Written by | Silver Time Editor | Qin Yan
Source: Understand the notes
Preface
Activision Blizzard's value and Microsoft's story
Witness history!
This is a well-known game producer's exclamation in the circle of friends after seeing Microsoft's recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion.
We thought that last year's $7.5 billion to take on Bethesda was the perfect embodiment of Microsoft's "banknote capability", until its whale swallowed The Activision Blizzard, and we once again lamented that our pattern was small.
Many people look at the figure of more than 70 billion US dollars, there may be no concept, we can make a simple comparison: NetEase, as one of the domestic head Internet companies, is also a domestic head game manufacturer, and its current market value is about 70 billion US dollars. Therefore, Microsoft's arrogance this time has made the domestic game circle look sideways, and it should be noted that the way of this acquisition is all cash.
Of course, this acquisition has not yet finally blossomed, after all, as a member of the console big three acquired the world's most well-known game company (not one of them), antitrust review is the first challenge it needs to face. Of course, these uncertainties do not prevent players who have passively watched Blizzard in the past few years continue to imagine a "better future", nor do they prevent Microsoft from starting to tell a new metaverse story.
Microsoft
Games, metaversities, and internet giants under a sense of crisis
Microsoft's net profit in 2021 is $61.27 billion, which means that Microsoft has bought Activision Blizzard with more than a year of profits. In the future, after the official acceptance of Activision Blizzard, the most direct benefit is that Microsoft has obtained a large number of classic game IP including COD, World of Warcraft, Diablo, etc.
According to Microsoft's official statement, in the future, Activision Blizzard's games will be added to the Xbox console and the PC version of XGP, and the total number of XGP users will exceed 25 million.
Although because of the "riot operation" of the past few years, Activision Blizzard's reputation in the hearts of players has almost completely collapsed (which is why players will be so happy after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard), after all, even if Microsoft + Blizzard is no worse in the future, it will not be worse than it is now. But today, when Microsoft is gradually abandoning its exclusive reliance to build competitiveness, the addition of multiple heavyweight IPs under Activision Blizzard will undoubtedly greatly enhance the competitiveness of xbox hosts and XGP ecosystems.
Behind the sky-high acquisition, compared with the most direct impact is Microsoft's old rival Sony in the host market, such as HEAVYWEIGHT IP such as COD, which may completely bid farewell to Playstation in the future. This is also evident in the volatility of the stock price – as soon as the news of the acquisition came out, Sony's stock price fell by nearly 10%.
Of course, although the new generation of Xbox series x is far better than the previous generation of Xbox One. The XGP ecosystem is becoming more and more recognized by players, and The lineup of microsoft games studios has become unprecedentedly strong (after the acquisition, Microsoft will have 32 first-party studios).
But we also don't think that Microsoft, after swallowing Activision Blizzard, can quickly close the gap with Sony in the console war. Even Microsoft itself doesn't think that the $70 billion investment will immediately allow XBOX to press the PS to the ground and rub it, and Nadella and Spencer may have their eyes on a more distant place, that is, the Metavalse metaverse.
In Microsoft's official acquisition statement, there is a statement: "Today, 3 billion people play games regularly, and a new generation of players is also immersed in the fun of interactive entertainment, and games are now the largest and fastest growing form of entertainment." Today, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, a publisher of game development and interactive entertainment content. The acquisition will accelerate the growth of Microsoft's gaming business in mobile, personal computers, consoles and cloud computing, and will contribute to the creation of a metacosm. ”
At the conference call for the merger, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also said: "Activision Blizzard and the King team have turned the game into a social experience, allowing players to find meaning through the game. Every day, we are providing players with an entertainment consumption experience through game IP and community. How to connect these communities is an important step in creating the metaverse. Many companies around the world have ambitions to build games and create virtual worlds. Old and new powers see opportunities for professionalism, UGC, and social connections in the virtual world. ”
We can clearly see that Microsoft has a clear goal in the future planning of the game business, that is, to add bricks and tiles to the concept of "metacosmity".
Another background is that when the mobile Internet went through the first decade, Tencent, Ali and other domestic leading Internet giants also began to decline in net profits, and Douyin, which was considered to be a byte "printing machine", also began to grow and slow down... When the growth of all Internet giants begins to be weak, reducing costs and increasing efficiency has become an inevitable choice in the context of the times. The spectacular sight of giants burning money for growth over the past decade, regardless of cost, may not appear as frequently as before.
But at the same time, the desire of enterprises and capital for growth will never stop, and they cannot stop. Therefore, they need a new story, a story that makes the outside world and capital believe, and the metacosm is the most preferred at the moment, especially in the case of capital believing in this story, MATA, Microsoft, Tencent.
Almost everyone talks about the value and potential opportunities of the metacosm, which is a typical Medici effect. Grassroots technology needs to include blockchain, NFT, wbe3, virtual reality, cloud computing, DAO and a large number of new technologies, the vision of "user confirmation" and "decentralization" behind these technologies is, in a sense, unfriendly to Internet giants. Therefore, the giants want to grasp the core elements of the future metaverse concept, such as entrance, content, and hardware that reach users, all in their own hands.
To put it simply: even if users can fully confirm the rights in the ecology of the metaverse in the future, the giants hope that they can become the existence of the "Oasis" company in "Ready Player One".
The game company's choice: if you don't want to hang up, you can sell it quickly
Whether it is the scenes depicted in novels such as "Avalanche" and "Neuromancer" and science fiction movies such as "Ready Player One" and "Out of Control Player", or the development vision given by Internet companies at this stage, about the unknown virtual world (metaverse), the game seems to be the bearer space that people can recognize for the first time. In particular, the immersive mode of VR games or AR games is the overall direction of the metaverse concept in the future.
