I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, some people are just ignorant of what else is out there or bought into the fad.

Yeah, honestly I felt like the writing was on the wall for them back in 2020 when Squenix reorged literally all their 11 business units into 4 creative units *except* for Luminous, and the nail in the coffin was when it was announced that Yoshida’s Creative Business Unit III was doing FF 16 and it was going to be…

Got to save a feature for the inevitable Hogwarts Legacy 2.

Doubtful, the majority of people buying it don’t have much skin in the race on either side and don’t really care either way. A boycott was never going to work, the thing is a huge part of pop and fantasy culture now. The people equating playing the game to murdering trans people were never going to buy it, and the…

It’s got nearly zero overlap with cricket, if anything it takes inspiration from Australian or Gaelic football. Except for the fact there’s two people playing a completely different game during the whole thing that make the rest of it irrelevant.

It’s in the agreement, my dude:

That makes more sense, not familiar with this person at all so assumed when they said “from UK” that implied “UK citizen”.

I would have thought that the UK in the list of countries that the US allows in with the visa waiver program, so she didn’t need a tourist visa in the first place?

“The argument being made is that it’s inherently anti-consumer to convert a Type 3 into a Type 1, and that Microsoft has thus far made that their central strategy.”

People keep saying this, but so far it hasn’t happened. The handful of Bethesda games that have gone from “Type 3" to “Type 1" have been games that are…

If Microsoft backs out of the deal - and that includes for regulatory issues - they owe Activision $2 billion, rising to $3 billion if they pull out after mid April. Inability to close the deal due to market regulators is not “outside their control” - they either fight for it legally, make compromises to make it…

Yes, I’m sure. It’s also what your numbers say.

I think you might be underestimating how effective this framing is. It might be a transparent effort, but it is still extremely important because Microsoft *is* the smaller player in this market.

Yeah but that assumes Activision would be willing to sell off a division that provides a third of their income. Besides that, Microsoft had the cash on hand to be able to buy the whole kit & kaboodle, why just stop with King.

King is not just a company they “happen to own”, it’s a third of their operating income, double what Blizzard brings in. 

Wish they could have found their balls whenever Disney acquired something as well.

Activision and Blizzard are almost a footnote - King is the actual crown jewel of the acquisition.

The China references are still relevant because you have to take the global picture into account, because regulators are talking about blocking the deal on anti-competition / anti-trust worries. The important part of it is that Tencent has a bigger slice of the overall worldwide games market than Sony, Microsoft or…

A big container ship obviously emits significantly more than a single truck, those things are basically mobile ecological disasters.

After how this game has underperformed, it might be optimistic to phrase it that way - good chance they just can the Luminous Engine and fold the studio back into Squenix at this point.

I also finished it last night and feel pretty similarly. It’s got some great elements to it, the traversal and the exploration are great, the combat is serviceable if a bit frustrating toward the end when it starts throwing stuff at you that likes to smash you from off screen, but that’s a fault of a lot of action…