Activision-Blizzard Megathread (now with more Microsoft Xbox )

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
I can see Sony trying to buy Square Enix to grab Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (is niche in the West but is the biggest RPG series in Japan).

Biggest problem is that Sony has been taken over by California, and axed their Japanese studios a while back. It's pretty clear what artistic vision Sony has for games published by them and how that would affect any studios they acquire.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
I can see Sony trying to buy Square Enix to grab Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (is niche in the West but is the biggest RPG series in Japan).

Biggest problem is that Sony has been taken over by California, and axed their Japanese studios a while back. It's pretty clear what artistic vision Sony has for games published by them and how that would affect any studios they acquire.

The reason you point out is another strong reason why Sony wouldn't buy Square Enix or another Japanese publisher.

If they bought out someone it'd be a developer that's strong in the West and that's fits in with Sony's goals. Take 2 fits that much more than Square Enix.

If they did buy Square Enix it'd be because Square is also strong in the West.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
I don't care for their sjw-garbage rewritings and anti-christian sentiments. Also, colonism apologia. These vikings should have been made the enemies of the game, not the "heroes". Fucking pagans...
Uh...
The vikings were the good guys in thier eyes. BTW, you do know Saxons were vikings right?
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Uh...
The vikings were the good guys in thier eyes. BTW, you do know Saxons were vikings right?

The Saxons were foreign invading barbarians yes... But they'd been there for half a millennia at least by then.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Phil Spencer says he had discussions with Sony over the future of their latest acquisition and its availability on the Sony Playstation consoles.

Nichegamer said:
“Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a tweet.

He added, “Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship.”

The news that Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion set the industry ablaze – the deal won’t be finalized until the fiscal year ending on June 30th, 2023.

While Phil Spencer is now saying Microsoft will honor existing agreements with Sony, the same thing was said of their existing agreements with Bethesda games (they also bought Bethesda) that had contractual exclusivity on PlayStation.

Later, Microsoft confirmed future Bethesda games like Starfield will be exclusive to PC and Xbox platforms – so it remains to be seen how long they’ll wait before they probably make all future Activision games exclusive to PC and Xbox.

 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
The state of Blizzard games is abysmal. It's hard to fathom how it could possibly get worse. That being said, this doesn't mean that Blizzard will get better (see what Microsoft did to Rare). It seems that this acquisition was primarily for Call of Duty and Candy Crush.

Blizzard as a development studio is in shambles. I guess maybe the Blizzard IPs might have been a secondary objective to license out to competent devs, but Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo haven't been household names in over a decade. Young gamers probably don't know what those are.
Hmmmm... On the other hand, Age of Empires wasn't a household name either, didn't stop Microsoft from going, "Hey, look, there's this dedicated multiplayer community kept alive by fans, we can cash in on this and do it PR Positive."

Like, seriously, if this acquisition actually goes through(it needs to get through the FTC and there's a chance it doesn't given the current climate around it), I'd be overjoyed, because I think Microsoft is a lot more willing to find people who are actually part of the community of the game to get it into a state that works. And sure, HD had some pretty awkward bugs, but that didn't stop Microsoft from putting more money in. Heck, there's actual, official, Age of Empires 2 and 3 and 4 Tournaments.

Like, I genuinely think, that if Blizzard's games get treated like the Age of Empires franchise, this acquisition is going to be the best thing to happen to Blizzard gamers since Blizzard got started.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
As if that's going to save their game and firm.

Depends upon what Dragonflight brings in store. There are two main demands of the playerbase:

  • New classes: the most popular class ideas were Demon Hunter (implemented in Legion), Dark Ranger, Necromancer, Tinker, and some sort of Dragon themed class. Not one day goes by that someone doesn't post their dream of a playable dragon class on the MMO-Champion forums. If a dragon theme class was implemented in this expansion, a lot of people would come back and level one to cap for that alone.
  • Players want borrowed power grinds removed. The excessive amount of grinding and timegating is a huge turn off to many. People tend to come back during the last few weeks of an expansion, right before the prepatch, after catchup mechanics have been introduced, so they can experience the expansion's content with the least amount of grind required. If Dragonflight does not have a borrowed power grind, that would garner a lot of good will.

Those two demands would be trivially easy for Blizzard to meet (just design at least 2 new specs, and stop implementing reskinned versions of the same grind that players have hated since 2016), and if they were met then player satisfaction with WoW would raise tremendously, even if the other problems like the lack of casual content or the abysmal storytelling were not addressed (which should be addressed but are realistically never going to happen given the current dev team).
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
  • Players want borrowed power grinds removed. The excessive amount of grinding and timegating is a huge turn off to many. People tend to come back during the last few weeks of an expansion, right before the prepatch, after catchup mechanics have been introduced, so they can experience the expansion's content with the least amount of grind required. If Dragonflight does not have a borrowed power grind, that would garner a lot of good will.

Pretty obvious why that won't happen WOW runs on subs. If people can finish the content faster than people who only sub when they play will sub less.

Also, people will play less in general, leading to less spending on other things and less engagement.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member


New world of wokecraft expansion has been announced: Dragonflight. The hour long announcement stream was incredibly barebones, filled with the same empty promises we've heard for the 8 years, and incredibly cringeworthy and laden with virtue signalling.

The one and only thing about Dragonflight that looks good is that they copied GW2's award winning momentum-based flight system, and you will have more customization over the look of your dragon then you did over the griffon and the dragon in GW2.

You can play as a Draconian from Dragonlance. It looks like an Everquest race.

No other notable features to speak of. Otherwise, everything else about the expansion looks bad.
Meh story.
Only 4 questing zones and they look bland.
Warcraft's gritty, detailed artstyle is now dead. You get pastel cartoony graphics now.

Also, no word on the music improving. The music peaked during MoP and WoD with Russell Brower and Jeremy Soule composing. Almost the entire soundtrack was a banger. Now they're gone and WoW's music is meh. You can cherrypick a handful of tracks but it's overall forgettable. WoW's music used to be a huge part of my enjoyment of the game and the lack of good music harms my interest in playing.

I might check out the launch of the expansion for the dragon riding and customization, just to see how it compares to GW2's (which has the most fun flying I've ever seen in a game), but I don't see myself sticking around.
 
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Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
What a shocking development!

Or is it?

Nichegamer said:
“We want to put as many titles as possible from Activision Blizzard into Game Pass when they join us,” Summerford said. Presently, Xbox Game Pass is a big deal for both PC and Xbox gamers, providing access to hundreds of games at the cost of a monthly subscription.

However this desire to make games Xbox exclusive and bring them to Xbox Game Pass doesn’t necessarily mean console exclusivity.

Many games on the program are available on both PC in addition to being available on Xbox. In fact, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty reaffirmed the company’s commitment to making games as widely available as possible.

“Ultimately what our goal is, is to make gaming more accessible to players and more accessible to creators. If we acquire a game that comes with a big community across a number of platforms, the last thing we want to do is take something away,” Booty said. “If anything, we feel that it’s our job to be caretakers, to be shepherds, to continue to build and nurture that community, not to cut it up into pieces and try to take some of it away.”

 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
The vast majority of Blizzard's fans are PC gamers (as they had to be painfully reminded at Blizzcon 2018). Overwatch had the beginnings of a decent console audience... 6 years ago, they did. Blizzard has terribly managed the OW franchise. It would take years of consistently releasing good console games for Blizzard to build up a significant console fandom. Blizzard struggles to release anything, with nearly all of their games either stuck in maintenance mode or in development hell. I don't see Blizzard contributing to the Xbox console's userbase unless Microsoft starts intervening in how Blizzard is managed.
 

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