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Rumour: MS approach Valve for buyout $16b offer

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Mls Defense GIF by Philadelphia Union

Lame post to a proper reaction to "ms killed gaming". The venerable witty gif, crutch of the poster with no real points.
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
Sony already plans to make thier own store, so they can keep 100% of revenue. Other major publishers will go where the most gamers are.
To be honest, the pending Sony store is already a major threat to steam if it launches with day and date ps5 titles.

I doubt Sony would take any action that could jeopardize their hardware sales. They have smarter people working there.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I doubt Sony would take any action that could jeopardize their hardware sales. They have smarter people working there.

It's going to happen, because it means increased short term revenue, and executive bonuses. Death, taxes, executives wanting bonuses, all inevitable.
 
There's no way this is true. Given the fact that this offer is well short of what I imagine Valve to be worth. Honestly though, how would this even get anywhere with the regulators after the last debacle?
Even if true this won't be allowed by the regulators after all the broken promises by MS on the Activision deal.
Steam is private owned company. Gabe could sell it if he wanted. FTC would need to file a lawsuit and convince a federal judge that the deal violates the law. Not sure how it would work in other markets.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
I don't really believe it, but if there's any credibility to this at all, I just can't even. Not just at how awful it would be for us, but how unbelievably aimless and inept Microsoft is. Have they decided yet whether ABK was actually a good idea or not?

Edit: There are several differences that might make Steam a more attractive purchase, such as figuring out (AFTER spending 70bn) that they are not good at managing game development, something that Valve hardly does at all -16bn "just to push money" probably seems better than 70bn "to buy a job". Of course they think it would be easy to run Steam without having to make games and don't know that they would ruin everything that makes it so valuable. Also 16 is too low, but that would be more weariness of shedding money on gaming investments they didn't think about first, not an indicator of Valve's value.
 
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lordrand11

Member
ABK was publicly traded company so we know exactly how much profit they were making. Approx 5-6 bn usd per year in gross profit. Net income between 1.5 - 2 bn usd per year. Plus Activision had over 20bn usd in assets including 11bn usd cash on hand.
Even better, by that logic with a non-publicly traded company like Valve we can make a reasonable assumption that their market and offered product(s) puts them in a much better position than ABK.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Steam is private owned company. Gabe could sell it if he wanted. FTC would need to file a lawsuit and convince a federal judge that the deal violates the law. Not sure how it would work in other markets.

This couldn't be any more incorrect.

Private company transactions are still subject to regulatory approval.

How do you think the Nvidia/Arm deal was blocked despite Arm being a private entity at the time?
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I don't really believe it, but if there's any credibility to this at all, I just can't even. Not just at how awful it would be for us, but how unbelievably aimless and inept Microsoft is. Have they decided yet whether ABK was actually a good idea or not?

Edit: There are several differences that might make Steam a more attractive purchase, such as figuring out (AFTER spending 70bn) that they are not good at managing game development, something that Valve hardly does at all -16bn "just to push money" probably seems better than 70bn "to buy a job". Of course they think it would be easy to run Steam without having to make games and don't know that they would ruin everything that makes it so valuable. Also 16 is too low, but that would be more weariness of shedding money on gaming investments they didn't think about first, not an indicator of Valve's value.

I'm confused, ms now owns a crap ton of studios, all of which share 30% of thier revenue with valve on pc releases. On what planet would it be a bad idea to increase margins across the entire line of pc software?
For activision alone, they had about 2 billion in pc sales last year, likely mostly on steam. So let's say 500 million saved in one year, from activision alone? Plus all the other studios.
Plus whatever steam makes on all the other games cut. Probably have thier money back in 10 years.

People talk about how they will walk away from steam, but most won't due to all the games they already own, plus the exclusive games from bethesda, activision, blizzard, Xbox studios, etc.
 
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This couldn't be any more incorrect.

Private company transactions are still subject to regulatory approval.

How do you think the Nvidia/Arm deal was blocked despite Arm being a private entity at the time?
Arm is a “holding” company which holds shares of other companies. 90% of Arm is held by SoftBank Group which has stocks listed in Japan. Completely different from Valve.
 
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I'd like to think that after the rigamarole with the ABK acquisition, the many unkept promises, the laying off and shutting down of so many former Zenimax studios and employees, that a potential Steam acquisition by Microsoft would get smothered in the cradle.

