Microsoft's acquisition of Activison Blizzard

[Zzero]

Do you guys think MS put the cart before the horse in the sense that they 100 percent banked on this will be the generation cloud gaming takes off? Kind of how late in the 360 generation they built the xbone around kinect because the assumption was that would be the future? With Ubisoft having 15 years of cloud streaming of ABK games, it really does seem like MS has conceded cloud not being the future anytime soon.

So it seems to me they have (reluctantly):
-conceded the console arena based on sales and market shares. Bleeding money on hardware and just recently spiked to price making their dire situation even worse.
-Admitted subscription gaming (gamepass) growth has stalled out
- Admitted cloud hasnt taken off like they thought and plan on giving steaming right to ABK games to Ubisoft for 15 years

So my question is, where do they go from here? WHAT is even the point of remaining in gaming for them other than to say "Me too?"

I honestly don't know. I don't think ABK really aligned with their "cloudy vision" in the first place, since it was heavily pivoting towards GaaS monetization, and was just a spur of the moment "good buy" when the scandal hit.

 

[Johnic]

Do you guys think MS put the cart before the horse in the sense that they 100 percent banked on this will be the generation cloud gaming takes off? Kind of how late in the 360 generation they built the xbone around kinect because the assumption was that would be the future? With Ubisoft having 15 years of cloud streaming of ABK games, it really does seem like MS has conceded cloud not being the future anytime soon.

So it seems to me they have (reluctantly):
-conceded the console arena based on sales and market shares. Bleeding money on hardware and just recently spiked to price making their dire situation even worse.
-Admitted subscription gaming (gamepass) growth has stalled out
- Admitted cloud hasnt taken off like they thought and plan on giving steaming right to ABK games to Ubisoft for 15 years

So my question is, where do they go from here? WHAT is even the point of remaining in gaming for them other than to say "Me too?"

They keep doing what they've been doing for decades. Spend money and hope things change. Everything they've planned so far has fallen short. GamePass hasn't hit a single milestone they set for it and cloud gaming hasn't picked up yet.

They'll keep throwing money in hopes of cloud taking off.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Do you guys think MS put the cart before the horse in the sense that they 100 percent banked on this will be the generation cloud gaming takes off? Kind of how late in the 360 generation they built the xbone around kinect because the assumption was that would be the future? With Ubisoft having 15 years of cloud streaming of ABK games, it really does seem like MS has conceded cloud not being the future anytime soon.

So it seems to me they have (reluctantly):
-conceded the console arena based on sales and market shares. Bleeding money on hardware and just recently spiked to price making their dire situation even worse.
-Admitted subscription gaming (gamepass) growth has stalled out
- Admitted cloud hasnt taken off like they thought and plan on giving steaming right to ABK games to Ubisoft for 15 years

So my question is, where do they go from here? WHAT is even the point of remaining in gaming for them other than to say "Me too?"

Nadella got fleeced by Spencer. He sold him that vision of subscription and cloud future. The pandemic made it seem like it was just around the corner for a short while but it all came crashing down fast. Customers are just not following and don't care about it at all.

They are now pivoting to "mobile" because everything else failed. They are going to make us believe selling Candy crush and mtx on phones was the big plan Phil envisioned

 

[nongkris]

Subscription services have not been good, healthy or positive for any industry they cannibalized. Historically they're pretty cool to start with, as they offer unprecedented access to goods, at extremely low prices -- this functions as a market undercut which slowly kills all alternatives as they cannot afford to compete. Once each of those markets is dominated by their respective subscription service, prices begin to go up, developer/artist/musician/director/publisher contracts become lower in value as "shelf space" is no longer premium value to the service and it's not like they have any alternative anyway, and because of all of these points, the quality of the offer itself starts to decline rapidly.

Shows get cancelled more often, musicians at the lower and mid levels can no longer survive because individual streams pay almost nothing and will only ever be livable if in gigantic bulk, movies further polarize wherein you only have very low risk tiny indies or extremely gigantic AAA gambits because it is no longer viable to make a mid-sized project that can pay for itself with ticket costs, because that's not a thing anymore for anything below Disney.

