On the 18th of January, I was finishing up some work just before I had my lunch and I saw an article pop up on Twitter. It was from PC Gamer and the headline was “Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion“. I remember simply being stunned. I couldn’t process it as my first thought was to check if it was April 1st. Upon a little further research, it became evident that this wasn’t a joke or a prank, this was really happening. Given this, I thought it worth sharing my thoughts on the astonishing Microsoft purchase of Activision-Blizzard.
I should first explain why I was so surprised. A week prior to this news, I saw the information that Take-Two Interactive was acquiring Zynga in, at the time, the largest video game purchase in history at $12.7 billion. Given that this record had been set recently at a comparatively mere $12.7 billion, I couldn’t believe how quickly it was beaten by nearly five and a half times the price.
I’m sure many will find this strange but the first question that I pondered when I heard this news was what’s going to happen to Battle.net. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with what that is, Battle.net is a service that was created by Blizzard Entertainment in 1996 in order to handle multiplayer in their games. As the service developed, it eventually allowed for the purchase of Blizzard games as well as several from Activision. While still relatively basic compared to a launcher like Steam, Battle.net has some decent functionality. However, with the Microsoft purchase of Activision-Blizzard, the future of the service is now in question. On one hand, Microsoft already have the Microsoft Store and don’t need another launcher, meaning that they might scrap Battle.net and release the games on other storefronts. On the other hand, Battle.net is considered by many to be superior to the Microsoft Store so it’s entirely possible that Battle.net could be reworked as Microsoft’s launcher for the PC platform.
Of course, another big question that everyone’s asking is whether games by Activision-Blizzard will now be exclusive to platforms where Game Pass exists. It’s still hard to tell at the moment as executives from Microsoft have been very cryptic, just as they were when Microsoft acquired ZeniMax. All we’ve got are a couple of quotes from Phil Spencer who has said “I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that.” and “Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship.” As a PC gamer, these exclusivity agreements seem unlikely to affect me but it is a legitimate concern and it’ll likely be a while before we get any definitive answers.
I also confess that I’ve had numerous issues with the way Activision-Blizzard has been managed for a while. Their focus on Call of Duty, a franchise I’ve not touched in over a decade, has meant that they’ve left many of their other franchises dormant. Phil Spencer has mentioned that he’s interested in revisiting franchises that Activision-Blizzard own such as King’s Quest, Guitar Hero and HeXen. Of course, it’s one thing to mention that Microsoft is interested in these franchises and another to actually invest money and develop new games in these series.
Blizzard themselves aren’t exempt from mismanagement either. An easy example to point out is the fiasco that was Warcraft III: Reforged. In what was meant to be a grand, comprehensive remaster of an RTS classic, Warcraft III: Reforged was released in a dire state that was buggy and lacking many of the improvements that were promised. Eventually, it was revealed that the game had suffered from severe budget cuts as well as a lack of faith from Activision. One of my most anticipated releases of 2021 was Overwatch 2 and now it seems likely that the game won’t be released until 2023, if even that. This wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for the severe content famine that Overwatch is currently going through. My hope is that Microsoft will rework the management at Blizzard and allow them to release great games again.
There are a lot of questions surrounding the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft and it will probably be a while before we get any clear answers. Still, I have mild hope that Microsoft can take Activision-Blizzard and allow them to regain their former glory. Let me know your thoughts on the astonishing Microsoft Purchase of Activision-Blizzard, whether you also have faith that Microsoft can fix Activision-Blizzard, any hopes or concerns you might have about the deal and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.