Most of us who were sounding the alarm all through the years of the ABK acquisition that this wasn't about PlayStation vs. Xbox but about Microsoft doing something terrible for gaming as a whole were shouted down and told to accept that Microsoft was the hero of gaming and that if we were objecting were were just blind PlayStation loyalists crying no fair.

The MS acquisitions have been terrible--not for PlayStation gamers, but for the entire industry. It's been consolidated, hollowed out, shrunk down, and on a regular basis innovation is pushed out in favor of the next live service or the hundreth iteration of an IP that can't possibly lose money. We've stood by and watched as Microsoft gutted and shuttered sustainable studios making quality titles because somehow one of the absolute largest corporations in the world just doesn't have the resources to manage all the studios they now own. Like a glutton at a buffet who eats plate after overcrowded plate of food no matter how full he gets and then pukes up his excess all over the communal table ruining everyone else's good time in the process.

The very idea of Microsoft being allowed to acquire Valve is offensive. The sad thing is, I can't rely upon the global oversight bodies to do the right thing. We stood by as the alarms went off during the ABK snafu while across the globe, every regulatory body stood up and said with a straight-face that there is nothing anti-consumer nor anti-competitive about a platform buying up a major swath of the industry. I don't trust these same corrupt bodies not to say that handing Microsoft control of a major segment of the console gaming space has gone so well, they should be rewarded and given effectively total control of the PC gaming space too.

And yes, it would be just as disgusting if it were Sony making this play too. Just as it would have been had Sony been the ones acquiring ABK. Stop making this entire industry for sale to the highest bidder!
 

Sorcerer

Member
I don't really believe it, but if there's any credibility to this at all, I just can't even. Not just at how awful it would be for us, but how unbelievably aimless and inept Microsoft is. Have they decided yet whether ABK was actually a good idea or not?

Edit: There are several differences that might make Steam a more attractive purchase, such as figuring out (AFTER spending 70bn) that they are not good at managing game development, something that Valve hardly does at all -16bn "just to push money" probably seems better than 70bn "to buy a job". Of course they think it would be easy to run Steam without having to make games and don't know that they would ruin everything that makes it so valuable. Also 16 is too low, but that would be more weariness of shedding money on gaming investments they didn't think about first, not an indicator of Valve's value.
16 is too low if they are making 16 on a yearly basis. How is that an attractive offer? Because of cash, no stocks? You would have to offer 10x that, 10 years of profits at once to even begin to entice the other party to pack it up and take the money. I doubt anyone at Valve is living the hard life, probably one of the best places to work in the world. This offer has to be fake.
 
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RickSanchez

Member
Who TF is the source and why is this thread still open?

Seriously we shouldn't even be talking about this shit. Some twitter wannabe makes a random post based on a several-years-old leak which stated that Microsoft may have wanted to acquire Valve. Should not get any clicks or views at all.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Arm is a “holding” company which holds shares of other companies. 90% of Arm is held by SoftBank Group which has stocks listed in Japan. Completely different from Valve.

Fucks sake...

SoftBank took Arm private for $32 billion in 2016. Four years later, Nvidia offered to buy Arm in a stock and cash deal that was worth around $40 billion at the time.


None of this is complicated stuff, all that it requires is some reading.

There is nothing different about how a potential Valve transaction would be seen from a regulatory standpoint.
 
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Jormatar

Member
How in the fuck are they offering 70 billion for shit like Activision-Blizzard and then only 16 billion for Valve. Steam would be gigantic to have.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
I'm confused, ms now owns a crap ton of studios, all of which share 30% of thier revenue with valve on pc releases. On what planet would it be a bad idea to increase margins across the entire line of pc software?
For activision alone, they had about 2 billion in pc sales last year, likely mostly on steam. So let's say 500 million saved in one year, from activision alone? Plus all the other studios.
Plus whatever steam makes on all the other games cut. Probably have thier money back in 10 years.

People talk about how they will walk away from steam, but most won't due to all the games they already own, plus the exclusive games from bethesda, activision, blizzard, Xbox studios, etc.

Of course everyone wouldn't walk away from Steam overnight. So what? We all know Microsoft would fuck it senseless until a hollow shell of its former self anyway. Some great flex that the users don't run for the hills in one second.

