Saudi Arabia first country to approve Microsoft's acquisition of Activision
Saudi Arabia has become the first country in the world to greenlight Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The country's General Authority for Competition (GAC) tweeted Sunday that it had no objection to the completion of the «process of economic concentration» between the two companies, making it the first regulatory hurdle Microsoft has cleared in its quest to acquire Activision.
تعلن #الهيئة_العامة_للمنافسة عن عدم ممانعتها من إتمام عملية التركز الاقتصادي بين:-مايكروسوفت كوربوريشن-أكتيفيجن بليزارد إنك pic.twitter.com/lo5scC3F7kAugust 21, 2022
The GAC didn't go into great detail about how it scrutinised the acquisition, but it's not really a surprise that they've waved it through. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 plan aims to diversify the country's economy and wean it off its dependency on its unthinkably huge reserves of oil, and investments in the tech sector and videogames are a big part of that plan. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been doling out billions of dollars in investments to the likes of the Embracer Group(opens in new tab), EA, Take-Two and, yes, Activision Blizzard(opens in new tab).
Because of Saudi Arabia's appalling human rights record, every one of those investments has been accompanied by some measure of controversy. Nevertheless, enormous games companies continue to accept Saudi billions, and the presence of the House of Saud in the games industry as a whole continues to grow(opens in new tab) because of it.
The Saudi government says it expects the games industry to make up about 1% of its economy—for a value of around $21 billion(opens in new tab)—by 2030. For that to be possible, Saudi Arabia needs to be an appealing place for videogame big business to do business.
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