Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision appears to have gone down well with precisely no one. The $69 billion takeover deal was announced this year but has been trapped in, what I imagine for Microsoft is, regulatory hell ever since. The deal has been scrutinised to the nth degree but it’s not just trade bodies who are letting their thoughts be known. Fans aren’t happy either.
Just yesterday, a group of gamers in the US launched a lawsuit against Microsoft in a bid to block the deal. The group alleged that the Activision acquisition is in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act which gives Americans the right to sue companies over anti-competitive behaviour. It’s not the only lawsuit. The US Federal Trade Commission is also seeking to block the deal.
Many are worried about the future of Call of Duty and whether it’ll become an Xbox exclusive. Take a look at some gameplay footage from Modern Warfare II below.
Here in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) surveyed gamers on their thoughts on the deal, reportedly receiving “abusive” and “unintelligible” replies in response. As reported by GameDeveloper, the CMA recently asked the public for their opinion on the merger. Surprisingly, around 75% of those surveyed said they were in support of the acquisition. Those in the minority who are against it were much more vocal in their replies.
The CMA received 2,600 responses to the survey but only 2,100 of these could be processed due to, let’s say, the unsavoury nature of some of the remaining 500. The CMA didn’t precisely unveil what the responses said but they did comment, “The CMA received approximately 2,600 emails, but some of these were excluded from our review because they contained abusive content (with no other substantive content), or were blank, unintelligible, stated to be from non-UK consumers, or not in English.”
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Typically, it’s PlayStation we’re hearing from when it comes to who’s against the deal. Sony has reportedly been offered 10-years worth of access to CoD but it does suggest that the franchise will still eventually become an Xbox exclusive. The deal remains in limbo.
Topics: Microsoft, Activision