FTC will try to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard
-
The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
-
The FTC had already sued to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, choosing to bring the case before its internal administrative law judge.
-
By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the acquisition from going through before the deal’s July 18 deadline.
The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction on Monday seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard , a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the acquisition from going through before the deal’s July 18 deadline.
The FTC had already sued to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, choosing to bring the case before its internal administrative law judge. Through that trial-like process, the ALJ would make an initial decision that could be appealed to the full commission for a vote. After that, Microsoft could appeal to a federal court should the decision not go its way. The case is set to go before the ALJ in August.
An appeal of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority’s decision to block the merger is also scheduled to take place this summer shortly after the acquisition deadline.
“We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said. “We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.”
Shares of Microsoft and Activision were roughly flat Monday afternoon.
Am I the only one hoping this doesn’t go through? Like, I don’t like how hard MS is pushing for everything to be a service. Not to say gamepass isn’t a good deal, I just don’t want the every big game they put out to be some drip feed Skinner box like Halo Infinite.
Nope, you’re not the only one. I personally don’t understand how some people are vehemently in favor of this merger and are rooting for it to close. It is never good for the consumer when these big companies merge - just take a look at the other recent large-scale mergers like the AT&T-Time Warner merger and the Disney-Fox merger. These big companies are not your friend. Microsoft is not your friend.
I don’t think Microsoft gaining control of one of the biggest game companies on the planet is good. They can make all these promises and promise all these concessions, but I bet the second they get a chance to break them, they will. It’s engrained in their history - Microsoft’s 2001 antitrust case anyone?
Not only that, but they’ve proven themselves already very recently that they cannot be trusted with mergers either. The Bethesda/ZeniMax merger promised that games would remain on competitors’ consoles. Soon after the merger closed, they announced that games would no longer be made for anything other than Xbox and PC.
I think a lot of people are just too short sighted and don’t care about the ill consequences of this merger - as long as they play on Xbox / PC and they are able to see the new Call of Duty each year in their GamePass library, they’ll be happy.
Dammit. I want that merger to go through finally. That seems to be the best bet for getting CoD and Diablo into GeForce Now (or XBox Cloud Gaming if necessary). Since Activision Blizzard seem to have a stick up their ass in that regard, Microsoft would bring some fresh wind.
Wish granted. Microsoft are now sunsetting the COD and Diablo franchises to eliminate competition for their own IPs.
Monkey’s paw curls. Now you have to subscribe to Microsoft Game Pass ™ to access any activision blizzard game catalog.
Me too. Honestly, Microsoft seems to be in a pretty distant third place in the console wars, so the antitrust concerns don’t make a lot of sense to me. Even if Microsoft did make CoD Xbox exclusive, I don’t think that would be that big of a deal for Sony and Nintendo, as they have countless other draws.
Additionally, I too think Blizzard is a shit company and there’s nowhere to go but up under new ownership.
The antitrust concerns center on cloud gaming, not the consoles. The UK regulator basically said that it’s unlikely that Microsoft would profit from making CoD an Xbox exclusive, but it would be extremely beneficial and provide a substantial benefit to make it exclusive to their cloud gaming platform.
Because the current cloud gaming market isn’t massive this basically meant that Microsoft would be the only choice for most consumers and could stifle growth and innovation in the industry, which would negatively affect UK consumers. Microsoft proposed that they have ten years where they are forced to put games on specific competing platforms. But the problem with that is they wouldn’t need to include any new entrants to the market and they got to dictate the method of sale. This would obviously prevent new entries to the market (who’s gonna pay for the cloud gaming service that doesn’t have CoD, when you could go to one that does) and would prevent someone from innovating the purchase method (say they wanted to introduce a subscription that gets you access to all games on the platform, they would be unable to include CoD in that). And theh generally don’t like things like this because after 10 years it’s just going to become an exclusive anyway, so it doesn’t ultimately correct the issue.
I’d recommend you read the report on it, it’s very thorough.
Thank god. Further consolidation is bad, regardless of which evil company is doing it.
Thank God. If there’s one company that needs to continue existing it’s Activision Blizzard. They deserve to continue sexually harassing their employees, and force endless crunch. This management team must continue to be entrenched in the industry, so they can continue producing subpar products with predatory pricing.
Way to start the big tech crack down with an issue that impacts consumers, FTC.
Never Ending Story playing in the background
