On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced that it planned on purchasing video game publisher and developer juggernaut, Activision-Blizzard. Activision-Blizzard is known for making franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo. The deal involved an all-cash buyout of Activision’s stock, totaling to around $68.7 billion. When this deal was first announced, I was excited by the prospects it might bring. For awhile Activision-Blizzard has been attached to cases of sexual harassment, which came to a head recently with a series of legal cases by former employees and even the state of California. These situations have been caused by terrible management led by CEO Bobby Kotick, who is driven by profits. This leadership has led to a brain drain in Activision-Blizzard that has caused terrible products. Such products include Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard, the launch and concepts behind Overwatch 2, and everything about Diablo Immortal.

When Microsoft announced the deal, there was hope that Microsoft would bring some much-needed change to Activision. One of these changes was made public soon after; to make Call of Duty no longer an annual release franchise. Call of Duty’s decline has been mostly due to its constant release schedule that has taken a toll on the studios that make it, even if they release on a rotation. I don’t play Call of Duty anymore, the last one I played being Infinite Warfare, mostly because the quality just wasn’t to my standards anymore. Everything seemed promising until the objections to the merger began to arise.

Now, I am normally someone who is against giant corporations and monopolies, but I didn’t view this merger as Microsoft as going down this path. In many ways they were already a giant company, and I don’t agree with many of their policies, but when it came to video games, they are generally better with their consumers. The two objections to the merger came from two camps: Sony and the European Union regulators. Now the EU has valid concerns, they didn’t want Microsoft to dominate the gaming market. Microsoft recently purchased Zenimax, which owned my favorite developers Bethesda and Obsidian, so they were already a massive company. But this is where I disagree. Microsoft has a massive market share, but they are only one of the big three corporations, the others being Sony and Nintendo. Not to mention Square Enix, EA, Capcom, and to a lesser extent Ubisoft and smaller developers. There is plenty of competition to go up against Microsoft. Sony’s objections on the other hand are more problematic. They objected to the deal because they didn’t want Call of Duty to become an exclusive title to Microsoft’s console, the Xbox, even though Phil Spencer, Xbox’s CEO, repeatedly said that wasn’t in the plan. Over a year after the announcement of the deal, it still hadn’t gone through, with both Sony and Microsoft making cases for their respective sides. At this point, I just want the deal to be approved so that the gaming news can focus on something else. But this leads to the main point of this article; the role of the Big 3 gaming publishers in the gaming community.

Now the definition of the Big 3, which again include Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, is that all of them have a large catalog of development studios that make and publish their games, and each have a console as a platform for those games to be played on. I view that the role of these companies as leading the industry in innovation, gameplay, and strong storytelling. Essentially, the definition of Triple A developers. The Big 3 must also use their resources properly, making quality games and treating their players fairly. I look down on policies and promotions that milk millions of dollars from gamers. Huge corporations like each of the Big 3 must not take advantage of the consumer. Xbox’s Game Pass is an example of a promotion/program that benefits the consumer, giving discounts on exclusive titles and even free games every month. Sony followed suit with its Playstation Plus Premium, while Nintendo’s fall short with their Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo Switch Online is a more predatory version of the previous two because of the price increases with each old console library you add to your Switch, while Game Pass and Playstation Plus is more of a flat rate. The Big 3 should also be transparent with their customers, and in many ways, the Big 3 fall short here. The main way how they have failed is their lack of presence at conventions, such as E3. During the COVID years, it was understandable due the need for social distancing. During this time, the Big 3 held independent virtual conferences where they showcased their projects, in a similar way to Nintendo’s Directs that they hold on a nearly quarterly schedule. But with COVID behind us and in person events returning, the Big 3 need to step up. But they haven’t. Instead, the Big 3 are preferring to keep to the virtual conferences. My problem with this approach is that it appears that the Big 3 are avoiding their fans. Conventions like E3 and PAX allow gamers to try games and have conversations with developers, giving feedback that ideally improves the game. Developers can also gage interest in their games and build a connection with gamers who may buy their games. Essentially its free PR. Obviously this is a cost saving measure, but building a connection with your fanbase is critical. But this is a minor problem that is plaguing many triple A studios in the face of the industry wide brain drain.

