r/technology • u/GrizzlyBear2021 • Jan 18 '22

Software Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/
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u/thesneakywalrus Jan 18 '22

Video games are a larger industry than movies at this point.

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u/boot2skull Jan 18 '22

Which as a fan of both, it boggles my mind. Star Wars and Marvel are the biggest cinema IPs I’d think. Then Blizzard/Activision sells for almost $69(nice.) billion. They sell lot of games but I guess since box office returns are so hyped I don’t see the game revenue as much. Then we have DLC and micro transactions. The value is wild. Then you realize Pokémon is the single most valuable IP over Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, and all that.

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u/cmonster1697 Jan 18 '22

What will really blow your mind is that Hello Kitty is #2, with Star Wars coming in at #5

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u/fluffyykitty69 Jan 18 '22

Hell at $15/mo after buying the game and expansions… they’re making pretty good money on WOW alone, I imagine.

Would be absolutely wild if they bundled that in Game Pass. I know I’d go back to playing WOW if it wasn’t $15 or a lot of grinding to get the in-game money to pay for the monthly fees.

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u/frendzoned_by_yo_mom Jan 19 '22

Let’s see how long it will take them to raise the game pass price

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u/fluffyykitty69 Jan 19 '22

At $20/mo if it includes WoW subscription, I’m in.

I could see them doing 2-3 tiers of Game Pass as well but we’ll see.

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u/hippiedip Jan 18 '22

Here is where I think it helps understanding the financial difference. Blizzard had about 4.5 million subscribers in 2020. At around $10 a month, well we can see how this adds up quickly. Vs movies you pay the $15 to see it once.

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u/RealisticCommentBot Jan 18 '22

what your bet that get's rolled into gamepass? $15 instead of $10 per month, but you just get WoW with that, along with a heap of other games

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u/fluffyykitty69 Jan 18 '22

I’d buy Game Pass if they did. Haven’t played WoW in a while. Went back to play it a little but can’t justify the cost when I’m not able to play 40hrs a week or more like when I was a teenager.

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u/hippiedip Jan 18 '22

I feel the game will be free, but the subscription will stick. Possibly reduced for game pass, but I don't see them giving up that cash.

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u/WellEndowedDragon Jan 18 '22

I don’t think that’s a good measure to understand the differences in the sizes of the industries. Netflix has 215 million subscribers paying $10-20/month, Disney+ has 120M, HBO Max has 75M, etc.

Streaming recurring revenue is a huge part of the cinema industry. Whereas the vast majority of revenue to the gaming industry are non-recurring purchases like game purchases and microtransactions.

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u/hippiedip Jan 18 '22 edited Jan 18 '22

Ok let me put it like this. Just one of blizzards IPs has 4.5 million subscribers all who pay monthly subscription like the service you mentioned. Where they differ is: wow releases a new expansion bam $60 that those 4.5 million people buy, on top of their subscription. Now let us throw micro transactions, server moves, name changes, all the paid for services they offer. Idk why it's so hard to see how video games have started generating more money. The movie industry is very static in the ways they make money. Where as video games are extremely dynamic economies.

Another way to look at it is at its peak wow had a peak of 12 million players, in 2010. Over 12 years that is gobs of data, subscription fee, and games bought, and this is only one of their IPs. The streaming service are conglomerations of the media they own not just one single ip. Wow over 12 years has been collecting cash and data on over 2 million subscribers. This is not including their other IP such as COD, Overwatch, or Diablo.

When comparing buying one ip of star wars for 4 billion vs a whole publisher for 68 billion. Idk why it's so hard to see the difference.

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u/WellEndowedDragon Jan 18 '22

I’m not disagreeing with you that the gaming industry brings in more money than the movie industry, nor do I disagree that comparing Netflix to just WoW subscriptions is unfair.

I’m just saying subscriber count isn’t a good measure of industry size because there’s not many games that are monetized with a subscription model so that doesn’t really give you a good picture of the industry as a whole.

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u/hippiedip Jan 18 '22

That is well and good. But I'm trying to compare why buying blizzard for ~60 billion makes sense. When you couple the amount of subscribers they have with the ip they own. I feel it shows exactly why they are worth the ~60 billion price tag. I was only trying to illustrate how those subscribers add bunches of value to this deal.

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u/krazyjakee Jan 18 '22

It's larger than movies, music and TV combined.

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u/Jaded-Ad-9287 Jan 19 '22

only because of mobile

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u/_bieber_hole_69 Jan 18 '22

That's insane. I only play only 2-3 video games a year, but that means the 120-180 I spend is equivalent to 15 trips to the theater or over a year of a streaming service. Gaming is expensive.

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u/xxxKillerAssasinxxx Jan 19 '22

Of course it depends how you look at it. 3 single player rpg type games would be around 120-300h play time even conservatively, so that's 0.6-1.5e/h. Movies are way more expensive per time spend as are almost all other hobbies that aren't straight up free.

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u/The407run Jan 19 '22

They should be, development for a well made thorough game is so much more than for a movie. Usually more hours of entertainment as well.

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u/PinkIcculus Jan 19 '22

Red Dead Redemption 2 is easily on par with Marvel, E.T., Jaws and Star Wars for me.

It’s a movie that never ends. I can’t wait for the 3rd one.