It’s almost a year since Microsoft surprised people in the industry and beyond by announcing they were intending to buy Activision Blizzard, expecting to close the deal by June 2023. What’s given competition authorities in the US, UK, and other countries concern since then is the effect that Microsoft’s potential ownership of massive series published by Activision Blizzard, such as Call Of Duty and Overwatch, might have on the gaming landscape. That includes emerging areas such as cloud gaming and services such as Game Pass. Last week, the UK’s Competition And Market’s Authority pushed back their own final decision on the merger by nearly two months, to April. Back in December, the FTC’s panel voted 3-1 in favour of suing Microsoft over the proposed merger with Activision Blizzard. Their reasoning was that Microsoft’s acquisition of the company could allow the green team to “suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business”. Activision Blizzard’s executive vice-president for corporate affairs Lulu Cheng Meservey had tweeted ahead of the FTC’s decision to sue that the company wouldn’t hesitate to defend any challenge to the buyout. It looks like there could be a longer wait to find out whether Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will go ahead. The consolidation of one very hefty chunk of the games industry still seems uncertain, for now. Activision Blizzard are currently the subject of a number of legal actions, labour disputes and allegations of workplace harassment. Rock Paper Shotgun will continue to write about these issues, as well as covering Activision Blizzard games as part of our commitment to cover subjects of interest to our readers. The latest news can always be found under our Activision Blizzard tag.
