Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition approved by EU regulators. The European Commission has sided with Microsoft just weeks after UK regulators blocked the deal.
Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition approved by EU regulators. The European Commission has sided with Microsoft just weeks after UK regulators blocked the deal.
27 comments
I’m glad I had the chance to enjoy video games when there was actual competition between the companies selling them and mainly, when they were shipped at a playable state on launch and not needing gigabytes of patches and months of waiting to become functional.
These days ain’t coming back anytime soon I gather.
Either the UK regulators don’t fully understand the space they are regulating or they got direct orders from US to support their rejection.
No response from Biden administration about UK regulators position when usually such a rejection act would be rebuffed by the White House.
Fantastic news. I hope this makes the CMA reconsider blocking the deal.
This going to be interesting if the UK is the lone standout. The CMA rejected the ActBliz deal on the ground that it could hurt a potential cloud market, which currently is insignificant, while the EU doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem (or rather it’s too early to tell).
Ah fvck
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A lot of the same old lies being dragged out.
The CMA blocked the deal due to the future of cloud gaming, they explicitly said they did not want a system that required constant revisiting.
They where not blocking it for the industry as it is now. The world literally pays a tax to microsoft. Every supermarket, business, corporation, markets, military, education, media, government is using windows. The cost of windows is passed onto the consumer. Each copy of windows for is $50 dollars.
CMA blocking the deal works to prevent Microsoft doing this in 2 markets.
Wow, I’ve found one of the few but marginally good reasons as to why us Brits should leave the EU. I’m honestly baffled as to why they’ve allowed to let Microsoft run with this, when even they realise they could consolidate the cloud gaming market.
I thought the UK left the EU to become a free-market haven of almost no regulations. Instead it is the EU kowtowing to American tech overlords
to much sell out’s in eu paliament
EC once again proving to be only global regulator lead.
FTC is playing ideological games hoping for blocks by other regulators, but they are guaranteed to lose in Court.
CMA sounds like Brexit politicians did after that twitter post.
Good job EC, fantastic reasoning.
EU has stabbed the gaming industry in the back 🙁
Money over people I guess.
brilliant news, sad day for this subreddit
cry more idiots; lmao
Microsoft published games are **guaranteed** to be broken and filled with a micro transaction store, please don’t make this awful company the monopoly
Hopefully the UK goes hard on them.
Fuck the EU
As it should be. If Microsoft would have become too big as a result, the US authorities would have long said something about it.
why? why? why? Idiots, the EU is such a shithole nowadays siding always with corporate interest. After the scandal of illegal lobbying, I don’t doubt someone is under a Microsoft payroll
CMA statement.
[‘Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years. ](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[They would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them, and the conditions of sale.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[This is one of the reasons the CMA’s independent panel group rejected Microsoft’s proposals and prevented this deal.](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
[While we recognise and respect that the European Commission is entitled to take a different view, **the CMA stands by its decision.**](https://twitter.com/CMAgovUK/status/1658131200181952516?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)
UK fumbled their ban. It was frankly stupid to prevent a merger because of the miniscule cloud market that no one really cares about or is putting effort into. Their excuse was that they didnt want to keep revisiting later even though the cloud market is like 1-2% of gaming right now, like wtf? that is your job.
If there was any doubt that Margrethe Vestager is a totally political operator looking out for her own self promotion this totally confirms it.
Disgraceful from EU regulators.
Makes sense considering Sony vastly outperforms Microsoft on the gaming console market, and is overall weaker.
I would have definitely cared more, when Blizzard was in its prime.
But now its just a husk of its former self, so I don’t feel anything anymore.
Of course it’s still a problematic acquisition, but we all knew these Mega Corps would take over one day.
[Spamming the regulator:
How Big Tech’s ‘economic consultants’ undermine EU competition policy](https://corporateeurope.org/en/2023/01/spamming-regulator)
>Big Tech might be the EU’s biggest lobby spender by sector, but a little-known band of economic consultancies are still managing to fly under the radar on behalf of their tech clients. These consultancies are effectively ‘spamming the regulator’ with supposedly neutral reports to influence the EU’s competition policy and smooth the path for Big Tech monopolies and mergers. What’s worse, the Commission’s DG Competition in charge of competition policy enjoys a regular revolving door with these consultancies.
>Big Tech monopolies are defending their interests in the shaping and implementation of the EU’s competition policy with the help of so-called ‘economic consultancies’. While firms like Charles River Associates are unknown to the public, and their ‘economic expertise’ is presented as neutral, their behind-the-scenes impact on behalf of their Big Tech clients is considerable, in particular when it comes to EU merger control.
>Big Tech is the biggest lobby sector in the EU by spending, ahead of pharma, fossil fuels, finance, or chemicals. And a significant part of that powerful lobbying firepower in Brussels is wielded by Google, Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, and Microsoft (known as ‘GAFAM’). Together, GAFAM spends more than €26.5 million on influencing the EU institutions. And that’s not all: Big Tech also wields considerable lobbying power in member states’ capitals. For example, GAFAM spends €9.3 million defending its interests in Berlin, according to the German transparency register.
>Big Tech’s political clout has grown alongside its ever-increasing market power, creating the risk that it has grown “too big to regulate”. Digital giants have used their economic power and monopoly position to systematically violate laws and their enforcement, impose unfair conditions on users and small businesses, and lobby for favourable legislation legitimizing their often unethical – and in some cases illegal –business models. Big Tech companies such as Meta have effectively run a “copy-acquire-kill” strategy with its competitors, resulting in ever-more market concentration. Meanwhile regulators have barely intervened to block any of these mergers. According to the former Chief Economist at DG Competition GAFAM has acquired more than a 1,000 firms in the last 20 years. Of the mergers examined, the European Commission has not even blocked one.
Good. Honestly it was stupid to oppose it in the UK. Dumb regulators as usual.
It’s hilarious how people are reacting to this. It’s inevitable that at some point the UK does something different than the EU that people think is good. That doesn’t all of a sudden make Brexit a good thing on the whole.