Animeleague

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You beat me to it Mel.

$300 Million sounds a lot, but in the context of game development companies, it could be regarded as the bargain of the year.

Microsoft paid $5.9 Billion for Bethesda (Skyrim), and $50 Billion for Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty).

Sony paid $2.7 Billion for Bungie (Destiny 2).

What is surprising that Microsoft had already teamed with Crystal Dynamics for the reboot of Perfect Dark, and already have a Tomb Raider title within their own stable. So why weren't they in the bidding?

Well, when you look at all the recent big money acquisitions, they have one thing in common. They are all long running, "Live service" games. They are games that are continuing to evolve and expand years after launch, and are continuously producing revenue through subscription and in game purchasing.

Indeed, EA recently revealed that it's FIFA franchise gains more revenue from "microtransactions" than it does from actual game sales. When you look at franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief, although immensely popular, they are one shot single player games. Once the game is bought, that's your lot.

Crystal Dynamics did try to get into the live service market with it's Avengers game, but it was a high profile failure, and it wasn't on it's own. Industry watchers are theorising that the market has reached saturation. Players only have so much time they can devote to live service games. However, the big companies are hoping to break through this wall. Sony is thought to have as many as 10 live service games in the pipeline, and Microsoft has always been in favour of this type.


Source - GameCentre at Metro