Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard

www.bbc.co.uk Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard

It comes after the UK approved the $69bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, which makes Call of Duty.

Microsoft completes $69bn takeover of Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard::It comes after the UK approved the $69bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, which makes Call of Duty.

39 comments

What a shit time to be a gamer. Fuck Microsoft and fuck regulators for allowing this
- Activision already ruined blizzard and is/was a shit company. Anyone buying their games still is a sucker who loves being ripped off. Nothing of value was lost here.
  
  IDKY you're getting down votes. It's true. Nothing they've done for a while now is worth the time or money.
- The regulators fought it in court. Blame the judge.
  
  So it's the judge biased or corrupt? Or maybe it's the garbage laws and politicians?
- Activision waa such a piece of shit, I m actually very excited for this. They shitcanned Bobby too. It can only get better.
  
  This is getting closer and closer to a monopoly. It won't end well
Probably paid for with the money they made not paying $29B in taxes over the last 20 years.

We ain’t even playing the game with the same rules and they don’t even need to pretend anymore.
- Well hlf of it was used for that the rest came out of the couch cushions at Mr Gates summer retreat.
I don't know, maybe I should be angry or something. But Activision/Blizzard have been pretty shitty for a while now. This will just be more of the same and more of me continueing to not buying their games.
- I grew up on Blizzard and Activision games, but the good feelings and nostalgia wore off when they started treating beloved franchises like DLC piggy banks.
RIP video games
- ActiBlizz haven't made anything I've been interested in for some time. MS got some amazingly shitty games out of Bethesda tho, Redfall and Starfield are just case studies in despising your audience.
  
  I'm not interested in their games either, my issue with it is that a lot of people are, and MS is trying their hardest to get a monopoly in the industry and/or turn everything into streaming-only subscription crap
- They’ve been dead. EA and Activision made sure of that long since.
  
  That's not what I meant and you're literally wrong lol, incredible games are made every year. My problem with this is that Microsoft is trying to turn gaming into its corporate cloud-only monopoly.
- Eh, I’m of the opinion when the old giants get stale or acquired into a grand corporate strategy new studios will spring up to fill the vacancy in the market.
Looking forward to see how this will improve the quality of Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard-EA-Ubisoft's games and those of the competito- oh, never mind. None left.
This is the best summary I could come up with:

After the competition watchdog blocked the takeover earlier this year, Microsoft's president Brad Smith hit out at the CMA's decision, which it said was "bad for Britain" and contradicted "the ambitions of the UK to become an attractive country to build technology businesses".

But the CMA's Ms Cardell said with the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, which makes Assassin's Creed, "we've made sure Microsoft can't have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market".

Under the restructured agreement, Microsoft has agreed to transfer the rights to stream Activision games from the cloud to Ubisoft for 15 years outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

The deal with Activision also means Microsoft will own its studio solely purposed for mobile games, with hopes of expanding on the successes of titles such as Candy Crush.

The takeover further cements Microsoft as a video game giant and could catapult it ahead of Nintendo to become the third-biggest player in the industry behind Sony, the owner of the PlayStation console, and market leader Tencent.

"[It will lead to] more choice, more innovation, better value and improved gaming experiences and a healthy, competitive market," said Ms Stewart, who is also a former head of ICT at the Cabinet Office government department.

The original article contains 932 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- So let me make sure I’m reading this right. They let the deal go through because Microsoft gave Ubisoft the cloud streaming right to activation for the next 15 years. The argument being this deal will stop Microsoft from becoming a monopoly due to cloud gamings speculative importance in markets future.
  
  Call me crazy but cloud gamings gonna take at least 15 years to be an important part of the market if it ever gets there in the first place. I can’t tell if regulators are stupid or wholly corrupt.
I'm missing the "haha funny number" comments from Reddit :(
- haha funny number

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