Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal gets preliminary approval from UK regulator

I think Microsoft is aware of the bobby issue enough to not consider letting him run anything of theirs.

yes that's mechanism where you see microsoft get what they want. they do a platitude that doesn't affect them, that they generally won't even bother to enforce. because the regulatory body can't just say "they made us do this by talking to someone higher up that said we had to do this"

the CMA never goes back on decisions like this, their decision is final and you can only fight it by going to the courts and the courts will only rule on if it was legal for the CMA to make the decision, not on the validity of the decision.

yet microsoft gets an unheard-of do-over.

Counter-counterpoint: When Activision bought and consolidated Blizzard an Blizzard North, they made it worse and people still slave away for them, and enough people buy their objectively inferior products to keep them going on life support to be sold again.

They became a poster child of what's wrong with the industry (Diablo Immortal) and nobody learned anything. Baulder's Gate 3 did more to further a healthy ecosystem than any merger has.