Microsoft

CEOs are joking about GameStop, worrying it signals a bubble, and preparing for the next meme-stock boom

Summary List Placement CEOs are still chattering about GameStop and meme-stock mania. Some have joked about it, while others fear the frenzy is evidence of a bubble. Here are the best comments on earnings calls so far. Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories. The GameStop saga is still sparking conversations across corporate America. Executives…

Published 4 years ago in
CEOs are joking about GameStop, worrying it signals a bubble, and preparing for the next meme-stock boom

Summary List Placement
CEOs are still chattering about GameStop and meme-stock mania.
Some have joked about it, while others fear the frenzy is evidence of a bubble.
Here are the best comments on earnings calls so far.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The GameStop saga is still sparking conversations across corporate America.
Executives continue to marvel at the surge in the video-game retailer’s market capitalization to over $30 billion at one point. They’re questioning whether mass speculation among amateur investors is a bubble about to burst. At least one is ready to cash in if the meme-stock frenzy has a second act.
Here are the best comments from CEOs to date, drawn from earnings-call transcripts on Sentieo, a financial-research website. The quotes have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity:
1. “We can just change our name to GameStop.” — Mark Costa, CEO of Eastman Chemical, when asked if he would consider a SPAC spinoff to boost his company’s valuation.
2. “You have to pause and wonder, when GameStop is the most valuable company in the Russell 2000, that the world has certainly changed.” — Frank Gasior, CEO of BankFinancial.
3. “On GameStop and bitcoin, there are definitely bubbles out there.” — Scott Hartz, CIO of Manulife Financial Corporation.
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4. “GameStop required a very unique set of circumstances where the asset had been oversold. It’s not so much a GameStop movement. It’s a unique series of events that allow for a short squeeze.” — Muhamad Umar Swift, CEO of Bursa Malaysia Berhad.
5. “When you start looking at some of the alternative-energy stocks, you start looking at some of the small speculative stocks, what’s happened in the last several days with GameStop – there is an area that I think is overheated.” — Mark Stoeckle, CEO of Adams Diversified Equity Fund, highlighting bubbles in the market.
6. “The GameStop fever – we did see Japanese retail customers trading those shares a lot as well. It used to be when we talk about Japanese retail customers buying a US equity, it’s Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, something like that. But now they play around with the smaller stocks as well. Before the global financial crisis and before the internet bubble burst, we saw similar kinds of phenomena.” — Oki Matsumoto, CEO of Monex.
7. “The other problem is the GameStop thing that’s going on out there. We have a better feel for what’s going on right now, and I don’t see a dot-com bust.” — David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, comparing his current level of concern to his fears during the internet bubble and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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8. “The craziness in the market has very little impact on us, because we just don’t have any exposure to any of these kinds of companies. The high-flying growth stocks, the items that have caused the market to have these giant dislocations where you stare in amazement, we’re not in those. I wish I could tell you that we owned some in advance, and we benefited from them.” — Richard Pzena, CEO of Pzena Investment Management, asked about Tesla, GameStop, and bitcoin.
9. “We did that deal right at a time, where GameStop and AMC were destroying some hedge funds who got into a jam. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them were in our stock and had to raise capital and just sold our stock.” — Ted Karkus, CEO of ProPhase Labs, discussing the downward pressure on  his company’s stock after it raised $37.5 million in a public stock offering.
10. “I don’t think we anticipated the spike related to GameStop. It got us thinking and we said, ‘Hey, it’s a good tool. We might as well have it back on the shelf.’ And so that’s why we renewed it.” — Thomas Hern, CEO of Macerich, explaining the shopping-mall owner renewed its at-the-market stock offering after watching its share price surge during the meme-stock frenzy.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world’s largest cruise ship
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Microsoft

Arkane Founder: ‘I Think Game Pass is Unsustainable’

The founder and former president of Arkane Studios Raphaël Colantonio, who left in 2019, took to social media weighing on the huge Microsoft and Xbox layoffs. “Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” said Colantonio (spotted by VideoGamesChronicle). He added…

Published 2 weeks ago in
Arkane Founder: ‘I Think Game Pass is Unsustainable’

The founder and former president of Arkane Studios Raphaël Colantonio, who left in 2019, took to social media weighing on the huge Microsoft and Xbox layoffs.
“Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” said Colantonio (spotted by VideoGamesChronicle).
He added…
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Microsoft

In the Wake of Xbox Layoffs, Founder of Dishonored and Prey Dev Arkane Slams Game Pass: ‘Why Is No-One Talking About the Elephant in the Room?’

Hot on the heels of the layoffs that have swept through Xbox, the founder of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios has hit out at Game Pass, whose subscription model he called “unsustainable.” Raphael Colantonio, who founded the Dishonored and Prey developer and served as its president before leaving in 2017 to start Weird West maker WolfEye Studios

Published 2 weeks ago in
In the Wake of Xbox Layoffs, Founder of Dishonored and Prey Dev Arkane Slams Game Pass: ‘Why Is No-One Talking About the Elephant in the Room?’

Hot on the heels of the layoffs that have swept through Xbox, the founder of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios has hit out at Game Pass, whose subscription model he called “unsustainable.”

Raphael Colantonio, who founded the Dishonored and Prey developer and served as its president before leaving in 2017 to start Weird West maker WolfEye Studios, took to social media to ask: “Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass).”

When asked to expand on his thoughts on Game Pass, which Weird West launched straight into as a day one title in March 2022, Colantonio said: “I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s ‘infinite money,’ but at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”

Colantonio’s comment sparked a vociferous debate about the pros and cons of Game Pass in industry terms as well as for the customer. Microsoft’s subscription service has been called many things over the years: the death of the video game industry; the savior of smaller developers who benefit greatly from payments made by Microsoft to secure their games; and everything in between. During the great Xbox FTC trial to decide the fate of Microsoft’s $69 billion aquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan claimed that he had talked to “all the publishers” and that, unanimously, they all hated Game Pass “because it is value destructive.” He also said Microsoft “appears to be losing a lot of money on it.”

Back in 2021, Xbox boss Phil Spencer countered Game Pass doomsayers, saying: “I know there’s a lot of people that like to write [that] we’re burning cash right now for some future pot of gold at the end. No. Game Pass is very, very sustainable right now as it sits. And it continues to grow.”

That was four years ago. What about now, in the wake of cuts that have seen Rare’s Everwild, the Perfect Dark reboot, and an unannounced MMO in the works at developer behind The Elder Scrolls Online all canceled?

Colantonio’s comments were backed by a number of industry peers, including the former VP of biz dev at Epic Games. Michael Douse, publishing director at Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian, said that the biggest concern right now revolves around what happens when all that money runs out. This, Douse added, is “one of the main economic reasons people I know haven’t shifted to its business model. The infinite money thing never made any sense.”

(It’s worth noting that Baldur’s Gate 3 has so far not launched in Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.)

Colantonio then ridiculed Microsoft’s insistence that launching games into Game Pass did not impact sales, only to later admit the contrary.

Douse responded to to say he prefers the Sony way of doing things. Sony’s PlayStation Plus policy is to keep first-party games off the subscription service at launch, only adding them some time later. That’s why you won’t see this year’s Sony’s Ghost of Yotei launch straight into PS Plus, but you will see Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 as a day one Game Pass launch.

“The economics never made sense, but at the same

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Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape

Published 2 months ago in
Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape [……
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Microsoft

Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …

Published 2 months ago in
Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …
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