You have an almost Epic-like mentality "why not just have our own store and save money on the fee". Because as soon as it's your store it starts to suck ass, genius.
 

Sorcerer

Member
Coming from the guy behind EGS.
What's funny is this is probably is a reaction to what Phil said about Epic on Xbox. Phil paid Epic a sort of compliment by mentioning Epic and not Steam in that statement. Yet Tim burns Microsoft here and compliments Steam. I guess we won't be seeing Epic on Xbox.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Sony already plans to make thier own store, so they can keep 100% of revenue. Other major publishers will go where the most gamers are.
To be honest, the pending Sony store is already a major threat to steam if it launches with day and date ps5 titles.

Dude, Sony is not going to waste their time with creating their own PC store. Why do you believe that? People were so pissed about the PSN requirement that they had to remove that from both EGS and Steam. Best case scenario is that they make their own store like Uplay, but continue to release their games on EGS and Steam at the same time. But even that is pointless, because no one will buy games directly from the PSN store on PC. It will only piss people off.
 
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They probably already approached Valve for a buyout, but this sum is a joke, so that means this is fake. I'd say Valve is worth way more than Activision at this point. Like 500 billion dollars would be a more serious and believable offer.
 
It’d be cool if sometime the Xbox fans came up with a plan that was something other than MS buys everyone. Something like, they are creative and innovative and make a great product and service and great games.
 
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I could see this being a game of “telephone” and the real story is something like Microsoft paying $16b to Valve for Steam on Xbox for the next XX number of years, and Microsoft gets a cut of Steam sales via Xbox.

We’ve already had rumors with better legs about Steam and Epic game stores possibly being on Xbox console hardware. We know Microsoft likes the Steam Deck. Valve already has the Steam store set up to flag what games work with Xbox controllers.

Why not cut a deal to make Xbox a “SteamBox” for the near future?
 
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Considering STEAM made 8 bil in revenue in just 2023, this 16bil offer must be for Valve and its games only, not Steam as well. ID say why not, bring back HL franchise, make Portal 3, Make Left for Dead 3....Valve never will. Remake Opposing Force. How can you think MS would offer so little for STEAM as well when that money they made with STEAM in less than 2 full years.
 
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Considering STEAM made 8 bil in revenue in just 2023, this 16bil offer must be for Valve and its games only, not Steam as well. ID say why not, bring back HL franchise, make Portal 3, Make Left for Dead 3....Valve never will. Remake Opposing Force. How can you think MS would offer so little for STEAM as well when that money they made with STEAM in less than 2 full years.
Did Microsoft bring back ANY of the old franchises lost to Activision Blizzard? What made you think they would do what they had so far failed to do? What kind of fantasy world do you live in where Xbox is actually rescuing old IPs?
 
Did Microsoft bring back ANY of the old franchises lost to Activision Blizzard? What made you think they would do what they had so far failed to do? What kind of fantasy world do you live in where Xbox is actually rescuing old IPs?

Well why else to buy Valve? What is there in Valve except Half-Life and others mentioned? Also, MS bought and finally settled the law part of the purchase just 9 months ago. You think they gonna put out any AAA game in that time? Also its almost confirmed Quake 1 reboot is in the making so theres that. Did you think as soon as they bought Activision/Blizzard that 10 new games were gonna just appear out of nowhere?
 
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Well why else to buy Valve? What is there in Valve except Half-Life and others mentioned? Also, MS bought and finally settled the law part of the purchase just 9 months ago. You think they gonna put out any AAA game in that time? Also its almost confirmed Quake 1 reboot is in the making so theres that. Did you think as soon as they bought Activision/Blizzard that 10 new games were gonna just appear out of nowhere?
So "wait until next year" again?

In case you are not paying attention, by current sales drop off, Xbox doesn't HAVE enough life to last another year.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Of course everyone wouldn't walk away from Steam overnight. So what? We all know Microsoft would fuck it senseless until a hollow shell of its former self anyway. Some great flex that the users don't run for the hills in one second.

You have an almost Epic-like mentality "why not just have our own store and save money on the fee". Because as soon as it's your store it starts to suck ass, genius.

That's a pretty big stretch. They probably wouldn't change a thing for many years.
 
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