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So, Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard. How will this affect the rest of the industry?
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Studios being bought up like this usually means stuff from them will degrade in quality fast. The last thing from Blizzard I liked was Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 so for me no big loss. I'm more upset about Obsidian and InXile.
My wonder is how do you degrade from an IP that Activision Blizzard already ran into the ground?
After Baldur's Gate 3, contrasted against what EA's Bioware has output lately, I'll bet Microsoft is happy to let their RPG studios continue doing what made them a success in the first place.
I can't think of a single exception to a big company buying up a game studio and that studio's quality absolutely plummeting. EA has been buying up good studios and gutting them for decades, I doubt Microsoft is any better, they already have a history of doing that to different software.
Nether Realm Studios, Naughty Dog, Angel Studios (Rockstar San Diego), and Relic, without thinking about it too long, but there are also all kinds of reasons why a studio's quality would struggle to hold up over long periods of time regardless of being purchased, and even then it can be very subjective.
Hasn't modern Mortal Kombat been absolutely crap? And Rockstar games have felt worse ever since GTA 4 and they are currently just focused on milking online content.
Relic I only know for Impossible Creatures and Naughty Dog isn't ringing any bells for me so can't say anything about that.
Alright, no offense, but I think you need to expand your horizons, lol.
The last 5 games (all of which were post-acquisition) Nether Realm put out have all been multi-million sellers in a genre that struggles to do that, and their past 2 games are only second fiddle to Smash for number of copies sold. They're the only ones who figured out how to do single player content in a fighting game that interests people enough to buy those games for that content, and while Capcom and Bandai Namco both tried, I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone who thinks they did it better.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 were both post-acquisition, and regardless of my feelings of RDR2 (which is still that it is not a bad game by any means), both games are critical and commercial smash hits.
Relic has had very successful Warhammer 40k and Company of Heroes releases over the past 20 years.
Naughty Dog has made far more games post-acquisition than pre-acquisition, and some of their best-selling, highest-rated games have been on the more recent end of things. Perhaps you've heard of Uncharted and The Last of Us?
I havent owned a console so that explains why I don't recognise Naughty Dog. I vaguely recognise Uncharted and the last of us but I know nothing of the games themselves.
I haven't played either of the RDR games or any Company of Heroes games and the last Warhammer I played was Soulstorm so I can't comment on those.
I have played quite a few fighting games and the genre is definitely quite stale when it comes to single player. The only ones I can think of where I enjoyed the single player was the new Smash and Skullgirls. Mortal Kombat hasn't had a new idea in like decades, they seem to be content with milking the franchise without doing anything new.
I don't think commercial success is a good indicator of what makes a good game though, like all the Call of Duty games released every year are not good but they are successful. Not to mention the sport games that rake in obscene amounts of money while nothing much changes between releases. Or mobile games...
There's a reason I mentioned critical and commercial success, because the two combined are the closest we can get to an objective measure of quality. If the game is selling well and reviewing well, it's very difficult to make an argument besides your own personal taste that the quality has declined.
There's never been a better time to play video games and not own a console, because there's hardly such a thing as a console exclusive anymore, but you'd really have to live under a rock to be unaware of Naughty Dog if you've ever paid attention to E3/summer announcements, game of the year awards, or just what other people are saying on forums.
This is a very strange paragraph. NRS are the fighting game studio for single player content, and they were even during the 6th gen era when people generally didn't like Mortal Kombat games. If you think they haven't had a new idea in decades, you definitely haven't been paying attention for at least one of those decades...the past ten years. The most recent game added kameo fighters, which shook up the way those games play quite a lot, plus up blocking and a way to convert down 2 into air combos if you've got the meter for it.
Don't all the sports games and Call of Duties also review and sell well? I don't think many would call them good games.
Yea, I don't follow any gaming media or forum. I pretty much get new things to play from either Steam's recommended list or Humble Bundle.
I haven't played the last Mortal Kombat, that's true. All previous ones, which I did play, including the 2 Injustice games, felt too samey for me to bother with another one.
Call of Duties are trending down but still generally seen as good games. Sports games are doing worse. Since the exclusivity contracts were signed in the mid 00s, the quality among critics and fans has been seen as declining, but if you're a basketball fan, you've got no real option besides the casino disguised as an NBA game, for instance.
You're on one right now.
As for Mortal Kombat, this is where we just get back to accounting for personal taste. They're immensely popular, review well, and they've been doing measurably better with critics and fans since the acquisition. (Hit me up in Skullgirls though.)
They also bought out ZeniMax in the same deal, which means they also have ESO under their rap sheet.
The only thing that effectively changed in ESO since the acquisition in 2020 is that they added the endeavor system to the game, so there was an excuse to sustain loot crates and give people a means to get the loot crate items in the game... though that system is frankly still BS since the amount of endeavor and gems needed for that fluff is in real world dollars ridiculous. As is, I dumped ESO completely after High Isle and went back to only playing GW2 (I have been in both games since beta), since the nonsense happening in ESO was enough for me to see that Microsoft running into the ground was not an issue - ZoS already managed that themselves...
I imagine it will be the same for WoW. Zero sum game.
I didn't even bought the 3rd SC2 expansion, I bought the 2nd one and not even playing through half of it. I did play a bit of overwatch due to friends asking me to play with them, but quickly drop it cause I really don't have time to grind or play that game and keep up with the meta.
I'm with you on that one.
Obsidian and InXile had just started getting some new promising franchises up and running (Wasteland & Outer Worlds). It'd be a shame if they went 'Storefront Exclusive' already.
The last minute EGS timed-exclusive deal already screwed with the first TOW game's launch.
The concept of Storefront Exclusivity just shouldn't be a thing at all.
I don't even care about exclusive. Obsidian, CDProject, InXile and Larian are like the only studios left that make really good RPGs and whenever a studio gets bought out their quality absolutely plummets, I can't think of a single exception to that. I do like Larian's and CDProject's stuff but Obsidian RPGs have been my favourites and it just feels like I won't get another amazing Obsidian RPG. Like I already saw Bioware, Bethesda, Troika and Black Isle either disappear or have their quality go to absolute shit.
Also FYI Wasteland is like a super old franchise.
I agree. It's just one of those things that starts things off badly.
And MS has been pushing a bit for it, like EGS.
Also I'm painfully aware of the age of the OG Wasteland as I grew up with it. I was thinking more in the line of the crowdfunded ones, 2 & 3. InXile seemed well on track with 'em.
Didn't Troika and Black Isle essentially lead to the creation of Obsidian and InXile? You're basically listing the same studios multiple times. Plus there has been a lot of communication between Bioware and CD Projekt, leading to talent moving between those studios, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for Larian.
Like 5 developers of Black Isle founded Obsidian but as far as I know Troika just disappeared along with it's developers. I can't find anything about Bioware and CD Project or Larian collaborating though.
Bioware and CD Projekt worked together on the first Witcher, because that game ran on Bioware's engine. The new director for Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk's sequel came from Bioware, and he said in an interview that that past relationship is why they reached out to him for the position, insinuating it's not the first time it's happened and that the two companies had continued to be in contact over the years. Given CD Projekt's last two games' similarities to Bethesda's formula, it wouldn't surprise me if there was overlap with the developers of those studios as well; and the same extends to Larian and the inspirations they've clearly taken from old Bioware.
It's possible that all but about 5 developers from Troika left the industry after the company folded, but I'd call that the least likely scenario. In my own career (only briefly in games), people who liked working with me have reached out to hire me from previous working relationships between companies, and you tend to see a lot of the same people from job to job as a result.