It’s a big deal (pic: Microsoft)

A reader is frustrated with those that claim the Activision Blizzard acquisition will not affect them and insists that it definitely will.

We’ve been hearing about the Activision Blizzard acquisition for so long now that I think some people are starting to blank it out. It’s getting to become a Brexit style situation where people just want it to be over and have stopped thinking about what it actually means for the future. Microsoft has been spinning their tales but I think it’s very obvious why Sony don’t want it to happen, because it will be the end of PlayStation.

Before you dismiss that as hyperbole consider the facts: according to Microsoft the acquisition won’t change anything for Sony. They’ve given them guarantees that Call Of Duty will stay multiformat for 10 years and they’ve even let Sony put it on PS Plus, which is more than they have now. If that was true, why would Sony oppose the deal? For the simple fact that they don’t think it’s true, they know Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard will completely change the dynamics of the games industry.

You’ve probably heard all this before but I keep reading about people insisting it won’t affect them (or that it hasn’t, apparently unaware that the acquisition hasn’t even happened yet) but it will. It will affect every publisher and developer, and by association every gamer, in the world.

The problem here is not Call Of Duty. I’m sure Microsoft will find some way to get round keeping it multiformat but that’s not really the point. Sony can survive without Call Of Duty and, to be honest, there’s more chance of Call Of Duty being irrelevant in 10 years than anything else.

No, the real problem is that Activision Blizzard is a massive company. They have 13,000 employees, which is more than Nintendo. There’s a reason Microsoft is having to pay $69 billion for them, and remember that that’s them getting them cheap, following all the toxic workplace revelations (which I notice we haven’t heard a thing about as soon as Microsoft announced the acquisition deal).

Blizzard make lots of highly lucrative games like World Of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo, and Candy Crush maker King are the most profitable of them all. Sony doesn’t have any mobile developers to speak off and this is immediately going to make them unable to compete, and yet I’ve never heard any of the investigators mention that.

Putting out a new Call Of Duty, with all its content, every year takes a huge number of developers and multiple studios and now Microsoft will have them all under their control. Plus, they’re almost certainly use them for things over than Call Of Duty, as they’ve already hinted about not having one every year anymore.

In one instant Sony will be completely outgunned in terms of developers and franchises and there’s no way for them to compensate. People say that Sony are just trying to protect their dominance as if that’s some sort of criticism. It’s like pointing to some guy about to be beaten up and complaining, ‘He’s trying to stop them from hitting him!’

If Sony aren’t dominant, then Microsoft will be. If all things were equal that would be fine, they were in the Xbox 360 era and the world didn’t end. But this time that dominance will be bought and paid for, not earned, and it’s that that Sony can’t compete with. There’s going to be no way back for them if the deal goes through and the best they can hope is to eek out a Nintendo style existence based purely on their first party games.

And make no doubts about it, the deal will go through. I think we all knew it would from the start but everything that’s being said now, by the investigators, pretty much guarantees it. And after that there’s no way back. Things will never be the same again and I hope all you people who claim it won’t affect you come to realise that.

By reader Telos

It isn’t just about Activision (pic: Activison)

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A reader is frustrated with those that claim the Activision Blizzard acquisition will not affect them and insists that it definitely will.