So, no, subscription services don't have a good track record at all, bud. Gaming will not be different; all the same issues (related to costs and ongoing expenses) are even worse in the games industry and you will see that very clearly expressed on your Game Pass once you realize that Microsoft no longer has any incentive to give some farming indie game a contract as they're aware that it will not add any value to the service realistically, especially when they no longer need any "volume" due to buying out every publisher in the Milky Way -- and trust me, that is exactly what they are aiming for.

This is perhaps why people are being a bit mean to you. All of this is blatantly obvious stuff for the last 15 years; there's a wealth of evidence for this, it's all extremely well documented and it all falls squarely with Microsoft's strategies of yester year which were problematic at the time, as they are today. So when someone argues otherwise, it comes off as either trolling or just blatant bootlicking.

This is so true it needs to be stickied on every page because of how true it is. Streaming has destroyed entire industries and wreaked havoc on the workers

Nadella got fleeced by Spencer. He sold him that vision of subscription and cloud future. The pandemic made it seem like it was just around the corner for a short while but it all came crashing down fast. Customers are just not following and don't care about it at all.

They are now pivoting to "mobile" because everything else failed. They are going to make us believe selling Candy crush and mtx on phones was the big plan Phil envisioned

Yep, sad part is a broken clock is right twice a day, and mobile is truly where the big money maker is, so the acqusiition will likely pay off for Phil. Especially with warzone mobile being released soon. Sony needs to stop worrying about VR and remote play and actually get a foothold in the mobile market. It's why they're non existent in asia.

 

[Swift_Star]

This is so true it needs to be stickied on every page because of how true it is. Streaming has destroyed entire industries and wreaked havoc on the workers


Yep, sad part is a broken clock is right twice a day, and mobile is truly where the big money maker is, so the acqusiition will likely pay off for Phil. Especially with warzone mobile being released soon. Sony needs to stop worrying about VR and remote play and actually get a foothold in the mobile market. It's why they're non existent in asia.

Streaming was a mistake, then?
I wonder how does it perform in music? I feel like for music artists, streaming is much better.

 

[Old Gamer]

Streaming was a mistake, then?
I wonder how does it perform in music? I feel like for music artists, streaming is much better.

Streaming deals are even more exploitative towards artists than any record company ever was.

 

[Yeona]

Streaming was a mistake, then?
I wonder how does it perform in music? I feel like for music artists, streaming is much better.

Lady Gaga spoke about this years ago saying she basically received literal fractions of a cent per stream, and that if she wasn't as gigantic as she is and didn't make money off of merchandising and concerts, streaming would never in a million years allow her career to be self-sufficient and she would require a traditional publisher regardless. Here's an article about it, which underlines that Spotify pays the artist. Here's a quick breakdown:

"The rate varies by market, but is generally fractions of a cent per play, with the average payout being between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream.

That money is then distributed amongst rights holders, which can include record labels, publishers, and other entities, which then pay a portion to the artist.

It’s important to note that the rate can vary based on a variety of factors, such as the listener’s country, the artist’s royalty rate, and whether the listener is a free or premium subscriber.

However, it’s also known that Spotify usually strikes special deals with their top artists, possibly ensuring them a rate on the higher end of the range mentioned above."

Obviously as you might imagine, this reality is devastating for anyone that's not Lady Gaga-levels of fame, because traditional publishers aren't as interested in footing the bill for everything you want to make anymore due to streaming. "Stream my music" is only good for musicians who are hoping they can grow to the volume of selling merch and doing tours. Anyone else has zero chance to make it.

Stream contracts are nice if you can get one, but there is a fraction of them compared to the volume label records back in the day, which were by no means perfect but at the very least were far more plentiful and you had hundreds of labels per genre to approach.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Lady Gaga spoke about this years ago saying she basically received literal fractions of a cent per stream, and that if she wasn't as gigantic as she is and didn't make money off of merchandising and concerts, streaming would never in a million years allow her career to be self-sufficient and she would require a traditional publisher regardless. Here's an article about it, which underlines that Spotify pays the artist. Here's a quick breakdown:



Obviously as you might imagine, this reality is devastating for anyone that's not Lady Gaga-levels of fame, because traditional publishers aren't as interested in footing the bill for everything you want to make anymore due to streaming. "Stream my music" is only good for musicians who are hoping they can grow to the volume of selling merch and doing tours. Anyone else has zero chance to make it.

