BREAKING NEWS MICROSOFT BUYS ZENIMAX MEDIA FOR 7.5 BILLION

[P41R47]

My only worry right now is...
What will happend with the new classic unity port and Doom 64 rerelease?
The team will still work on it?
Or this change things...drastically?

[Chip]

@P41R47 This shouldn't change anything. Microsoft might add something special like early access to the next add-on on xBox, but they wouldn't cancel one of ID's biggest projects.

[P41R47]

2 minutes ago, LiT_gam3r said:

@P41R47 This shouldn't change anything. Microsoft might add something special like early access to the next add-on on xBox, but they wouldn't cancel one of ID's biggest projects.

Nono, cancel no.
I'm more worried how this will impact on the development and support.
The new classic port is something that has a lot of potential, so i'm worry that it gets relegated to just a curiosity or just for niche gamers.

[chemo]

3 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

• Oh noes, megacorps r bad
  • id Software were already under the grip of a so called "megacorporation", now that's owned by a bigger one, big whoop.

First of all, Zenimax was nowhere near the size of Microsoft. They actually seemed pretty small by AAA standards.

 

Second, even if both companies were equal in size, these mergers would be a dangerous path for the industry to go on. In fact, I'd say it's potentially even worse because this acquisition is of a much grander scale than many previous ones, and thus Microsoft is granted an even bigger market share. Microsoft may seem nice and friendly now, but this much power over the industry could be abused.

 

Did Disney's buyout of 20th Century Fox not rub you the wrong way at all?

 

3 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

• Ugh they're just gonna make everything xbox exclusive
  • No, they won't, this has reportedly been confirmed

That's the thing; "reportedly". All official statements relating to the future of Bethesda-owned IPs on platforms other than PC and Xbox have been too vague and/or open to interpretation.

 

I'd only have faith in them if they said something along the lines of "Hey guys, don't worry, DOOM and all these other franchises will still have future entries available on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles wherever possible!" I think being a skeptic is reasonable when they're not just spelling everything out.

[Chip]

Turns out, they're going to actually combine games to save money. So say goodbye to TES and Forza Horrizons, since now we're getting The Forza Scrolls: Horizons. They also just released some box art for a new game. I think Microsoft have come really far, and finally show their adulthood. 

Spoiler

 

[indio]

kekw, I hope this doesnt mean exclusivity to Xbox, since I'm a Playstation type of guy due to my PC being pretty low spec.

[Doominator2]

7 minutes ago, indio said:

kekw, I hope this doesnt mean exclusivity to Xbox, since I'm a Playstation type of guy due to my PC being pretty low spec.

It's been stated multiple times that this isn't going to happen.

[indio]

1 minute ago, Doominator2 said:

It's been stated multiple times that this isn't going to happen.

Oh, ok. I haven't read the whole thread yet, sorry. Thank god.

[chemo]

5 minutes ago, Doominator2 said:

It's been stated multiple times that this isn't going to happen.

All that's been said is that they will allow games on other consoles by a "case-by-case basis" and that "we share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on".

 

IMO there's too much uncertainty within these statements. Why aren't they just saying outright that they will still put games on competing consoles wherever possible?

[CyberDreams]

I'm actually okay with this. TBH i'd rather have Microsoft own id Software than Nintendo because if Nintendo did then Doom might become exclusive like most Nintendo franchises are (not that i hate Nintendo or anything). Anyway's maybe Carmack can finally do something with id now (as he stated in his twitter post).

[Knee Deep In The Fan]

14 minutes ago, chemo said:

All that's been said is that they will allow games on other consoles by a "case-by-case basis" and that "we share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on".

 

IMO there's too much uncertainty within these statements. Why aren't they just saying outright that they will still put games on competing consoles wherever possible?

I mean why would they say something like that right now right before the next gen consoles are about to drop and are wanting people to buy their console? That would be just a dumb business move.

[chemo]

3 minutes ago, Knee Deep In The Fan said:

I mean why would they say something like that right now right before the next gen consoles are about to drop and are wanting people to buy their console? That would be just a dumb business move. 

True, but there's no reason not to be skeptical. They could just be twisting their words for all we know.

[Doom_Dude]

This made me LOL.

[Knee Deep In The Fan]

9 minutes ago, chemo said:

True, but there's no reason not to be skeptical. They could just be twisting their words for all we know.

It's possible, but if they do want to announce that their games will still be available on other platforms, they will most likely wait until the after both consoles have been on the market for a bit. 

[Doomkid]

9 hours ago, Bauul said:

As someone who worked for a megacorp (before we were sold to a venture capital firm) and has worked with behemoths like Microsoft and Google for years, I find this POV tends to come from people who have never had anything to do with big companies other than buy their products or services.

