ZeniMax bought by Microsoft: Thoughts?

[D&D_Fan]

I am just wondering how all of you feel about this.

[J-H]

I had to look them up. This should probably go to Gaming (Other). I am not optimistic about the continued survival of the individual studios involved, although Bethesda certainly could do some work on quality improvement. Microsoft and non-buggy software don't really go together, though.

[Darth Credence]

Well, it means that Obsidian and Bethesda are both ultimately owned by the same people, meaning that a FO: New Vegas 2 just became a lot more possible. For that alone I am completely in favor of this.

[137beth]

Probably bad news for Vulkan adoption in Windows games, given that the Id engine games were some of the biggest budget users of Vulkan on Windows. Though seeing as Microsoft still apparently wants to support Nintendo Switch, they won't be dropping Vulkan all together.

Also bad news for those who were still hoping for native Linux ports of any of Bethesda's tentpole games (I personally didn't think it was all that likely even before this announcement, but some people did for some reason.)

Otherwise, I don't really care that much.

[Peelee]

This should probably go to Gaming (Other).

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Agreed. Fortunately, we have a smart and sexy mod who can make that happen! Unfortunately, that mod is not available at the moment, so I moved it.

[Lurkmoar]

Extreme cynicism.

That's my default when it comes to the Entertainment Industry and what it covers.

[Vinyadan]

Microsoft has been the publisher of the vehicular combat game "YARIS", as well as of the life simulator "N.U.D.E." , so I'm sure that there is nothing to worry about.

[Erloas]

Well Microsoft has been making a lot more good management choices than Bethesda has lately. And the companies MS has bought lately are doing more of what they did before being purchased. They have also still been releasing games on other platforms. I don't think they even had time restrictions on availability on Steam for any of the big releases that I'm aware of. (I'm sure there are a lot of releases I don't know about)

[snowblizz]

Considering how much complaints all the players have on Bethesda.. ya who cares right?



My only major feeling is a small unease at the concentration of media that happens. Disney, Google, Amazon, Microsoft... it's never good if there's only one too big player.

[Vinyadan]

Will Starfield be renamed "Space Cadet 3D"?

[factotum]

My only major feeling is a small unease at the concentration of media that happens. Disney, Google, Amazon, Microsoft... it's never good if there's only one too big player.

There's never likely to be a situation where Microsoft is the only "big player" in the video game market. Quite apart from anything else, Sony and Nintendo still exist and aren't going anywhere, then you have the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Activision--if all of those get bought up by Microsoft then you can start worrying about monopolies.

[snowblizz]

There's never likely to be a situation where Microsoft is the only "big player" in the video game market. Quite apart from anything else, Sony and Nintendo still exist and aren't going anywhere, then you have the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Activision--if all of those get bought up by Microsoft then you can start worrying about monopolies.

Sony and Nintendo don't make anything for PCs and consequently do not exist. EA doing their level best to kill themselves apparently and UBISoft seem to be heading there too. Can't even remember what Activision makes. The problem however isn't "now", it's the trend of how things are going. 10 years ago everyone would have laughed themselves silly at the suggestion Disney would dominate the IP space for content interesting to people 4y to 44y and beyond. If you are my age, around 40, Disney now likely owns *everything* you either grew up with or liked. Google and Amazon are going to want to respond in kind so Bethesda isn't the only game developer who are going to be sucked up into a larger conglomerate.

One of these days you are going to wake up in an Apple(TM) car for the sole reaosn you bought their phone in 2012.

[factotum]

One of these days you are going to wake up in an Apple(TM) car for the sole reaosn you bought their phone in 2012.

Joke's on them, I haven't bought an Apple phone in my life! :smallwink:

[Keltest]

Sony and Nintendo don't make anything for PCs and consequently do not exist. EA doing their level best to kill themselves apparently and UBISoft seem to be heading there too. Can't even remember what Activision makes. The problem however isn't "now", it's the trend of how things are going. 10 years ago everyone would have laughed themselves silly at the suggestion Disney would dominate the IP space for content interesting to people 4y to 44y and beyond. If you are my age, around 40, Disney now likely owns *everything* you either grew up with or liked. Google and Amazon are going to want to respond in kind so Bethesda isn't the only game developer who are going to be sucked up into a larger conglomerate.

One of these days you are going to wake up in an Apple(TM) car for the sole reaosn you bought their phone in 2012.

Activison is Call of Duty, among other things, and also owns/partners with Blizzard Entertainment which makes World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Overwatch. Actually, Activision has their fingers in a lot of pies, but COD is the big one everybody would recognize.

