[faisal_ksa]

I hate to see a monopoly in the gaming industry. Controlling the content will prevent any competition both in gaming consoles and in PC gaming. Forget about gaming on Linux or any new platform. Forget about sony's PlayStation and Nintendo. We are going to see the real face of Microsoft. What do you think Microsoft will do next? Buy unreal engine and unity and have control over the content and the tools to make them? We NEED open source game engines (Godot, Bevy) more than ever.

[TameAntelope]

A real monopoly in video gaming isn't nearly as valuable as it first seems.

Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.

Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.

Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.

I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.

[0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/

[DimmieMan]

"So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL"

Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.

The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.

I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc

You're not wrong, but I can't agree with this.

[TameAntelope]

I avoided saying the words in my parent comment to try and minimize controversy, but if you're interested in learning more, what I describe is referred to as the "attention economy"[0].

The "information overload" problem has been known about for at least 40 years!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy

[klabb3]

Disagree, I think it's spot on! But you may need to substitute for more modern attention hogs like Netflix, podcasts, mobile and web based games, indie games etc.

I'm sure that a pervasive predatory corporate development department backed by a cash-heavy company could reel in virtually all AAA PC games, but the long tail not so much. And the funny thing is, AAA has been a huge disappointment for gamers and I imagine investors as well over the last years, compared to its golden days.

Compare to say "owning your social graph" like Facebook, that's something that's much more robust. A good messaging platform doesn't take over the world in a few weeks like an indie game (almost) can, so Facebook has plenty time to acquire it or copy/steal their features.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> I think it's spot on!

My argument is that (most) video-games are still fundamentally passive consumption activities: recreation, that doesn't require someone to expend any "spoons"[1] to get some entertainment value. Whereas, I imagine for most people, reading literature, waling the dog, or even organizing a board-game session requires far more effort to initiate (not necessarily mental-effort, but effort in a general, abstract sense) whereas the whole point of video-games is to be a very-low-effort distraction from our existential anxiety.

So please substitute "reading a book, walking your dog, board games" with "watching YouTube-algorithm-recommended videos, Joe Rogan podcasts, and after-work boozing with your shiftmates".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory

[avrionov]

Reading books lost the competition long time ago.

[oneoff786]

I think no chance that Tim Sweeney sells Epic.

Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.

[gimmeThaBeet]

I agree, imo unless something drastic changes, there's little chance Tim Sweeney sells control of epic. But I believe Tencent bought nearly half of it all the way back in 2012 I think? I think they raised money from some PE groups a few years ago, the internet seems to agree that Tencent still has 40%? But, it being a private company, I wouldn't stake too much on the accuracy of that.

Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has nearly the entire minority interest.

[Danieru]

> internet seems to agree that Tencent still has 40%?

The internet has no updated information based thr original press release. Since that 40% Sonys purchase would have further diluted tencent. The only thing we know for sure, because he's said so: is Tim has a controlling stake.

We do not know if there is a dual class of shares, but that would be a simple tactic to maintaining comtrol.

[kizer]

I made this point in another comment thread, but I think MS would make a competitor to Unreal/Unity instead. Think of all the game engine talent they now have. The IW engine for CoD, Halo’s slipspace, WoW. They could readily assemble a team to build an engine on par with Unreal.

[oneoff786]

I could see it happen, but I feel a lot of these home grown engines are just too driven by tribal knowledge to be easily released to the public.

[sk0g]

If it's any consolation, so too is Unreal, from my experience. A lot of the times the only documentation on a feature will be random Youtubers, and an official 3 hour stream from 4 years ago. Oh and the source code, of course.

[faisal_ksa]

Everything is for sale for the right price. And what is good for Unity does not mean it's good for the consumers.

[oneoff786]

Well unity is dropping the ball hard for consumers so something different would likely be an improvement

[danhab99]

I'm worried that the gaming industry is on a decline. Some of the biggest games are >5 years old, I can't think of a big franchise that started in the last 5 years, the steam greenlight program is a pile of shit, and new games are getting held to the standard of existing games which discourages new-comers.

I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.

[jonny_eh]

See: https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT

Looks like Rust, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Escape from Tarkov are in the top 10 on Twitch. All came out within the past 5 years.

[jayd16]

Valheim, Fall Guys, Genshin Impact we're in the last few years.

[nivenkos]

Seems they're more likely to target the games than the engines though?

They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.

[cududa]

You can run gamepass on Linux, so when all these games hit gamepass (which they will) it’s a net positive for Linux gamers.

[faisal_ksa]

You could run them on Linux for how long? MS will not allow any competition for its dominance over PC gaming. And trust me, they will use gamepass against Linux gaming and Valve and others.

[skohan]

Yeah exactly, MS will only play nice as long as they have to. If they own most of the popular AAA titles, you'd better believe everyone is going to have to use their launcher, with DRM which doesn't work on Proton, and log in to a MS account to play games.

[intrasight]

How much longer do you think "PC gaming" is going to be a thing? Do you think it'll make the transition to VR? I don't.

[recursive]

Nor do I, but I think non-VR gaming is going to be bigger than VR gaming for a long time, maybe forever.

[intrasight]

My predition is that within 5 years there won't be "PC gaming" - it'll all be cloud rendering. And within 5 years it'll be an even split between screens and goggles.

[belthesar]

If you've got a lead on how to do this, I'm interested. Last I looked, Gamepass on Linux only worked for streamed titles through a browser.

[vymague]

How? Quick googling says no.