Actvision Blizzard: reportedly all hurt about the UK 🇬🇧 blocking the Microsoft acquisition, but as ex-Industry, did they ever invest much here anyway?
> vowing to “reassess our growth plans for the UK”, adding: “Innovators large and small will take note that – despite all its rhetoric – the UK is clearly closed for business.” (source: The Guardian today by :mastodon: @alexhern)
Yet AB has never really invested much in the UK and if anything, they've been consolidating here - given the switch to digital sales
UK Studios:
KING, acquired for 'Candy Crush' and a mobile presence in 2016, a great strategic move (but they didn't build it, it was pure M&A at $5.9B)
BIZARRE CREATIONS, bought and closed (2011) who made 'Blur' (AB then decided the racing genre was too crowded)
BLAST FURNACE, a small mobile studio in Leeds, closed (2016)
... anything else?
Interested in others' views too, but that "empty threat" seems pretty spot on to me
@Natasha_Jay Ahh, yes, the ‘innovation’ of a large corporation being acquired by an even larger corporation. Truly the death of everything new and exciting!
@sindarina I'm pretty stunned it got blocked tbh (it will be appealed so let's see)
Yeah AB don't do niche, they're about triple-A franchises
To be fair to AB on "new and exciting" though they literally invented a genre with Skylanders, and were also smart enough to get out when Disney etc entered the market
I have an interesting interview with Bobby Kottick and I'm sure this was being driven a lot from his AB side, not just a simplr Microsoft buyout - will boost if I can find it
@sindarina
It was this Venturebeat interview, where Bobby Kottick gave some interesting insights on why this is in play like -
"... you look at the specialized skills, like AI and machine learning or computer graphics. You’ve got Nvidia and all of those big companies recruiting the best AI and computer graphics talent. And so we (AB) realized the pipeline for talent — we just didn’t have it. And we needed to have access to somebody’s pipeline of talent. And that was a big consideration."
Add comment