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This one sucks because a studio that was functioning as normal is now risking death spiral territory as new management comes in and poor decisions with engine upgrades are turning an enhanced remake into a boondoggle https://www.polygon.com/features/22891555/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-has-led-to-extensive-crunch-at-tt-games
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Jan 20, 2022 17:57
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Rarity posted:Every company pays lips service to diversity and inclusion these days. It's by no means a guarantee they'll go any further than lip service All the inclusion and respect stuff is just corporate BS obviously. MS only goes so far as they need to for pr reasons and make money. But so far MS has been pretty good at being pretty hands off with successful studios and just let them do what they do. That goes both ways though. Like I really hope they actually clean house at Activision Get rid of a lot of the lovely management, use some of the great IP and let some of the studios not just be COD farms, but... does seem like they do like the hands off approach and COD does make cash. Same with blizzard. Would love to see some more non WOW stuff, but... Hoping for the best, but not raising expectations enough that I'll be at all disappointed if it's pretty much business as usually. Okay I'll be a bit disappointed if at least a few of Activisions lovely upper management aren't let go. But just the the normal we live in a lovely late capitalism society, ongoing at the world in general, disappointed kinda way.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:12
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Splorange posted:The funny thing about Kotick is that he cares so much about his reputation. As long as he isn't officially let go for being a slimy rear end in a top hat, he can go on and pretend he isn't a slimy rear end in a top hat. He has a cameo as the cheapskate As owner in Moneyball so he's not terribly self-aware.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:18
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dr_rat posted:All the inclusion and respect stuff is just corporate BS obviously. MS only goes so far as they need to for pr reasons and make money. But so far MS has been pretty good at being pretty hands off with successful studios and just let them do what they do. AFAIK Microsoft does dump a lot of money into accessibility which I'm not sure actually translates into big PR wins in video gaming? https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1482832513294766080 https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1482834907663532032 And I don't think you can get a dev more cynical than ropekid
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Jan 20, 2022 18:39
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Asked around, word is that this particular merger will be handled differently than others by Microsoft- probably means restructuring. Feels like nobody wants to work with Kotick and his leadership caste. It probably will be quiet, but there isn't a plan for keeping his crew around in any real capacity. Its so far away tho so who knows
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Jan 20, 2022 18:43
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Splorange posted:The funny thing about Kotick is that he cares so much about his reputation. As long as he isn't officially let go for being a slimy rear end in a top hat, he can go on and pretend he isn't a slimy rear end in a top hat. He doesn't give a single poo poo about his reputation among the proles. Some dudes on reddit calling him Bobby Nodick and photoshopping devil horns on him, or Jim Sterling making a video on how much of a douchebag he is; these things don't even register on the radar of someone with his level of influence and money. The reputation he cares about is his reputation for being a super effective business guy, which is under threat now. It cannot be overstated - for the last decade plus Bobby Kotick has been the very model of a massively successful CEO. He took a mediocre company and exploded its size and profit margins to a ludicrous degree and has developed a seemingly sustainable profit model(churning CoD games) in an industry famous for turbulent booms and busts. Him being a terrible person doesn't matter at all, because as far as the shareholders and board is concerned he has been doing his job impeccably, and I suspect that is just as much of a reason that they've been hesitant to remove him as contract clauses and good old boys' clubs. Now that all of the horrible poo poo that has piled up over the years is threatening the money printing machine and miring the company in bad PR and scandal, Kotick's reputation for being a super effective CEO among people who matter is being hit, which is why you see him trying to push the blame onto stuff like Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 being held up because those can be explained away as failures of the employees rather than failures of the executives.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:53
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I wonder if they'll shitcan the war criminal Kotick hired then subsequently forced to release the world's worst statement as if she wrote it, despite Kotick writing it himself.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:59
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Eej posted:AFAIK Microsoft does dump a lot of money into accessibility which I'm not sure actually translates into big PR wins in video gaming? Did actually know that, and it makes me very, very happy. Worked in digital inclusion stuff for quite a while, and similarly pretty very cynical about big tech companies, but yeah particularly in the last five-ten years or so accessibility stuff has been getting a lot better. Still long way to go -lots of smaller government council sites and such, even if they are legally obligated to do so, are often pretty terrible at this, and most companies in general- but it is getting better! But yeah Microsoft is generally a lot better then others at this. If it's got their name on it, it's something they don't actually want to gently caress up. As said they put money into it, and at least the people I've worked with at Microsoft -obviously small and bias sample- were knowledgeable and did want to make sure it's not just a tick box thing.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:50
