Microsoft can now go ahead and close its giant deal.
"In a ruling submitted today, Judge Corley said the following:
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED. "
As much as I hate Activision Blizzard as a publisher and Bobby Kotick as a person, I feel this level of corporate consolidation is a terrible thing for the games industry and gamers.
There is so much more to this than CoD being on Playstation or not...
While I absolutely hate the fact that the gaming industry is being consolidated into a few massive corps, I am very excited for the entire Activision Blizzard umbrella to be under new leadership.
I know a lot of people (rightfully) are against it . But the way Activision/Blizzard has been run has been shambles and needs at least some kind of change. Plus the scrutiny has lead to several concessions by MS that will help curtail future antitrust issues for the most part.
It's amazing to me how short-sighted this decision is. Yeah sure keep wide access to CoD for 10 years to get the FTC off their back and then watch all that fall away immediately after. For us this is potentially decent gains in the short term but certainly contributes to this industry turning to crap long term.
I hate this consolidation of the gaming market but Microsoft seems to not have sex pest as direct bosses so that’s a good thing… makes me feel less scummy if I buy d4
Reminder that 343 is the only AAA studio that has never made a good game.
I don't have much faith in MS managing ActBlizz, and that's coming from someone who generally likes Microsoft stuff. From what they did to Ensemble, Bungie, Lionhead, and Rare (where is my Viva Pinata 2, Phil?), they are way too content to just buy their way into stuff and stumble through everything by tossing money everywhere. I don't think Phil Spencer is the right person to lead Xbox even if he is a "gamer", because Xbox had just been ran poorly for years on the studio side, and adding Activision Blizzard isn't going to improve things.
I'm very torn on this one, Microsoft becoming this big can't be good but Activision is such a dumpster fire that there is no way this doesn't help them get their shit together.
I'm just hoping to get starcraft and Warcraft spinoffs out of this. Lots of potential with those IP's. Since 3 is never getting properly fixed, Warcraft 4 would also be nice.
Capitalism is doing its thing, consolidation.
At least in this case, I don't think you can possibly do much worse than the current ownership aside from intentional self destruction, so Microsoft as owners can only be equally bad or better.
If they start banning everything Activision makes from Steam, Gog, or other stores, then probably they'll get a nice lawsuit. But tbh, if you don't like Microsoft, then don't buy Microsoft products and that will henceforth include Activision products.