Text | Hedgehog Commune, author | Xinghui, editor | Shi Can
On the evening of January 18, 2022, a message from the other side of the ocean smashed into the Chinese Internet like a grenade, instantly detonating the circle.
As everyone expected, countless headlines around "Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard" quickly made headlines in the technology edition, stirring up thousands of waves in major forums. Large and small media compete for uninterpreted sharp angles, and long and short reports are like a tidal wave, and the waves are one after another.
Image source Xbox official Weibo
At the head of the public opinion field hangs a heavy figure: $68.7 billion. This is the purchase price offered by Microsoft, and if converted into yuan, the figure will come to about 435.1 billion.
As the heat of the debate subsided, the aftershocks continued. Over the course of 30 days, the other side of the acquisition of the century was revealed — they were not recorded in data reports, but inscribed in the memory of the group.
befall
On the night of January 18th, the light rain convoy group "blew up".
On weekdays, the main mission of this game group is to save the game, one person asks "whether there is", and the rest respond to the online according to the situation. In the past, whenever Overwatch released a balance patch, everyone would have a passionate discussion.
But since last year, there have been fewer active players in the fleet. In Tieba, people describe the trend of the "Overwatch" production team in recent years as "swinging rotten" - one swing is several years. The game that swept the world in the summer of 2016 was always angrily criticized as "a good hand played a thin hand".
"How did Blizzard play such a good card of Watchman?"
The group message that quickly swept the screen shocked the light rain, and there was no exclamation statement enough to summarize everyone's mood. "The last time it was so noisy, maybe it was when the 'echo' was on the line?" Xiao Yu recalled.
As the last new hero of Overwatch, Echo was released on April 15, 2020, as if centuries ago.
Microsoft, a world-class giant that has spent thousands of dollars, is promoting the largest acquisition transaction in the company's history at a sky-high price, and the big news that attracted worldwide attention was born. And Xiaoyu can't really remember how much Microsoft is going to spend, he only knows that it is a huge amount of money, which means that Blizzard will harvest a reliable "gold lord".
Breaking news is delivered at an alarming rate to NGA, small black boxes, Microblogs and even Tiger Punch... Countless nerve endings suddenly trembled, and countless swear words were pressed by people to forward the button.
On the evening of the 18th, in the game community brigade mage camp, which is especially familiar to domestic card players, the acquisition news was published in the Hearthstone section, and the number of comments quickly jumped to hundreds, and the liveliness was nearly ten times that of daily blog posts. The comments section was filled with a joyous atmosphere, and a 45-level user commented: "The half-dead Blizzard finally has a turnaround and hope to get rid of the decline." ”
On the other hand, the B station UP master who focuses on the forward information and strategy of "World of Warcraft" also saw the revelations from the Wall Street Journal, and he excitedly released a dynamic at 21:42. As more conclusive information came out, Muranui decided to work overtime, and he quickly produced a new video and distributed it at 23:23.
The title of this video is called "Microsoft's 68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard!" The stock price rises and falls, and the president ascends to heaven! It's not bad money anymore." As of the time of finalization, it has been played 549,000 times and has more than 3,800 comments, which is much higher than the usual raider videos of Muran Dui Ah. At the same time, more UP owners are following this hot spot.
The comment area inside the murmur can be said to be a joyous party, and players who feel that "not bad money" and "have a head" have begun to make all kinds of ridicule, and many hot stems have been created overnight. The next morning, bloggers such as the "Game Research Group" on Weibo had assembled a series of "acquisition jokes."
Netizens came to the "team building" celebration under the dynamics of "NetEase Blizzard Game Video", although those dynamic contents were not related to the acquisition. This heat lasted for about a week, and the "trace content" in the comment area gradually decreased after January 25.
This week's revelry is a concentrated release of the player's emotions that have been suppressed for too long.
In the eyes of many, the previous Blizzard has fallen into the lowest and most precarious period in history. While workplace culture scandals continue, most of the once-household game IPs are in the crisis of declining reputation.
The plot controversy of the "World of Warcraft" expansion pack is worrying, and the word of mouth continues to decline. The much-anticipated Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 have been delayed, the development progress has been confusing, the remake of the classic game has not been as expected, and StarCraft and Heroes of the Storm have been shrouded in an unsettling silence...
In this context, Microsoft is like a god, using "banknote ability" to save Blizzard's value. But is "the Golden Lord" really the same as the "Savior"?
wounds
Blizzard's former "gold lord" was Vivendi, who later merged with Activision and became independent under the name "Activision Blizzard".
Vivendi's position in the minds of players is obviously not as lofty as Today's Microsoft, and Activision is even less optimistic. In fact, for a long time, Activision was described by a considerable number of Blizzard fans as the "source of all evil".
Over the years, a wave of departures from Blizzard's veteran employees has erupted, and rumors of "infighting" among Activision's management have been rife. Although Blizzard promised many years ago that it would not be affected by the automatic vision leadership, many players firmly believe that things have changed long ago, and it is the short-sightedness and profit-seeking of Activision executives that have dragged down Blizzard.
