When news broke on Tuesday that Microsoft would be acquiring Activision Blizzard, the story was immediately taken on by news sources as prestigious as the Wall Street Journal. Activision, being one of the most well known game developers today, is responsible for many big games and franchises, such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. This no doubt has caused a stir among the gaming community as there could be major implications for the future of gaming. People have expressed concerns with everything from whether Activision games will become Xbox exclusive, to how the quality of their games will be affected. While these are valid concerns, everything about this situation actually seems like it will be good for the future of gaming.
Whenever a company that makes a console purchases a game developer, there is always an expectation that the games created by that developer will no longer be playable on any other platform. After all this is typically what happens, such as when Microsoft bought ZeniMax and games such as Starfield became Xbox exclusive. However, this is not something we will have to worry about, at least when it comes to big games like COD. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft gaming, has come out and said, “I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: it’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remain committed to that.” So luckily, those who enjoy playing COD on Playstation will not have to worry about this.
In addition to not having to worry about the exclusiveness of future Activision games, as we have seen from past acquisitions by Microsoft, there is no reason to be concerned about the quality either. Back in 2014, when Microsoft bought out Mojang, there were concerns that they would begin changing Minecraft in ways that hurt its player base. This could be anything from making the game more expensive to changing it in ways that made it no longer fun the way it originally was. Since then, these concerns have vanished. As we have seen with the most recent Caves and Cliffs update, Microsoft has been dedicated to giving gamers what they are asking for. Because of this, we should be optimistic about the quality of future Activision games.
As has been topic of discussion for a while, Activision has had many controversies and scandals, specifically surrounding their workplace environment. As a result, the Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick, has been under fire from those both inside and outside of the gaming community. Though it has not been confirmed yet, there are rumors that this acquisition will result in the release of Kotick as CEO. This would be huge as it would not only help to remove some of the bad press within the gaming industry, but also would help in their struggle to create a safer workspace, both of which are good for the overall health of the gaming industry as a whole.
Though Microsoft’s recent purchase of Activision Blizzard has drawn some concerns, we should actually be happy that this is happening. Gamers will not have to agonize about whether or not their favorite games will be discontinued on their console of choice, nor will they be stuck playing low quality games. We hope this article helped inform you about this situation. If you would like to read more of our articles, check out the rest of our website.
