Editing Blizzard (section)

==Micro$oft buyout - [[Star Wars|a new hope]](?)==
<It was a cold January morning in the year 22.M3 when the gaming community was awoken to the news most unusual and surprising. As it turned out - big daddy Microsoft (or more specifically it's CEO Phil Spencer) decided that Blizzard's portfolio of IPs looked mighty fine and that they should take it, and so they did for about 68 billion dollars. To put that into reference, this cost close to ''ten times'' as much as their acquisition of Zenimax (Owners of Bethesda alongside a few other major studios) last year. The news media went crazy about this and the rumour mill began to churn almost immediately at this shakeup. While the transfer of assets and ownership is still not done as of the time of this writing (23.01.2022) and will be finished at the latest by 20.06.2023. We can try to surmise a few things that are known from the technical side or the interviews with Spencer.

Firstly, it has been made clear and in no uncertain terms that the gaming industry's most despicable scumbag [[Slaanesh|Bobby Cocktick]] will be getting the boot as soon as the deal finalizes with Spencer taking over - ''a mighty cry can be heard ringing out across the land~'' -khm- so that is an immediate plus since the guy presided over the aforementioned scandals while basically not giving a shit about the victims or the conduct plus, you know, he stole his mother's vintage ashtray and sold it so that tells you all about his character that you need to know (and in his last interview with the workers he basically tried to save his face and protect the corporation instead of manning up and admitting to the wrongdoings, yeah...good riddance asshole). Unfortunately, he'll still get his artificer golden parachute to allow him to live out his life by either starting up his own company built upon skinner boxes or (ideally) living on the fringes of society, feeding upon the tons of money he made off his bullshit.

Secondly, Microsoft could finally put a stop to the batshit bro-culture and sexual harassment that appears to have become a regularity at Blizzard if for no other reason than [[Tzeentch|good optics post-acquisition]] (it helps that the offenders and their associates have already been purged from the company).  But hey, if it solves the issues all the better. Also, if one is to believe an interview with Spencer, many studios that have been sent to slave in the CoD mines may be liberated and allowed to go work on their own games (Singularity, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro) while also making sure that Blizzard's own original stuff like Warcraft, Starcraft and others get proper attention.

However - it must also be noted that 'ol Microsoft also has a raging boner for making money that is somewhat tempered with business pragmatism which did not prevent them to jump onto lootbox bandwagon or engage in microtransactions since the existence of GamePass has made them enough money to alleviate the need. Also worth remembering that while Spencer may love Blizzard's oldie games, not only are all of the staffers who made those classics long gone by now, he is still a CEO of a corporation whose primary goal is to please investors by making that green arrow go up. If a franchise does not seem like it will generate much [[Teef|money]] it will be thrown back into the dustbin.

All that being said - this may represent the best and last hope Blizzard has to get itself out of the gutter and get halfway decent again. A good indicator of this will be how Bethesda will fare with Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI, but a cautious optimist may surmise that we may get games that will, at worst, be merely fine which after the debacles of the new 20s would alone be a big fucking improvement to boot. It should be noted to that the deal will only be finalized in July 2023, and until then may be blocked by antitrust laws or compromised by other factors...

And sure enough, [[Not As Planned|they got blocked by the UK]]. Not the EU like we thought, but specifically the United Kingdom. It still rests upon the Cloud Gaming monopoly they claim XBox has, but since it’s a single country all Microsoft has to do is not produce games for the UK anymore and they’ll likely just continue with the merger. So… I guess the merger is still happening?

Whatever it ends up looking like, it couldn’t prepare us for what happened next: [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/upcoming-wow-quest-involving-a-characters-abuse-has-players-demanding-change/1100-6515272/ Them releasing a quest in World of Warcraft that made you complicit in the abuse and rape of a character], all in the name of [[Derp|keeping the timeline in order]]. How Microsoft will allow the merger to happen after this, we don’t know yet, but one things clear. They took one good look at the Pinkerton incident at Wizards and said [[That Guy|”Hold my beer.”]] More as the situation updates, but yeah this looks to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.