Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal “prevented” by CMA
The merger between Microsoft and Call of Duty, Diablo 4, and World of Warcraft company Activision Blizzard has been “prevented” by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which cites concerns regarding consumer choice, market competition, and the availability of Activision Blizzard games on Microsoft’s Game Pass service. Despite proposed remedies from Microsoft, the UK authority says the company’s solutions contained “significant shortcomings” with regards to protecting the gaming market, with specific issues arising in relation to the control of the Call of Duty, Diablo, and WoW series.
The CMA had previously invited Microsoft to offer a variety of proposed initiatives or ‘remedies’ that would demonstrate how the company planned to uphold competition and consumer choice if its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard were completed. The CMA says that Microsoft’s proposals failed to address its concerns, resulting in its decision to prevent the merger.
“The final decision to prevent the deal comes after Microsoft’s proposed solution failed to effectively address the concerns in the cloud gaming sector, outlined in the Competition and Markets Authority’s provisional findings published in February,” the CMA says. “The CMA launched an in-depth review of the deal in September 2022, and in February 2023 provisionally found that the merger could make Microsoft even stronger in cloud gaming, stifling competition in this growing market.”
The CMA cites concerns specifically relating to cloud gaming, arguing that allowing Microsoft to take such a “strong position” in the cloud gaming space would “risk undermining the innovation that is crucial to the development of these opportunities.”
Concerns were also presented
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