-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Is 7.5 billion too much and MS overpaid?
- Thread starter DavJay
- Start date
anothertech
Member
lol. the reactions alone was worth it.
MatrixReloaded101
Member
Skyrim is one of the best selling games of all time.
They can make a big portion of that back from the next elder scrolls, doom ...etc
They can make a big portion of that back from the next elder scrolls, doom ...etc
TheCrimsnFuckr
Member
Even disregarding the many developers they will soon own, let's look through the list of IP they will soon own:
- Doom (Massively relevant today, Eternal sold hella well, well known brand even out of gaming)
- Wolfenstein (Relatively big today, the two mainline games this gen were received incredibly well)
- Elder Scrolls (Skyrim, need I say anymore? Elder Scrolls 6 will be huge, exclusive or not)
- Fallout (Pretty much universally beloved game series, very big)
Not to mention the 8 new studios that are now under the XGS wing, and the fact that any new games will be huge AAA games in well known franchises all in Gamepass day one. Even if they overpaid, they will be making their money back in less than 5 years and then some.
- Doom (Massively relevant today, Eternal sold hella well, well known brand even out of gaming)
- Wolfenstein (Relatively big today, the two mainline games this gen were received incredibly well)
- Elder Scrolls (Skyrim, need I say anymore? Elder Scrolls 6 will be huge, exclusive or not)
- Fallout (Pretty much universally beloved game series, very big)
Not to mention the 8 new studios that are now under the XGS wing, and the fact that any new games will be huge AAA games in well known franchises all in Gamepass day one. Even if they overpaid, they will be making their money back in less than 5 years and then some.
LordOfChaos
Member
They paid 27 billion for Linkedin, 8.5 for Skype.
Do we care if Microsoft overpaid? Does Microsoft?
Do we care if Microsoft overpaid? Does Microsoft?
quickwhips
Member
Rounding error for Microsoft
unintelligent orange
Member
M$ is certainly overpaid. But 7.5 billion being much? That's just a step up from pocket change.
megreotsugua
Banned
MS doesn't own them. They can leave anytime and join Sony's studios.
digoutyoursoul
Member
Too early to say, if it brings great content and keeps people in jobs then it’s worthwhile
McCarth
Member
I could be wrong but I think they have over 200 full company acquisitions in their history.
That's definitely 'fuck you money'.
Kerotan Frog
Member
I'd say so and your example of Star Wars is a good one. Everyone has differing opinions of the Sequel Trilogy, but leading up to The Force Awakens, the WORLD was hype af for new Star Wars. Disney fumbled the films and EA fumbled the games, and we are where we are, but buying Star Wars for $4 Billion seemed like a steal in 2012. The possibilities were endless. $7.5 Billion for Bethesda...? That seems like an impulse buy. They were hot back in 2010 coming off Fallout 3, New Vegas, and leading up to Skyrim, but now people pick up a Bethesda game and immediately ask if its been patched yet. Fallout 76 really killed people's good will for their games. Their reputation is of broken glitch fests.
jigglet
Banned
Agreed, it's a poor comparison. Disney would have made that money back within just a few movies esp. with merchandising and licensing rights.
Minecraft is also a bad yardstick too since that went too cheap as well. What was it, $2.5b? For something that has been consistently been in the top 10 sellers for like 10+ years now? lol
jakinov
Member
There's a lot of intellectual properties beyond the franchises; and physical assets across a bunch of subsidies. The fact that the company makes money and likely to continue to, is a huge factor. Star WArs is bigger than any franchise IP individually but there's a lot more than 1 franchise at play, Lucasfilm didn't have a lot of asserts, it didn't even have it's own distribution rights. and overall the scope of the deal was just smaller because Lucasfilm was just one small mostly monolithic company that had 1 IP that was super valuable.
30yearsofhurt
Member
Yes they overpaid. About $5b too much. But...
It now triples the value of their entire xbox division.
Rupert Murdoch once said that you can't buy opportunity. Microsoft have paid for the opportunity to completely change the landscape of the market.
It now triples the value of their entire xbox division.
Rupert Murdoch once said that you can't buy opportunity. Microsoft have paid for the opportunity to completely change the landscape of the market.
Compsiox
Banned
Idk even as a private company they might still have shareholders. Altman probably gets a good amount.
DavJay
Member
I wonder that myself. Who MS acquire Zenimax from? Or Zenimax take money and continue to work but under MS!
KingdomHeartsFan
Member
Why would they get any cash? They get extra money for the overtime they do and that's all they deserve. They didn't put in any of the risk to build the company they don't get any of the reward.
kingpotato
Ask me about my Stream Deck
Here is your answer OP.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
not my money, idgaf
Majima Everywhere System
Member
Certainly bigger than star wars these days. Seems right.
killatopak
Gold Member
I think it should have been less.
They have great IPs but fumbled them in a lot of ways so I thought they have overpaid for it.
The only IPs that are currently successful are Elder Scrolls and Doom. They fucked up Fallout and Rage.
Of course they can make it better once it is in the Xbox umbrella but before that Zenimax as a whole was on a downhill.
They have great IPs but fumbled them in a lot of ways so I thought they have overpaid for it.
The only IPs that are currently successful are Elder Scrolls and Doom. They fucked up Fallout and Rage.
Of course they can make it better once it is in the Xbox umbrella but before that Zenimax as a whole was on a downhill.
Last edited:
it's ultimately their hard creative and technical work that created the value. it's just insane to me that now people are getting billions for the nerdy work of others while half of the US is going to shit.
I know it's nothing unusual, but just showed me again how broken I find the system to be. these monolithic structures are cancer
Last edited:
8.5 billion for Skype and look how they mis- managed it, and how "nothing" Skype is these days. It's all what'sapp, Facebook messenger video calls, facetime and zoom.
KingdomHeartsFan
Member
Yea its their work, but its not their company. They can build their own company if they wanted, but they don't because of how risky it is and how big of an investment it is. The people that take that risk and put in that investment reap the rewards. Some random developer that works at a studio when it gets sold doesn't deserve any of the cash that the company was sold for.
OmaeWaMouShindiggity
Member
Most private companies like Zenimax give their employees stock along with pay, so most likely anyone with more than a year in the company directly profited from the sale.
This has nothing to do with preorders, it has everything to do with GamePass.
diffusionx
Gold Member
The only comparable purchase I can think of was Minecraft which was also purchased by MS. They spent $2.5B on that game six years ago, and it seems like a great steal today. So along those lines, I think $7.5B for Zenimax and all their franchises is a pretty reasonable price.
Kenpachii
Member
What does sony got locked up exactly?