Activision (ABK)

What IP Should MS/ABK Bring Back?

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Indiana Cajones said:
Well now we have seen the one-sided deal Sony made to get a few of the Disney IPs. Disney is freaking brutal.

Clearly Sony is of the opinion that getting consoles out there is only a good thing no matter what, but Disney taking 50% sales of hardware bundles... I really doubt Activision was taking that for Call of Duty.

I am seeing why Microsoft now owning Activision IP was such a bitter pill for Jim Ryan.
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Agreed. The licensing deal Sony signed with Disney is nuts. No wonder those games/console need to sell so many copies. The licensing alone keeps Disney fat and happy. Makes me curious as to the deal MS had to sign to get Blade(And if they renegotiate terms now that they have solid info about Sony's deal) Either way the only one winning is Disney.
 
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wshowers said:
Agreed. The licensing deal Sony signed with Disney is nuts. No wonder those games/console need to sell so many copies. The licensing alone keeps Disney fat and happy. Makes me curious as to the deal MS had to sign to get Blade(And if they renegotiate terms now that they have solid info about Sony's deal) Either way the only one winning is Disney.
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Xbox's won't be as steep due to Blade being a far lower IP than Spider-Man.
 
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The Wolf King said:
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Is funny reading this. I remember when Game Pass was announced and Playstation suits were playing ignorant, And I was saying they will regret it.

Playstation are too arrogant and it makes them learn too slow. Now they are trying to play catch up but still refuse to move with the times and do what needs to be done.
 
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menace-uk- said:
Is funny reading this. I remember when Game Pass was announced and Playstation suits were playing ignorant, saying they will regret it.

Playstation are too arrogant and it makes them learn too slow. Now they are trying to play catch up but still refuse to move with the times and do what needs to be done.
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I could see them being selective with their first party titles. Like if they own the ip it’ll be day one, if they license it, maybe wait like six months to a year
 
karmakid said:
I could see them being selective with their first party titles. Like if they own the ip it’ll be day one, if they license it, maybe wait like six months to a year
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They don't even need to be day 1 to make up some ground. God of War and Last of us part 1 are 12 to 15 months old. Put them in. Spider- Man Remaster, put it in. They don't even do good sales for their games.

PS Portal was a huge missed opportunity.
 
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Kotick out

Jim Carrey Dancing GIF
 
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My understanding was the 15 million he got was part of his "Golden Parachute" leaving package. Its does not include all the stock he had in the company before the merger.
 
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menace-uk- said:
Xbox's won't be as steep due to Blade being a far lower IP than Spider-Man.
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There were a few "What was MS thinking?" articles around the time news got out that MS turned down making a Spider-man game.

Now that we know the terms Disney was expecting, it's easy to see why MS walked away.

I am sure Microsoft got a better deal with Blade, but after Arkane's last few "flops," my hope is that Arkane doesn't become another Marvel factory. Way too much promise in that studio.
 
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Oddly enough, game play in a Blade game would be far more appealing for me than a Spider-Man game due to the combat.
 
Indiana Cajones said:
There were a few "What was MS thinking?" articles around the time news got out that MS turned down making a Spider-man game.

Now that we know the terms Disney was expecting, it's easy to see why MS walked away.

I am sure Microsoft got a better deal with Blade, but after Arkane's last few "flops," my hope is that Arkane doesn't become another Marvel factory. Way too much promise in that studio.
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Fully agree. Plus at the time, I don't think they had the right studio to make a competent Spiderman game. Now with all their acquisitions they can literally handle any genre of game, besides Jrpg.

On Arkane, to be fair, ALL of their titles outside of Deathloop have been commercial flops. But I too hope they don't fall into the Insomniac trap and become a Marvel studio.
 
I would guess the Blade deal is different in regards to sales as Game Pass would come into it.
 
Indiana Cajones said:
There were a few "What was MS thinking?" articles around the time news got out that MS turned down making a Spider-man game.

Now that we know the terms Disney was expecting, it's easy to see why MS walked away.

I am sure Microsoft got a better deal with Blade, but after Arkane's last few "flops," my hope is that Arkane doesn't become another Marvel factory. Way too much promise in that studio.
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Different Arkane studio, ones in Texas the other in Europe, I could be wrong with the latter, that’s why it kinda sucks to have two studios with the same name, like BioWare Austin and BioWare Canada (I forget the city it’s in lol)
 
wshowers said:
Fully agree. Plus at the time, I don't think they had the right studio to make a competent Spiderman game. Now with all their acquisitions they can literally handle any genre of game, besides Jrpg.

On Arkane, to be fair, ALL of their titles outside of Deathloop have been commercial flops. But I too hope they don't fall into the Insomniac trap and become a Marvel studio.
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That point surfaced quite a bit when news of MS passing on Spider-man was unearthed in the FTC Trial. They certainly didn't have an internal studio with open-world action-game experience, that's true. If they really thought getting a Spider-man game in the pipeline was top priority, they did have an established relationship with Ruffian (Crackdown 2, Master Chief Collection). Microsoft could have made it happen if they really wanted to.

As a man who loved the old Spider-man cartoons as a kid, and excitedly watched the first two Raimi flicks opening night in theaters, I'm still glad they didn't go that route. Now adding in the absolutely brutal financials behind the contract, it was a no-brainer to skip the opportunity and invest instead in their own IP.

