Activision Acquisition Legal Battle May Take Years say Experts, Splitting off Blizzard an Option

wccftech.com:

Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has hit some snags as regulators from the US, UK, and EU have stepped in to potentially block the deal. It seems like everyone has an opinion on how things are going to shake out, but what do the actual experts think? IGN reached out to various legal experts and analysts about the US Federal Trade Commission’s case specifically, and they presented some interesting possibilities.

The FTC’s case against the deal essentially hinges on two arguments – that Microsoft will make currently multiplatform Activision Blizzard titles like Call of Duty exclusive and that the purchase would allow the company to monopolize certain narrowly-defined “relative markets.” So, buying Acti-Blizz wouldn’t make Microsoft the top dog within the industry as a whole, but owning Call of Duty would make them dominant within the narrower realm of AAA online shooters, World of Warcraft would make them dominant within the MMORPG space, ect.

As we’ve seen, Microsoft is fighting back against the notion they’ll lock down Call of Duty by signing a 10-year deal with Nintendo and making their PC titles playable via NVIDIA’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service. Microsoft has also offered Sony a 10-year deal, which they’ve refused to sign. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be focusing as much on the “relevant markets” argument, but per the experts IGN spoke to, that aspect of the FTC’s case isn’t as strong.

As for whether the Activision Blizzard deal gets past the FTC, IGN’s experts are split. According to Sam Castree of Sam Castree Law, the deal will go through, with the relevant markets argument likely being the FTC’s downfall.

“I think that the FTC’s plan to define a bunch of hyper-specific sub-markets