the profits of smaller studios by lying to them about the potential profitability of Gamepass. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that even if this deal went through in full, it might still not put Microsoft in second place, and would just hurt a lot of Sony customers who like COD.
 

I love my Xbox, I love Gamepass and I’ve had fantastic gaming experiences with every one of Microsoft’s consoles, but there’s a level at which they’re not very good at this when it comes to making money and keeping studios afloat. The parent company keep bailing out the Xbox division, but there’s a real argument that letting Microsoft keep buying out studios and kill them might not be what’s best for the industry. Plus when Microsoft first started this whole thing they were better and their games were better. Subsuming studios into a corporate behemoth hasn’t generally been very successful. 

[mushashi]

On 09/02/2023 at 11:06, Uncle Mike said:

It obviously wouldn't be that easy, but I do think the "divest COD" remedy is likely the least effective, if the goal is to somehow ensure everyone gets it. How much of COD's success is the brilliance of the game, and how much is Activision's support sledgehammering it into the public consciousness every year? How much does belonging to that giant behemoth a benefit that you can't replicate outside?

 

I don't care one jot for COD, so don't really know any of that. But I did see the difference with Destiny inside and outside of Activision, and they really clearly and visibly started struggling to produce the volume of work they needed to do, and generate the income they needed for a good while after they left.

 

Destiny by the end of its time at Activision was having to employ multiple Activision developers to churn out content for it, so when Bungie got yet another divorce, they didn't have the manpower to keep that rate of content production up.

 

Call of Duty is at the point where Activision is essentially just a CoD factory, with most of their remaining developers working on some variant of it. Blizzard and King do their own thing, so separating Call of Duty is essentially splitting off Activision from Blizzard and King, they make practically fuckall else now apart from Crash Bandicoot, and the founders of that developer left to go make their dream sequel to one of their old games.

[rgraves]

On 08/02/2023 at 13:06, Alex W. said:

Because Nintendo didn’t previously have CoD.

Erm...

 

 

[Alex W.]

Exactly, there is no version of COD on the Switch and therefore they won’t miss it when it’s “gone”.

 

Unlike Sony.

 

Wait why did you wait two weeks to waste my time with this?

[footle]

1 minute ago, Alex W. said:

Exactly, there is no version of COD on the Switch and therefore they won’t miss it when it’s “gone”.

 

Unlike Sony.

 

And therefore CoD isn't necessary to sell lots of consoles - which is the point previously made.

[Alex W.]

Just now, footle said:

 

And therefore CoD isn't necessary to sell lots of consoles - which is the point previously made.

And if the competition authorities were answering the question “could someone hypothetically do well without A/B games”, that might matter. But it’s “will withdrawing A/B games materially harm the ability of Sony to compete”.

 

Which is a conversation we had weeks ago.

[Giddas]

18 minutes ago, footle said:

 

And therefore CoD isn't necessary to sell lots of consoles - which is the point previously made.

 

The makers of the Miyoo Mini also do not have an issue with the takeover.

 

[Stanley]

Even when Nintendo did have COD they were never seen as the best versions when compared to PlayStation, which during the PS4 gen onwards could even be considered to be the flagship version. I’m sure Nintendo would be happy to get it back mind. 

[Alex W.]

4 minutes ago, Giddas said:

 

The makers of the Miyoo Mini also do not have an issue with the takeover.

 

Yep, there are tonnes of examples showing that all Sony has to do to succeed is not directly compete with Microsoft. I am sure that the Competition and Markets Authority investigation has nothing to do with competition so this is a slam dunk.

 

Incredible that Microsoft has not made this obviously well founded argument.

[rgraves]

37 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

 all Sony has to do to succeed is not directly compete with Microsoft.

 

I don't think the argument here though is "what do Sony have to do to succeed" - they've already done that. I think the argument is - would taking CoD away from Sony mean they were no longer able to compete in a meaningful way - and my point is that Nintendo are currently showing that's perfectly possible. Arguing that Nintendo never had it (which is not really true apart from the current gen) doesn't really make a difference - you demonstrably can compete (more than compete, WIN) in this exact market without that content. Saying or arguing otherwise is just being blind to what's happening right now. If it was not possible to compete in this market without CoD, how come the one player of the three main ones without it is currently winning. Not just competing, winnning.

 

And if it's not all about CoD, if it's about wider cloud-based services or something, then why is the resolution on the table - take away CoD and it's all fine? How does removing CoD suddnely make the wider cloud eco-system stuff any better?

