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Xbox Game Studios |OT5| The Cult of Phil in the Age of Booty: A Case Study
- Thread starter Figments
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I fear the same thing. It's probably going to be another live service game. Hopefully it's not as multiplayer focused as Sea of Thieves is.
To be fair, the project likely has several senior and lead designers as well as a creative director and a design director. It's not enough to judge the game on.
If it is another live service game I hope it's more PvE focused than PvP.
Fable Legends was a gorgeous looking game Steve.
it was pretty boring tho
Lead Technical Designer on Fable Legends.
Imo, far from boring in technical side.
Rare is turning into Blizzard like !
I hope Rare will take the best talents of the UK and will become a big studio of 400-500 employees and create animation studio for big CGI.
They just miss a big lore in their games, I hope they will recruit for a big team of writer.
I hope Rare will take the best talents of the UK and will become a big studio of 400-500 employees and create animation studio for big CGI.
They just miss a big lore in their games, I hope they will recruit for a big team of writer.
i though he was lead designer on the new project and lead technical on fable legends, hence the comment about it being "boring", but yeah, it was a beatiful game, both artistically and technically
If your buying a publisher and looking at what gamepass is, Take Two makes the most sense. NBA, NHL 2k series would fit well into gamepass providing a large segment of the non hardcore population a reason to get gamepass. I know a number of people who just get madden, nba, nhl and thats about it every year. If I told them they could get nba 2k alone for 10 bucks a month plus access to a large library of other free games they may be interested in. They would jump at that. Even knowing they may pay more over the year, 10 dollars a month just sounds like nothing pricepoint to them.
Can't lie tho, I have seen a nice amount of gears 5 and banners when going on different websites
I did not expect to get this many replies, but thanks to everyone for taking the time to type all that up. I genuinely want to understand, not trying to start fights.
And now, everyone get's a turn.
So I don't really get this. "Buying IPs for cheap", one none of those big publishers would be cheap. Mojang and Minecraft are probably the biggest studio acquisitions ever made by anyone, and that still is a fraction of what someone like EA would cost. And then the Netflix comparison I kind of get, even though I feel like the only group doing acquisitions and mergers comparable is Disney. And that's really not the same thing at all. Disney is doing these huge mergers and IP acquisitions for things like Star Wars and Marvel and whatever, but Disney's entire business is IP and media. Xbox is jsut a small slice of Microsoft, and while they're more important now than they've ever been, they are far from the most important segment of the company.
Same goes for Amazon and Google, but at least I could see them merging with a publisher because their gaming divisions are still fairly nascent, so a merger like that would kickstart their games division. I still don't think it's likely, since both companies have shown a willingness to build these things up and acquire individual talent, but I could see it happening.
Japan I think would be the region with the least redundancy though, just because it's notoriously difficult to cross that cultural divide, so it would make sense to set up a publishing arm for the region that's used to working with Japanese developers and customers.
That being said, yeah, you're right. Any publisher acquisition would come with a lot of job loss, and that's a bad thing. It's bad for the people involved and it's a bad look on Microsoft.
Yeah, no that's a good point. I kind of just simplified how the licenses would be handled for the sake of brevity, but yeah. Microsoft could probably work some licensing deal that keeps those games multi-platform and allows them to push buyers towards their platforms, although I still stand by it'd probably just be easier and cheaper to make individual deals for the games, marketing deals or licensing for streaming deals or whatever. So buying EA just kind of eliminates the concern over their streaming system and competition. Which, historically isn't really Microsofts vibe. They invested 150 million dollars in Apple to keep their competition alive, so I doubt they're going to start spending tens of billions of dollars just to try and ensure X-Cloud doesn't compete with anyone. X-Cloud which is already being marketed as a white-label service anyway, so theres a good chance EAs streaming platform will use it in the background, and Microsoft will be making money off of it regardless.
Also yes, I now realize I severely underestimated how much EA is worth. That's the kind of purchase that would break records and definitely give investors a lot of pause. And if it were Microsoft it would almost certainly be non-hostile, as they historically haven't been interested in hostile takeovers for Xbox.
I kind of get what you're saying, and yeah you're right. All that really matters for Microsoft is whether the acquisition would turn a profit. EA would be a massive acquisition, and any other large publisher, it'd take a while for something like that to be profitable. For comparison Sony paid ~380 million for Gaikai, as several people already pointed out EA would cost nearly 100 times that.
The other side of that coin though is it has to be beneficial for both sides. Like I said, EA is huge, so what could Microsoft offer them that they don't already have? They already have access to all of the Xbox users, they already have their own stable of beloved IP. Like I said X-Cloud will be a white-label service like any other Azure service, or maybe a gray label I guess we'll see, so they already have access to Microsoft's infrastructure. EA would gain basically nothing from an acquisition / merger like that, other than extra capital. And since EA is profitable, I doubt they're looking for a hand up and a new set of investors any time soon, especially with all the people that would be fired and all the cultural reworks that EA would have to go through, it would be a huge bear from both sides.
