Wherever you stand on your fandom XBOX or Playstation, the merger is bad for gamers in the long run. Yes, that's right, these mergers are bad. Whether it's Microsoft, SONY, or Nintendo buying up publishers is bad for gamers in the long run. No matter how we slice it, we all lose in the end.
What do I mean by this? Simple:
No console maker should have this much control on game publishing.
In order for gaming to thrive we NEED third party developers and Publishers. That way we can get games that "aren't attached to specific consoles". The SEGA Master System was a smidge more powerful than the NES but Nintendo had a stranglehold on third party publishing that put SEGA at a disadvantage. It wasn't until the 16-bit era with the Genesis where they got a better grip on the market and Nintendo was forced to release their own grip. I LIVED through that dark era as a SEGA Master System owner and I KNOW how much it sucked when NES owners had a lot more games accessible to them than SEGA Owners. Having a company taking over most of the western publishers is scary.
What are the top 6 5 Third party Publishers in the West that are not console makers? (Placed randomly with no particular order)
*Electronic Arts
*Ubisoft
*Activision
*Take Two Interactive
*WB Games
Microsoft got Bethesda... so the 6 are now 5. They're looking for Activision, which would reduce the 5 to 4. Basically, in less than 5 years Microsoft is aiming to acquire ⅓ of the main Western Publishers. With rumors of Ubisoft not doing too well, you can see where I'm going with this.
Then there's the "I don't trust Microsoft"... feeling that many folks have. I mean they tried to buy Nintendo and failed. They also bought Rare and thought they owned Donkey Kong. Now they're after King (part of Activision) because of Candy Crush Saga and its position in mobile gaming. Do I even need to mention how they got in trouble in the 90s due to their monopolistic tendencies. The Windows phone was known to be a massive failure, so now Microsoft wants to start all over again by buying better support. Yes, Google and Apple have a Huge chunk of the mobile pie, but Microsoft is using the lazy rich kid approach, buying their way in with a huge advantage. Not only they'd be getting Candy Crush's 250 Million players, but they'd be getting king's knowledge of the mobile market and work on the Zune Phone... While on PC, they have maintained an almost monopolistic dominance, because Apple is not a real competitor for Windows, because the market for Apple is too small, and the average Joe is too computer illiterate to use Linux; they haven't been successful anywhere else... Even before making the XBOX, they were also planning on getting SEGA, but they backed out after they realized that they wouldn't be able to beat SONY. Which brings me back to Microsoft and their monopolistic tendencies. They were considering buying out the competition in order to beat the top dog... in this case, SONY. The Bethesda and Activision mergers reek of Microsoft trying to cut out respurces from the competition.
I know of the 10 year COD deals and that they've kept Minecraft Multiplatform... Do I trust Microsoft? No. They're highly unlikely to keep Minecraft multiplatform. What's stopping them from making Minecraft an Xbox exclusive on the next gen?
Then there's the Cloud... not the dorky protagonist from Final Fantasy VII Remake, but the same Cloud from The fappening. Microsoft is moving towards the Cloud for gaming and digital services like Gamepass.
The downside of this is obvious: if They, in this case Microsoft, delist a game, even if you paid for it, you're Shit out of luck. Just like it happened with achievement farming indie game One Step After the Fall.
So, with ⅓ of the bigger Western Publishers on their pocket and greatly increasing their Gamepass library, while slowly choking the competition... until Microsoft dethrones SONY. That's when Microsoft will unsheathe the claws. Like when they attempted to have a 24 hour online check-in DRM and used/shared game limitations, or the time they tried raising the price on Xbox Live. Imean even SONY mocked Microsoft's share game limitations...
Before snyone tries to spin this as me being proSONY, just shut up. I don't want ANY of the 3 Console Makers to be buying up Publishers to choke the competition. I'm against the Activision merger just as I am against the rumored Square Enix merger with SONY.
Microsoft has 23 game studios... instead of pouring billions on buying Activision, why not invest that money in their existing studios to make more games. What's the point of buying up studios if they don't produce games?
Right now these mergers between console malers and PUBLISHERS are bad news for customers in the long run. Even with Single Studios we must be a bit wary of these mergers. Especially since we don't "own the games we buy" and they can "disable the game you bought via system patches" with single player games requiring DRM check-ins with the publisher, if the publisher goes bankrupt or disables the servers for the game, you're Shit out of luck. Two generations ago began the end of gaming as we know it. Overreliance on DRM and DLCs making games incomplete and in some cases unusable due to these blocks. Emulation has a lot of issues to bypass in order to preserve these games from PS3, XB360 era. We're currently at the mercy of studios and remasters and Microsoft's competent backwards compatibility in the Xboxes that still accept physical media. But with Xbox shifting to digital, how long until your favorite xb360 game disappears for good?
The future of gaming is bleak and these mergers will speed up the process. Again,
No console maker should have this much control on game publishing: Not SONY, not Nintendo, not Microsoft; NO ONE!!
These mergers are increasing tribalization in the worst ways possible. With extreme tribalization will come stagnation... but I'm just being Chicken Little...
No comments:
Post a Comment