In recent years, many higher up game directors, technical leads, and graphic leads are leaving their big studio and staking it on their own, creating their own studios and projects. Hello Games, makers of No Man’s Sky, is one such example, as well as Striking Distance Studios and Ghost Story Games. All three of these studios are founded by an executive of a triple A company. Teams from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Blizzard have been the biggest victims of the brain drain, mostly because of disagreement from the controversies, scandals, and poor work environments. Brain drains are a naturally occurring phenomenon, but at such a low retention of staff, the games of these studios have certainly felt the change with the drastic drop in quality. But this brings about the other role the Big 3 provide. A relatively stable workplace environment on quality projects that keep their staff interested. This environment and reputation will attract young and new developers who wish to begin their journey in the industry. Triple A studios, including the Big 3, with their huge budgets and resources, are often the place where raw talent learns the tricks of the trade and gets molded before starting their own ventures. Or at least that is how it’s supposed to be. With Triple A developers acting on predatory practices, many new developers risk their careers on small passion projects or join small teams. This is why modding communities and the indie game industry has seen such a large boom. Although, loot boxes and microtransactions bring in big bucks for the big developers in the long run, they are ruining their brand with poor products. This is a view I think every single company in the world should follow; treat both your customer AND employees with respect, with good service, but also with competitive wages, benefits, and opportunities to learn and rise in the ladder. Too often companies focus on ‘customer satisfaction’ (cough Amazon cough) but neglect their employees in the process. The gaming industry, in a way, has been following a similar trajectory with such a high focus on microtransactions and live service games, new developers are becoming unmotivated with their work. Now you might say, where is the proof of this? Well, I don’t really have proof that this is concrete, it’s just a hypothesis I have. When Battlefield 2042 was in development, EA kept changing the goal of the game and often adds microtransactions last minute to projects. Ubisoft is in a similar situation with Beyond Good and Evil Two; that game has been in development hell for so long developers have had to remap graphics for a new generation of consoles and might have to do so again soon. The constant heel turning doesn’t exactly create a healthy workplace environment as developers want players to enjoy their games. That is why some studios are struggling to find staff for their games. As creators, that’s all we want, for people to enjoy our work. As an amateur writer I feel the same way. I want people to enjoy this blog, to enjoy my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, to one day enjoy my books.

Returning now to the Microsoft deal for Activision-Blizzard, I feel this is a deal that needs to be completed. Yes, Microsoft is a huge company that will get bigger with this merger. Yes, Microsoft as a company is not always a good company; a corporation at its root is not in it for the consumer and none are perfect. But I will say what Phil Spencer is doing with Game Pass and the work Xbox studios are doing is good for gamers in the long run. With Starfield coming out this year, we’ll begin to see the fruits of Spencer’s labors as over the course of the next few years, Xbox will certainly release hit after hit. As for Blizzard and Activision both studios will receive strong corporate oversight that will hopefully right the ship; Kotick and other executives that have a negative influence on the company will hopefully be fired or forced to resign. And if Sony really wants to compete with Xbox in this front, go out and buy EA or Ubisoft. There will always be plenty of competition in the video game market, between big companies and indie developers. What we are seeing is that the previous generation of video game developers are starting their own studios that one day might become the next Obsidian Entertainment, a studio that was founded by former executives of a triple A company. If you want another example, look to Paizo, yes they are a tabletop team, but they are former Wizards of the Coast employees. The point is the video game industry is a cycle. Developers start big with a huge studio then start their own; a few hits later and they have a big staff that might get acquired or take the EA route and start acquiring smaller teams themselves. Look at Embracer Group, formerly THQ Nordic, they now have several smaller studios under their belt. The same can be said for Take-Two and Epic Games. The last three years have been bad for video games, but with 2023 and with so many good games already out (Hogwarts Legacy and the remake of Dead Space) and many more to come, we might see a golden age of gaming begin around the corner. The video game industry isn’t at risk, it is merely in a metamorphosis.