Microsoft and Activision Deal May Be Blocked by FTC

It appears that the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, in the United States may attempt to block the Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King, the company that controls properties like Call of Duty and Overwatch, by invoking an antitrust lawsuit aimed at stopping any one company from gaining too much power and market share. Microsoft using its considerable wealth to simply buy the competition is a cause for concern for those who don’t want a gigantic tech company to become an even more influential monopolizing power.

 

According to a Politico report, while the FTC commissioners have not yet voted on whether to attempt to issue an antitrust lawsuit, there has been a lot of skepticism in the FTC over whether or not this deal will be good for the games industry. According to the report: “Central to the FTC’s concerns is whether acquiring Activision would give Microsoft an unfair boost in the video game market.”

This concern is not without precedent, as big players like Sony have been very vocal in their opposition to this merger, and they have placed much of their emphasis on how Microsoft owning Activision would mean that they control major blockbusters like Call of Duty and could, if they so desired, decide to simply stop allowing Call of Duty to be available on PlayStation consoles. Microsoft has repeatedly attempted to claim that they will not remove the franchise from PlayStation, but that isn’t particularly convincing, and we even explored that idea a while ago in a feature titled Microsoft’s Acquisitions May Be Dangerous.

What comes of this is yet to be seen, but we should not discount the possibility that the FTC does attempt to block this merger in the pursuit of competitive fairness in the games industry. However, for now, we can only wait to see how they decide to respond.

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed