Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard

danutz_plusplus said:

From what I remember it's not exactly F2P? They do offer a base version without any of the latest content. But if you want to keep up with the latest expansions you need to purchase them. And even so, they still nickel and dime you with microtransactions. Plus they also used to sell lootboxes, which they now seem to have dropped.

Another interesting thing about the Sony purchase is the fact that Bungie will still remain self-funded. It'll be interesting to see what exactly do they get out of it in the short term, if they're not offering funding. I assume they'll leave them to also manage their own profits?

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Destiny 2 has been fully F2P since 2019.

Like I said, it's not any different from other F2P games. They all nickel and dime you. That's the whole point.

JDR13 said:

Destiny 2 has been fully F2P since 2019.

Like I said, it's not any different from other F2P games. They all nickel and dime you. That's the whole point.

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I may be out of date with the current definition of F2P but to me this doesn't look like what I usually call F2P. Path of Exile is F2P. 90+% of content is free, and they make their money from cosmetics and quality-of-life items.



Destiny 2 still sells expansions/campaigns that were released almost 3-4 years ago (Forsaken iirc) for money. On top of the nickel and diming with microtransactions for cosmetics.

Anyway. we're getting off track.

I'm not sure what you're trying to debate here. Destiny 2 is F2P. Having paid expansions has no bearing on that fact.

The expansions are optional like everything else. They add a significant amount of content though so they're priced accordingly.

FWIW, Destiny 2 is probably the worst super-popular game I have played in recent years. I played this when they announced to sunset some of the original content (later brought back in the seasons).

As someone who is really only interested in the single player, I spent ~35 hours to play through almost all of the "campaign" content.

The original campaign was a series of short and pretty boring missions. The story was lame and predictable.


The other content was even worse. The narrative factor quickly dropped to zero. It was just pointless mission after pointless mission just to loot-grind gear after a while.



The entire setup was a disjointed mess imo. I'm not exactly new to video games but figuring out their so called "content director" and where to go from the galaxy "map" (put in quotes because that was a shitshow all by itself) for a particular mission or campaign was simply one huge mess.

It all felt completely artificial. You were always torn out of any minuscule amounts of immersion when you returned to the menu/content director. And, since no mission ever takes much longer than maybe 20 minutes to cater to the low attention span multiplayer crowd, you spend a lot of time returning to the content director and watching endless loading screens.

Extremely popular games like DOTA or LoL may not be my cup of tea but I can at least see the appeal if you are into that kind of game but with Destiny 2 it is a complete mystery to me why people put up with that garbage. My guess is it must be the same demographic that is addicted to grinding for loot and who played the cow level a billion times over again and again to reach ladder rank 99 on B.net.

JDR13 said:

I'm not sure what you're trying to debate here. Destiny 2 is F2P. Having paid expansions has no bearing on that fact.

The expansions are optional like everything else. They add a significant amount of content though so they're priced accordingly.

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I'm debating what F2P is. And I'm not sure how optional the expansions are. They continue the main plot of the game. If you want to get the rest of the plot of the game (2-3 expansion's worth of content) you need to purchase them. You can't even get them, for ex, just by grinding like in other F2P games. Unless that also changed.

So by that logic a game that offers a demo is also F2P, since it only gives you a taste of the full game?

Anyway, we needn't continue. I was just arguing that they're publicly assuming the F2P model/image, while still able to charge full games worth of content and also charging microtransactions for various small stuff.

Moriendor said:

FWIW, Destiny 2 is probably the worst super-popular game I have played in recent years. I played this when they announced to sunset some of the original content (later brought back in the seasons).

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I agree, the world is pretty much a mess imo. I tried to take it seriously and get into, but I just couldn't. The only solid thing about the game, and this part really is solid, is the shooting mechanics. Those feel pretty great. But aside from that, it's a pretty boring version of a Diablo game seen in first-person. So you don't even get to constantly look at your character.

danutz_plusplus said:

I'm debating what F2P is. And I'm not sure how optional the expansions are. They continue the main plot of the game. If you want to get the rest of the plot of the game (2-3 expansion's worth of content) you need to purchase them. You can't even get them, for ex, just by grinding like in other F2P games. Unless that also changed.

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The base game has an ending. You can continue to use the same character in the expansions, but they're more like seasons than typical expansions. They might share an overaching plot, but they're still separate. That's not really relevant though.

Destiny 2 also uses the GaaS model. The expansions are part of that. That doesn't preclude it from being F2P.

danutz_plusplus said:

Anyway, we needn't continue. I was just arguing that they're publicly assuming the F2P model/image, while still able to charge full games worth of content.

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There's no rule that states a limitation to how much they can charge for content. If it makes you feel better, you can say it's F2P+GaaS.

JDR13 said:

There's no rule that states a limitation to how much they can charge for content. If it makes you feel better, you can say it's F2P+GaaS.

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Fair enough.

Seems Sony did indeed plan on enticing the current Bungie employees from leaving, because apparently 1/3 of the 3.6 billion dollars is to be used for employee retention within Bungie.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/8436...2-billion-retention-incentive-plan/index.html

In its recent Q3'21 earnings report, Sony confirmed it plans to spend a sizable portion of its Bungie buyout offer on retention. Sony says it is prepared to pay 1/3rd of its $3.6 billion buyout proposal, or roughly $1.2 billion, on a long-term incentive plan that will reward Bungie employees who stay with the company.

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I wonder if Sony will take direct action in who gets that money, or will Bungie leadership decide who gets what. I'd hope Sony would force them to split it around equally, and not just let, what I would expect to happen, leadership take most of it.

Smart move.

As far as who gets what, I assume it'll be based on their position and base salary.

JDR13 said:

Smart move.

As far as who gets what, I assume it'll be based on their position and base salary.

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Yeah, I hope it's nothing like the bonus structure of CDPR. But I have a feeling it won't that far off

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...g-bonuses-despite-messy-cyberpunk-2077-launch

In terms of how that money is actually being split, Bloomberg reports that some employees are receiving bonuses of $5k to $9k, with more senior employees getting closer to $15k or $20k. Five members of CD Projekt's executive board, meanwhile, are receiving bonuses totalling $28m.

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Normally I don't think mergers are a good idea, but I would be for this one. Among other reasons:


I feel like hopefully MS would not sleep on these IPs like Blizzard has.

Microsoft needs to prepare for and compete with other giants who wanna start on their own metaverse. They're doing it the smart way by buying game studios that have experiece designing virtual worlds. Unlike Facebook who has no such experience and isn't even buying game/animation studios. Facebook has lost 70 billion in value since announcing their metaverse...

Meh to Stacraft 3, bring on Arcanum 2 instead!

I do think the acquisition should be properly examined. It does seem that MS went on quite a buying spree - having too much cash floating around, and buying up large chunks of the gaming market.

Ripper said:

I do think the acquisition should be properly examined. It does seem that MS went on quite a buying spree - having too much cash floating around, and buying up large chunks of the gaming market.

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Examination should've been first on the list for plenty of acquisitions that lead to market concetration. But apparently only the biggest of the biggest get even an eye-brow raise. And be sure that hands are greased as we speak, in all directions. I mean, lobbied for.

Maybe the FTC can stop Disney next time as well but...hmm I doubt it. Money talks.

Sony seems the biggest opposer of the merger and I can see why, but the logic is hilarious. As Sony loves to hold games and live services to it's own platform as well.