Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

[Mark Kaine]

 

Summary

The judge has decided to deny the FTC’s preliminary injunction request.

 

Quotes

Quote

Microsoft still faces an ongoing antitrust case by the Federal Trade Commission, but Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has listened to arguments from both the FTC and Microsoft and decided to deny the regulator’s request for a preliminary injunction.

 

My thoughts

Seems weird since there's still an ongoing anti trust case, so curious how that will eventually turn out. Also how EU and other parts of the world will handle this acquisition (attempt).  Imho this is a clear anti trust case, making Microsoft having way too much influence in a single market (gaming) despite saying COD will be on playstation for 10 years, this is really bigger than just COD (what about OW, etc) who plays COD anyway? 

 

Sources

 https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win

 

What do ya'll think, should Microsoft be allowed to buy Activision? 

[porina]

It is not a move I'd like to see happen but it isn't my call. Regulators and courts will be the eventual deciders based on their rules and considerations.

 

I don't care for COD unless it is the battered and fried kind, but I believe it is pretty big and popular. Someone out there likes it.

[VinLAURiA]

I'm actually really happy about this.

 

For this entire past decade, I've felt like PlayStation has deserved a massive boot up the ass. While this might not change much about the status quo in the console market - at least not in the short term - it's a reversal of fortune over all the years of Sony moneyhatting exclusives and "#BetterOnPlayStation" deals for Xbox to outright nab the biggest third-party entity in the business. Will Call of Duty still be coming to PlayStation? Sure, that was the deal - keep CoD on PS for the next decade - but on the other hand, it means a huge stable of all the other ABK IPs which Microsoft can use to bolster the Xbox library with exclusives now. No, exclusives in general aren't great, but so long as everyone's still playing in Sony's industry post-PS4, it's about time to start exploiting the rules that Sony themselves laid down. To me, this is just some long-overdue karma for all those years of PS4 dominance and a sign of things potentially returning to the era of healthy competition and mutual prosperity we all enjoyed in Gen7, rather than the withered, PlayStation-ruled game industry that everyone (except Sony) had to suffer through in Gen8.

 

And I say this as a Nintendo guy more than anything. Congrats, Xbox!

[starsmine]

The consolidation of the gaming space is just weird. The inability of our government to trust bust anymore is just very unfortunate. Its one thing to buy Studios, its a whole other beast when Publishers are purchased. Like I still dont know how Bethesda was able to be purchased the way it was. 

 

9 minutes ago, VinLAURiA said:

I'm actually really happy about this.

 

For this entire past decade, I've felt like Sony has deserved a boot up the ass. While this might not change much about the status quo in the console market - at least not in the short term - it's a reversal of fortune over all the years of Sony moneyhatting exclusives and "#BetterOnPlayStation" deals for Xbox to outright nab the biggest third-party entity in the business. Will CoD still be coming to PlayStation? Sure, that was the deal - keep CoD on PS for the next decade - but on the other hand, it means a huge stable of all the other ABK IPs which Microsoft can use to bolster the Xbox library with exclusives now. No, exclusives in general aren't great, but so long as everyone's still playing in Sony's industry post-PS4, it's about time to start exploiting the rules that Sony themselves laid down. To me, this is just some long-overdue karma for all those years of PS4 dominance and a sign of things potentially returning to the era of healthy competition and mutual prosperity we all enjoyed in Gen7, rather than the withered, PlayStation-ruled game industry that everyone (except Sony) had to suffer through in Gen8.

 

And I say this as a Nintendo guy more than anything. Congrats, Xbox!

This is weird. Your answer to wanting Sony to feel the pressure is to give MS the largest third-party publishing house with all the studios under it? Sony and xbox both would pay for exclusives per game. Now the incentive structure is not there/is massively shifted.

it's not just Sony that will be pressured here. Like sure Cod will have a temporary deal to be multiplatform, but Activision blizzard is not just cod

[ToboRobot]

3 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Like I still dont know how Bethesda was able to be purchased the way it was. 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Altman was founder of ZeniMax (parent company of Bethesda) and Robert was involved in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International scandal.

Shady ex-banker seems to have had some sort of political juice, and also ZeniMax was a minor publisher compared to the giants (EA, Activision-Blizzard).

 

[VinLAURiA]

Oh, I know ABK isn't just CoD. That's the point, and I said as much in my post.

[gjsman]

Nintendo is probably looking at this thinking: “This is why it was a good idea to abandon the cutting-edge of gaming since the Wii. We could either ended up fighting for a deal - or have games promised to us for free as antitrust concessions!”