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Kalko posted:So I do think we'll see World of Warcraft 2, and your Troll or Worgen or, uh, Human, sure, will be rendered in the same classic Blizzard style as it is now, only in much, much greater fidelity. You'll probably be traversing more console-friendly environs, but at least your robes will rustle in the breeze and deform realistically instead of looking like they're painted on. And we'll get a third Starcraft game, but it might not be in the same genre as the last one. Maybe it will be like Star Citizen, except good? Starcraft Citizen
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Jan 20, 2022 21:21
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sebmojo posted:Starcraft Citizen Still laughing that Star Citizen has been in development for so long that a better space game got developed and actually has pretty much all the stuff Star Citizen said it was going to have. There is no reason for Star Citizen to even exist as a concept anymore because Elite Dangerous already did it
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Jan 20, 2022 21:52
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secretly best girl posted:This one sucks because a studio that was functioning as normal is now risking death spiral territory as new management comes in and poor decisions with engine upgrades are turning an enhanced remake into a boondoggle a while back jon burton released a free director's cut mod for sonic 3d blast and i always thought that was kinda cool of him, so it sucks rear end learning he was a stereotypical shithead crunchboss at tt quote:“Jon told us [during a presentation] he was going to ‘hit the reset button’ in response to the survey results, and try to start fresh,” says a former employee. “He started by dropping some of the odd rules we had at the studio — disabling the internet firewall, and allowing people to answer phones at their desks — but nothing meaningful that addressed project timelines, low salaries, or the crunch culture. It was back to business as usual the following Monday.” lmao at there being a middle school no phones at your desk rule to begin with
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Jan 20, 2022 22:22
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secretly best girl posted:This one sucks because a studio that was functioning as normal is now risking death spiral territory as new management comes in and poor decisions with engine upgrades are turning an enhanced remake into a boondoggle I’m not saying that Skywalker Saga is not a boondoggle (it’s hilarious that the one time they try to move even slightly beyond the cookie-cutter LEGO games they’ve been making since like 2010, it ends up taking them 5 years) but also the point of this article was that even “functioning as normal” was still relying on exploitative crunch hours and a toxic work environment. It’s normal for the games industry but yet another example of why the norm has to be changed
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Jan 20, 2022 22:29
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Yeah, I'm not saying the crunch is good, I'm saying "God it sucks that a problematic-but-functional industry average studio is risking collapse on what seemed like an easy bet because of the decisions made above the common employee". It sucks that this might cause way more chaos for these people AND the situation is now so insane that they can't really even push back without the hammer of Disney or legal agreements risking loving everyone.
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Jan 20, 2022 22:32
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HonorableTB posted:Still laughing that Star Citizen has been in development for so long that a better space game got developed and actually has pretty much all the stuff Star Citizen said it was going to have. There is no reason for Star Citizen to even exist as a concept anymore because Elite Dangerous already did it can you take a space poo poo in a space toilet in Elite Dangerous? didn't think so checkmate *vibrates through the hull and falls directly down in space until I die*
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Jan 21, 2022 00:55
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-20/activision-employees-say-they-re-optimistic-about-acquisition?srnd=technology-vpquote:High-level employees at Activision have discussed moving away from the annual release schedule, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Although nothing has been finalized yet, there’s a belief among many Call of Duty developers that releasing games at a slower cadence will please players and help bolster the franchise, particularly after the weak launch of last year’s Call of Duty Vanguard, which saw a 36% decline from 2020’s entry in U.K. sales charts. The shift may not happen until next year or later, as this year’s Call of Duty is expected to redeem the franchise’s fortunes. reports are that activision is already thinking about moving away from the annual call of duty model https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/1484273335139651585 spencer says ms has a "desire to keep call of duty on playstation" but realistically this just means warzone, as an ongoing title, isn't going anywhere, while cod 2023 and onwards probably aren't going to be on ps. depends exactly what sort of agreements activision already had in place though. lih fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 00:56
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Kalko posted:Pokemon is actually the most valuable media IP in the world, by a lot. The entire box office of the MCU is about the same as the take from all of the Pokemon games, but then they have another $80 billion on top from merchandising, which seems to be where most of these franchises make their real money.
