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I'm for the expansion of gamepass. I'm fine with all these acquisitions.

I don't like the purchase of ActiBlizz personally. I would have rather MS invest the $70 billion into all the studios they currently have. Which, since many tech companies are in the middle of a hiring freeze, most of their studios aren't hiring right now. Which sucks because I want to see games like Fable, Avowed, Compulsion Games Project Midnight and inXile's Project Cobalt get released sooner rather than later, but a hiring freeze will not help speed up development. Not to mention 2 of the 4 years since the studios have been purchased were under work from home conditions.

With how much scrutiny MS is getting from this acquisition, I don't think they'll ever get away with acquiring another publisher. At least one anywhere near this size. Idk how Japan's regulations are, so I doubt MS will be able to buy a Japanese publisher, so who knows who else MS is referring to. 

But, we all know ActiBlizz is an absolute dumpster fire of a company. Now that the two largest workers unions in the US are backing the deal, there may be hope yet that the culture of ActiBlizz may actually turn around. And, as with all additional excuses for third-party exclusivity deals, as long as the games turn out for the better because of it. 

I say let them, why not. It doesn't impact me in any way.

All of what u said is facts. I chose neutral bcuz there are definite good things to be had here if done right, especially on helping the workers of ActiBlizz, but consolidation isn’t good, and even if intentions seem good right now, doesnt mean they will be in 10 years. Honestly idgaf about sony losing cod or other shit, but this kinda thing is very rarely good overall for things outside of just useless console wars, hope this is handled well

For it objectively speaking. Looking at other acquisitions the regulators have allowed, and comparing it to the Xbox-Activision deal, there is just no sound reason to block it. It gives Xbox a much smaller gaming marketshare than some of these other acquisitions that have gone through, such as Disney-Fox and Penguin-Random House. On top of that, the majority of employees at both companies support it from what I've heard, and the largest union in the US, AFL-CIO, supports it. Has been approved by 3 regulators so far with no concessions required. FTC's case seems to largely be built on false premise. Xbox seems to plan to keep their largest franchises multiplat the remainder of this generation and probably at least part of next gen, like CoD, Overwatch, and Diablo, so at least for the foreseeable future the only exclusives they may get out of it are going to be in smaller franchises like Crash, Spyro, and Tony Hawk, series which won't have a significant impact on Xbox hardware sales most likely.

Subjectively though, I'm more neutral. I don't personally care that much about ABK's games, there are other publishers I would have much rather seen them acquire, such as Sega. A part of me hopes it gets blocked so that Xbox can focus on other, smaller publishers that will be easier to get past regulators and more independent studio acquisitions. I also fear that if the ABK deal does go through, regulators will greatly limit how much else they can acquire afterward, so if it's a choice between only ABK, or no ABK but a smaller publisher like Sega and several more lone studios getting acquired, I will take the latter scenario for sure, as it will put more games I personally play onto Xbox and Gamepass. 

Game Pass = great, more Game Pass Games = even greater so in the very unlikely scenario that ActiBliz create a game im interested in then not having to buy that = absolutely fantastic. But in reality I don't play PvP games like COD & Overwatch, I avoid grind fest games like Diablo, I don't go near MMOs like WoW and every other franchise they have is dead so this deal would benefit me exactly 0%. The conversation around it is both hilarious and boring af so whatever happens, I wish it was over with already. 

If Bobby Kotick gets the boot, I'm all for it. I do hope it will bring a culture change at Activision-Blizzard but I'm not holding my breath.

I don't care much

But it's sad Microsoft is buying big studios

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