EU: MS Does Not Have To Make Activision Games Available To Everyone

gameranx.com:

The EU has made a judgement call on Activision Blizzard games availability, that is sure to make a lot of gamers unhappy, and possible a little confused.

This covers a broad section of the document, starting from  Section 8.3.3.2.1. , on page 189, all the way to page 195 of the document. We will summarize these points below.

TLDR, the EU struck down several demands to make Activision Blizzard games even more available than what Microsoft has done with their ten year deals for Call of Duty. As it turns out, protecting competition does not mean  Microsoft has to share their games with everyone, in every possible scenario. We’ll run down each point below so that everything is made clear.

The first request the EU struck down was to allow third parties to sell Activision Blizzard games. They also have to be made with the same quality and content, and the same technical parity clause found in their ten year deals. The reason for all this was to allow Activision Blizzard games to be available to stream everywhere, say, on PlayStation Now.

The EU explains that on consoles, this would not be necessary. That’s because Sony is more than capable to compete with Microsoft without those games. The EU rejected the console gaming theory of harm.

The EU also argues that this also won’t be necessary on PC. In their own words, the EU finds it “highly unlikely that Microsoft would not sell PC games anymore in order to prevent them from being streamed.”

Another market participant asked EU to require Activision Blizzard games be available in all multi-game subscription services. These are referring to Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, and the reason for the request is because both services also offer cloud gaming streaming.

The EU explained