After Reuters hinted at its impending approval, the European Commission (EU Commission) approved the $69 billion dollar deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The UK CMA was not impressed by the decision.

In their official statement, the EU Commission announced that they approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard (‘Activision') by Microsoft. The approval is conditional on full compliance with the commitments offered by Microsoft. The commitments fully address the competition concerns identified by the Commission and represent a significant improvement for cloud gaming as compared to the current situation.

In their investigation, the Commission found out that Microsoft “would not be able to harm rival consoles and rival multi-game subscription services”. However, they also realized that much like the UK CMA's worries when they blocked the deal, “Microsoft could harm competition in the distribution of games via cloud game streaming services and that its position in the market for PC operating systems would be strengthened”. This was the result of their six-month-long investigation.

To be specific, the EU Commission found the following about the Microsoft- Activision Blizzard Deal

  • Microsoft has no incentive to refuse Activision Blizzard games from coming to Sony
  • Microsoft withdrawing Activision games from PlayStation would not significantly harm competition
  • Activision was not going to make its games available to subscription services anyway
  • The acquisition would harm competition in the distribution of PC and console games via cloud gaming
  • Microsoft could strengthen the position of Windows in the gaming PC OS market

However, Microsoft was willing to commit to addressing the concerns the EU Commission had. As such, they decided to approve the deal. To be specific, Microsoft offered the following commitments (with a ten-year duration):

  • Free license for European Economic Area (EEA) consumers to play all current and future Activision Blizzard games via any cloud gaming services
  • Free license for any cloud gaming service to stream any Activision Blizzard games in the EEA

While gamers are celebrating this approval, the UK Competition and Markets Authority was unimpressed with the decision.

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In their thread, they mentioned that the “UK, US and European competition authorities are unanimous that this merger would harm competition in cloud gaming.” They mentioned that the ten-year deal that Microsoft offered to do for the EU Commission “would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them, and the conditions of sale.” They closed the thread by saying that “While we recognise and respect that the European Commission is entitled to take a different view, the CMA stands by its decision.”

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is the biggest deal in gaming history so far. It is more than five times bigger than the Take-Two Zynga deal, and more than 7 times bigger than the Tencent Supercell deal. Various countries including Saudi Aravia, Brazil, Chile, Servia, Japan, and South Africa have already approved the deal, with the EU Commission being the latest one. As Microsoft is still appeaking UK's decision, we will still have to wait and see if the deal will finally push through. We will be sure to update you should more information about the deal come surface.

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