Is Activision pondering a Take-Two Takeover - Polygon

darkedone02

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http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/29/6084755/is-activision-pondering-a-take-two-takeover

Polygon and many other sites have released a article talking about how Activision is seeking to buy out Take two... Take two is the publisher of Grand Theft Auto 5, Civilization, Borderlands 2, and other titles...

this is bad news considering how horrible that Activision is on their pricing, your new civilization series will cost you 60 dollars, and each content such as map packs, civilizations, and other dlc's will cost 15-30 dollars each....

Grand Theft Auto will not have so much content as it does now, and will cost you more then 60 dollars...

Your Borderland Series will end up reeling more and more DLC that each will cost around 15 dollars each as well.

We all fear for this because of how horrible Activision is, as Activision can be as worst as Ubisoft (for some people) and almost the little brother of EA... and you know how EA is the worst company in america according to the consumer, right?
 
$60 is an incredible price. Do you know what new games (including Civilization I) were going for 25 years ago? $49 was a typical sticker price. Gaming prices are a freaking steal and have been for a long time.
 
$60 is an incredible price. Do you know what new games (including Civilization I) were going for 25 years ago? $49 was a typical sticker price. Gaming prices are a freaking steal and have been for a long time.

That seems to be the reason for DLC. Over the past three decades prices for games have mostly stagnated or gone down when adjusted for inflation while development costs have skyrocketed. On the other hand, I remember newly released games being much closer to finished products before 2000.
That's for consoles. New PC games in Germany had a price hike from typically €40 to €50 since ~2010. If prices rise again sales will probably deteriorate as people wait for the inevitable drop or steam sale. I'm already down to one or two full price purchases per year that are reserved for games I'm really looking forward to and sometimes still feel like a sucker. If prices increase again the games better be balanced, stable and bug free on release
 
I actually hate Activision more than EA... I still buy their games though due to them gobbling up everyone ever. It's hard to boycott something when they and their sister own 80% of the market.
 
I hardly buy EA, Activision and Ubisoft games anymore, and the last time I could remember I bought games from any of these companies was Far Cry 3 several months ago. There are plenty of other good not affiliated with these companies, though this takeover will make it harder. This would be a reasonable situation to employ antitrust laws.
 
I think it only fair to point out that EA gives away games sometimes. I created an account for the sole purpose of collecting the freebies they hand out periodically. Here's my collection so far:

 
I read "Wing Commander" as "Wine Commander" and I was like "wat", but then I saw they used these funny Gs that look like Es, so then I was like "ahhh".
 
$60 is an incredible price. Do you know what new games (including Civilization I) were going for 25 years ago? $49 was a typical sticker price. Gaming prices are a freaking steal and have been for a long time.

It's quite the opposite for me. I live in an area where only minimum wage jobs are around, the pay per hour is 7-9 dollars, 11 if your lucky to find a place that does that. Not to forget that hours are not really 40+ anymore, 20+ is the normal hours per week and that don't give you much to pay off bills and be able to pay a full price game if you don't have alot of other times to pay.

This is why people for are into PC Games liked steam, Steam offers seasonal sales where most of the products that Steam offers have a massive pricedrop, mostly 75% off of a old AAA cost if the game is released last year, or 50% mid-year or not in a flash sell. Games that recently got released may not have a price drop or have at least a 10 - 25% off sale.

The problem with activision is that activision don't respect that sale, the first call of duty game that recently was on sale cost 10$, and that game is ancient... who will pay a 10$ first call of duty game when you can turn around and buy 4 other games at the price of 10$ at GoG or Steam other sales?

50 dollars/60 dollars sales are still the norm but it's become somewhat of a detriment to people unable to afford it, thus the reason why people aim cheaper, people still use used games... It's no longer a steal until one day, our wages increased and prices drop on everything to the point where 50-60 games are now affordable... but that won't happen for quite a while because of the state of affairs we are suffering from.
 
$60 for a new civ game? That'd be brilliant. Much better than paying $80 (current cost of Civ V Complete) or $90 (current pre-order price for Beyond Earth).
 