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Jan 21, 2022 01:04
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secretly best girl posted:This one sucks because a studio that was functioning as normal is now risking death spiral territory as new management comes in and poor decisions with engine upgrades are turning an enhanced remake into a boondoggle TT is the only games studio I have ever heard of that has a night shift - just for the QA department afaik, but in either case it's totally unhinged for games development and 100% because of the extremely short devcycles they use and because QA testers for big studios in the UK are usually all on temporary contracts, so they have significantly less job security.
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Jan 21, 2022 03:05
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I dug through the yearly industry survey. The only other interesting part is that people are reporting way less crunch and consistently normal hours, though there are outliers.BULBASAUR posted:From the state of the industry doc
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Jan 21, 2022 03:13
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I have a hard time believing MS will make CoD Xbox/PC exclusive. That's hundreds of millions of dollars they'd be leaving on the table. There were almost 5.5mil more PS5s sold than XSX's as of November according to this article and current gen consoles haven't even begun to hit market saturation rates.
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Jan 21, 2022 03:54
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Presumably they would make them exclusive to help close that gap though right? Like they did the same analysis for Bethesda and decided that future games will be exclusive.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:02
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HonorableTB posted:Still laughing that Star Citizen has been in development for so long that a better space game got developed and actually has pretty much all the stuff Star Citizen said it was going to have. There is no reason for Star Citizen to even exist as a concept anymore because Elite Dangerous already did it unfortunately i think elite is having some problems of their own lately
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Jan 21, 2022 04:18
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Yeah, if anything it's good timing, there are still supply issues and people can't freely buy the systems. If they know that CoD is going to be Xbox exclusive and they haven't bought a system yet but are a fan of the series, it makes the choice much easier. Also, even if they lose a percent of PS5 players who refuse to play it on Xbox, PC, or Cloud, it's probably a much smaller revenue number than the potential of gamepass subscribers who will make the jump over, releasing the game on PS5 will just discourage this. MS has always been about playing the long game and someone mentioned before that the potential sales decrease will just be absorbed as marketing costs.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:21
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Anno posted:Presumably they would make them exclusive to help close that gap though right? Like they did the same analysis for Bethesda and decided that future games will be exclusive.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:26
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Those people were crazy though. And if Minecraft 2 were announced today I suspect it’d be Xbox/PC/mobile (maybe Switch?). So yeah like Warzone is going to be supported on PlayStation until it’s turned off, same as ESO/FO76. I just don’t think that like the 2024 single player COD experience will, unless there are contracts in place that Microsoft has to honor or Sony negotiates some concessions. Tbf I wouldn’t be shocked or anything if they kept it purely multiplat going forward, I’d just guess they don’t unless they have to and/or can get something out of doing so.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:32
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SubponticatePoster posted:Personally I think that time has passed, you've got a lot more alternatives for shootymans now. With the cost of current gen consoles and a lack of high-end graphics cards due to crypto miners I don't think people are going to jump ship from PS5 or purchase a gaming PC just to play CoD. People were sure that Minecraft would become xbox/pc exclusive after they bought Mojang and that the PS version wouldn't get any more patches or updates. Turns out they were wrong, because MS likes money. What alternatives? Call of Duty is far and away the largest FPS franchise that exists, especially in the context of consoles. A 30%+ decline in CoD sales still puts it an order of magnitude ahead of its immediate competitors, and the closest franchise to a credible competitor in the same subgenre, Battlefield, has managed to trip over its own feet on a nearly constant basis. I don't think MS would make exclusive any ongoing games - they didn't cut off Minecraft, and they won't cut off Warzone - but it's entirely realistic that they might decide that further entries will be PC/Xbox exclusive. Your argument that "people won't jump ship just to play CoD" works the other way, where the scarcity of hardware means that if a prospective buyer is only going to buy one gaming platform, they might lean towards the one they can play CoD on.