 

But seriously, Nintendo might be the biggest winner here… because Microsoft now has the unenviable task of making their purchase pay itself back, or be skinned alive by investors.

[starsmine]

3 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Altman was founder of ZeniMax (parent company of Bethesda) and Robert was involved in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International scandal.

Shady ex-banker seems to have had some sort of political juice, and also ZeniMax was a minor publisher compared to the giants (EA, Activision-Blizzard).

 

I know that they are smaller, but Owning the massive franchises and MMOs like Eldar Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom are all massive amounts of revenue. Even if it all gets pissed away by Arkane. 

[ToboRobot]

1 minute ago, starsmine said:

I know that they are smaller, but Owning the massive franchises and MMOs like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom are all massive amounts of revenue. Even if it all gets pissed away by Arkane. 

My main point is that some of the people involved have a history of shady deals involving government.

Yes, despite being smaller that massive companies like Activision, ZeniMax still had some popular IP, but not quite the same levels of revenue as CoD with its massive and regular releases. 

But again, the leadership team was the bigger factor imo.

[Senzelian]

COD is pretty popular now that Battlefield was such a shitshow and recent COD titles were quite nice.

The name alone is also worth quite a bit of money.

[Taf the Ghost]

As a note, I've expected this one to eventually go through because I feel like too many in this space think CoD is ABK's big money maker. It isn't. It's King and all of their mobile games.  And while King is big, mobile gaming is so much bigger than anyone one company.  In the gaming space, it's actually Apple & Google that are the biggest platform holders.

 

This is really a Mindshare vs Real World Transactions argument everyone gets sucked into. Now, I don't think ABK is a great pickup for Xbox, but it at least makes sense and gets them heavier into Mobile.

 

I think the one where MS couldn't buy and would get prevented, in the end, would be Roblox, as strange as that is.

[sof006]

Its all about money in the right pockets, whoever Micro$oft pays off....

[Kisai]

I expected to go through, but I'm still hoping there are teeth in the merger that requires Microsoft to spin off IP that they have no plans for.

 

Like Activision has sat on the Sierra IP for 14 years, and done NOTHING with it themselves, eventually selling off the Leisure Suit Larry IP to one company, and licencing "Kings Quest" to one company that produced ONE game. What happened to everything else? Police Quest/SWAT , zip. Quest for Glory, zip. Dr.Brain edutainment, zip, Space Quest, zip. It's so absolutely stupid how much IP Activision is sitting on because COD is so profitable.

 

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

I expected to go through, but I'm still hoping there are teeth in the merger that requires Microsoft to spin off IP that they have no plans for.

 

Like Activision has sat on the Sierra IP for 14 years, and done NOTHING with it themselves, eventually selling off the Leisure Suit Larry IP to one company, and licencing "Kings Quest" to one company that produced ONE game. What happened to everything else? Police Quest/SWAT , zip. Quest for Glory, zip. Dr.Brain edutainment, zip, Space Quest, zip. It's so absolutely stupid how much IP Activision is sitting on because COD is so profitable.

 

Dr. Brain was sold to KA/Jumpstart I thought, Who got bought by some chinese company (who tried to do neopet NFTs cause jumpstart owns neopets now, also did not tell the neopets team about it, also stole assets from a fansite to do it)

Oh no

 

NetDragon killed jumpstart.

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ow that will eventually turn out.

Honestly Its going to come down to the EU. They are more regulatory than anyone. Microsoft needs to pay off who ever or convincingly make bad promises that they wont keep to the EU. 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, starsmine said:

Dr. Brain was sold to KA/Jumpstart I thought, Who got bought by some chinese company (who tried to do neopet NFTs cause jumpstart owns neopets now, also did not tell the neopets team about it, also stole assets from a fansite to do it)

Oh no

 

NetDragon killed jumpstart.

That's curious. As far as I was concerned, the Dr.Brain stuff just hadn't been released again after 1996, turns out knowledge adventure released four more games between 1996 and 1999. Based on what I can find on the Wiki's, Jumpstart was something else aquired by Activision when Sierra and Jumpstart were under CUC. So apparently the "demise" of Knowledge Adventure was because it was sold to Viacom, who also sat on it before selling it to Netdragon. Who ... again is sitting on it.

 

Well the story hasn't really changed in that regard. A bunch of crappy companies produced nothing with the IP acquired from Sierra.

 

Now, again. The elephant in the room? Does Activision even know what IP it's sitting on? Sure feels like they do not, and Microsoft might not even know what it's acquiring.

