Very much in the same boat. Can't stomach their shitty policies and their garbage CEO aynmore. If MS purged these people after buying, I could finally think about going back to their products. And I don't see that happening without MS. Even with MS it'd be only a tiny chance.

When, in the whole history of gaming, has an acquisition improved on the company they bought?

Microsoft might improve Blizzard and the rest of Activision, but it will be a net loss for the industry. Microsoft has too much power in the market already, and that will only grow over time as they use their power from other segments to take over more. I see it in the business world already. They basically took over the entire market for business email, then pretty much dropped their self hosting options, leaving most business with only the option of M365. Which is great, until they decided to change partner terms on a dime and increase prices and there wasn't a damn thing we could do to stop it. Our options are either leave for Google(who's business tools absolutely suck), or look to FOSS, which has a rather high maintenance cost. Microsoft has that industry captured, and it is almost impossible to break out of.

Right, I was actually hoping it would go through so I could potentially lift my boycott of ActiBlizz that I started during the Blitzchung incident and only solidified as more information came out about the horrible things going on at Blizzard with some of their employees. Weirdly enough, I really want to play Heroes of the Storm again.

I'm not sure Microsoft could really save Blizzard at this point in time. Microsoft also does not have the greatest trackrecord of buying other game publishers. Instead of it becoming a toxic environment, it often just slowly becomes less and less of what made it unique and fun in the first place. So yeah. torn as well. I really like your take.

This is exactly my take. I can't in good conscious buy a Blizzard game right now, so I kind of wanted this to go through.

Every other part of me did not want this to go through. With how popular game pass is, and how many studios they're buying, this is just a recipe for a bait and switch and a bad situation for gamers down the road.

I think Microsoft as a company is trying to pivot away from game development and instead becoming game publisher. Which all things considered, isn't a bad thing. WIth improvements to AI, I imagine being a game creator is going to become much easier, so much easier, that AAA game studios just won't be able to compete.

So being in charge of the marketplace is a good business strategy in that context.