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Jan 21, 2022 04:42
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microsoft let steve be in smash and on ps5, theres zero reason to think theyd make cod an exclusive
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Jan 21, 2022 05:18
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Kanos posted:I don't think MS would make exclusive any ongoing games - they didn't cut off Minecraft, and they won't cut off Warzone - but it's entirely realistic that they might decide that further entries will be PC/Xbox exclusive. Your argument that "people won't jump ship just to play CoD" works the other way, where the scarcity of hardware means that if a prospective buyer is only going to buy one gaming platform, they might lean towards the one they can play CoD on.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:28
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They probably would just make more money keeping it multiplatform, and then have it on Gamepass as the hardware seller, so they'd still benefit. Also, to this point, no Activision game has ever been on Gamepass, and we might start seeing them come over this year in the lead-up to the merger. It'll give them some tentpole headliners from month to month if they can say that, for example, Sekiro were to come to Gamepass.
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Jan 21, 2022 05:33
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SubponticatePoster posted:If that's the case though, it'd be in their best interests to say that now. "Just to let you know, after 2022 (or whenever the existing contracts run out) future CoD's will be Xbox exclusive so you should take that into consideration when buying a new console!" So those who haven't scooped one up can factor that into their purchasing decision. Not say it's remaining multiplat. They don't own the company yet.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:08
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Endorph posted:microsoft let steve be in smash and on ps5, theres zero reason to think theyd make cod an exclusive Old or existing games, sure, but not new releases imo
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Jan 21, 2022 06:11
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I imagine crunch is down industry wide just from the move to remote work - can't do the "nobody leaves til the boss leaves!!!" bullshit anywhere near as easy. And definitely more than just TT have nightshift QA, and yeah it sucks.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:12
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MikeJF posted:I wonder if they're going to structure Activision, Blizzard and King as separate organisations directly under the Microsoft Game Studios umbrella or if it's going to go MS -> ABK -> A, B & K. They've been wanting to unlink PC Game Pass from UWP, and I imagine Blizzard's launcher will probably be retrofitted for it since it's one of the most used platforms outside of Steam. I expect Blizzard to start being at E3 in a slot between Todd Howard and Halo, the retirement of "battle.net" as a distinctive brand, and pretty much them becoming a cog in the Xbox umbrella in terms of public relations and media image even if the workplaces remain apart. They'll still make good games, but it'll be the difference between id Software of now and the id of olde when John Romero was a drama queen and Paul Steed named a woman 'crackwhore'. A lot of what's plaguing Blizzard right now is a consequence of having never grown up past that 1998 testosterone-driven wannabe Mick Jagger thing. Usually once you make your first billion dollars you grow out of that, but Blizzard's had people throwing cash at their faces non-stop since Cendant bought them from Davidson. lih posted:spencer says ms has a "desire to keep call of duty on playstation" but realistically this just means warzone, as an ongoing title, isn't going anywhere, while cod 2023 and onwards probably aren't going to be on ps. depends exactly what sort of agreements activision already had in place though. It means they're continuing the contract Activision has with Sony until that contract expires. Once that's done, adios. They did the same thing with Bethesda, with Deathloop being one of the better reasons to own a PS5 last year. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 06:35
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Kanos posted:They don't own the company yet. Yeah, exact same thing happened with Bethesda. When it was announced they were talking about how they didn't buy the studios to deny people the games they love to play or some variant on that. As soon as the deal was finalized Phil outright said that you'd better have something that can access gamepass if you want any future games. We probably won't hear anything until the deal is closed next year, but at this point I don't think it'd be a bad decision to buy an Xbox if you're a CoD fan.