 

And yes, I did necromance that post from ages ago for no apparent reason other than it was Monday and I've just read that Sony has acquired another studio for themselves while all this is going on.

[Kevvy Metal]

12 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

I don't think the argument here though is "what do Sony have to do to suceed" - they've already done that. I think the argument is - would taking CoD away from Sony mean they were no longer able to succeed or compete - and my point is that Nintendo are currently showing that's perfectly possible. Arguing that Nintendo never had it doesn;t really make a difference- you demonstably can compete (more than compete, WIN) in this exact market without that content. Saying or arguing otherwise is just being blind to what's happening right now. If it was not possible to compete in this market without CoD, how come the one player of the three main ones is currently winning. Not jsut competing, winnning.

 

And if it's not all about CoD, if it's about wider cloud-based services or something, then why is the resolution on the table - take away CoD and it's all fine? How does removing CoD suddnely make the wider cloud eco-system stuff any better?

 

And yes, I did necromance that post from ages ago for no apparent reason other than it was Monday and I've just read that Sony has acquired another studio for themselves while all this is going on.

 

Even though Nintendo has been on top in hardware sales -which they will be making money on unlike the other two who might be breaking even at best- is it not Sony who are on top in terms of dollars made per month? This will be from the percentage cut on game sales and subscriptions, and COD is at the very, very top of that. 

[K]

I think Mercedes-Benz Group shows that a company can do extremely well without making videogames at all, let alone without Call of Duty. Food for thought when considering whether this deal really is anti-competitive.

[rgraves]

1 minute ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

Even though Nintendo has been on top in hardware sales -which they'll will be making money on unlike the other two who might be breaking even at best- is it not Sony who are on top in terms of dollars made per month? 

 

If we're talking NPD, only the last few months - before that Nintendo were on a record streak at the top.

[rgraves]

4 minutes ago, K said:

I think Mercedes-Benz Group shows that a company can do extremely well without making videogames at all, let alone without Call of Duty. Food for thought when considering whether this deal really is anti-competitive.

 

[Alex W.]

2 hours ago, rgraves said:

 

I don't think the argument here though is "what do Sony have to do to succeed" - they've already done that. I think the argument is - would taking CoD away from Sony mean they were no longer able to compete in a meaningful way - and my point is that Nintendo are currently showing that's perfectly possible. Arguing that Nintendo never had it (which is not really true apart from the current gen) doesn't really make a difference - you demonstrably can compete (more than compete, WIN) in this exact market without that content. Saying or arguing otherwise is just being blind to what's happening right now. If it was not possible to compete in this market without CoD, how come the one player of the three main ones without it is currently winning. Not just competing, winnning.

 

And if it's not all about CoD, if it's about wider cloud-based services or something, then why is the resolution on the table - take away CoD and it's all fine? How does removing CoD suddnely make the wider cloud eco-system stuff any better?

You seem to be fixated on this as some abstract hypothetical puzzle box entirely predicated on the Call of Duty franchise. It’s a question of the specific consequences of each of the many specific things that happen as a result of Microsoft’s acquiring Activision-Blizzard, and how in aggregate they would change the competitive landscape that exists. Divesting CoD is proposed as a specific remedy because it changes that aggregate outcome.

 

You’re confused as to why Microsoft have supposedly crossed this abstract bright line because nobody is claiming that. I would have thought reading any of the objections or Microsoft’s responses made that clear.

Edit - Are you hung up on the word “previously” in what I said about Nintendo? Let’s try:

 

”Nintendo is unlike Sony in this case because they would not have previously had CoD in the event Microsoft made it exclusive. Sony’s business involves CoD while Nintendo’s doesn’t, and therefore the consequences are different.”

 

I thought it was cleaner without the awful tense and case switches and with a nice metaphor but this gets the point across more literally after five or ten minutes of unpacking it.

 

The fact that a hypothetical version of Sony could or even does exist which would not be adversely affected by Microsoft’s actions is of no bearing.

[Alex W.]

1 hour ago, rgraves said:

would taking CoD away from Sony mean they were no longer able to compete in a meaningful way

Just for emphasis, this is not the problem.

[K]

That is a big commitment - one that’s going to tie up a lot of development resource for the next decade. They must be absolutely desperate for this to go through. I can understand that on a certain level - I would do anything to get Bobby Kotick away from Activision too - but this does seem like a very expensive way of putting Call of Duty onto a platform that traditionally hasn’t had much use for it.