So the only realistic option is a hostile takeover, an extremely expensive and difficult hostile takeover, which isn't really Microsoft style. In fact I don't think it's really Amazon or Googles style either. Especially when it's for just a segment of their over all ops.
All true, sports titles would be a huge boon for game pass. 2K would also be about a 20 billion dollar acquisition (I checked the numbers for this one) which is still insane. You could make Minecraft sized deals with 2K for both NBA and NHL on game pass day and date and barely scrape a quarter of what the entire price of the company would be, and no one would lose their jobs is the best part.
As far as I know 2K isn't planning their own streaming service either, so this could actually happen. This is honestly a lot more likely than Google and Amazon and Microsoft buying up all the publishers, massive series spanning deals to guarantee certain key games on [insert service here]
EDIT: Missed one
And now, everyone get's a turn.
So I don't really get this. "Buying IPs for cheap", one none of those big publishers would be cheap. Mojang and Minecraft are probably the biggest studio acquisitions ever made by anyone, and that still is a fraction of what someone like EA would cost. And then the Netflix comparison I kind of get, even though I feel like the only group doing acquisitions and mergers comparable is Disney. And that's really not the same thing at all. Disney is doing these huge mergers and IP acquisitions for things like Star Wars and Marvel and whatever, but Disney's entire business is IP and media. Xbox is jsut a small slice of Microsoft, and while they're more important now than they've ever been, they are far from the most important segment of the company.
Same goes for Amazon and Google, but at least I could see them merging with a publisher because their gaming divisions are still fairly nascent, so a merger like that would kickstart their games division. I still don't think it's likely, since both companies have shown a willingness to build these things up and acquire individual talent, but I could see it happening.
Japan I think would be the region with the least redundancy though, just because it's notoriously difficult to cross that cultural divide, so it would make sense to set up a publishing arm for the region that's used to working with Japanese developers and customers.
That being said, yeah, you're right. Any publisher acquisition would come with a lot of job loss, and that's a bad thing. It's bad for the people involved and it's a bad look on Microsoft.
Yeah, no that's a good point. I kind of just simplified how the licenses would be handled for the sake of brevity, but yeah. Microsoft could probably work some licensing deal that keeps those games multi-platform and allows them to push buyers towards their platforms, although I still stand by it'd probably just be easier and cheaper to make individual deals for the games, marketing deals or licensing for streaming deals or whatever. So buying EA just kind of eliminates the concern over their streaming system and competition. Which, historically isn't really Microsofts vibe. They invested 150 million dollars in Apple to keep their competition alive, so I doubt they're going to start spending tens of billions of dollars just to try and ensure X-Cloud doesn't compete with anyone. X-Cloud which is already being marketed as a white-label service anyway, so theres a good chance EAs streaming platform will use it in the background, and Microsoft will be making money off of it regardless.
Also yes, I now realize I severely underestimated how much EA is worth. That's the kind of purchase that would break records and definitely give investors a lot of pause. And if it were Microsoft it would almost certainly be non-hostile, as they historically haven't been interested in hostile takeovers for Xbox.
I kind of get what you're saying, and yeah you're right. All that really matters for Microsoft is whether the acquisition would turn a profit. EA would be a massive acquisition, and any other large publisher, it'd take a while for something like that to be profitable. For comparison Sony paid ~380 million for Gaikai, as several people already pointed out EA would cost nearly 100 times that.
The other side of that coin though is it has to be beneficial for both sides. Like I said, EA is huge, so what could Microsoft offer them that they don't already have? They already have access to all of the Xbox users, they already have their own stable of beloved IP. Like I said X-Cloud will be a white-label service like any other Azure service, or maybe a gray label I guess we'll see, so they already have access to Microsoft's infrastructure. EA would gain basically nothing from an acquisition / merger like that, other than extra capital. And since EA is profitable, I doubt they're looking for a hand up and a new set of investors any time soon, especially with all the people that would be fired and all the cultural reworks that EA would have to go through, it would be a huge bear from both sides.
So the only realistic option is a hostile takeover, an extremely expensive and difficult hostile takeover, which isn't really Microsoft style. In fact I don't think it's really Amazon or Googles style either. Especially when it's for just a segment of their over all ops.
All true, sports titles would be a huge boon for game pass. 2K would also be about a 20 billion dollar acquisition (I checked the numbers for this one) which is still insane. You could make Minecraft sized deals with 2K for both NBA and NHL on game pass day and date and barely scrape a quarter of what the entire price of the company would be, and no one would lose their jobs is the best part.
