5 issues Microsoft faces in its acquisition of Activision Blizzard

polygon.com:

Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard, the companies announced on Tuesday, but the deal isn’t exactly done yet. And even when the $68.7 billion deal has been made official, Microsoft will still have plenty of complicated situations to sort out after the dust has settled.

Between Activision Blizzard facing ongoing litigation and accusations of a toxic workplace, the unrest at certain studios, a controversial CEO, and scrutiny from a few government regulatory groups, here are some of the problems that face Microsoft in its Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Mergers of this size have to be approved by regulatory bodies, most prominently the United States’ Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and likely the European Union. While deals like this often aren’t obstructed, both the Federal Trade Commission and the EU have recently grown more hostile to the idea of big-tech acquisitions over fear that further consolidation could lead to harmful monopolies.

One outstanding question is whether Microsoft’s new deal will be treated as a tech acquisition or an entertainment acquisition. While big tech has received scrutiny over the last several years, entertainment deals like Disney’s acquisition of Fox have been met with fewer antitrust concerns. While Microsoft is undoubtedly one of the biggest tech companies in the world, it’s possible the video game subject matter will keep this deal firmly on the entertainment side of the FTC and EU’s radar. However, as Microsoft has positioned this deal as an important play in the metaverse — a decidedly big-tech dominated space — it’s still possible it could raise a few red flags.

If this is deemed a big-tech deal, then it