Firstly, "video gaming" is really competing against things like reading a book, walking your dog, board games, etc., so it's not like Microsoft can just start jacking up prices and people will have nowhere to go with their time.
Secondly, creating and releasing new games has never been easier. So many small indie game companies are creating great games to compete with blockbusters like CoD and LoL, the ecosystem for game development is plenty healthy, with or without Activision belonging to Microsoft.
Thirdly, they haven't done what you're saying with the games they have released; you can play Minecraft on the Switch [0]. Maybe wait for Microsoft to actually do the thing you're worried about before criticizing them for it! They have had opportunities to be exclusive and they haven't taken them, so it's not so simple as to just assume they will no matter what.
I'm not worried about the industry, but I am cautiously optimistic about what Microsoft will be able to do with some IP that I've loved for most of my life.
[0] - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/minecraft-switch/
Apart from maybe a couple unicorns they aren't, they're a seperate market.
The overlap of people playing Call of Duty and those playing The Binding of Isaac will be family minimal, same goes for sport games which you're hard pressed to find people in the previous camps playing despite massive sales.
I agree with the sentiment though, there's no shortage of quality games made by smaller teams both independently funded or with investment from big players.
You're not wrong, but I can't agree with this.
The "information overload" problem has been known about for at least 40 years!
I'm sure that a pervasive predatory corporate development department backed by a cash-heavy company could reel in virtually all AAA PC games, but the long tail not so much. And the funny thing is, AAA has been a huge disappointment for gamers and I imagine investors as well over the last years, compared to its golden days.
Compare to say "owning your social graph" like Facebook, that's something that's much more robust. A good messaging platform doesn't take over the world in a few weeks like an indie game (almost) can, so Facebook has plenty time to acquire it or copy/steal their features.
My argument is that (most) video-games are still fundamentally passive consumption activities: recreation, that doesn't require someone to expend any "spoons"[1] to get some entertainment value. Whereas, I imagine for most people, reading literature, waling the dog, or even organizing a board-game session requires far more effort to initiate (not necessarily mental-effort, but effort in a general, abstract sense) whereas the whole point of video-games is to be a very-low-effort distraction from our existential anxiety.
So please substitute "reading a book, walking your dog, board games" with "watching YouTube-algorithm-recommended videos, Joe Rogan podcasts, and after-work boozing with your shiftmates".
Unity is a public company and I think would benefit immensely from being acquired by Microsoft.
Point is I agree it's not for sale, for the reason you describe, but also that one of the leviathans already has nearly the entire minority interest.
The internet has no updated information based thr original press release. Since that 40% Sonys purchase would have further diluted tencent. The only thing we know for sure, because he's said so: is Tim has a controlling stake.
We do not know if there is a dual class of shares, but that would be a simple tactic to maintaining comtrol.
I almost wanna throw my hands up and give in, like how big can a problem be before it stops being a problem.
Looks like Rust, Valorant, Apex Legends, and Escape from Tarkov are in the top 10 on Twitch. All came out within the past 5 years.
They have so much money they could easily buy Ubisoft, EA and Take-Two and make all major games Xbox and Windows 11+ exclusives.