Capture and kill...
The only thing better than owning the competition, is putting them out of business.
So they buy studios that compete, fire all the workers, keep the IPs, and call it a day.
If we enforced anti-monoply laws this wouldn't be a thing. But monopolies dontate a lot of money to politicians so they say monopolies aren't a big deal.
Parasites do be like that... I don't get how peasant class got so complacent though.
Have you met our political system?
Primaries literally don't have to be fair, because the results are nonbinding, the party can just pick someone else.
And the people in charge keep loosening regulations so they can get bigger donations.
They're openly running a PAC that coordinates with Biden and the DNC that individuals can legally donate a million a year.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-2024-democrats-dnc-state-parties-ac8fba0ab1117ebf75cc16ebe0c735e4
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00744946/
Average Americans are being priced out of democracy by both parties. The candidate for both will be who the wealthy pick, and everyone will have to vote if they want to keep who they hate most out of office.
If you're wealthy there's no way to lose, if you're the other 99.9% you can't win.
Regular people can't out lobby Microsoft and Disney, and unless a progressive third party emerges the system will keep getting worse.
People tried to block the Activision acquisition. Some were mocked for their attempt and some were mocked for their stance. It wasn't enforced because for all the attempts, it couldn't be proved which is more an indicator better definitions needed to be in place
INVESTORS INVESTORS LOOK AT HOW MANY STUDIOS WE CAN BUY LOOK LOOK WE'RE SOOO PROFITABLE
WERE REMOVING SO MUCH DEAD WEIGHT INVESTORS LOOK WE'RE GOING TO BE SO PROFITABLE AFTER THIS
Reduce the number of studios. The number of sold copies of games stays constant. Therefore, the money going to the remaining studios goes up.
If the cost of purchasing the studio is less than the number of diverted sales, its in your interest to buy up and shut down competition. The only reason this math would change is if people exclusively purchased from the shut-down studios. And we all know why they don't.
As a kicker, you can wring some extra cash out of old properties by turning them into shitty reskinned Pay2Win mobile games covered in the flesh mask of the old IP.
Therefore, the money going to the remaining studios goes up.
LOL
People believe this shit? The money goes directly to some CX or some manegement asshole or chair or board or fucking whatever. What studios? What devs?
Or license it to a third party studio who does a great job, puts out a quality product, then gets bought out and gutted.
Microsoft has been a fucking blight on gaming. Paid online, and timed exclusives both started there. No resale if we didn't throw a massive fit about it. Buying up studios to kill them. I mean Sony has their share of being fucks as well, but at least they're making good games. Microsoft has barely any decent games the last 2 generations, and hellblade 2 which is looking great was a Sony game that they had to buy and make exclusive.
In a sane country there would be laws to prevent this monopoly shit.
By next elections, it will be even more insane.
Looks at ballot.
"Is carbonite, like...an actual thing? Can I be frozen like Han Solo? I have a little bit of money saved up. Which stupid tech bro startup can do this for me?"
In a sane country there would be laws to prevent this monopoly shit.
The problem is that Microsoft is no monopoly in gaming.
They have the money to basically buy any studio they want if they could, Nintendo and Sony included.
Their gaming division isn’t a monopoly, but with their parents funding yeah they could be and that’s the problem. They could buy everyone up and leave them selves alone in the market.
Their gaming division isn’t a monopoly, but with their parents funding yeah they could be and that’s the problem.
I agree it's a problem but without Microsoft being a monopoly in gaming, no watchdog will do anything about it.
Tbf Microsoft is a blight, ful stop.
They wanted to be the new Sony and Nintendo combined, but instead they're the new EA.
Trying to force online only as well. That nearly killed an entire console generation for them.
its clear in hindsight that there needs to be more regulation to prevent buyouts of competitors and more protections for workers under buyouts/mergers such as paying workers for at least 3 years after the sale of a company.
Why did you decide on the arbitrary number of three years? Why not ten years?
3 gives people time to wrap up projects, move etc, basically any life most folks could have reasonably scheduled can be shifted in 3 years, it gives new parents time to take care of their kid and transition back to normal work. And the way to do it would be to have the companies pay the wages whether they lay them off or not (encouraging retraining rather than layoffs.)
Although if what you wanted to do was was absolutely ruin the incentives that mergers create for layoffs the average appointment length of a CEO might do it.
Microsoft is buying up companies to stockpile IP. Simple as that.
Then they have a lot of redundant workers so they let them go, leaving the IP in their hands to be filed away for potential lawsuits against infringers.
Microsoft is buying up companies to stockpile IP. Simple as that.
And then they do nothing with that.
Oh they can do worse than nothing. Their history is full of hold my beer and EEE.
This exact method is how Microsoft became a giant in the first place. They've been doing it for longer than I live and they'll likely outlive me doing it.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Market consolidation resulting in less of a desire to compete with innovation? Who would've thought.
Watch as they still milk them to death.
They cannot improve these games, give them meaningful updates or expansions. But they have killed many of their competitors and further monopolised the industry.
The second Microsoft gains a market majority in the gaming industry they will employ as many scummy tactics as possible to wring every cent out of people.
Basically the old EA approach. They don't seem to realize that EA never restored their reputation from those days. But, I guess they don't care as long as they can show a line going ever upward for the shareholders.
Restore... They are actively working to ensure I never buy another game again from there.
Last bf was the last straw for me. I am out.
Then they go and add anti cheat for bfv? I am a Linux gamer, fuck u.
they did this with the t-mobile sidekick... they bought the platform and all data outright... then 'oops! we lost all your end-user, cloud stored data, sorry! we were just too busy to do our jobs!'
thanks, microsoft.
The subscription model is, in my opinion, dumb. If they need it to work, maybe they should buy games instead of studios. I can't work out exactly how long term patching would work though, unless they kicked back a maintenance fee from sales and gamepass usage to the studio.
Back in the day, devs used to not release games until they were done. Patches were bascially unheard of.
What are you gonna do, mail out another set of floppies to everyone? Outrageous.
I will say, these days it's more or less impossible to release a game that'll run perfectly on every system and it's a good thing we're able to fix crashes and patch issues as they come up. This has naturally had its downsides as publishers squeeze devs for tighter releases, but outside of that it's a very good thing for devs and players.
ah, yes, the highest market cap in history ($3T) doesn't have the resources
buy competitors and kill them. sounds good nice job
Seems like a cheap way to get rid of the competition.
Stonks go up. The meat must grind. Also, everyone who's left is fired.
All MS want to produce are sequels to their tired franchises. Does anyone even buy Halo anymore?
Didn't Spencer say they weren't gonna lay anyone off or did I smoke way too much crack?
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