Obviously this is to stem the efforts to unionize; good for the employees short-term, but I hope they succeed with unilateral unionization in spite of this.
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It will do until Microsoft acquires them.
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Hoeg TLDW:
- Changed chances to 70/30
- Thinks the chances of a consent decree are increasing, but thinks MS would likely be fine with it because they want this to get done
- Still doesnât believe that the FTC would win a legal battle to block the deal
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Lots of bad behavior coming to light and having to be sorted out for sure. Those things arenât in the realm of anti-competitive moves as you noted, so those will keep the deal sounding controversial and in the headlines without actually affecting anything like you said. It is good that this stuff is publicly hashed out though.
I would classify that survey simply as demonstrating the ABK deal represents strong competition from MS. I bet there would be similar results if the question was about Spartacus and was referencing day 1 Sony titles launching into the service. There are tons of great arguments in favor of MSâs position bringing in more competition to the market no matter how you slice what âmarketâ should mean, which is why Iâve said it would sail through.
what is the 70/30 chance thing for? Them doing a settlement or the FTC trying to sue to stop it
The main conclusion from that is that nobody cares about COD or games there. So exclusivity of COD is not even a talking point. And of course FTC wonât win because - aside no one in sane mind in USA will do anything to limit the ability of american companies to compete - you cannot use âfuture laws that might pass or not passâ to fight a legal battle that relies on real laws.
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Wow at this rate Microsoft will have a 0% chance of getting this passed by next month!
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I donât really take % based analysis seriously.
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Those future laws will be what the FTC uses to dismantle the deal if it runs afoul of that legislation, so those laws 100% are a critical part of the calculus MS is working with. Thatâs why they reached out to Congressmen like Ken Buck specifically about the deal before it was even finalized. He is the sponsor for the relevant legislation. Luckily, he seems 100% on board with the deal after getting assurances from MS wrt game availability and access and quality.
And at no point in the any of his videos does Hoeg suggest ânobody cares about CoD or gamesâ in the context of the ABK deal. I dunno why you continue to die on this hill. The games arenât gonna be exclusive. MS told us as much. Had they tried making them exclusive, the FTC might have a case to make against the deal but MSâs agenda here isnât about winning some silly console war. Itâs about making mountains of cash in reliable rev streams so they can dominate with GP.
MS is happy to give up exclusivity for CoD to get the deal done since they still have a dominantly competitive trajectory for GP and their rev streams as a result of this move. See the survey that was posted for a demonstration of this. Even just having ABK stuff on GP is enough to get TONS of gamers to consider signing up.
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I suppose that is reasonable if you just ignore the hours of nuanced analysis provided in conjunction with those estimates.
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No, Hoeg just uses % as a talking for the complexity of the deal. No one knows the real % as it is not set a stone. Each and every lawsuit or some other issue, make the deal more complex.
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I wonder what MS will do if it didnât go through that is a lot of money back in their hands to spend lol.
% based analysis that has nothing to do with math is useless. What does 5% actually mean if there isnât any calculation involved.
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I assume he just means there is no meaningful calculation of those odds. Hoeg is just making them up to align with his gut as best he can guesstimate.
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I see no chance of it not going through. Microsoft will just go to the courts if FTC demans are unreasonable for them.
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Ah ok so thats what the percentage basically means, so this is basically garenteed to go though still then, even if it is with some kind of settlement or they are sued 1st in an attempt to block it, assuming I am understanding correctly
Did you know that information during surveys is only 45% right and that 79% of those surveys are not even real and that this comment is 100% bullshit
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Oh yeah I do expect it to go through too, but if it didnât that is a lot of money that was tied up now being free, I wonder how theyâd move forward.
The most probable issues the FTC would have with the deal are also the areas where MS already gave them concessions a priori, signaling to the FTC they are happy to commit to these areas. That likely will lead to a consent decree to set those concessions in stone but again, MS is happy to do them to get the deal done. Beyond those areas, MS has tons of great arguments in their favor regardless of how the FTC defines the relevant market. Thatâs why most feel it is almost certain to go through one way or the other.
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Then they will acquire something more. The only reason why that deal attracts attention is due to its size. But when the deal passes - each and every other deal will also pass, because if you cannot build the argument against the biggest publisher - you cannot build it against anything else.