Microsoft to buy Blizzard.

The timing is impeccable: “Microsoft Gaming will acquire Activision Blizzard — the embattled video game publisher behind such hit franchises as Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch and Candy Crush — in a $68.7 billion deal, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. The proposed price would make Activision Blizzard the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history, even as Activision Blizzard grapples with multiple lawsuits and claims of a toxic work environment.”

…Damned if I know why they’re doing it, aside of course from the fact that even a company as messed up as Blizzard is still a gateway into what is inexplicably (to me*, at least) being called the ‘metaverse’ now. There’s money in them thair pixels, and Microsoft likes money. Which has somehow become one of the less annoying corporate attitudes out there. At least they’re not yelling at me all the time…

Moe Lane

*I get that it’s probably a READY PLAYER ONE reference. Not gonna lie; I didn’t bother watching the movie. I’m already, you know, kind of in this Metaverse thing? Why would I watch something that’s just showing a more narratively coherent version of my normal operating environment?

#commissionearned

5 thoughts on “Microsoft to buy Blizzard.”

  1. Ahhh. But how would you feel about them purchasing Bioware?

    Basically, Blizzard has some *very* solid IP… and much of the immediate “lawsuits and toxic work environment” issues can be handled with a sufficiently enthusiastic bit of executive pruning.

    Before Steam, back when Blizzard was one of the few production houses putting out decent Mac games, it would have been a much more aggressive move. Microsoft’s mellowed a bit since then, though.

    1. I figure Microsoft is looking at doing “Netflix but with video games”.

      Pay a monthly money, play new or legacy games.

      Some of the really retro ones could even work well on smartphones.

      Mew

      1. They already are. The XBox Games Pass gives you access to a large number of games for a monthly subscription fee. Sony has a similar service for PlayStation. This is in addition to the monthly subscription that’s required for multiplayer access (and monthly free games that you own even if you discontinue the subscription) on the respective platforms.

        They’re going to have a few more games to add to that service, I think.

        1. MS is also going heavy into the “play anywhere” streaming cloud thing, where you can play Xbox games on your computer, switch, tablet, or smartphone.
          (Apple and Sony are pointedly refusing to participate.)

          I don’t really get the appeal, but they’ve gotten it to where it actually works pretty well. (At least when it comes to running a new Series game on an XBOne, which is as far as I’ve tested it.)

          In an alternate universe where game companies/publishers acted ethically, I’d probably regard GamePass poorly.
          But… We don’t live there. (Heck, at this point Brother Occam demands that Respawn is the source of the Titanfall franchise becoming unplayable. Bungie has become an eldritch abomination. etc. ad nauseum.)
          It’s nice to play games without hundreds of hours of grind, or the sunk costs fallacy and all of Vegas’ mind tricks being used to leverage you into buying season after expansion of crap.
          And there are lots of games from smaller studios that are actually *good*. Without GamePass, I’d probably never have heard about (much less tried) The Outer Wilds, Deep Rock Galactic, or Call of the Sea, all of which I highly recommend.
          (Note to millennials: fewer games on the theme of depression would be great. We get it. Adulthood sucks. That’s why we’re seeking escapism,)
          Not to mention the whole embrace of backwards compatibility opening up tons of options…

          I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how the studios MS has acquired have been behaving themselves.
          Given the company’s history, I thought it would be an absolute goat rodeo of rapacious predation.

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