[Zevox]

Theoretically the biggest news in video games, which I could not care any less about. Bethesda makes absolutely nothing that matters to me, so even if Microsoft were to go and make their games X-Box exclusives, I'd still have no reason to get an X-Box. And I haven't played anything Obsidian has made in over a decade either (not since NWN2).

Now, if they bought up a Japanese developer I like such as Capcom or ArcSys, then I might have something to worry about. But I doubt that'll happen - Microsoft seems to have abandoned what few efforts they were making to get major Japanese games on their system a while ago.

[Hunter Noventa]

Theoretically the biggest news in video games, which I could not care any less about. Bethesda makes absolutely nothing that matters to me, so even if Microsoft were to go and make their games X-Box exclusives, I'd still have no reason to get an X-Box. And I haven't played anything Obsidian has made in over a decade either (not since NWN2).

Now, if they bought up a Japanese developer I like such as Capcom or ArcSys, then I might have something to worry about. But I doubt that'll happen - Microsoft seems to have abandoned what few efforts they were making to get major Japanese games on their system a while ago.

This. Even if I liked the games that show up on X-Box (they don't seem to have the sort of games I enjoy in general), all X-Box games end up on PC anyway.

[Man_Over_Game]

Xbox is tired of getting their ass handed to them from PS exclusives, since there were a lot of big names on the PS4 (Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War).

Personally, I like the Xbox line more, as they seem to take things more seriously when it comes to controllers, console operating systems, bugginess of games, and working with indie developers.

When I tried the Xbox Game Pass, there were a ton of games that worked excellently on my PC, some party/multiplayer games that were a lot of fun, and it was really easy to just pick up and play anything that suited my fancy. Had a group of friends coming over? Let's download Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime and Wizards of Legend.

The PSNow, in comparison, has made me kinda disappointed. You usually find one or two triple-A games that are worth playing (Control I think was the last one I was interested in), and then the rest are a bunch of outdated, uninteresting PS3 or indie games nobody really cares about.


So, overall, while I'd say the exclusives for the PS were what made me interested in the PS4, it just seems like Xbox excels in every other way (can't comment on operating power, not my thing). Without that difference, I could see Sony having to take the console war a bit more seriously if they want to match Xbox in the upcoming generation.

[ForzaFiori]

As an Xbox/PC gamer, and a MASSIVE Fallout fan, this news makes me incredibly happy. As has been mentioned before, the possibility of New Vegas 2 may be the only piece of good news I've heard this year, and Microsoft has also talked about putting most or all of the games they acquired on the Game Pass list, which (as a subscriber) I appreciate - I can go back and play the games from when Bethesda had it's **** together, and will be able to try out their future games, so that I don't have to spend $60 over and over to see if they've finally gotten their heads out of their asses. So basically, it's pretty nice overall, but would be amazing if Bethesda can remember how to make a good game (HINT - working with Obsidian seems to work).

That said, I also somewhat agree with Snowblizz's fears. The more mergers and acquisitions that happen, the harder it is to ensure true, reliable, and useful competition. It may not be a monopoly, but it's still easier for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft to subtly work together to screw consumers the fewer independent entities are involved in the field, and the fact that it is happening does increase the future risk of a monopoly or something similar.

[sihnfahl]

I can go back and play the games from when Bethesda had it's **** together...
Or, at least, their add-ons and modifications to the GameBryo engine to make RPGs have been a buggy mess.

Which, unfortunately, their flagship products run on.

As for it being a good thing or not? Hmm. Time will tell. It would allow for some transfers of programmers to look at the engine modification issues Bethesda has had.

MS, after all, has deeper pockets to attract experienced programmers.

As for competition - eh, if anyone was going to look at Game Company monopolization, they would have done so long ago with EA and its habit of snapping up, then shuttering, game companies to roll them into EA general.

[MCerberus]

I think I've settled that in the short term, MS can bring a lot of utilities and engineering to particularly Bethesda but am worried about long-term prospects. This is entirely about the prospect of new games.

I have opinions about non-game stuff that won't be discussed here.

[Psyren]

While I dislike anticompetition and megacorps getting more mega and more corp... I'm also happy that MS still has some fight in them in the console space, because one country functionally owning the console market doesn't seem like a good state of affairs either. And that crap Sony pulled with Spiderman being a PS exclusive simply because they had the ability to do so was pretty scummy.

[Rynjin]

While I dislike anticompetition and megacorps getting more mega and more corp... I'm also happy that MS still has some fight in them in the console space, because one country functionally owning the console market doesn't seem like a good state of affairs either. And that crap Sony pulled with Spiderman being a PS exclusive simply because they had the ability to do so was pretty scummy.

