Microsoft Buys Vivendi Games?

[A Black Falcon]

At first, I thought EA would be the best if either EA, Sony, or Microsoft had to buy it... but then when I think about it, any of those would be really scary. Lets look at the record.

EA: Has bought up Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood, as major purchases.

Sony: Bought Psygnosis (I don't know if Verant was always an internal Sony studio or not).

Microsoft: Bought Digital Anvil, Ensemble, and Bungie.

Hmm... and the results. Psygnosis? Still making games... but PS2 only. The PC division is dead... and the studio is now called Sony Somethingorother.

Digital Anvil? Well, they managed to finish FreeLancer and StarLancer, but Chris Roberts left, meaning they are without their star developer...

Ensemble? Still fine (they made Age of Empires and Age of Mythology).

Bungie? I think we all know what happened there... X-Box first. And some people left.

Those are all bad. However, compared to EA's record, Sony and Microsoft's look positively tame and pretty good...

Origin. Once one of the top sim (Wing Commander - Chris Roberts) and RPG (Ultima - Richard Garriott) developers. After a few years under EA control... they dissolved. Now? They are pretty much gone. Only a hollow shell of the company is left... and none of its decent talent.

Bullfrog. Developer with Peter Molyneux as its top guy. Made many innovative games. EA bought it... and in a few years, it ceased to exist. Bullfrog pretty much died off completely a few of years ago.

Westwood. Good strategy game developer... among other genres. EA-owned.
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/new...52,00.html
their main Las Vegas studio (and the side Irvine studio, but everyone from that one was relocated to LA) was just closed down. While some of the people were given positions at the new expanded EA Los Angeles studio, it won't be the same... the founder of the company is still there (and going to LA), but they've taken the first step to assimilation and more firings if any of their future projects fail. Great... I wonder if they've gotten rid of the Westwood label with its studio and a bunch of its staff and seperate location...

Oh, lastly, Maxis. For now, they are untouched... but they are both a relatively recent purchase and EA's biggest moneymaker after EA Sports (due to the phenominal success of The Sims), so I doubt there will be many changes there until The Sims starts to falter as the major sales success it still is... but I am sure there will be in the end.

Well. None of them have good records, but EA's is much, much worse... I'd say ruining Origin, Bullfrog, and now starting on Westwood is a lot worse than just killing Bungie's Mac support... though MS has has issues too (Digital Anvil...).

The point? I really hope this deal doesn't go through. Blizz had been doing great as a part of a series of major companies, true... but those aren't game companies. There's a big difference between Vivendi Universal's expectations of Blizz and a Microsoft or EA, I bet...

Of course on the case of Sierra, I gave up on them several years ago, as most Sierra fan probably did, so I don't care much about them... bringing back their old logo isn't enough to even BEGIN to convince me that they have changed at all...

Poor Blizzard.