Untrue several times over in my case. I have worked for various ultra large corporations, at least by Australian standards (Telstra and Woolworths count as large right?) I can safely say I'm not just saying this because I have no experience. I'm saying this because I see companies like Woolworths making a habit out of underpaying their staff, to the tune of a total of over $300,000,000 in a relatively short period of time. I see companies like Telstra, overcharging people for services they never agreed to sign up for in the first place and getting out of it by paying lawsuits that are essentially a meaningless slap on the wrist, I see companies like Nestle doing.. Well, just read this article...

 

Quote

Few people know it, but Nestle is actually the world’s largest producer of bottled water. In fact, they’re so keen on their water business (which also involves many of their other products), that they believe water isn’t a universal right. Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said:

“There are two different opinions on the matter [or water]. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.”

Having access to water is not an extreme solution. It’s what we have called a basic need for centuries. Even Brabeck, after the media attack that followed, backed down. He said that he “believes that water is a human right” and “advocates for universal access to safe drinking water”. But his actions, as well as Nestle’s actions, show that that’s just greenwashing.

 

Seeing water as a means to profit rather than as a right that should be held by all humans is worm-tooth, snake-headed leavels of disgusting to me. Obviously I'm not saying every person who works for Nestle is responsible for their actions, however I cannot think of adjectives disgusting or despicable enough to encompass my thoughts on the matter, so snake-head and worm-tooth are going to have to cut it for the time being.

 

And just to at least retain a semblance of being on topic, maybe we can talk about Microsoft "knowingly benefiting from the use of young children to mine cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo". I mean, am I supposed to read something like that and say, well, this company isn't evil because something something economy, something something American jobs?

 

Quote

Now, are there certain people who work for said companies who are like that?  Yep, absolutely.  But I've also worked with tiny companies run by evil people, not-for-profits run by evil people, governments run by evil people etc. etc.  There are evil people everywhere, and big corporations aren't inherently any worse than any other organization.  In fact I've seen more terrible people doing terrible things in small companies (where they have fewer people to answer to) than large corporations.  I've heard awful, first-hand accounts of sexual assault, physical assault, pedophilic pornography, extortion, fraud, illegal activities left and right

Hey, not denying any of that. Alls I'm saying is when ultra-powerful companies who are all about the acquisition of power at any expense acquire more power at great expense, it's a shame how few people level criticisms against the entire practice and concept of "growth at any cost". It's unsustainable, ugly, evil, bad, horrifying, and all kinds of other none-too-pleasant adjectives.

 

I seriously doubt the average Microsoft or Nestle employee jumps for joy at the thought of the evils their slave owners employers commit. In fact, the average employee is probably staunchly against it. So this statement:

Quote

But the reality is behind both of those are thousands of people just trying to do a good job, and it's those people who are responsible for 95% of all decisions a company makes.

Doesn't seem based in reality to me. The fact is that a very small percentage of very influential people at the top are responsible for 95% of what the company as a whole does, and the other 5% is reflective of the will of the plebeians, maybe.

 

I've barely scratched the surface of the tip of the iceberg that is "the evils committed by megacorps". I'm not saying there's something we can do about it, at least not anything practical that immediately comes to mind, but it does bother me to see anyone ever going to bat for these entities and the way they operate. It could always be worse, sure.. But we should strive for it to be better, and frankly we shouldn't shut up about the evils committed until they're substantially less prevalent.

 

EDIT: lol, when I worked at Telstra I first-hand saw them shipping in groups of ~20 confused people from India or middle eastern countries at a time and getting them all to stay in 4 bedroom houses with multiple people sharing each bedroom, and this was the nicer end of how it was often handled. It was a step or two above prison I suppose. They get these poor people in from struggling countries and stack them as high as possible in random little properties they either own or rent. It reminds me so much of seeing caged chickens on factory farms, in a sense. Very little control over their own destiny, simply being used and abused as cogs in the machine with no one to represent them and no one to go to bat for them.

 

This is a technology company much smaller than Microsoft, so I shudder to think what goes on at other workplaces or in parts of the world where human rights are seen as a joke. I don't want it to sound like I'm trying to put the majority of people who work for such companies down, I promise that is not my intent. Most of them are fine people. It's all the crap that goes on at the top.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, P41R47 said:

I'm more worried how this will impact on the development and support.

If minecraft is any indication, absolutely nothing will change. Mojang still support the Java client of all things. 

They could have dropped that java client like a hot potato the moment Microsoft bought the IP and I would have actually 200% understood. 

[Biodegradable]

If Carmack and Romero are onboard with the idea, then I'll be supportive. While Carmack is an ambitious sod with lots of big ideas for VR and AI and might be too busy with said ambitions, the door being open for him to be able to return to id Software in some kind of consulting role if he ever wanted to can't be a bad thing.  