As far as I know 2K isn't planning their own streaming service either, so this could actually happen. This is honestly a lot more likely than Google and Amazon and Microsoft buying up all the publishers, massive series spanning deals to guarantee certain key games on [insert service here]
EDIT: Missed one
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Lead Technical Designer
Project
• Fable:Legends (Xbox One and PC)
Engine
• Unreal Engine 4
Role
• Management of technical design team
• Developing pipelines and processes for creating content
• Designing, documenting and building reusable systems
- Level objectives
- Hero Characters
- Enemy AI
- Scripted Events
- Shops
- NPC characters
- Minigames
• Optimization of gameplay systems
• Hiring of designers
• Gameplay reviews and feature feedback
• Certified Scrum Master
I think this new IP will be more RPG than Sea of thieves, i see them doing MMORPG lite
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-watson-764b4a57/?originalSubdomain=uk Senior Narrative designer on the new IP
A lot of new jobs https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?f_C=7882&locationId=OTHERS.worldwide&sortBy=DD
3X Reliability Engineering Lead
Senior Deployment Pipeline Engineer
Rendering Engineer
Producer
Senior Level Artist
Data Analyst
Designer
and 11 more jobs. Wow.
Road to 300+Devs.
Yes.
3X Reliability Engineering Lead
Senior Deployment Pipeline Engineer
Rendering Engineer
Producer
Senior Level Artist
Data Analyst
Designer
and 11 more jobs. Wow.
Road to 300+Devs.
Yes.
And some time ago he recruited a senior designer with experience in open world games https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/senior-designer-at-rare-ltd-1188529425/?originalSubdomain=uk
Head of community
Head of Franchise Business
Lead gameplay programmer
Principal concept artist
Reliability Engineering Lead
Experienced Gameplay programmer
Are very important jobs !
maybe it's this one (Since he said he worked for Playstation for 10 years) but i don't know
yes it's him
I don't think gaming will necessarily get better either but as Ninja Theory alluded to in their video about the acquisition there is already a kind of a death of the mid-scale developer happening. Perhaps all these acquisitions might mean we see some interesting games that might not have been made otherwise.
As much as I love game pass I would prefer if all games were on all consoles.
EA would not make any sense to Microsoft. Not in the current environment in the West where the stock market is overly inflated even more so when you consider the stock buy backs, some of it from loans. EA is only wildly profitable because of games like FIFA and Madden. But they have mismanaged a huge amount of what used to be their internal studios, and getting them while it may boost the subscription numbers to an insane level would also mean that the break even point is a long ways off. The same reasoning on valuation would apply to Take 2 or Ubisoft.
That would not be the same if you were looking at some of the Japanese developers/publishers where the stock market is at a lower level than it was 30 years ago. This would be a good enough reason why they are buying some of the smaller studios that they think have leadership and talent, then growing them in the US, Canada and Britain.
Well, is Doritos enough for you?
I get it, Rockstar is not as popular as Monster or Red Bull, but i guarantee that Doritos X Xbox will return this year,
This has been happening for the last 5 years here in México, thats one of the reasons why PlayStation doesnt stand a chance here
The promotion happened with Halo 5, Gears 5, Xbox as a whole (2017), Xbox as a whole (2018, picture above) and i'm sure as hell that it will happen again with Gears 5.
Doritos is bigger than every TV Ad you can think about.
Rockstar is available in Oxxo stores and Wallmart, here in Sonora at least.
welll. a TV ad spot aimed to air during American prime time television does not have as much traction to teenagers/adults vs a bag of chips they will most likely eat or see.
different demographics, different mainstream platforms.
they might as well try and advertise with Bang RIGHT?
different demographics, different mainstream platforms.
they might as well try and advertise with Bang RIGHT?
Metal. Gear. Rising. Revengeance.
#believe #xboxgamepass #pls #be #real
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It'll be a missed pun opportunity if one of the new games isn't What the Box?.
Yuhp, I totally agree. I've said it a few times, but the only way a publisher makes sense for an acquisition is if it's a smaller, highly regional one. Nihon Falcom, NIS, Level-5, someone like that.
Much lower cost, and much lower potential loss of jobs as the ops could be partially maintained as a sort of "Xbox Asia".
I don't think it's super likely, considering signs point to Xbox actively trying to build their presence in Japan gradually, but at least it could happen yeah.
Why?
How much young people (you know, the people that Gears 5 will try to get) will see a TV Ad nowadays ? Not much
How much young people buy Doritos? Mhmm... A LOT
Even if they dont buy Doritos with the promo, they'll see Doritos bags with the promo in EVERY store, in EVERY country
God, i hope they make Tazos, i dont want more online codes bullshit, this was the last Tazos Collection
If they make Gears of War Tazos kids will go crazy, Gears has enough characters to fill a Collection of 50 Tazos at least.
Fable Legends was a gorgeous looking game Steve.
