Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard; Impact MMORPG genre and Ashes, short and long term?

How do you feel about Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard?
Impact on MMORPG genre? Market share, WOW decline, other brands that could be MMO?
Impact on Ashes of Creation? recruitment, player base, pricing wars?
Short term, long term?
Would Microsoft step away from p2w for a single game?

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Kovrm

Nerror wrote: »

I guess we'll have to wait and see what MS does with WoW for example, if they revive it or make WoW 2 or some other MMO.

Starcraft MMO would be pretty sweet. Though, not sure how it'd work.

Noaani

McMackMuck wrote: »

which makes me think Sony and Nintendo probably need to combine to try to compete with Xbox, but there are obstacles to that.

This acquisition puts Microsoft as the third biggest company in terms of gaming revenue in the world. Sony and Tencent both still come out ahead - though Tencents revenue is likely to go down in the next year or two.

So yeah, Microsoft still have a long way to go before they are even ahead of Sony, let alone forcing Sony to consider working with Nintendo.

overfitneuralnet

The short-term effect of this buy-off is literally 0. Nothing major will happen to ActiBlizzard in the short term.
I don't think Microsoft will start throwing resources and even more money at a company they purchased for 70 billion.

Long-term effects on Blizzard products (WoW, SC, etc because nobody really gives a fuck about candy crush) are largely unknown. It depends on how controlling Microsoft is and how much freedom they give to the management and by proxy the game designers and devs.

Long-term effects on the genre as a whole? That's a very hard question to answer. It depends on WoW's performance after there has been a 'cultural' switch from Boby Kotick to the new C management. It also depends on how other MMORPGs on the market perform. If everything else is trash and WoW is, again, the most popular and slightly interesting choice, then nothing will really change

McMackMuck

@overfitneuralnet I accept that the majority of us here may not value Candy Crush, but you can be sure that Microsoft do.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/128392/how-much-money-does-candy-crush-make#:~:text=Looking at past earnings reports,for the three-month period.
Relevant excerpt:
Looking at past earnings reports from Activision Blizzard, the parent company of King, tells us just how much money Candy Crush has been pulling in. In the company’s Q3 2021 earnings report, it’s revealed that King earned $652 million for the three-month period.

overfitneuralnet

McMackMuck wrote: »

@overfitneuralnet I accept that the majority of us here may not value Candy Crush, but you can be sure that Microsoft do.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/128392/how-much-money-does-candy-crush-make#:~:text=Looking at past earnings reports,for the three-month period.
Relevant excerpt:
Looking at past earnings reports from Activision Blizzard, the parent company of King, tells us just how much money Candy Crush has been pulling in. In the company’s Q3 2021 earnings report, it’s revealed that King earned $652 million for the three-month period.

I know Candy Crush is profitable (by far the most profitable franchise in ActiBlizz), but it is profitable because of the nature of the game and the predatory tactics used to squeeze more moolah from users.

Nobody gives a fuck about that franchise apart from the people who make money from it. In comparison, a lot of people want to see more of WoW, Diablo, Starcraft and they want to see those games improve.

Regular people don't give a fuck about Candy Crush because it's a zombie game. There are a million others like it.

If Microsoft just cares about the money, then realistically, nothing will change.

Atama

If WoW was made available on Gamepass and you could use your old account I’d play it again. I won’t lie.

I don’t know how much, but I would play it.

Azryil

There would have to be a serious change the game design for me to consider playing wow again after the train wreck that was the last 4 expansions, and I don't see that happening.

Ironhope

It surprised me how much I enjoyed Classic.
You'd expect (I did originally) a game almost 20 years older than its current version to be worse, not better but by God was it 100 times better.
I just can't understand how a game could degenerate so hard.

Even with it being very very very poorly managed (armies of bots everywhere and nothing being done about it, servers failing and not being merged but left to rot instead, very badly managed layering which made the world feel unpopulated and ruined the economy, serious server issues because Blizzard decided to go the cheap route and not buy the decent amount of server spaces, the worse versions of Alterrac Valley being chosen, etc) it was an amazing experience.

I logged on like twice to retail and just couldn't be asked to bother.
The gameplay looked and felt unfun, everything look ridiculously over the top-silly and eye-overwhelming, the UI felt clunky and too small and people described the experience of simply getting to the point where you can play the game as a second job rather than a game (something you do for fun).

Rageclaw

I suppose it could affect AoC, if they finally bin the retail wow and make wow2 with proper graphics on UE5

Songcaller

Not sure if microsoft will let blizzard make a new engine or not. I certainly doubt microsoft will want split revenue with epic games although unreal tournament ran on microsoft. not sure if blizzard even has the capability to pull the same effect as wow with a wow 2 with or without microsoft.

Ironhope

There realistically won't be a WoW 2 (not in the recent future) because the costs would be too high and it's clear as daylight it just wouldn't work because if they could make a good-quality WoW the current WoW retail would be that and not a dumpster fire.

Honestly, if AoC works out I wouldn't be surprised if they announce WoW2 with everything copy-pasted from AoC just with a Warcraft theme. I mean, that's what WoW has constantly done (and I don't blame it or anything I'm just stating that this is what happened), copying other systems that worked out in other mmo-rpgs (sadly, most of the time they were very badly copied).

Azryil

The WoW team has been adamant against making a WoW 2 because it would force all players to start over and ultimately split the already dwindling player base. And I don't think Microsoft would change that outlook.

Atama

Ironhope wrote: »

There realistically won't be a WoW 2 (not in the recent future) because the costs would be too high and it's clear as daylight it just wouldn't work because if they could make a good-quality WoW the current WoW retail would be that and not a dumpster fire.

Isn't the recent future today?

Bluemax717

I don't think the MS acquisition will impact AoC at all. Hopefully it can spark some changes with Blizzard. They are in dire need for some changes. We shall see what the future holds

McMackMuck

@Atama An unintentional oxymoron, I think.

Ironhope

Atama wrote: »

Ironhope wrote: »

There realistically won't be a WoW 2 (not in the recent future) because the costs would be too high and it's clear as daylight it just wouldn't work because if they could make a good-quality WoW the current WoW retail would be that and not a dumpster fire.

Isn't the recent future today?

I meant near future

Sunboy

McMackMuck wrote: »

How do you feel about Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard?

I Invest in MS stonks in the dip.

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