The Spider-man titles are popular games, but unless the contract is renegotiated, it appears that Sony has to delist both of them around 2035. Imagine sinking $115,000,000 into Spider-man 1 and $315,000,000 into Spider-man 2, knowing you get 50% of your usual cut at best (you also give up 50% of hardware bundle sales), and knowing you won't have the rights to sell either of them in ten years. Absolutely mind-boggling.

karmakid said:
Different Arkane studio, ones in Texas the other in Europe, I could be wrong with the latter, that’s why it kinda sucks to have two studios with the same name, like BioWare Austin and BioWare Canada (I forget the city it’s in lol)
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I should have worded that a bit better. Yes, Redfall was a critical and commercial flop, but as @wshowers said, basically all of Arkane's games, whether developed in Lyon or Austin, have been commercial flops. That's what's got me wondering if the MS bean-counters are seeing if they can "encourage" Arkane into making more commercially viable games.

Arkane isn't my favorite developer, and I haven't liked all of their games. Still, they are one of the final Immersive Sim developers, and they bring great value to the Microsoft first party on the virtue of a diversified portfolio. Hopefully the higher-ups can see that, rather than solely going by whether Arkane can make four games a generation that are easy to advertise.
 
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wshowers said:
Fully agree. Plus at the time, I don't think they had the right studio to make a competent Spiderman game. Now with all their acquisitions they can literally handle any genre of game, besides Jrpg.

On Arkane, to be fair, ALL of their titles outside of Deathloop have been commercial flops. But I too hope they don't fall into the Insomniac trap and become a Marvel studio.
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Well……At that time they technically didn’t pass on Spider-Man, they passed on anything Marvel. insomniac symtated that Sony took the offer and wanted them to make a marvel game, it was up to insomniac to pick the ip, which they landed on Spider-Man after their vertical slice pitch to both.

Who knows though, had things played out different Spider-Man could’ve been on Xbox if they picked a second/third party dev like insomniac, which Sony eventually did…. hell it could’ve been them, at said time they were still independent.
 
Indiana Cajones said:
That point surfaced quite a bit when news of MS passing on Spider-man was unearthed in the FTC Trial. They certainly didn't have an internal studio with open-world action-game experience, that's true. If they really thought getting a Spider-man game in the pipeline was top priority, they did have an established relationship with Ruffian (Crackdown 2, Master Chief Collection). Microsoft could have made it happen if they really wanted to.

As a man who loved the old Spider-man cartoons as a kid, and excitedly watched the first two Raimi flicks opening night in theaters, I'm still glad they didn't go that route. Now adding in the absolutely brutal financials behind the contract, it was a no-brainer to skip the opportunity and invest instead in their own IP.

The Spider-man titles are popular games, but unless the contract is renegotiated, it appears that Sony has to delist both of them around 2035. Imagine sinking $115,000,000 into Spider-man 1 and $315,000,000 into Spider-man 2, knowing you get 50% of your usual cut at best (you also give up 50% of hardware bundle sales), and knowing you won't have the rights to sell either of them in ten years. Absolutely mind-boggling.



I should have worded that a bit better. Yes, Redfall was a critical and commercial flop, but as @wshowers said, basically all of Arkane's games, whether developed in Lyon or Austin, have been commercial flops. That's what's got me wondering if the MS bean-counters are seeing if they can "encourage" Arkane into making more commercially viable games.

Arkane isn't my favorite developer, and I haven't liked all of their games. Still, they are one of the final Immersive Sim developers, and they bring great value to the Microsoft first party on the virtue of a diversified portfolio. Hopefully the higher-ups can see that, rather than solely going by whether Arkane can make four games a generation that are easy to advertise.
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I think with Phil in charge, Arkane isn't going to change their M.O. too much. From their leaked court case, Arkane was supposed to be working on Dishonored 3. Which was not a given, due to the series sales number. The only thing in stone is Blade due to the agreement with Marvel and possibly Deathloop 2 with Deathloop being their best selling game ever.
 
wshowers said:
I think with Phil in charge, Arkane isn't going to change their M.O. too much. From their leaked court case, Arkane was supposed to be working on Dishonored 3. Which was not a given, due to the series sales number. The only thing in stone is Blade due to the agreement with Marvel and possibly Deathloop 2 with Deathloop being their best selling game ever.
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So in a way they’re in a similar boat that insomniac once was…they’re a great dev, their own games/ip are great but not consumer hits. Now with access to more established IP, marvels, they have a better chance at to gain more interest and sales, on that marvel wave
 
karmakid said:
www.windowscentral.com

As Bobby Kotick leaves Microsoft and Activision for good, ex-employees recall how Kotick once threatened to 'have an employee killed'

Past and present Activision developers speak up.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com

  • Kotick's time at the helm has been shadowed by controversy, and his departure met with a jubilant outpouring on social media. This includes one story shared by a Call of Duty programmer who claims Kotick once threatened to "have an employee killed."
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Very rare you see this kind of reaction from a departure. Which, in of itself, shows just how bad Kotick was.

But, with Kotick gone, will anything really change on our end? I mean, I doubt COD will instantly drop SBMM/EBMM. Suddenly get better Audio, etc.
 
menace-uk- said:
Very rare you see this kind of reaction from a departure. Which, in of itself, shows just how bad Kotick was.

But, with Kotick gone, will anything really change on our end? I mean, I doubt COD will instantly drop SBMM/EBMM. Suddenly get better Audio, etc.
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I see it taking a couple more releases before we see those improvements. Hopefully it comes sooner. It’s so weird and a bit ridiculous that in 4 years they’ve never been able to get the audio right in Warzone. Playing it this month during the free MW3 weekend you could still not hear footsteps and parachutes properly.
 
lowdru2k said:
I see it taking a couple more releases before we see those improvements. Hopefully it comes sooner. It’s so weird and a bit ridiculous that in 4 years they’ve never been able to get the audio right in Warzone. Playing it this month during the free MW3 weekend you could still not hear footsteps and parachutes properly.
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You can hear the trees, though.
 
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