In the case of Roblox, for example, it no longer restricts players from playing according to the game company's settings, but instead gives the right to make rules to the players, and achieves sufficient decentralization. But from another point of view, there are also many voices that believe that it is essentially no different from those classic sandbox games, and that it is an enhanced version of "Ma-made" or "DOTA Veranda".
It is undeniable that the listing of Roblox has a certain milestone significance for the development of the metaverse concept. Because capital is the biggest source of power to push the tide of the times forward, and the successful listing of Roblox and the continuous rise of subsequent stock prices and market value have also fed capital a reassuring pill in a sense.
Its phased success has allowed capital to see that the concept of a metacosm can indeed be exchanged for real money. And when Zuckerberg took the $2 billion acquisition of Oculus and renamed the company (META)all in metacosm, the reassurance pill became even more exciting.
At the game level, in addition to decentralized gameplay innovation, virtual reality is also regarded as one of the underlying technologies of the metaverse, and hardware devices such as VR\AR\MR are regarded as important entrance-level devices for the future metaverse. Under the concept of meta-universe, the virtual reality industry has also ushered in another "first year" after 2016, and even Luo Yonghao's new goal of returning to the science and technology circle is placed in the field of virtual reality.
In terms of technical applications, AR\MR is more used in the B-side, and VR games have become the main directions that game manufacturers try. Of course, VR games are nothing new. The earliest traceability may be traced back to the VR game device Virtual Boy released by Junhei Yokoi in Nintendo in 1995, but the concept is too advanced and the technical support is not enough, resulting in it becoming one of the black histories in Nintendo history, and Yokoi Junpei also left Nintendo.
Today, 27 years later, although VR technology has long been different, we have seen more mature VR games like "Half-Life: Alyx", and Zuckerberg's Oculus2 has sold more than 10 million units. But VR games are still niche and have not become a focus for game developers.
The reason behind this is very simple, the limitation of technology and cost is doomed to make a VR game at this stage is definitely a loss, and relevant companies may secretly accumulate technology in this area, but no one is willing to do almost 100% loss of money products.
Technically, although virtual reality display technology has made full progress compared with the past few years, it is still very different from the effect of corporate depiction and user imagination, and the overall content is relatively scarce. If you measure the effects of current VR, AR, and MR devices with the effects depicted in "Ready Player One" and "Out of Control Player", it can be said that they are far from the same.
Obviously, games are the most direct embodiment of the use of device technology, but even in the current industry benchmarks such as "Half-Life: Alyx" and "Resident Evil 4 VR", they are still far from the fully immersive future vision, which can only be said to be a stage victory.
Looking at the hardware, the entry threshold of hardware equipment is too high, the use experience is not ideal, and it also restricts the growth of the base of VR users. I believe that no one will think that bringing one or two pounds of VR eyes to the head will be the ultimate experience of use, the headset is uncomfortable to wear, the display effect is not so good, the character expression can not be seen, these are the problems that need to be faced. Behind this, the industry needs to make a comprehensive breakthrough in the underlying technology in optics, materials, computing and other aspects.
In this regard, some virtual reality hardware industry practitioners said to understand the notes: "Now many technologies can be achieved in the laboratory stage, but how to combine different technologies in a perfect state and achieve commercialization is very difficult." The most typical is to ensure the display effect on miniaturized devices. The display effect requires the technical blessing of many aspects such as optics and computing power, and from the perspective of use experience, insensible wearing is the ultimate dream. However, if the equipment gets 300 grams, 200 grams or even 100 grams, it is difficult to ensure the use effect, at least the current technology is difficult to support. ”
The person also added: "In addition to the display, there is also the battery. Hardware people know that the battery is an eternal pain, and it is difficult to ensure miniaturization and high computing power while achieving high endurance. ”
So, while Oculus2 became the first virtual reality device in history to hit the 10 million sales mark, it wasn't an epoch-making product like the iPhone or the first Android model, the HTC G1. Perhaps, regarding this epoch-making device, we can look forward to a "new thing" that Apple will launch this year.
The immaturity of the two dimensions of hardware and software has led to a user base that is naturally not very high. From the developer's point of view, although there are already thousands of VR applications on Steam, and some of them have achieved profitability, the probability and scale are still much smaller than the traditional market.
In this regard, the head of a game development company said to the understanding note: "One is a billion-scale starting market, one is a million-level market, as the head of the enterprise, which one will you choose?" The answer is obvious, maybe that billion-dollar market is more competitive, but most people will still choose it. ”
"There is also a factor that must be considered in the domestic market is the version number. VR games also need version numbers, in the context of the tightening of the overall game version number, almost no one is willing to take the precious version number to VR games in the immature market to try and make mistakes. The person added.
Although the concept of a metacosm is still floating in the air, we should look at new technologies and new visions with optimism. After all, around 2005, when the concept of WEB 2.0 was proposed, countless people also stood up and angrily criticized "this is a complete scam". When the P2P concept was first introduced, there were also people who praised it as a pioneering move of mutual gold. But the end result?
Criticism and praise are easy, and maybe we should let the bullets fly a little longer.
【Conclusion】
One of the reasons Zuckerberg has recently come out to talk about the metaverse is that he hopes that more people will try and make mistakes together, especially based on his platform. For him, it's a way to maximize profits. As for whether there will be scenes similar to those depicted in science fiction novels and movies in the future, no one can give a prejudgment. But standing at the intersection of a new era, everyone is looking forward to the emergence of such an epoch-making hardware facility and a killer application. The same is true of game companies, who, as content bearers behind the entrance, may be more anxious than anyone else.
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