JCC Gaming Förceboat Parté - JC G4m3z thr34d (Gaming General Discussion)

Isn't Activision Blizzard a terrible company that allowed a culture of sexual harassment and abuse?

Wouldn't being overseen by Microsoft make those problems less likely?

 

What makes you think Microsoft has a better corporate culture? The founder was known to openly hit on subordinates. Never mind the absurdity of supporting a corporate merger on such grounds instead of, you know, the government actually doing anything to address the problem.

 

No. Because MS would own but not run the company. Bethesada are owned by MS but are running themselves.

It is believed that if the deal goes through, Kotick would leave ABK. But this would not be a firing, it'd be a multimillion, to the degree of hundreds, pay-off to an utter bastard.

Nor is it likely or guranteed his departure alone would change ABK's management culture.

Outside of the massive IP, there's major question marks over just why MS is willing to pay $69bn for a massively dysfunctional company.

 

This is the most absurd reasoning for merger I've seen.

 

Finally the video game thread can understand the pain of the football thread.

 

Never underestimate Richie’s willingness to deep throat the corporate boot.

 

Isn't it really just the IP and increased market share? They don't care about the dysfunction because they're planning to jettison management (and plenty of workers I'm sure).

 

Presumably because their games are very successful.
However bad the people in charge have been, the company produces a lot of highly rated titles

If they don't like how the company is run, surely they could restructure it however they like.

Can this deal even go through now?
Didn't it need approval in the US, UK & EU in order to be possible?

 

EU and US have yet to rule, though the US FTC is suing MS - hard to see that as a positive. What happens if one of them says yes? Dunno.

As to how much MS wants to fix ABK, impossible to know. With what has come out about it, and continued to be, it's probably a decade of work to really do that. And it won't be cheap.

 

Theoretically yes, but nobody thinks so. The precedent for successful appeals against a UK block like this is borderline non-existent. Activision’s stock has taken a beating because everyone suspects it’s over despite c-suite blustering to the contrary. I don’t know the full details but I think at minimum they would have to completely get out of the UK and that won’t happen.

Edit: This quote from Bloomberg was pretty typical in analysis:

 

The thing is, Microsoft itself can and will be restructured in the future. It can and will have its own problems. Acting like MS is going to be the regulator of Activision's problems is incredibly naive, and I'm glad the actual regulator didn't buy that.

 

I'd expect they wouldn't.
Their job is to look at the effect on competition, not to worry about whether a merger would ultimately make one of the companies better.

 

It's strange how many bullcrap defences are doing the rounds on this from Sony not caring about cloud gaming, that Xcloud runs from XBX tech to there being no market in the area.

There isn't now but the tech will keep improving where it will be viable to abandon making consoles, assuming internet infrastructure is up to it. (Something the companies to pay fot and build.) At that point there'll be one or two companies able to take advantage. It won't be Google, Apple could but aren't interested, who does that leave? MS could leverage the same tech its currently used for O365 into gaming.

 

A big hindrance to cloud gaming is not only poor internet infrastructure leaving many without access to the speeds required for a decent experience, but also the fact that a lot of people use wi-fi to connect their consoles/phones/tablets to the internet which is awful for latency. Then again, there are technical issues that drive me nuts (e.g., framerates in the teens) with popular games that don't seem to bother the majority who play, so what do I know?

 

I'm old, so sometimes I like the ability to play games without connecting to the ****ing internet.

 

Will this affect companies like Valve & their Steam platform?

Because I mostly use that.
I have little interest in streaming games, I can see too many problems with dropped connection and lag

 

That ain’t no lie..

 

In case anyone's interested, you can download a demo of Street Fighter 6 on the Playstation. I played through the "World Tour" mode up to the point where the demo was completed. It's certainly an interesting take and I'd imagine it could be popular with a full story mode; but it could also get redundant as you're mostly fighting just random thugs all over an open world.

 

I'll give it a go but the footage I've seen of the SF6 demo isn't encouraging.

 

It’s FromSoft, so that pretty much comes with the territory.

 

Yeah, that’s the schtick.

“It’s really atmospheric but I have no idea what the heck is going on.”
- me playing any FromSoft game.

 

Well, got ESO to an excellent pause point so I can continue Ishin and start SW:J:S. Finished Cadwell's Silver, still have the Gold run to do.

Generally, it's fun, relaxed gaming except for the game-breaking lockpick crap, wish that was gone. Disguises are frequently useless too. Everything else? Works well, especially the CP system, which incentivises continued play.

 

Absolutely gutted. Waypoint had a staff roster that was second to none.