Eighteen months ago, I was an advocate for Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard, because I didn’t think anybody could have done a worse job than Bobby Kotick.
Phil Spencer has proven me wrong. This arsehole tried to shut down Tango Gameworks after they literally shadowdropped a critically acclaimed GOTY contender.
They’re really good at killing them though. I’ll never forgive the death of Ensemble.
Don’t forget they also murdered Rare.
I 100% believe the claim that Microsoft executives mistakenly thought they’ve just nabbed the Donkey Kong IP by acquiring Rare. Definitely seems like something some c-suite ghouls who are totally out of touch with the games industry would believe.
Also, I’m not sure how much of Rare’s downfall was due to Microsoft’s mismanagement or their core talent leaving to form other studios. Maybe a bit of both.
Arkane Studios for me.
We’ve bought these studios that are loved by gamers for their niche content.
What do you mean they’re not making the next Fortnite? Shut them down immediately.
To be fair, Age of Empires III was bad, and the last project Ensemble was working on before they got shuttered was a Halo MMO.
Also, Robot Entertainment (the studio that rose from the ashes of Ensemble) were the initial developers of Age of Empires Online, which was P2W slop that 90% of players couldn’t run because Games For Windows LIVE was a buggy crock of shit. And since then they’ve released nothing but Orcs Must Die games.
All this to feed 545 insatiable hunger for another halo slop.
RIP halo, my favorite competitive shooter ever 😭 infinite is such an absolute botch.
Maybe I’m missing context on this, but halo slop?
Infinite came out 3 years ago and though they’ve done updates and general live service garbage there haven’t been any major releases since. Halo isn’t a yearly release schedule, charging full price for the same game every year like sports games, so i’m not seeing the slop…
Ever since 545 take over from Bungie, halo fans hasn’t been eating good. 4 is really bad, 5 is subpar, infinite is just ok. Not to mention the spinoff and tv series.
Do you mean 343/Halo Studios or is 545 some sort of reference I’m missing?
I’m not really all that bothered. Unlike movies, new start ups for making games happen a lot. When the greedy giants topple, like a forest something grows in the new patch of sunlight.
I wish that was true, but funding has dried up across the entire sector and that affects the viability of smaller studios more than it does the mega corps with bottomless warchests.
Still bugs me that Microsoft owns the rights to the King’s Quest series, though.
We probably wouldn’t have expedition 33 if Ubisoft gave people a reason to stay
i don’t believe the next video game collapse is going to be very pretty for anyone. also, most independent studios and developers make little to no money at all
its only the big publishers that are going to crash, so nothing of value will be lost.
Tell that to all the smaller studios that have already been decimated and forced to close because of their publishing/funding deals falling through over the last couple of years.
You don’t hear much about it because they’re smaller and/or working on things that hadn’t released yet, vs the occasional big media splashes from companies like MS doing more layoffs, but indies and AA are being gutted too.
It’s comforting to believe that only the biggest companies are struggling, but the industry as a whole is currently in active collapse from the inside out.
i know it’s not the important part of your comment, but I must point out that indies will be fine because indies do not have publishing deals. If your studio is beholden to a publisher, then you are by definition not independent.
The definition of indie is always contentious, but there are definitely studios out there who are independent (as in not owned by a larger company) but work with a publisher for funding, marketing, and other support.
Even beyond that bit of semantics, many indies rely on funding from investors of one sort or another, be that angel investors, startup funds, or even just small business loans.
Many of those investors have lost their appetite for games, making it extremely difficult to pay the bills unless you’ve already got a sizeable cash reserve to cover costs.
“I’m sick of investing in video games. They’re always so unreliable.”
“You literally only ever invested in two companies.”
Personally I agree. I’ve seen way more startups kicking off with these waves of layoffs. It’s a silver lining, not much more, but I’m happy to see people finally realizing they don’t want the big tech solutions anymore.
I mean sure but just like with movies, the rights dont change hands very often, even if they’re not being actively used or the rights holder goes out of business. This means a ton of promising franchises either suffer by getting terrible sequels or no sequels at all.
Honestly no sequel is better. Dishonored is great, but i don’t want any sequel under the current Arkane.
But that is the whole point. You don’t buy studios to make games, you buy them to get rid of competitors.
And for Microsoft, to get a back catalogue to ensure your subscription service remains attractive.
not always true, they clearly bought zenimax to make exclusive xbox games.
Has Zenimax even released any xbox exclusives? As far as I know they’ve all been cross platform.
i figured it was going to be a transition over time for less shocking optics.
anyway, the main point is microsoft wants them to make games, exclusive or not. buying them didn’t eliminate any competition.
Yes, it did eliminate competition. They’re no longer competition once Microsoft buys them. They’re employees, possibly if a subsidiary, who contribute to Microsoft’s profits.
Excluding steam because even playstation release exclusives on steam now, Starfield is (was? I don’t know if it released on ps later on) xbox exclusive. Out of Zenimax’s library, that is probably the game that you would want the least as an exclusive but at least it is something (they needed something after spending US$7.5 billion on them)
You don’t spend 8 billion dollars on a company to then shrink their market. Microsoft was never planning on making any of these properties they bought fully exclusive. The transition to third party you’re seeing now has been in the making for 5+ years at this point. Youre all just looking at this through the old console war lense when they’ve been over that ever since Gamepass released and they realized they make more money putting that on everything (larger market) than playing the exclusives game (smaller market)
“You’ll have GaaS and you’ll like it.”
Microsoft owns taco bell?
Why cancel Freelancer 2, Microsoft? Why?
From Crosspoint I heard that they even cancelled and shut down the studio making a game (forget the name off the top of my head) that Phil Spencer himself was said to have liked so much, they had to force him to quit playing their demo in a meeting about it. Not to mention the absolute waste of time and money on nearly finished projects that were probably going to sell well.
Quarterly profits.
I look forward to the small new game studios that will surely appear as the big old ones are consolidated and/or dismantled.
It’s disappointing to see things we like fade away, but as the sun sets in one place, it rises in another.
Smaller studios have been consistently putting out good games as of late anyway. Indy and AA studios have the freedom to make fun things instead of having to check every box on a spreadsheet.
They would have been fine if they just gave them budget and left them to it, but it was never about producing good games.