Jim Sterling has a pretty solid video explaining why God of War being PS exclusive is a good thing, and it applies very well to Spiderman too. Long story short, games of that level if quality don't show up very often ftom major publishers, and they simply would not be as good without the pressure of needing to be a "killer app" for their console.

[Man_Over_Game]

Jim Sterling has a pretty solid video explaining why God of War being PS exclusive is a good thing, and it applies very well to Spiderman too. Long story short, games of that level if quality don't show up very often ftom major publishers, and they simply would not be as good without the pressure of needing to be a "killer app" for their console.

Interesting. It puts more pressure from the higher ups to make sure the quality level hits home.

Given, I don't usually agree with increased pressure on developers (it's already a cutthroat business), but I can agree that quality control is something that really needs to be emphasized.

For me, that's gameplay.

I could care less about the fancy graphics that lets me see the mountain several thousand miles away, as I'm usually only looking at the things surrounding my feet, and I feel like that's something that could easily be missed by an exclusive who's developers focused so hard on showing off the console's hardware that they forgot to make a decent game (See: Ryse).

And having someone above your boss to make sure everyone has the same direction ensures there aren't any glaring problems that go unnoticed until it's too late. I suspect this is exactly what happened with Borderlands 3, which has a great foundation compared to the earlier games in the series, but was ruined by changed plans or poor direction that didn't get realized until the game should have already been finished.

[OracleofWuffing]

Since I'm not big on ZeniMax's catalog... I'm just concerned they'll put Bethesda on programming the next major Windows release. :smalltongue:

[Kaptin Keen]

Microsoft has a sort of reverse Midas touch, turning anything they though into [insert substance less attractive than gold]. Exceptions exist, such as Mark of the Ninja.

Regardless, the major issue seems to be that when a console maker purchases a PC developer, the PC versions of future games become console ports, and thus [insert substance less attractive than gold]. But since Skyrim (and so on) already suffer from this in spades, the potential fallout seems severely limited.

I say let them have their fun.

[snowblizz]

... I'm just concerned they'll put Bethesda on programming the next major Windows release. :smalltongue:

That comment is going to keep me up tonight.

Or it may be the gallstones.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Zenimax hasn’t been taking good care of Elder Scrolls so I’m not especially bothered either way. At worst, they will continue making crummy-to-average microtransactioned-to-death content and driving the series into the dirt. At best, the quality will go up and they might start on Elder Scrolls 6 sooner.

[LibraryOgre]

That comment is going to keep me up tonight.

Or it may be the gallstones.

Considering both are likely to cause severe abdominal pain and vomiting, how will you tell?

(Condolences on the gallstones; I had mine out 20 years ago, and have not been able to each a chop steak, which I'd had the night before, since).

[Arutema]

After Fallout 76 and N+1 re-releases of Skyrim, I am glad to see Bethesda under new management.

Whether new management will prove to be an improvement remains to be seen.

[Psyren]

Jim Sterling has a pretty solid video explaining why God of War being PS exclusive is a good thing, and it applies very well to Spiderman too. Long story short, games of that level if quality don't show up very often ftom major publishers, and they simply would not be as good without the pressure of needing to be a "killer app" for their console.

I'm not talking about games being console exclusives though - I can see the value there. I'm talking about the full game being made and then bits of it chopped out of specific ports in order for the accountants of company A to lord it over those of B and C. That is a raw deal for the consumer. It's not like Crystal Dynamics would have not put in the Spiderman content if it were allowed to be made available to Xbox and PC players.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Honestly? Meh.

This is not a particularly impactful decision, other than the pressure on Bethesda to milk every last dollar for their failing parent company has been alleviated. Hopefully, this means fewer debacles like F76 going forward. But otherwise, Microsoft has a good track record of not screwing with their IP's. So now it's on Bethesda to deliver an actually enjoyable product, now that Zenimax isn't putting the screws to them to squeeze every last dollar out of people.

Is Bethesda and Obsidian under the same parent company? Yes. Does this mean New Vegas 2? No, not really. Why? Well, other than the rancor left over from when Bethesda screwed Obsidian over the last time and the ill will between the companies in general, just because a parent company has ownership doesn't mean the IP juggling is still trivial. It's probably easier now, because at least their respective parent companies don't each have their own separate veto, but they still have to come to an agreement, and I just don't see that happening.

Other than that? Just another Tuesday. Nothing to see here, Citizen. Move along.