Yes. You read that correctly. I did a double take too. Lots of folks are blessing shi-et today with this news.

"Welcoming the Incredible Teams and Legendary Franchises of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft Gaming" is the official announcement to this action. Not only is this Industry-shaking, but... well. It's Activision Blizzard, whose social reputation is, at this point, not requiring any more utterance. I'm not sure what to think.

Side Note: Right now Bungie is like, *whew*, not THIS time Microsoft. :P

Edit:

The one day I go on vacation…

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

BREAKING: The WSJ reports that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard, the troubled publisher behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, which has been facing crisis over the last year following numerous reports of sexual misconduct and discrimination. A seismic gaming deal

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

This deal certainly raises some antitrust questions!

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

Microsoft PR: “Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard… Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming.”

Not 100% clear yet whether Bobby will stay on after the ink dries.

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

I’m on vacation today (lol) but if I were not I would be calling up some antitrust experts because Xbox buying Bethesda and now Activision sure seems like the type of horizontal merging that the DOJ frowns upon

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

While monopolies are undoubtedly bad news for the video game industry, this acquisition could have some positive effects on Blizzard both culturally and strategically. Under Activision, every game had to be a billion-dollar franchise. Under Xbox, that will likely change

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

Bobby’s ultimate goal (other than to get away with everything he did) was to turn Blizzard into another Activision studio cranking out yearly hits. Under Xbox, Blizzard may be able to regain some of its autonomy and fix some big problems. Maybe!

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

Important to also note here that many of Blizzard’s issues were entirely self-inflicted and had nothing to do with Activision, including sexual misconduct and discrimination

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

An excerpt from Bobby Kotick’s email to staff today: pic.twitter.com/qIyM02R31S

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 18, 2022

...and of course, since this is a Destiny Bungie forum...

Good morning.

What news did I miss?

Oh. Wait. What? Holy shit. What?????

— dmg04 (@A_dmg04) January 18, 2022

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They spend 68.7 Billion, and all they had to do to get me to buy an xbox was stop putting ads in the interface.

They spend 68.7 Billion, and all they had to do to get me to buy an xbox was stop putting ads in the interface.

https://pi-hole.net/ (SFW)

So think about how big this is.

For a game like Destiny, there were only 5 publishers who would have been able to publish the game because it was so big:

Microsoft
Sony
Nintendo
EA
Activision

Now that Microsoft owns Activision, the list of major publishers has decreased by 20%. That's huge.

I'm getting nervous about how gamepass is going to negatively affect the industry with such a potential selection of exclusives now. Get ready to never own anything anymore.

Damn those ADS!

4165

(Every time you post about ads it makes me laugh about that thread)

Damn those ADS!

4165

(Every time you post about ads it makes me laugh about that thread)

Man I was a dummy eh?

Man I was a dummy eh?

To be fair, there are 3 different meanings of "ads" when it comes to gaming.

I'm getting nervous about how gamepass is going to negatively affect the industry with such a potential selection of exclusives now. Get ready to never own anything anymore.

I can't wait! With single-player games charging $70-$80 for "ownership", I'd say Gamepass obliterating the ownership market can't happen soon enough. Especially with so many games being live service or Multiplayer only, I think it's high time we shift to a model where we pay essentially two new games worth for a full year of access to hundreds of titles, first-party and otherwise.

Gamepass really is the best thing to happen to the games model in ages.

Game Pass fucking rules.

Everyone is just bitching that Bobby K is getting a big pay day. Like, fine. He was always going to get a big pay day. At least this way, maybe he fucks off and MS can clean house and the base line folks that work there can see actual improvements. I’m less concerned with punishing Bobby Kotick and his ilk than I am in actually seeing the working conditions improve for the employees. Give him his fucking parachute and let him leave. Of course there’s no guarantee anything will improve, but I have more hope for that now than I did yesterday.

Especially with so many games being live service or Multiplayer only,

The only place where it makes sense :-p

You own a PS5. It’s got ads on the dashboard.

Get ready to never own anything anymore.

Get... ready? Cody, the perpetual license train by-and-large left the station almost a decade ago. It's not get ready, it's here. It's now. And it's not going away. But since you're new here, uh... I guess, Welcome to the Service Economy! Where we service ourselves by servicing you!

Well, unless it's an NFT. Those you TOTALLY own. Like for realzees.

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Damn those ADS!

4165

(Every time you post about ads it makes me laugh about that thread)

Man I was a dummy eh?

If we're doing it right, looking back, we all are.

You own a PS5. It’s got ads on the dashboard.

Oh no.

That fucking 'explore' tab. At first it looked like just a thing to give you info about your recent games… but a closer look reveals… tiny ads (in this case for a controller). You can't move it like you could with PS4 icons.

I can't unsee. Motherfucker.

I'm going to find every last sony ad server and block them from my router. Scorch earth this shit. I hate they got my money. Can only mitigate now.

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