*This article is a user contribution and does not represent the views of campfire
Last night, Microsoft's official announcement confirmed that Microsoft will buy Activision Blizzard for $95 per share, an all-cash transaction worth $68.7 billion. The Warcraft series, diablo series, Call of Duty series, Overwatch and candy Legend, a mobile game with a monthly active population of 270 million, have all been collected together, becoming the first-party product, and their arrogance is really staggering.
After the shock, many people also began to think, under the "super power" of unlimited banknotes, why would Microsoft think of acquiring this company? What made Phil Spencer decide to spend $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard to buy the game company that seemed the least likely to be the first party?
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The strength of Activision Blizzard determines the courage of Microsoft's gamble
Before analyzing this acquisition, we can first look at Microsoft's previous acquisition methods. After establishing the promotion of XGP, Microsoft first acquired studios with great strength but small volume such as Obsidian, Black Island, and Ninja Theory, and then installed second-party studios such as Playground Games and Undead Labs to build a new studio system. It can be seen that the acquired studios themselves at that time were mostly medium developers, with mature production experience, and a niche but well-known mass base, which not only enriched many game types for XGP, but also expanded the game library for itself and made reserves for the next generation of games.
After that, I think the second phase of Microsoft's acquisition was when it acquired Society B in 2020. At that time, they targeted listed companies and bought eight ZeniMax studios for $7.5 billion. With 7.5 billion to collect games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, and Shame, and with tens of millions of users, it's a great deal even now.
Next, after having the experience of a large transaction such as the acquisition of B Society, Microsoft finally showed its long-hidden fangs and pounced on Activision Blizzard. I'll position it for the moment as the third phase of the Microsoft acquisition. You know, whether it is "Fallout" or "The Elder Scrolls", although they are good enough, they do not belong to the product series that can be launched stably every year, which also means that it is difficult for these works to firmly grasp the impact and revenue. In addition, their influence has not yet reached the level that can shake the game industry landscape, but at the same time, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft are almost in line with Microsoft's ideas in both aspects.
Call of Duty's influence on the entire console platform is unprecedented, and since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, only R Stars have sold more than it in a single year. Strong revenue strength coupled with the continuous effect of horror, even if players argue about who is the first in the world, the major lists still honestly rank Call of Duty first.
On the other hand, although World of Warcraft has no absolute dominance on the PC side, it is still a totem in the hearts of countless players, and it also has nearly 50 million monthly active users, which are loyal believers. It is conceivable that through the influence of other Blizzard IP such as the "World of Warcraft" series on the PC side, Microsoft can better catch this PC express, quickly optimize its own PC game platform mall, and integrate Activision Blizzard's unique PC-side business, which can help Microsoft find a new breakthrough on the PC side. After all, this Win10 game store has been a few years old or this experience, I think Phil Spencer will look at it with disgust.
The development after the acquisition will be a test for Activision Blizzard
In fact, a year ago, Activision Blizzard's stock price reached a peak of about $100, and if you consider an acquisition, it will certainly not be the current price. But after a year of scandals, Activision Blizzard's market value has been falling, and coupled with the unsatisfactory performance of Call of Duty: Vanguard, the stock price has also fallen for a while.
Because of this, what makes people's eyes shook is that according to the data, the stimulation of Activision's stock price by Microsoft's acquisition is obvious: it directly soared by 37%. This is equivalent to Activision Blizzard after the scandal, Microsoft directly bought the entire Activision Blizzard at its price point a year ago, recalling that last week, when Take-Two wanted to buy Zynga for $12 billion, but it was a premium of 64% to negotiate success. This makes one wonder that 2 months ago, Phil Spencer said that "the relationship with Activision Blizzard needs to be re-evaluated", which may be different from the "assessment" we usually think.
But in any case, before the completion of the overall acquisition in June 2023, Activision Blizzard will inevitably face an internal overhaul, because only in this way can Microsoft safely take over this big cake. In the follow-up project research and development, the three main companies actually have their own dilemmas.
The first is Activision. In addition to the "Call of Duty" series, Activision also has a large number of well-known old IPs, do they really not plan to reuse it? At present, in Microsoft Studio, Playground Games is doing the lion's head of "Fables of the Gods", "Age of Empires 4" has also given the Mine Society continued glory, and Rare's "Perfect Darkness" that rare did not have time to do was handed over to The Initiative. Let ninja theory or Arkane try out the silent "Torture Prototype" for many years, so that new players can see the handsomeness of Brother A. In order to ensure the continuous output of call of duty as a cash cow, what Activision needs to do is to manage the internal environment. Studios like Raven and Beenox, Demonware, and High Moon, which have the ability to develop games independently, are actually better choices to get rid of the identity of call of duty optimizers, develop their excellent technical strength, and make more games. Maybe everyone has forgotten that before Sony's "Marvel Spider-Man", the strongest person to make a movie adaptation game is our Activision!