[SYS]

There's only one thing worse than being bought by Microsoft. Not being bought by Microsoft. 

[Bauul]

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I see companies like Nestle doing.. Well, just read this article...

 

Absolutely not denying that there are some awful large corporations out there.  Nestle is definitely one, but even they compare favorably to companies like the United Fruit Company who (among other things), openly murdered thousands of its employees, invoked civil wars in order to overthrow governments it didn't like, and actively employed a terrorist organization as its own private army.  But for every large company being the very worse humanity can be, there are others that we don't hear about just doing their thing.  

 

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Doesn't seem based in reality to me. The fact is that a very small percentage of very influential people at the top are responsible for 95% of what the company as a whole does, and the other 5% is reflective of the will of the plebeians, maybe.

Maybe this is a difference between the types of companies we've worked with.  Almost all my experience is in US west-coast silicone valley types (Google in particular), and the amount of decentralized decision making there is remarkable.  Sure the senior types are responsible for the overall strategy of the organization, but the day-to-day running and decisions being made are almost all made autonomously by individuals and teams all levels. 

 

So you have stories like the one you linked to where, for example, it's not entirely impossible for a given company to assign the choice of Cobalt mine supplier to the responsibility of maybe three or four people.  Maybe only one of them was tasked with doing due diligence on the ethics of the suppliers, and decided they couldn't be bothered.  So it's possible the first time some of these companies even knew they were using suppliers accused of this was the law suit.  This isn't the result of being evil, it's the result of basic human incompetence (Occam's Razor in full swing).

I think really my main point is that to say "They literally are the snake-headed, worm-toothed spawns of Satan that us foil-donning types claim them to be." seems to imply that this is exclusively true of large companies, and unique to them too.  But it isn't exclusively true: there are large companies who don't actively shit on their employees and customers (at least not deliberately).  And it isn't unique to them either - there are awful people in all walks of life, from the biggest companies to the smallest, from the most profit driven to not-for-profits. Something being associated with a large company doesn't automatically make it any worse from an ethical standpoint than being associated with a small company, it's just when a big company ends up being awful it has bigger ramifications than a small company fucking someone over.  

Edited September 22, 2020 by Bauul

[cybdmn]

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I'm actually elated to hear Carmack say this might be a foot in the door to at least having some involvement with his old IPs again. That would be one fantastic thing to come out of all this!

 

At least it would be nice, if they return to what Carmack have done with older id games, a proper source release.

[cybdmn]

3 hours ago, chemo said:

All that's been said is that they will allow games on other consoles by a "case-by-case basis" and that "we share a deep belief in the fundamental power of games, in their ability to connect, empower, and bring joy. And a belief we should bring that to everyone - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you play on".

 

IMO there's too much uncertainty within these statements. Why aren't they just saying outright that they will still put games on competing consoles wherever possible?

 

And even *if* Microsoft stops every Playstation development for Zenimax IPs, who cares? That's exactly what Sony does for years, buying developers, that then exclusively develop for their platform. I have news for you, Sony with all their propietary bullshit like Memory Cards, and rootkits on music CDs was Satan himself even when Microsoft was nothing more than a dream of the juvenile Bill Gates. all the whining about Microsoft doing what Sony does since ages is just pathetic.

 

Just buy a Xbox Series X, from a technical standpoint it is the superior machine anyways.

[Cacodemon345]

I am bloody fine with ZeniMax games not being on PlayStation, as it's the right answer to them.

 

What I hope is that future Bethesda games being on the Switch.

[cybdmn]

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Untrue several times over in my case.

 

From my experience it is true. I have worked with people from megacorps aswell, like HP and Microsoft. The only negative thing i found was that they tend to be rather slow in their decisions. Mostly not very flexible, just like one could expect from such behemoths.

 

Especially Microsoft treads their partners rather fair, let them do their business with a good amount of share, from my experiences.

[cybdmn]

2 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

If Carmack and Romero are onboard with the idea, then I'll be supportive. While Carmack is an ambitious sod with lots of big ideas for VR and AI and might be too busy with said ambitions, the door being open for him to be able to return to id Software in some kind of consulting role if he ever wanted to can't be a bad thing.  

 

But Carmack is a developer for Facebook now, and they will screw any of his ideas. Returning to id would be beneficial for him too, i guess.

[Doomkid]

1 hour ago, Bauul said:

Maybe this is a difference between the types of companies we've worked with.  Almost all my experience is in US west-coast silicone valley types (Google in particular), and the amount of decentralized decision making there is remarkable.  Sure the senior types are responsible for the overall strategy of the organization, but the day-to-day running and decisions being made are almost all made autonomously by individuals and teams all levels. 

[..]