[Delicieuxz]

If Microsoft completes the purchase, I think there's a significant danger that Microsoft will pull its games from Steam and other platforms again. Microsoft will then own Blizzard's app, which is already the home of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty. And Blizzard has had the most success in standing strong and being profitable using its own client out of all the non-Steam clients. Now add Microsoft's massive publisher library to the list, including Bethesda's titles. If Microsoft went exclusive to the store app they'll own, with all those IPs, they likely would have no problem being a successful competitor to Steam while not having their games on Steam.

 

So, while I like the idea of Microsoft owning certain low-effort, low-quality studios, like Bethesda, as their games can likely only get better as a result (as Starfield's delay suggests), I'm concerned Microsoft's commitment to publishing on multiple platforms, including Steam, might disappear once this deal goes through. And, personally, I don't want to put the trust for my games and my perpetual, long-term access to them in Microsoft's hands.

[Doobeedoo]

It's for the better really, for Blizz especially, Acti nonse that ruins stuff people complained for years.

[suicidalfranco]

22 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

who plays COD anyway

There are people who buy PlayStations just for cod and only cod.

[Mark Kaine]

5 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

And, personally, I don't want to put the trust for my games and my perpetual, long-term access to them in Microsoft's hands.

That's the thing, Microsoft definitely has what i call the "google syndrome", lots of great ips and products,  but ultimately they just let them die/dormant...

 

Windows Phone? Yeap.

 

Games? They bought a shit ton of studios, and what do they really have to show? A handful of franchises at max (Halo, Forza...)

 

You can argue about the quality,  but the quantity just isn't there in relation to the investments made.

 

ie, people who think this will "save" Activision are in for a huge surprise imho...

[Smith6612]

6 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

If Microsoft completes the purchase, I think there's a significant danger that Microsoft will pull its games from Steam and other platforms again. Microsoft will then own Blizzard's app, which is already the home of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty, and Blizzard has had the most success in standing strong and being profitable using its own client out of all the non-Steam clients. Now add Microsoft's massive publisher library to the list, including Bethesda's titles. If Microsoft went exclusive to the store app they'll own, with all those IPs, they likely would have no problem being a successful competitor to Steam while not having their games on Steam.

 

So, while I like the idea of Microsoft owning certain low-effort, low-quality studios, like Bethesda, as their games can likely only get better as a result, I'm concerned Microsoft's commitment to publishing on multiple platforms, including Steam, might disappear once this deal goes through. And, personally, I don't want to put the trust for my games and my perpetual, long-term access to them in Microsoft's hands.

Microsoft does already have their own store. It's just... arguably worse than BattleNet is. On Windows 10 and 11 there is the Microsoft Store for downloading Windows apps and games. It's horrible in the sense that the games downloaded from there can't be easily copied using a USB Drive to another computer, but it does support Peer-to-Peer distribution like Windows Updates. Games can't be as easily modded as the game files are protected, unless they are designed to look in another folder for mods. The Microsoft Store is also pretty notorious still for corrupting itself, and one needs to use PowerShell to fix it, however it does hook into all of the intelligent technology that Microsoft has like BITS, Game Bar, and the settings for avoiding updates when on Metered connections (cellular tethering). Error codes when things fail to download are just cryptic and difficult to solve for, whereas very little seems to go wrong with BattleNet, and problems are well documented.

 

Microsoft has a lot to offer but we will have to see how they act long term. I am hoping with Microsoft's improved stance towards Open Source, they will also start pushing studios to open up their games to native Linux and Vulkan support. Which would be against their interests in selling Windows and licensing DirectX of course... but it would be an AWESOME gesture.

[VinLAURiA]

I think the Microsoft Store has gotten better in recent years. For every program I use, if there's a version on the Microsoft Store (which actually remains updated in a timely manner *coughGIMPcough*), then I tend to switch to the Microsoft Store version because it makes keeping those programs updated absolutely painless. VLC, Blender, Inkscape, Audacity, and Paint.net to name only a few.

 

Also, isn't the Microsoft Store supposed to have standard Windows program support nowadays, rather than requiring UWP?

[LAwLz]

On 7/11/2023 at 7:48 PM, VinLAURiA said:

For this entire past decade, I've felt like PlayStation has deserved a massive boot up the ass. While this might not change much about the status quo in the console market - at least not in the short term - it's a reversal of fortune over all the years of Sony moneyhatting exclusives and "#BetterOnPlayStation" deals for Xbox to outright nab the biggest third-party entity in the business. Will Call of Duty still be coming to PlayStation? Sure, that was the deal - keep CoD on PS for the next decade - but on the other hand, it means a huge stable of all the other ABK IPs which Microsoft can use to bolster the Xbox library with exclusives now. No, exclusives in general aren't great, but so long as everyone's still playing in Sony's industry post-PS4, it's about time to start exploiting the rules that Sony themselves laid down. To me, this is just some long-overdue karma for all those years of PS4 dominance and a sign of things potentially returning to the era of healthy competition and mutual prosperity we all enjoyed in Gen7, rather than the withered, PlayStation-ruled game industry that everyone (except Sony) had to suffer through in Gen8.