To this day, old players are still not used to pronouncing the name "Activision" and "Blizzard" together. Just like the popular "Call of Duty" series and the gold-sucking beast "Candy Crush Legend", it seems that they have never really integrated into the "family barrel".
Players are anxious to get rid of the haze of the past, they don't really care whether the deal is worthwhile, nor do they care whether Microsoft's so-called "second curve" can be established, players just want to know if the game they play will get better.
As the big news heat wave passed, some players realized that change might not come, such as the "scarred" Heroes of the Storm users.
For them, the nightmare dates back to the 2018 Blizzard Carnival. At that annual event, Blizzard announced the removal of some heroes of the storm developers and canceled subsequent esports programs. Since then, the shortage of manpower has led to slow updates in all aspects of Heroes of the Storm, and the production of new content after 2020 has nearly stopped and deteriorated.
The disappearance of official events means the dissolution of professional teams and the end of their careers. Rich is a pro Storm Hero from South Korea who is affectionately known as "Little Fat Man" by Chinese players.
Rich has left countless highlight moments on the professional field, and some of the pictures have been praised by the forum brothers: Rich's hero "Hunting The Void" suddenly flashed in a smart posture, quickly approaching the face of the enemy player, the bullets poured out, Rich chased after it, and he accurately dropped the bomb between the electric light and flint, and then lightly traced back at the moment of killing.
After the cancellation of the official event, such a player who "passed in the crowd of all armies" slowly faded out of the vision of the storm player. In the spring of 2019, Rich made an announcement announcing that its personal channel would no longer publish Videos about Heroes of the Storm. In May of the same year, a media report was forwarded to the NGA under the headline "Former Heroes of the Storm International Champion Rich Announces Joining the Gen.G League of Legends Youth Team."
Events are canceled, professional players leave, head anchors transform, two creators bid farewell, and each node is accompanied by the anger and disappointment of Storm players for Activision Blizzard.
What makes Storm players even more unfair is that after the acquisition was announced, many media did not even mention "Heroes of the Storm" when reporting Blizzard's game IP. "Even the old Guitar Hero has it, but it doesn't have Heroes of the Storm."
More people pessimistically realized that the situation of the storm could not be worse except for the suspension, "at the bottom of the valley, how to go is upwards." However, this "valley bottom" is different from "Overwatch", the latter is in the savings period of the sequel, and the former has long been unable to see the dawn.
Even if Microsoft arrives, it will not give storm players the confidence to "come back to life". In the difficult situation, the storm community has been unable to boost much morale. People quickly regained their composure and discussed the hero intensity in Brawl mode as usual. A similar sad story happened to the players of StarCraft and Warcraft.
"Will Microsoft save the interstellar storm?" /"Can Microsoft Save Warcraft?"
The day after the news of the acquisition broke, a terrier was constantly forwarded in the player circle, causing a burst of laughter and sighs. At that time, the most widely circulated "terrier" of the entire "Storm Hero" on the Internet was "Storm to Fire", and that joke and helplessness just formed an intertextuality across time with the current "family at the door of the ICU".
Outside of the storm, Blizzard's surviving esports programs are not doing well.
The Overwatch League is often referred to simply as "OWL." When the curtain was drawn that year, OWL had caused controversy with its extremely high team seat price, and the argument that "Blizzard will not do e-sports" has never stopped.
Over the years, due to the overall popularity of Overwatch, OWL's development has not been smooth, and its influence is limited to a small circle. Since 2020, the tepid OWL has hit the new crown epidemic again, and the magnificent offline home and away planning has been forced to shrink.
After the news of the acquisition was announced, the audience's familiar OWL commentary Alan posted a dynamic on the personal B station channel. Feeling that Microsoft has made a generous move, Alan's attitude is much calmer than that of carnival players. He said: "As for ordinary players, the impact is average, things like ow2.0 are estimated to be done almost, even if the things that should be closed are not directly affected by acquisitions." ”
Commentary Alan, image source Overwatch League official Weibo
After the offseason began, Alan spent more time following popular shooters like Valorant and Apex Heroes, and updated videos with great frequency. At the beginning of the year, many OWL viewers were worried about whether Alan would continue to explain OWL's new season. Alan didn't say anything to death, he just said that considering factors such as live broadcast contracts and revenue, a lot of things can't be determined at this time.
Roles such as professional commentators and anchors are the backbone of the gaming community and the key to promoting the normalization of e-sports. However, the real question before us is, what kind of projects are more popular, more promising, and more people watching?
Even community two bloggers who generate electricity for love will face the dilemma of lack of topics. In overwatch's player circle, UP master "Toby Holds His Head High" came out with a hardcore puzzle-solving style and made a name for himself. With the development of the channel, there are fewer and fewer clues for him to explore and examine. At present, the speed of overwatch "mystery" is far from keeping up with Tobion's production speed, so he has to open up more content categories and try other games.
The overall size of the player determines the popularity ceiling of the community stars, and also casts a ceiling for income. "Overwatch" is doomed to not be able to win the "top" Reds like the big hit projects of "Glory of Kings" and "PUBG".
Microsoft's presence, as Alan puts it, doesn't fundamentally change this set of issues, nor should it be expected to be unrealistic.