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Jan 21, 2022 06:46
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Craptacular! posted:It means they're continuing the contract Activision has with Sony until that contract expires. Once that's done, adios. Yeah it just depends how far out that extends, with a series like CoD it's possible the existing contract lasts for a few more years I guess?
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Jan 21, 2022 09:52
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I'd say Microsoft is less likely to be as totally strict on exclusives as you'd see in say, the Nintendo/Sega days, but they're probably going to shift on everything being exclusive to their platforms unless they see a reason for it. Notably they seem to have at least for now backed off on having purely console exclusives given they still make money on Windows releases. Minecraft is both so popular and with a demographic that is less likely to be able to afford or want to get an Xbox just for it, so it's still coming out on literally everything that'll run it, and whatever deal they struck with Nintendo, Banjo-Kazooie is a dead end for them on anything but Nintendo hardware given what they did to Rare.Craptacular! posted:They'll still make good games, but it'll be the difference between id Software of now and the id of olde when John Romero was a drama queen and Paul Steed named a woman 'crackwhore'. A lot of what's plaguing Blizzard right now is a consequence of having never grown up past that 1998 testosterone-driven wannabe Mick Jagger thing. Usually once you make your first billion dollars you grow out of that, but Blizzard's had people throwing cash at their faces non-stop since Cendant bought them from Davidson. I think that would explain a lot. Corporate culture is a tricky thing, but Microsoft at least appears to be more 'professional' for good and bad, while Blizzard's been able to do things their way for years, and that whole late 90s rockstar developer model both ages and scales up extremely poorly. Hell, it sounds like a lesser version of the problems that 3D Realms had, companies that never really left their golden age or associated behaviours despite the industry outgrowing them.
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Jan 21, 2022 12:43
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BULBASAUR posted:Old or existing games, sure, but not new releases imo Yeah, the core of their business strategy at this point is "get people on gamepass". Everyone already has Minecraft but actual new games could be potential draws.
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Jan 21, 2022 13:34
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Endorph posted:microsoft let steve be in smash and on ps5, theres zero reason to think theyd make cod an exclusive Except the fact that Starfield and all other future Bethesda games (except Ghostwire Tokyo) were made exclusive. Cythereal posted:In any event, Microsoft is making promising noises about Blizzard. There’s nothing “promising” about giving the sexual harasser CEO a massive payout and golden parachute from the company instead of letting him face the ramifications of a unionized workforce. Microsoft is using PR speak to signal a bright diverse future for the company because this way they can convince the workers they don’t “need” a union because that’s the only thing the workers can do that would actually challenge them. This is the best possible outcome for all the creeps at A/B.
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Jan 21, 2022 15:05
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https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1484556399262814210?s=21 I wonder if the purchase caught them off guard and they’re doing it because they worry it might be now or never. Regardless I hope this goes well even if I know ABK is gonna fight this with every fiber of their being
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Jan 21, 2022 17:18
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Pirate Jet posted:There’s nothing “promising” about giving the sexual harasser CEO a massive payout and golden parachute from the company instead of letting him face the ramifications of a unionized workforce. Microsoft is using PR speak to signal a bright diverse future for the company because this way they can convince the workers they don’t “need” a union because that’s the only thing the workers can do that would actually challenge them. This is the best possible outcome for all the creeps at A/B. You do realize that Kotick would still have hundreds of millions of dollars even without any of this happening, right? There are literally no possible ramifications that would affect his life at all here in any situation.
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Jan 21, 2022 17:26
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yeah I know it's been posted plenty of times but bobby's absurd contract gets him a 300 million dollar payday in pretty much any possible situation other than "convicted of actual murder"
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Jan 21, 2022 17:36
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