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So, Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard. How will this affect the rest of the industry?
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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It likely keeps Microsoft in the gaming business, which isn't a bad thing.
There will be a console to compete against Sony, and Microsoft will leverage cross-platfotm gaming with PC's as a way to sustain this. That Steam effectively released a Linux-based console probably means Microsoft is going to have to fight more in the PC Gaming space. This is probably why a lot of the ads in consumer grade Windows has been to promote its gaming division.
Microsoft hasn't been bad to Minecraft, so I don't think the games will get worse. If anything, I might have expected Microsoft to go for a DLC route with Overwatch to add characters instead of doing what Overwatch 2 did.
I expect more stabs at RTS, with Microsoft going to get more people to game on a computer. They did buy the company that made WarCraft and StarCraft.
Xbox Game Pass advertising is going to get annoying.
As much as I'd love to see that, they won't do an RTS. Even Blizzard has not touched RTS games since their popularity waned against the League of Legends type games. The closest we got was the StarCraft "HD remaster" from more than half a decade ago.
The era of RTS pretty much ended a decade ago with StarCraft 2.
The big video game companies pretty much only chase trends. They've always done that.
Whether it was platformer games on the NES after the success of Super Mario Brothers, fighting games in the arcades after the success of Street Fighter 2, or Grand Theft Auto 3D clones after the success of GTA3, or loot shooters or DOTA clones or whatever - the game industry at a large scale is mostly risk averse.
Only privately run companies like to pursue certain genres that aren't necessarily the most popular or profitable.
If you want to see new RTS, you're going to have to look for relatively small indie companies - probably ones with some of the grizzled old industry vets who worked on the actual games. Those guys are the only ones who will make those sorts of games now.
...Microsoft has already remade/made several RTS's since Starcraft 2.
Age of Empires.
Microsoft proper didn't make the the remake. They farmed the AoE remake out to Relic and World's Edge.
To be fair, Relic is composed of some of the people who made the Company of Heroes RTS games, so they know their RTS shit... but the original Age of Empires games were made by the legendary Ensemble Studios (a dev that made Microsoft more than a billion dollars while it was open... that Don Mattrick then infamously shut down right after they shipped Halo Wars... I guess because - even though it shit gold - maybe the golden goose looked expensive on the balance sheet??).
...And anyway, NONE of the RTS's being made these days are anywhere near the scale that StarCraft 2's launch was and therefore worth Microsoft pursuing outside of small "remasters" or up-rezzed ports for modern hardware.
Blizzard has to make its money daddy Microsoft some Fortnite tier piles of money to justify this massive a purchase... not a Blackthorne HD re-release money.
Given Activision was already letting groups come in to do Blizzard games, I'm sure they'd still do the same for the RTS games.
@JDPoZ @HobbitFoot there is definitely talk that RTS split into moba and 'grand strategy'/4x games. That most gamers fell into one of those camps and moved on from the genre.
I remember seeing some new RTS games at PAX east a number of years ago, and it always just felt like worse starcraft to me. Almost all of them feel that way to me.
League of Legends type games are called MOBAs.
As for RTS, keep an eye out for Tempest Rising, a Command and Conquer spiritual successor, that's even headed to consoles. With Microsoft successfully bringing Age of Empires to console, I don't think there's any need to promote PC as the place where RTSes live.
Personally, I think if RTSes are to ever be mainstream again, they're going to have to reinvent themselves, but in the meantime, RTSes doing what they've always done will make peace with the size of the market that exists for them these days.
I think Microsoft could test the waters with a WarCraft remaster, especially if they can test to see if Xbox Game Pass can tap into a new market.