Things posted with all the talk about "karma" and "exploiting the rules" reads like you're just out for vengeance rather than a good outcome for users. Two wrongs don't make a right. 

I don't think more exclusives is the way to make the gaming industry better. 

 

 

On 7/11/2023 at 8:21 PM, gjsman said:

But seriously, Nintendo might be the biggest winner here… because Microsoft now has the unenviable task of making their purchase pay itself back, or be skinned alive by investors.

This is what worries me.

You don't spend almost 70 billion dollars just to let things be the way they are.

Microsoft is spending more money on this than Softbank did buying Arm, Dell did buying VMWare, and Microsoft themselves did buying Github, COMBINED!

Hell, they are almost paying more than Disney did for 21st Century Fox.

 

My guess is that they will play the long game. 15 years from now, Microsoft is probably hoping that game streaming will have done to gaming what video streaming did to movie watching, and if they can have some big exclusives (on their game streaming service) then people will have to subscribe to that.

I don't think Microsoft is doing this to make the Xbox a more appealing platform than the PlayStation. I think Microsoft want to put themselves in a situation where even PlayStation users are giving them money, to get access to games on their streaming service.

That's probably why they agreed to the 10-year deal. Because they are looking further into the future than that. It's like if Netflix had to promise to sell their exclusive shows on DVD back in 2007. By the year 2018 nobody would care about DVDs anyway.

[Xiee]

9 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

If Microsoft completes the purchase, I think there's a significant danger that Microsoft will pull its games from Steam and other platforms again.

I'd rather buy games on Epic Games store than on the abomination that is the Windows Store if they decide to go with that route again.

[VinLAURiA]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Things posted with all the talk about "karma" and "exploiting the rules" reads like you're just out for vengeance rather than a good outcome for users. Two wrongs don't make a right. 

I don't think more exclusives is the way to make the gaming industry better. 

Look, we all had to experience a decade of Sony milking that time they dunked on Don Mattrick's PR bungle at E3 2013 for brownie points and gamers cheering on anything they did afterwards no matter how egregious, all because "Well, remember when the Xbone was meant to include the Kinect?" Even now, we're still living in the aftermath of that, where PlayStation is considered the "default" console and Xbox is an afterthought, all because of "good guy Sony" and "big mean Microsoft". The course of Gen8 was literally decided by a "good versus evil" narrative that took place not merely in a single day before the generation even started in full, but in the span of a few hours of that single day. No one had any hope of catching the PS4 after June 10th, 2013, even though the PS4 wouldn't even launch for another five months yet. Doesn't matter that Xbox almost immediately backtracked on all of Mattrick's decisions and outright booted him out the door while it was still months before either the Xbone or PS4 even launched (thus making the two consoles practically identical in policies and features by the time of launch day), the damage was done and gamers were out for "karma".

 

If the optics of "justice against Xbox" for a single bad E3 conference is entirely what's kept the playing field lopsided all these years, then the only way that's going to change is for there to be contrasting optics to balance it out and remove that "heroic Sony" image. To let that image go unanswered is to just let that lopsided status quo remain in perpetuity. And so long as said status quo remains, this is a console market where Sony alone gets to dictate the rules. Is it too much to ask to return to the golden age of Gen7 where all three brands thrived just about equally with Wii having a modest lead and 360 and PS3 being neck-and-neck behind it, rather than continuing the grisly sight of the PS4 utterly curbstomping the Xbone and Wii U? Yeah, Nintendo recovered with the Switch, but by arguably breaking away from the console race entirely to focus solely on a TV-enabled handheld rather than remaining in the same market segment as the others. The home console market is still Sony's domain to control unopposed and will be so long as they remain the "cool" console, and I don't like the state of the industry which has resulted from them being the undisputed top dog among home consoles. Gen8 was friggin' bleak to live through, and I say this as someone who'd been excited for it going in (albeit mainly for the Wii U and 3DS) before the consequences of that E3 made themselves clear and it became PlayStation's game industry for several dismal years.

 

Trust me, I hate how this is the game we have to play too, but it doesn't change the fact that this is the game we have to play. Marketing and PR are everything in the console market. Everything else - from the games themselves, to the hardware powering them - is secondary. Optics is king.