Game On: Road full of compromises
What Microsoft's acquisition of Actvision Blizzard means for their new releases
When first announced in January 2022, Microsoft’s acquisition of beleaguered Actvision Blizzard was the largest financial deal in gaming history, at an estimated $68.7 billion.
The deal extended Microsoft’s steady purchasing spree in its battle with Sony, while also allowing the Seattle-based tech giant to access iconic titles like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot and mobile experiences such as Candy Crush, along with World of Warcraft and its world of Azeroth.
In a sweeping move, Microsoft now owns one of the world’s most popular FPS franchises (CoD), MMORPG (WoW), and mobile gaming experiences (Candy Crush).
The challenges to manage such a heavy and diverse roster of games is expected to far outweigh the legal hassles that surrounded the acquisition, and this week’s column examines the first games coming from what could be a seemingly unending production stable.
Since the closure of legal proceedings and the rubber-stamping of the deal in mid-October 2023, Microsoft-owned Activision has released two new games. The first game is the free-to-play mobile-based Warcraft Rumble on November 1, and the second is Modern Warfare 3 (MW3), the third entry in the rebooted Modern Warfare franchise on the 10th.
Rumble is unique as only the second mobile experience based in the Warcraft universe, MW3, on the other hand, is the 20th entry in the iconic and perennial CoD franchise.
While the former signals new avenues and possibilities in the Microsoft era with a first new WoW game since 2014’s Hearthstone, the launch of the latter in the same timeframe that CoD generally adheres to showcases consistency and continuation. However, there is a lot more here to examine than just launch times and game formats.
Rumble is launched in a genre where the supremacy of Clash Royale has been unchallenged, but it rediscovers the format with its unique twists while also reimagining characters from the original game. It makes a tower defense game both a nostalgic experience for fans of the franchise while also serving as an entry point for new fans of the MMORPG and its detailed lore. To get new players to understand the role of characters like Jaina Proudmore and Tirion Fordring opens up the possibilities for a game that is now over two decades old to stay relevant.
However, if Rumble were to fail, it doesn’t matter in the larger picture because its launch and support indicate that despite Microsoft’s acquisition, Activision will still keep making games from its popular worlds for its fans. This is good PR that could also lead to a successful game in a format and genre that were so far unexplored.
The case of MW3, though, is a bit more complicated. The game, as leaks suggest, was intended to be a DLC not long ago and was suddenly “upgraded.” It was offered as a playable beta but only for people who had pre-ordered the game. The campaign was undercooked, and the maps on the multiplayer experience seem more like remasters than new creations. The reviews have been bad, and many wonder why an annual game was released with the chaos of a long-drawn acquisition constantly looming.
There were no new markets to explore; Sony saw to it that MW3 couldn’t come to the Xbox Game Pass till 2024. So, why the urgency to release a half-baked game? Fan appeasement or self-sabotage? Microsoft did, after all, claim that it didn’t see CoD as a unique enough entity, and Sony could make one for itself in the next 10 years if court transcripts are to be believed.
The challenges here are several, and Rumble and MW3 only showcase the tip of the iceberg of an acquisition where happily ever after may not be achieved even if everything were to be done by the book. How the workers, the fans, and the players are to be affected is a tale that only time can tell. In the meantime, expect more drama with Microsoft and Xbox’s partnership with Inworld AI.