Stream contracts are nice if you can get one, but there is a fraction of them compared to the volume label records back in the day, which were by no means perfect but at the very least were far more plentiful and you had hundreds of labels per genre to approach.

Pretty much reads like exploitation in a nutshell. And some people want cloud streaming and subscription services to be the future of gaming? Either they don't know or just don't care about the consequences.

Those Spotify rates are basically slave wages. Even for the exposure angle of new artist, IMO it's not worth it.

 

[Old Gamer]

Those Spotify rates are basically slave wages. Even for the exposure angle of new artist, IMO it's not worth it.

What kind of exposure in a platform that gives one a million to one chance to be listened by most people in a shuffled randonly generated playlist?

It's a scam, that's what it is.

 

[Darth Vader]

Streaming was a mistake, then?
I wonder how does it perform in music? I feel like for music artists, streaming is much better.

As a music artist, it's shit. Thousands of streams of my music in Spotify paid less than 1 album sale, and I mean by a factor of 100. It did not boost album sales whatsoever when compared to pre-spotify.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

As a music artist, it's shit. Thousands of streams of my music in Spotify paid less than 1 album sale, and I mean by a factor of 100. It did not boost album sales whatsoever when compared to pre-spotify.

do live shows

 

[Darth Vader]

do live shows

Not all bands or artists want to play live. Not all bands or artists can afford the time to play live.

But yet again, another shit post by you.

And if it interests you, most offers to play live for small artists pay you... Zero. They offer you a beer and maybe dinner.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Not all bands or artists want to play live. Not all bands or artists can afford the time to play live.

But yet again, another shit post by you.

But you know is common knowledge since forever right? If you expected spotify to act as a substitute for Live Performaces I dunno what to tell you.

the irony of you comment is that i made a post regarding Spotify's issues offering a bunch of receipts.

i am being attacked for no reason

 

[anonpuffs]

Basically streaming is a shot in the dark for artists to get people to sub to their patreons, where a single patron might pay more than most of their streaming income

 

[nongkris]

The subscription model only looks attractive when the tech companies use large upfront lump sum payments to entice creators, like netflix does/did with comedians, spotify with podcasters, and gamepass with every game on the service. but then you realize the amount of people playing your game gets you nothing or pennies in royalties and the companies basically scammed you. Millionaires artists can weather that storm or negotiate a higher upfront fee while the regular studios will be the ones to lose.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Streaming was a mistake, then?
I wonder how does it perform in music? I feel like for music artists, streaming is much better.

Almost no musician makes any real money from spotify. There are musicians putting up their music for free on the internet because of how little difference this makes.

They used to make money on CD sales, but now they're fully dependent on concert tickets and oublicity deals. Save for the top 50 artists on spotify with singular streaming numbers in the billions.

 

[Darth Vader]

But you know is common knowledge since forever right? If you expected spotify to act as a substitute for Live Performaces I dunno what to tell you.

the irony of you comment is that i made a post regarding Spotify's issues offering a bunch of receipts.

i am being attacked for no reason

Who expects Spotify to substitute live performances? I didn't even talk about that. I did mention that Spotify pays much less than album sales, and that stands, especially if you're an independent artist or in a small label. Again, 1 album sale pays better than thousands of streams.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

What in the world was Sony fighting for all the time? It’s the same darned deal they got offered in 2022 December.
I don’t understand what Sony sees in Jim Ryan. Jimbo needs to go!

 

[Would_you_kindly]

What in the world was Sony fighting for all the time? It’s the same darned deal they got offered in 2022 December.
I don’t understand what Sony sees in Jim Ryan. Jimbo needs to go!

The deal they were initially offered was all activision games through to 2027 the deal they got was better (for money making I would personally prefer the other games crash / spyro etc )

 

[Eternal_Wings]

The deal they were initially offered was all activision games through to 2027 the deal they got was better (for money making I would personally prefer the other games crash / spyro etc )

Microsoft said it’s the same deal. Means back then also no Spyro, Diablo etc.