Signal
In the 30 days since the acquisition, the community's response has become much more sensitive than ever.
Once there is a new trend in Blizzard's products, people seem to be able to interpret more positive signals from it. When Hearthstone launched a large number of new trinkets, some people would associate it with the acquisition. When there are "leaked" rumors about Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft on overseas websites, people think of Microsoft and appreciate it.
Activision Blizzard executives are the evil villains in the minds of players, and Microsoft has become a hero. Good things don't necessarily come from the new "gold lord", but players are willing to believe that there is such a "backer", which has calmed the community's uneasiness to a considerable extent.
Four days after the news of the acquisition, Iksar (Dean Ayala), a well-known designer of the Hearthstone team, was also asked about his views on the acquisition during a routine communication with the community.
Ikar replied that at present, he is not clear how the acquisition will be implemented, including the name of the team, the structure, the corresponding management, and many questions are outstanding. "The situation is still the same as before, and one thing that has changed is that everyone is more optimistic."
This little bit of optimism is precious.
Since Blizzard's "fraternity culture" was exposed, it has been plagued by various legal complaints from regulators, including allegations of sexual harassment, workplace bullying, demeaning, sexism and racial discrimination, involving the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the Securities Commission, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Employee strikes, backbone departures, sponsor divestments... Activision Blizzard has barely heard much good news since July 2021. The thorny brain drain issue is nothing new, and several Blizzard employees have pointed out that their salary levels do not have an advantage in the industry. A number of veteran employees have jumped ship or become self-reliant in the past few years.
About half a month after the acquisition was announced, Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy announced his departure from Blizzard. Earlier, she had lashed out at Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick on social media, arguing that its stupid directives had delayed overhauling over production of Overwatch 2 for months. At the same time, Overwatch 2's chief character concept artist Arnold Tsang, who has been with Blizzard for more than a decade, has also left.
When the wind and rain are shaky, everything is bad signals. The Century acquisition was also far less smooth and fast than one might think. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in an email to employees: "We expect this acquisition to be completed in fiscal year 2023 pending regulatory approvals. ”
At a time when the global antitrust wave is in full swing, the Microsoft acquisition is clearly under enormous regulatory pressure.
On February 5, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented on the acquisition and tried to downplay its significance. In an interview with the Financial Times, he claimed that Microsoft was still some way from becoming a monopoly in the gaming industry, and that the acquisition only allowed Xbox to "become a big player in a highly decentralized place." Nadella said: "Even after this acquisition, we will be in third place, with a market share as low as ten percent. The top two are Sony and Tencent.
Around February 10, Microsoft once again released a signal to the outside world, highlighting the determination to ensure the approval of the acquisition.
At a press conference, Microsoft unveiled new rules for Data Collection, Competition and Payment Policies for Xbox and Windows Store. Company executives explained the company's app store rules, which include a commitment not to use the store's non-public data to compete with competitors' apps.
Microsoft not only said it would continue to execute on the agreement between Activision Blizzard and Sony, but also made more commitments. Even if the existing agreement expires, Microsoft is willing to continue to develop the Call of Duty series of games for Sony PS consoles.
It was also during this special period of history that Blizzard took an unexpected step. On January 26, Blizzard's official website published a blog post announcing job postings for the new game IP that has yet to be announced. Set in a brand new universe, this will be a survival game for both PC and console platforms.
Image source BattleNet
On the eve of the arrival of the new Diablo and Overwatch sequels, the launch of a new IP seems to signal some kind of determination to get out of the mud.
In the face of a thousand hardships, the acquisition gave people a reason to believe. Maybe Microsoft and Blizzard can really take this opportunity to make a comeback and continue the dynasty through outstanding IP works.
Video games called the "Ninth Art" are not pure commodities. In the darkest days, there are still anchors, players, commentators, creators, and players who are left behind. The "love" of a game sounds cheesy, but it's really a reason people stop here.
This love enables people to accept jobs that are not the most promising, to endure long-term suffering and disappointment, and to be easily motivated. With just a little signal worth waiting for, players and community stars are willing to stick together and take another ride.
What the $68.7 billion bought is not just a fluttering "IP matrix" in analysts' mouths, but a group of players scattered around the world who cheer for it, and their long-standing faithful and earnest expectations.
30 days after the big news, players are still waiting for more big news:
On February 2, Heroes of the Storm released a balance patch.
On February 4, some players speculated based on Battlenet client information that Blizzard was preparing an early version of Overwatch 2 for players to test. In the comment area of related information, some netizens joked: "Thank you, window." ”
On February 11, world of warcraft officially announced that the final chapter of the 9.0 expansion pack "Shadow Nation", "The End of Eternity", will be released on February 24.
On February 16, the Hearthstone 22.4 patch, the new mini series was officially launched, and each mode ushered in an update.
On February 16, the 2022 season of overwatch league announced new information, offline competition on the agenda, the new season will officially start on May 6.
On February 17, Xiaoyu and her friends laughed at each other in the group: "Even have illusions about Blizzard", while keeping an eye on well-informed game bloggers, looking forward to seeing the big news of "Overwatch 2" in the rumors.
"What if, what if it's true?" He argued.