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Microsoft Blizzard Acquisition: Will It Ever Happen?
Credit: @LeonardoAI/MyTechPiece
Since January 2022, we’ve been regularly hearing about Microsoft’s intent to acquire the Activision Blizzard King group for a whopping $68.7 billion. This acquisition is vital for Microsoft, and it would make it the third-largest gaming company in revenue worldwide, just behind Sony.
However, it’s been over a year and the deal didn’t please everyone, so it got delayed several times. While this acquisition is still pending regulatory review, and Activision Blizzard’s shareholder approval, here’s a sum up of the deal and what it would mean for the gaming industry.
Table of Contents
An Ambitious Deal Posing Legal Issues
When Microsoft first proposed the deal, it was approved by the European Commission, but only with some conditions. These conditions are here to ensure the gaming market doesn’t become a monopoly. However, the CMA (UK’s Competition and Markets Authority), has blocked the deal, arguing it would harm competition and innovation in the cloud gaming market. A real argument, when considering that Microsoft has been aggressively taking over this specific market with their Xbox Game Pass.
This deal would mean they could have some of the biggest licenses in gaming history such as Call of Duty, Diablo, or Overwatch exclusively. Recently, it’s the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that has filed a complaint for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s injunction. The complaint claims that the parties “may consummate the Proposed Acquisition at any time,” despite pending actions with both the FTC and the UK antitrust authority.
The FTC alleges that the deal would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription and cloud-gaming business. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for August 2, 2023, before an Administrative Law Judge at the FTC’s headquarters.
The Biggest Game Licenses Microsoft Would Acquire
Credit: @Blizzard Entertainment
1. World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft may have been released in 2004, but it’s still one of Blizzard’s biggest commercial successes, with a peak of 12 million subscribers in 2010. By 2017, the game grossed over $9.23 billion, which makes it one of the biggest games of all time. The MMORPG is the biggest game of the genre, with Blizzard still reporting growth for the game in 2022, 18 years after the initial release.
Credit: @Activision
2. Call of Duty
Call of Duty is also one of the biggest games of its genre, and Activision’s FPS has sold over 400 million copies worldwide. Modern Warfare 3, the biggest success of the franchise grossed over $1.6 billion, and Warzone, the multiplayer mode mimicking Fortnite’s battle royale mode, is one of the most played multiplayer shooters right now.
Credit: @Blizzard Entertainment
3. Diablo
Diablo is an action role-playing dungeon crawler video game series developed by Blizzard North and continued by Blizzard Entertainment after the North studio shutdown in 2005. The series is made up of four core games: Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III, and Diablo IV.
Expansions include the third-party published Hellfire, which follows the first game; Lord of Destruction, published by Blizzard and released after the second game; and Reaper of Souls, which follows the third game. Diablo was released in January 1997 and was a top-selling game in 1997 with over a million copies sold that year, leading Blizzard to release the game on a digital distribution platform in March 2019.
The Diablo franchise has sold nearly 100 million copies throughout the series, with Diablo III being the fastest-selling PC game to date and one of the best-selling PC games of all time, selling 12 million copies by the end of 2012. The Diablo video game franchise is worth an estimated $1 billion.
Credit: @Blizzard Entertainment
4. Overwatch
Overwatch is obviously another big interest of Microsoft in the deal, and with Call of Duty, it would give them two of the main multiplayer shooters on the market right now. Overwatch has more than 30 million registered players, and The game has grossed over $1 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. It’s also a popular esport game with its own league, making it highly profitable.
Credit: @King
5. Candy Crush
As pc and console players we often forget about it, but the mobile market is an even bigger money-maker, and in this market Candy Crush is literally the king. This free-to-play was the first freemium game and generated over $1 billion in revenue in 2014. It’s now estimated to be worth $7.5 billion with continuous growth. During Q3 2022, King’s flagship game saw an 8% rise in net bookings, and it’s now the game developers look at when creating a freemium game.