Lead designer not lead artist? FL was shut for a reason and I had no interest in that game. You could tell it was DOA from a mile away unfortunately for all those poor Lionhead employees. On a personal level it would be nice if Rare made something I actually wanted to play, SOT doesnt interest me, im not particularly interested in games like that in general so was hoping their next game might appeal to me
Also I dont think anyone disputed that it looked nice, it might have been the only thing going for it
Yeah, the main thing that interested me was that he is pretty senior and leaving Sony for another game industry company in Japan. Who knows. His industry friend did congratulate him and that industry friend moved over to Disney, so.
EDIT: Here's what he did at Sony:
Wait, MS. Wait.
I haven't even started half the games you offered me last month.
xD...i still think it's capcom
maybe
I love that Rare is growing. I'm still having a lot of fun with SoT and I can't wait to see what they make next.
Would love to see the team managing their old IP through third-party devs (e.g. Battletoads) continue to grow. I think Perfect Dark, Banjo, and Viva Pinata all could use new entries.
Would love to see the team managing their old IP through third-party devs (e.g. Battletoads) continue to grow. I think Perfect Dark, Banjo, and Viva Pinata all could use new entries.
Now i'm not saying 20 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket. But, if they could get take two and its titles for only 20 billion. They would easily make that back. Studios 2k has like firaxis would fit will with the gamepass for pc initiative.
I'm not saying its likely or going happen. just if you were going to pay yearly to license nba, nhl etc to launch into gamepass and have them hit gamepass in a time they would still be relevant. There is a point when year over year cost just doesn't make as much sense as just outright buying the publisher and owning the content.
Especially when if your microsoft and believe streaming is the future. Its cheaper to secure content now, then it will be later. Look at netflix. they had insanely cheap streaming contracts at first and then people caught up and they were like we can do this ourselves and now its really expensive to license streaming content.
If you're wanting to secure a place in a streaming/subscription based future content will be king. I'd be looking to secure as much content now while it's only 20 billion dollars. As in 10 years if you wanted to make a move it could be 40 or 60 billion.
Plus unlike alot of other styles of games you can't just decide i'm going to make a sports game. As there are alot of costs that go into it. Look at playstation with mlb the show. If someone else wanted to do that. They would need to secure the license, mocap, work on creating player likenesses, etc. It's much more involved and costly startup then just making a Metroidvania, or a cart racer, or a shooter.
People losing their jobs is the one downside to any acquisition.
So you're saying it's easier to buyout one of the biggest publishers in the industry than to hire a studio to make a sports game?
100% it would be easier, plus when you look at the value add of the rest of the studios take two owns. So its not just a sports game. Its the entire package. The annualized sports games are just one part of it.
Making games is hard. It's not like you can just build a studio and get naughty dog or rockstar, or insomniac. So if you can buy it and secure the talent, resources, the production used to make it then 100% yes. You also see a quicker return on your investment.
We, nmms pinches Doritos no valen verga. O sea, está bien y todo, pero neta que si nomás hacen una mamada así me voy a emputar. Es Gears of puto War en México, era para que quiten el pinche Ángel de la Independencia y pongan a un Marcus bien vergudo con una Lancer, no pinchi DoriGamePass.Well, is Doritos enough for you?
I get it, Rockstar is not as popular as Monster or Red Bull, but i guarantee that Doritos X Xbox will return this year,
This has been happening for the last 5 years here in México, thats one of the reasons why PlayStation doesnt stand a chance here
The promotion happened with Halo 5, Gears 5, Xbox as a whole (2017), Xbox as a whole (2018, picture above) and i'm sure as hell that it will happen again with Gears 5.
Doritos is bigger than every TV Ad you can think about.
Aunque si hacen tazos de Gears 5, serían los putos amos. Ahí sí ya no digo nada.
En mi vida las he visto, la neta.
Fable Legends looked beautiful.Fable Legends was a gorgeous looking game Steve.
4v1 would work as a side project with a proper mainline Fable but not as the sole source of Fable.
Si, te entiendo, a mí lo del Game Pass se me hace poco también, espero que hagan Tazos, porque la verdad las promociones de Sabritas o Doritos sin Tazos no llegan a muchos, pero bueno, me imagino que también harán un evento dedicado en México, es el segundo mercado más importante para Gears.
No sé , como dijo el Espantapájaros, habría que ver
It's baffling that a OFFICIAL gears youtube channel uploaded a video without sound. Jesus.
Looks great, though.
Looks great, though.
Baffling? Things like that happen all the time. They'll reupload it.
For real, though. If it were Red Bull or Monster, that'd be better, but no one I know has ever said "Imma go to the store and buy a can of Rockstar", at least in Mexico.
I am finding it funny that this discussion is exactly what I imagine rockstar set out to accomplish by the partnership
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