On the other hand, King has actually been hiding behind two big brothers for Activision Blizzard to continue to output gratifying data and revenue. This former casual mobile game brother, now is silent to make money, do not cause trouble, the financial situation is friendly, "Candy Legend" has not yet declined the trend, such a good deal, Microsoft really should not miss. In addition, the addition of King can also help Microsoft open up new tracks on the mobile phone side.
Blizzard is the company that gives players the most headaches. How much I once loved it, how helpless I am now with it. The poor performance of the Diablo 2 remake, to the departure of the star producers, and the scandal within the company, the once-spirited Blizzard seems to be gone, leaving a bunch of "Do you have no mobile phones" rotten memes, it needs to change too much.
The production of "Overwatch 2" and "Diablo 4", the continuous operation of the dual version of "World of Warcraft", and the future direction of "StarCraft", these need to be optimized and solved, Microsoft wants to integrate Activision Blizzard's PC side, if there is no way to help Blizzard adjust its development direction, Blizzard wants to reshape the glory of the past can only be a fool's dream. Blizzard has so many problems that need to be adjusted that I don't know if Phil Spencer can turn the tide.
In the new generation of console wars, XGP is Microsoft's ultimate goal
Of course, no matter what the console wars become, the player's ultimate concern is the game content itself. It is not difficult to see that Microsoft's goal of acquiring studios is very clear, that is, it must have a studio with deep skills in a certain field. For example, Obsidian and Black Island, which represent the glory of American RPG, now also want to continue to write another chapter; such as ninja theory, the new generation of action directions, its technical strength has been recognized by the action Tianzun Capcom; such as Double Fine, whose research and development strength of "Brain Crew 2" is also obvious to all, it can make you have fun. Now, coupled with B and Activision Blizzard, the strongest FPS on the host platform is almost included by Microsoft, and its huge product line is dazzling. After these high-quality studios continue to produce stable products, after the first launch to join XGP, players no longer have to worry about whether the game will be thunder or not, nor do they have to worry about experiencing the victim experience of rapid price fractures.
XGP, a service that carries Microsoft's ambitions, its core is to let players experience the game without worry, it gives you nearly three hundred games, including all the types of games you can touch, whether it is AAA masterpieces or indie games, it is presented to you at one time, so that you continue to be in it. Leave users on your project and control the player's entrance to get more profits.
For example, many console players, he may only be a single game player such as Call of Duty and FIFA, NBA2K, he only buys one game a year and then plays for a year, you will "Call of Duty" directly debuted to join XGP, he only needs to buy an XGP to meet all needs, and it is even possible that after experiencing Call of Duty, you can try other types of games or independent games that you have not experienced at zero cost, which not only allows players to get a new game experience. It can also allow other manufacturers to have a share of revenue, make XGP worthwhile, and let Microsoft give players more preferential treatment when making more beautiful financial reports.
As for whether Phil Spencer will use the Call of Duty series as an exclusive or limited-time exclusive game, Bloomberg reporters recently posted on Twitter that Phil Spencer has responded to questions related to exclusivity. In response, Microsoft plans to let some Activision games continue to land on PlayStation, while making some content exclusive on the Xbox platform. If that's the case, at least Sony CEO Jim Ryan wouldn't have to be like Shuhei Yoshida as soon as he saw the news and asked Phil Spencer after the minecraft was acquired, "Do you want To monopolize Call of Duty?" And, after all, after Minecraft was acquired, Mojang's new work Minecraft: Dungeons also logged on to the PS platform. I think Microsoft's strategy is likely to be similar to the previous agreement between Activision and Sony to add some Xbox-specific content to Call of Duty that won't affect the player's experience while playing.
Finally, we may be bold to imagine that Microsoft will shoot again after spending 68.7 billion? If you do, who will you do to? Is it the 7 billion-plus Ubisoft, or the 4 billion-plus Capcom? If Phil Spencer really wants to gather a set of guns and balls, the 38 billion EA is not impossible. But what is certain is that Activision Blizzard will never be the end of Microsoft's acquisition road, but who will be the next company? Probably only Phil Spencer himself knew.