By Nelson Schneider - 02/06/22 at 03:24 PM CT
It seems like only a couple weeks ago that we were all expressing shock and bemusement over Microsoft’s announced intentions to buy Activision for 69 billion dollars. Oh, wait that was only a couple weeks ago!
Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s massive corporate bulldozing, Sony felt the need to participate as well, by purchasing Bungie – the original developers of Microsoft’s ‘Halo’ FPS series, who jumped ship from the Xbox Division after the parent company gave the ‘Halo’ IP to 343 Games, went to Activision, then jumped ship again to be ‘independent’ with their ‘Destiny’ IP – for a less-than-staggering $4 billion.
Yes, there are already memes.
Furthermore, Sony has already announced their plans for Bungie – for whom $1.2 billion of that acquisition cost allegedly went into retention fees to make sure Bungie’s employees didn’t bail (as they have been shown to do) to start their own Indie-indie studio – and, unsurprisingly, Sony’s plans include Live Service games! LOTS of Live Service games… as in ‘at least 10’ Live Service games… hoo boy…
Live Service games are already a meme amongst gamers everywhere, what with their grotesque and aggressive monetization schemes, addictive-by-design gameplay loops, and the fact that playing a single Live Service game requires the same time commitment as working a full-time job. Yet Sony wants to pollute the already clogged market for Live Service games with TEN MOAR of them? It’s just another ridiculous example of big-time publishers and platform holders chasing trends, for good or ill.
