Anarchic Fox on 21/1/2022 at 21:40
Thanks for the info. It's easy to forget that mobile gaming dwarfs all other types.
Pyrian on 21/1/2022 at 22:15
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
And I'm wondering how that makes any sense.
At the end of the day, they're buying all the stock, and that's roughly what all the stock costs ("market capitalization").
Anarchic Fox on 21/1/2022 at 22:46
Quote Posted by Pyrian
At the end of the day, they're buying all the stock, and that's roughly what all the stock costs ("market capitalization").
That isn't what I found nonsensical, but rather the relative valuation. Activision-Blizzard-King being worth ten times as much as Bethesda, Id and Arkane combined, or sixteen times as much as Lucasfilms.
I think this is one of those situations where the financial value of something is completely different from other measures of value. On a cultural level, Arkane alone is more valuable than the entirety of ATVI. But ATVI
really does make that much money: last year its revenue was some 8 billion.
Nameless Voice on 22/1/2022 at 00:04
That's being a bit harsh on all of Blizzard's classic games, isn't it? Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo are hugely influential series.
demagogue on 22/1/2022 at 01:41
I think the point was more like what has Blizzard done for us lately? The last really culturally significant game was World of Warcraft originally from 2004. They shouldn't get away with rehashing Diablos forever, and Overwatch got way overshadowed by Fortnight; and if you look it up, there's a lot of talk if it's a dead game already, and it's not that old. (Putting aside the fact that its & Fortnight's core mechanic is twitch & scream.) And Activision has just been rehashing Calls of Duty, Tony Hawks, Guitar Heroes, and sad movie tie-ins since the early 2000s.
Whereas Arkane has been maintaining its vision with new & innovative IP right up to the present.
If that wasn't the main punchline, it should be anyway.
That said, anybody with business sense could probably predict where the money is if they reflected on it, though.
Anarchic Fox on 22/1/2022 at 03:14
If we're talking about total contribution, then yeah, Blizzard has done more for gaming than Arkane. I was thinking more about current and (likely) future work. My measure here is, "How much of a loss would it be if the company went under completely?" Candy Crush would be replaced instantly with something of equivalent quality. There are ample counterparts to CoD, Overwatch and Guitar Hero, and additional ones would appear to fill the void. World of Warcraft would be a loss (only FFXIV really compares), but a smaller one nowadays than a decade ago. Starcraft would be swiftly hacked to run without Blizznet. On the other hand, Arkane not only puts out high-quality work, it's high-quality work that only they can do.
That's the best I can do right now to make the notion of "cultural value" precise. It's not just the merit of a company's products (I'm sure Candy Crush has all sorts of nice features), but the distinctness of that merit. Of course there's all sorts of subjectivity in both areas, so I expect different people to judge them differently.
Jason Moyer on 22/1/2022 at 03:50
The worst selling Call Of Doody title has probably sold more than Arkane's entire catalog combined. My surprise in regards to this deal being so much larger than Zenimax has more to do with how insanely huge every BethSoft game has been since Oblivion.
Pyrian on 22/1/2022 at 05:24
This pandemic has really warped my perception of time. I really thought that happened a long time ago, rather than closing less than a year ago.
WingedKagouti on 22/1/2022 at 08:54
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
Of course there's all sorts of subjectivity in both areas, so I expect different people to judge them differently.
Investments like this don't even consider your approach, instead they look at cost vs future earnings. Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and Hearthstone (Blizzard's current biggest earner) are all set up to make a lot of money with future releases unless the casual gaming market has a massively radical shift.
Jason Moyer on 28/1/2022 at 18:32
You know, now that Microsoft owns all of the Id and Activision IP stuff, it would be nice if they'd sort out the digital availability of Raven's back catalog. Or at least put Portal Of Praevus and Wolfenstein 2009 on Steam.
