The end times are upon gaming. Microsoft has at long last completed it’s extremely high-profile and controversial $69B purchase of Activision Blizzard and has brought all of their legendary games under their control.
Well, I guess we’ll just have to adapt to the new, sad future of gaming.
After one of the most contentious, controversial, and complicated publisher-on-publisher purchases of all-time, Microsoft has finally secured it’s $69B acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the dozens of classic, iconic, and all-time great gaming titles that comes with the combined publisher. And, to be honest, I think the world of gaming is only going to get worse because of this.
You’d have to have been living under a rock these last two or so years to not have followed (if you’re invested in the gaming world…which you probably are if you’re reading this) even a little bit of Microsoft’s insane, unprecedented $69B purchase of Activision Blizzard.
The very same Activision Blizzard that not only has produced some of the most acclaimed games of all-time, such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Candy Crush, and Overwatch, but also was one of the main competitors AGAINST Microsoft in the game publishing/developing marketplace.
Yet, given Microsoft’s own admitted woes with the sales of the Xbox and the poor performances of their own internal studios, both created and purchased, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer and the rest of the Xbox and Microsoft Gaming leadership decided that shilling out at least $8B more than the entire GDP of Slovenia (2021: $61.75B) to purchase one of their direct competitors would solve all of their problems.
And that’s probably what’s going to happen now given Microsoft has full access to create, sell, and develop Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Starcraft, etc. however and wherever they like in addition to the gaming franchises, such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Minecraft, Halo, Forza, Fable, Gears of War, Age of Empires, etc. they have already bought out.
I know they have given assurances and distribution rights to different regulatory boards and competing publishers that warrants necessary discussion and skepticism over whether or not they’ll abide by these assurances, but that’s not what I want to talk about in this article. In truth, even if Microsoft did turn all of these titles into Xbox/Microsoft exclusives, I don’t think the gaming world would be all that affected by it…until the inevitable pushback begins.
Yes, the pushback against Microsoft’s tyranny and monopolization of the gaming industry (if you don’t believe me, just look at all the independent developers they have been buying up) by its major competitors, such as Capcom, Ubisoft, Rockstar/Take-Two, Electronic Arts, Tencent, NetEase, Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Konami, Sega, Embracer Group, and the most formidable opponent of them all, Sony, will sadly take the form of one of the most corrosive and destructive aspects of business: monopolization.
In no way will these large gaming companies will idly sit back and allow Microsoft to buy up all the independent developers/publishers as that would eventually spell their own doom in the form of a massive Microsoft check to buy them up as well.
Sony has already silently and stealthily been buying up smaller developers, such as Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Bungie, Guerilla Games, Insomniac Games, San Diego Studio, etc., and these other huge publishers are bound to follow suit soon.
It will only be a matter of time before the entire gaming industry can be divided up between 10-12 conglomerate publishers with full reign, restriction, and exclusivity over their, respective, bought franchises, while any independent, smaller studio will be forced to either conform or risk not being able to sell their games onto one of the major consoles/platforms.
Truly, I hope this doesn’t end up being the case, but there’s over a hundred years of business and economic history to show that is what happens to markets when one major competitor tries to take over as THE major competitor. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Microsoft/Activision Blizzard) (Gameplay Reveal Trailer | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III – YouTube)