So you have stories like the one you linked to where, for example, it's not entirely impossible for a given company to assign the choice of Cobalt mine supplier to the responsibility of maybe three or four people.  Maybe only one of them was tasked with doing due diligence on the ethics of the suppliers, and decided they couldn't be bothered.  So it's possible the first time some of these companies even knew they were using suppliers accused of this was the law suit.  This isn't the result of being evil, it's the result of basic human incompetence (Occam's Razor in full swing).
[..]
there are large companies who don't actively shit on their employees and customers (at least not deliberately).  And it isn't unique to them either - there are awful people in all walks of life, from the biggest companies to the smallest, from the most profit driven to not-for-profits. Something being associated with a large company doesn't automatically make it any worse from an ethical standpoint than being associated with a small company, it's just when a big company ends up being awful it has bigger ramifications than a small company fucking someone over.  

Regarding the first point, I’m glad to hear that and I wish more companies in general would take notes, because decisions being made by the people actually involved pretty much uniformly guarantees more efficient results, regardless of what the actual field is.

 

Regarding the second two points, thank you for the well stated dose of perspective. I suppose I should replace “evil” with “stupid” when it comes to my opinions on this sort of thing. I don’t know if that’s necessarily better.. but at least it’s less malicious, and that does count for something.
 

The general feeling of complacency I see with regards to awfulness that results from how these corporations operate still bothers me, and I still think it’s important to hold feet to fire when it comes to wrongdoing, I just feel like the number of people I see willing to “defend it” (for lack of a better word) vs the number of people I see willing to raise grievances in the first place is about 10 to 1.
 

The ramifications of a super mega power becoming an ultra super mega power are not great by my reckoning, even if the horrible things perpetrated are due solely to incompetence rather than malice. They still are getting even bigger and further reaching, which inevitably leads to more of the same.

 

That’s said, I guess “equally bad, but smaller scale” stuff is still going on regardless of who acquires who. So maybe there’s not much that can be done about it other than attempting to foster a culture that values education and critical thinking, so as to avoid such incompetence in future generations. That’s the only possible solution I can think of.

 

Edit: to give some context for my spiels, seeing this headline last night sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about Microsoft, and this was basically my reaction:

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[Kristian Nebula]

7 hours ago, TakenStew22 said:

Doomworld has been suprisingly mature on otherwise controversial subjects and doesn't let the gaming mob mentality get in the way of their open-mindedness.

 

One of the reasons I'm still reading it after all these years of observing internet degenerate into the whatever the heck it is now...

 

I'm not surprised of this development of Microsoft buying Zenimax/Bethesda, however I am a bit surprised that they paid so much for it. I guess they could have gotten it for a bit less... Well played (too bad I don't own any of Zenimax or Microsoft shares) :D

[Beginner]

I'm totally looking forward to (possible) Doom Slayer/XxXD00|V|S14Y3RxXx x Master Chef coop crossover game.

[Maes]

12 hours ago, cybdmn said:

 

Where there any real alternative to wintel in gaming at any certain point in time after the mid 90ies?

 

Excluding game consoles? Those excelled at what they did but of course you couldn't compare a system with fixed specs designed to last at least 5+ years on the market with one (Pee Cees) that had no real hardware/software control and game developers were free to push well beyond what you'd call "average specs for the time".

[Maes]

19 hours ago, MattFright said:

 

More and more casual users are abandoning computers in favor of phones or tablets, so i fail to see how that really affects Linux negatively.

It doesn't, and in fact it was an unforeseen -back in the early 2000s- development. If anything, those "media consuming" devices took some market share away/complemented traditional desktop/laptop computers. E.g. today, it's much easier (and less painful) to watch YouTube HD videos on a 5 yo smartphone that at least has hardware MPEG4 acceleration, than on a 10 yo desktop that in theory should be (still) more powerful and versatile. You could also say that Linux won the battle by flanking/undermining, since Android and iOS are little more than mini-UNIXes/Linuxes ;-)

 

19 hours ago, MattFright said:

He also *did* say "slowly", he's not wrong. More and more big companies are investing into Linux, it's getting more press online, and as awful services like Google Stadia are for the end user, they result in more money being pumped into making Linux more compatible for general gaming, software and hardware. You can't say it won't get anywhere just because it hasn't already.

 

Again, been hearing these exact words for the last 20 years. How much more "slowly" are we talking about? I won't say Linux hasn't gone anywhere, but only that it already went exactly where it was supposed to go. The "desktop revolution" that Linux geeks envisioned in the early 2000s, with the "savior" Linux displacing the "evil" Windows in every household, just didn't happen (or it happened in a way they couldn't foresee, e.g. as the OS in mobile devices, TV-top boxes, media players etc.). Or, of all things, as Mac OS X O_o

Edited September 22, 2020 by Maes : Nah, "already went" is better.

[Cacodemon345]

As long as GNUstep/macOS app packaging system does not get adopted I don't see Linux being successful.