<story><title>Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cman1444</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn&amp;#x27;t like it? Well too bad, that&amp;#x27;s $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.</text></item><item><author>NovaDudely</author><text>&amp;gt; argues that this deal actually helps consumers&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m listening...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; by speeding up the transition to &amp;quot;streaming&amp;quot; games and cloud gaming&lt;p&gt;Ewww... no thanks!</text></item><item><author>cman1444</author><text>I disagree with the opinion that it harms consumers. The economist has an article it recently published that argues that this deal actually helps consumers by speeding up the transition to &amp;quot;streaming&amp;quot; games and cloud gaming as an option. I tend to agree. Just because one large company is buying another large company doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the deal should be blocked.</text></item><item><author>KingMachiavelli</author><text>The real issue is Sony has many exclusives which gives Microsoft a better case (despite the judge saying it&amp;#x27;s NOT about Sony).&lt;p&gt;It certainly harms consumers, so I don&amp;#x27;t see how the court still approved this especially with the judge&amp;#x27;s comment &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; the comparison to Sony. Almost all mergers of this size harm consumers, the fact that it&amp;#x27;s allowed by default is the crucial issue.&lt;p&gt;If the FTC still had a spine they would go after all of these kinds of exclusive deals - and not just limited to games.&lt;p&gt;The film industry was famously broken up such that the production companies couldn&amp;#x27;t own theaters yet in 2023 that rule (if it still exists) is so weak that most production companies have their streaming service and aggressively pressure theaters into exclusivity Windows.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day this only strengthens the trend to PC gaming which only benefits Microsoft and can only hurt Sony. It would only be a minor surprise if Sony joined the Proton&amp;#x2F;WINE effort with Valve to get around Microsoft exclusives. (Which does help consumers but in a 3D chess kind of way).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lelanthran</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn&amp;#x27;t like it? Well too bad, that&amp;#x27;s $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.&lt;p&gt;Moving from an ownership model to a rental model is &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; anti-consumer.&lt;p&gt;So, sure, some people prefer to rent their couch. That&amp;#x27;s fine. You&amp;#x27;re effectively arguing that couch ownership should be forbidden.&lt;p&gt;You are going to have to provide a more compelling argument that &amp;quot;Well, I play every game only once, for 90m, before moving on to the next, so we should enforce my preference onto everybody!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The majority of gamers &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; play more than a handful of games in a year. There&amp;#x27;s just no time. You find a game you&amp;#x27;re into, your pour most of your hours into that game.</text></comment>
<story><title>Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cman1444</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn&amp;#x27;t like it? Well too bad, that&amp;#x27;s $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.</text></item><item><author>NovaDudely</author><text>&amp;gt; argues that this deal actually helps consumers&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m listening...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; by speeding up the transition to &amp;quot;streaming&amp;quot; games and cloud gaming&lt;p&gt;Ewww... no thanks!</text></item><item><author>cman1444</author><text>I disagree with the opinion that it harms consumers. The economist has an article it recently published that argues that this deal actually helps consumers by speeding up the transition to &amp;quot;streaming&amp;quot; games and cloud gaming as an option. I tend to agree. Just because one large company is buying another large company doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the deal should be blocked.</text></item><item><author>KingMachiavelli</author><text>The real issue is Sony has many exclusives which gives Microsoft a better case (despite the judge saying it&amp;#x27;s NOT about Sony).&lt;p&gt;It certainly harms consumers, so I don&amp;#x27;t see how the court still approved this especially with the judge&amp;#x27;s comment &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; the comparison to Sony. Almost all mergers of this size harm consumers, the fact that it&amp;#x27;s allowed by default is the crucial issue.&lt;p&gt;If the FTC still had a spine they would go after all of these kinds of exclusive deals - and not just limited to games.&lt;p&gt;The film industry was famously broken up such that the production companies couldn&amp;#x27;t own theaters yet in 2023 that rule (if it still exists) is so weak that most production companies have their streaming service and aggressively pressure theaters into exclusivity Windows.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day this only strengthens the trend to PC gaming which only benefits Microsoft and can only hurt Sony. It would only be a minor surprise if Sony joined the Proton&amp;#x2F;WINE effort with Valve to get around Microsoft exclusives. (Which does help consumers but in a 3D chess kind of way).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>autoexec</author><text>&amp;gt; I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable&lt;p&gt;It is more desirable. So is not having to be connected to the internet to play your games. So is not paying for something that can be taken from you at any time for any reason without reimbursement. So is having a copy of your game that can&amp;#x27;t be edited or censored at any time (including silently) and which can always be played in its original form.&lt;p&gt;Also desirable is the ability to modify or patch the games you paid for however you like, even in ways publishers wouldn&amp;#x27;t approve of. So is the ability to let a friend borrow the game. So is the ability to resell your games. So is the ability to pass them down to your kids or grand kids.&lt;p&gt;When all you have is &amp;quot;gaming as a service&amp;quot; you&amp;#x27;ll be giving up a hell of a lot more than a disk or a box on your shelf. Companies love cloud&amp;#x2F;subscription based gaming because it gives them far more control, gives them new ways to collect data on users and new ways to push ads at them, and it allows them to force gamers to pay for their games over and over again instead of it being just a one time purchase.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t care how &amp;quot;casual&amp;quot; a gamer someone is, they will &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; be better off giving up so much in exchange for so little, especially since what little they do get is all subject to change at any time, just like the ongoing costs will be.</text></comment>