I fear that the 1800’s Standard Oil age of gaming has just begun. After months of deliberation, Microsoft has come out on top of its battle against the FTC (and Sony by proxy) and has won the right to close its $70B acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the US.
You can’t spell Rockerfeller and Standard Oil without Microsoft and Sony. Well, actually you can, but you get the point.
Against the might of the FTC, Sony, and the millions of fans pleading the US court system to overturn the $70B Activision Blizzard purchase, Northern District of California Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has ruled in favor of Microsoft and allowed the gaming and tech goliath to complete its purchase of Activision Blizzard and take all the studios legendary IPs to Xbox. And, if you couldn’t tell, I really fear for the gaming industry after this decision.
Well, it was always a longshot that the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard purchase would get blocked by the FTC given how the European Union equivalent body allowed the purchase to go through, but now that glimmer of hope is dead. Just to recap the events of a few hours ago, Microsoft has been given the green light by Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to complete and close its $70B purchase of Activision Blizzard and its many legendary titles.
And, with the deal now in the final stages of closing, huge franchises of all platforms like Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Candy Crush will now be under the sole control of Microsoft Gaming Studios…just like Bethesda (Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, Doom, Starfield) 343 Industries (Halo), Mojang Studios (Minecraft), Ninja Theory (Senua’s Saga, Devil May Cry), and Playground Games (Forza, Fable).
Has the depression of seeing all your favorite game franchise get taken over by a goliath publisher that can’t even get its own head out of its ass to make good games and consoles set in yet?
Okay, I’m willing to give Microsoft and Microsoft Gaming Studios CEO Phil Spencer a chance to use these massive gaming studios to make legendary games, yet the evidence of that happening so far has been pretty slim.
Halo hasn’t been the same franchise since the early 2010’s (aka: the glory days of the Xbox 360), Fable has been stuck in development hell for over a decade, Forza is still one of the worst selling motorsports games despite being the most famous brand name, and Bethesda has taken a dramatic fall from grace with game quality since Bethesda purchased the company.
(Activision Blizzard-Diablo IV-Story Launch Trailer)
Along with Phil Spencer himself saying that Microsoft has given up in the Console Wars, it’s very hard to believe Microsoft will be able to make a competent game and console system, let alone a great one, in the near future. They’ve been shooting themselves in the foot for years!
But, with this purchase, there’s absolutely no incentive for Microsoft to make good games in the first place as they now own nearly all the major independent gaming franchises (aka: non-Sony games) on the market.
They have free reign to make games like COD, Diablo, Halo, Minecraft, Overwatch, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc. as good or as shitty as they want as you need to buy the game for the Xbox regardless. It wouldn’t surprise me if these games get the EA treatment of massive loot boxes, microtransactions, and DLC content that is simply content stripped out of the game at launch.
Or, in other words, since all of your oil is coming from Standard Oil as there’s no other competition on the market, you are going to pay whatever Rockerfeller wants you to pay or else you don’t get your house heated in the winter. I know its a bit of an extreme example, but the likelihood of this happening in the gaming industry is now higher than its ever been.
I hope that doesn’t happen, but Microsoft and Sony now have free reign to buy up the gaming world as they see fit.
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