Daily Briefing: Tuesday 18th January

Microsoft are buying Activision Blizzard

Well, this is a big one out of nowhere. Microsoft this week announced a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for a truly insane $68.7bn. Not only is this the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history, but it is also the largest acquisition in the history of the wider games industry, eclipsing the previous record set by Take-Two Interactive just last week with their acquisition of mobile gaming giant Zynga.

• Xbox boss and media darling Phil Spencer is now the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and, though Activision Blizzard will remain independent and embattled CEO Bobby Kotick will be sticking around for now, Spencer will serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard when the deal closes in 2023. In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Spencer said that Microsoft “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalogue.” That catalogue, of course, includes the likes of Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Hearthstone, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and more.

Stardew Valley developer teasing another unannounced project

We heard about Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone’s new project Haunted Chocolatier a few months ago but, in a new interview with Game Informer, the indie creator revealed that he’s working on a new collaborative project that allows him to enjoy “the best of both worlds” by developing games solo or as part of a team. Barone didn’t go into any detail on what this other project might be, although he did reiterate that the upcoming Haunted Chocolatier is “another completely solo game, kind of like Stardew Valley, where I’m doing literally everything.” This means “that one will probably come out first.”

• While fans are obviously excited for Barone’s next project, Stardew Valley’s overwhelming success seems to be putting Barone under a bit of pressure, creatively speaking. Regarding his collaborative project, he said that he and the team aren’t “trying to make the next big indie hit” and, in fact, he was at one point “almost considering” releasing the game using a pseudonym so that players wouldn’t immediately associate the new project with his older work. He did ultimately decide against doing this though because, in his words, Barone thought it was “a bit disingenuous.”