Activision buying Take Two does not sound promising. I'm not a big fan of Take Two, but it's mainly due to just not being that interested in their games, not particular business practices. With Activision, I could see them trying to put out a new Civ game at full price every year just to cash cow it like they did with Guitar Hero and are still doing with Call of Duty. To Take Two's credit, they've taken the long-term route with the Civ series, with only one new full Civ game since Take Two bought Firaxis in 2005 (just after Civ4 came out).

And while I'm not personally a fan of Civ5, I don't think Take Two is at fault for that. I think it's just a case of going with design decisions that, at least for me, aren't as fun as those in previous iterations of the series. I could see Civ6 being back at the level of Civ4 and earlier, once Firaxis isn't using the same engine they used for Civ5.

It's also worth noting that Civ5 came out at $50 at a time when an increasing number of games were coming out at $60. Put Activision in charge, and that likely wouldn't have been the case. As it is, Civ6 may or may not be $50 (unless inflation goes to zero, it can't stay at $50 forever), but at least Take Two and Firaxis aren't leading the way on price increases.

It's quite the opposite for me. I live in an area where only minimum wage jobs are around, the pay per hour is 7-9 dollars, 11 if your lucky to find a place that does that. Not to forget that hours are not really 40+ anymore, 20+ is the normal hours per week and that don't give you much to pay off bills and be able to pay a full price game if you don't have alot of other times to pay.

This is why people for are into PC Games liked steam, Steam offers seasonal sales where most of the products that Steam offers have a massive pricedrop, mostly 75% off of a old AAA cost if the game is released last year, or 50% mid-year or not in a flash sell. Games that recently got released may not have a price drop or have at least a 10 - 25% off sale.

The problem with activision is that activision don't respect that sale, the first call of duty game that recently was on sale cost 10$, and that game is ancient... who will pay a 10$ first call of duty game when you can turn around and buy 4 other games at the price of 10$ at GoG or Steam other sales?

50 dollars/60 dollars sales are still the norm but it's become somewhat of a detriment to people unable to afford it, thus the reason why people aim cheaper, people still use used games... It's no longer a steal until one day, our wages increased and prices drop on everything to the point where 50-60 games are now affordable... but that won't happen for quite a while because of the state of affairs we are suffering from.

I would say that's a problem with the economic conditions and the trend towards part-time jobs, not with the game industry. The trend toward part times jobs is certainly a problem, and IMO one of the larger ones for the people in general, but the game industry itself isn't usually the one using that business model, and can't by itself make other industries abandon it. Realistically, I think the two ways to change it are political awareness and only voting for candidates who support legislation to encourage full-time employment (and finding people to run for office who will support full-time employment), and unionization of workers in affected industries.

I'm surprised that's all there is in Louisville, though. Sure, it's not the biggest city around, but living next door in Ohio I wasn't aware things were that bad there. I didn't think it was similar to living in the sticks where there's only a handful of jobs, or living in a post-industrial city like Youngstown or Flint where there aren't any jobs due to industry leaving. But maybe Louisville is more post-industrial than I'd realized.

At any rate though, the game industry can't solve that problem, and realistically has to start off with sufficiently high prices to get the income it needs to sustain itself from early adapters and fans of the games who can afford them upfront.

$60 for a new civ game? That'd be brilliant. Much better than paying $80 (current cost of Civ V Complete) or $90 (current pre-order price for Beyond Earth).

I was about to point out that Civ5 launched at $50, Civ 5 Complete is currently $50, and Beyond Earth is $50... but then I thought, "wait a second, maybe azzaman333 lives in Australia where video games are almost twice as expensive as the rest of the world for no good reason." In which case, my commiserations. Other than perhaps historical exchange rates that publishers never bothered updating, I have no idea why games are so ridiculously expensive in Australia and New Zealand compared to anywhere else.

And... yup, you are in Australia. That's a bummer when it comes to gaming. Hopefully the other aspects of living in Australia make up for it.
 
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