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Microsoft EU

EU Approves Microsoft's Deal To Buy Activision Blizzard (cnn.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the serenity-now dept.
European regulators have approved Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, handing the technology giant a victory at a time when the deal is being challenged in other countries. From a report: While the merger could harm competition in some respects, particularly in the fast-growing market for cloud gaming services, concessions by Microsoft were enough to mitigate antitrust concerns stemming from the deal, the European Commission said in a statement. Among Microsoft's offers were a 10-year commitment letting European consumers play Activision titles on any cloud gaming service. Microsoft also committed that it would not downgrade the quality or content of its games made available on rival streaming platforms.
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EU Approves Microsoft's Deal To Buy Activision Blizzard More

EU Approves Microsoft's Deal To Buy Activision Blizzard

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  • Among Microsoft's offers were a 10-year commitment letting European consumers play Activision titles on any cloud gaming service.

    What about playing not on a cloud service? I loved the original Starcraft and its Brood War expansion, but I opted to avoid Starcraft 2 due to its online-only requirement.

    (I never did finish Brood War's Zerg campaign; any time I want to spend on RTS gaming can go toward that.)

    • Might as well as why your Maserati is bad at hauling rocks. That's not what it's built for.

    • Among Microsoft's offers were a 10-year commitment letting European consumers play Activision titles on any cloud gaming service.

      What about playing not on a cloud service? I loved the original Starcraft and its Brood War expansion, but I opted to avoid Starcraft 2 due to its online-only requirement.

      (I never did finish Brood War's Zerg campaign; any time I want to spend on RTS gaming can go toward that.)

      You morons started buying MMOS and steam infested games in the late 90's and early 2000's, MMO's and steam were an attack on local applications like Quake 2, you don't grasp MMOs are just PC games rebranded with stolen networking code.

      AKA the internet can be used to steal assembly instructions out of ANY application under american copyright law, they can just steal some program files slap them behind a username and login account and ship it back to you.

      You've stolen software from yourselves since 1997 with

    • Starcraft 2 supports offline play, you just have to initially log in with an account and download it as you do with most modern games. Also it runs great in Linux. If you liked the original, the sequel aint bad :)

      P.S. The Starcraft: Brood War pro scene is still very strong! Check out the recent Afreeca Star League finals. Many of the games in the tournament were absolute bangers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • Starcraft 2 supports offline play

        You don't seem to grasp basic facts about computers, there's no reason for the game to require user accounts, aka when you see username and login accoutns they've stolen the fucking game, aka the multiplayer use to come inside the executable and allowed us to host our own games.

        This whole idea of a game needing part of its multiplayer to live on another server was spawned by fraudulent mmo genre. That is why LIMITLESS MULTIPLAYER quake 2 doesn't need usernames and login accounts.

        • I do understand that, why would you assume I don't? The SC2 devs were rightfully laughed at when they infamously said "The technology [for LAN play] just isn't there yet". They were able to figure out LAN play in 1998 but can't in 2010?! Of course they're greedy pricks that restrict freedom to make a buck. Provide useful or insightful information instead of raging into the void.

  • 'Cause, historically... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CyberKender ( 135686 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @12:58PM (#63522933) Homepage

    Microsoft always follows regulation and plays nice with others... .~

  • that's a fancy way to say price gouging for higher profits, and it's what's driving inflation [tuac.org].

    Companies without competition can charge whatever they want and you either pay or do without. Yeah, we can do that with video games. Much harder to do that with food [capitaloneshopping.com].

    • that's a fancy way to say price gouging for higher profits, and it's what's driving inflation [tuac.org]. Companies without competition can charge whatever they want and you either pay or do without. Yeah, we can do that with video games. Much harder to do that with food [capitaloneshopping.com].

      That may be. It would be interesting to read a deep dive into these first party acquisitions of third party developers over the years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But for all Microsoft's faults they don't lead price increases in gaming. Neither does Nintendo.

      Nintendo still charges £49.99 RRP for 1st party titles, and so does Microsoft. It's only Sony that pushed 1st party RRP up to £59.99 and £69.99 then the likes of EA and Activision that followed suit.

      So Microsoft and Nintendo both try and keep video game prices depressed, whilst Sony, EA, and Activision are the ones feeding video game price rises.

      Despite this Sony has been allow

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xenx ( 2211586 )
        The reality is that people don't understand that video game prices don't get adjusted for inflation in the same way other products would. It's been a good ~15 years since prices were increased. That means when you adjust for inflation, they've had 15 years to go down in relative price. If you look at the older prices, adjusted for inflation, they're actually higher than the new prices.

        • The only gaming products that would need to be properly priced for inflation are new titles. After a year, most game titles disappear on the market, and thus get priced 75% lower than their release price. The computer game market doesn't really resemble any other industry. Its more like the movie industry, and on the tail end of business, it will not have inflated, tail end pricing because of piracy.

  • Recently, corruption scandals, literally suitcases of cash changing hands with EU MEPs, have been investigated by Belgian cops. Draw your own conclusions...

  • It is so wonderful that the EU helped solved this huge global problem of immense importance!

    Now I hope they do something about consolidation in the drinking straw industry.

    • I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying that the EU is one person who can only do one thing? There's 32,000 employees working at the EC. I'm sure they can address whatever you personally find important while focusing on other issues at the same time.

      • I'm saying that whether MS buys Activision is an issue of complete unimportance and unworthy of govt attention AT ALL, let alone at the expense of WHAT ELSE it could be doing.

        • but it isn't due to the Behemoth sizes of the two companies involved, that makes it very important when it comes to antitrust.

          • Simply put: nothing Activision does is of real importance. It makes fucking video games. Whether MS buys it, whether it goes out of business, or whether it puts all other video game makers out of business doesn't matter. The govt shouldn't be wasting time on such things.

            • The entertainment industry employs people. The shenanigans going on with pricing, or stolen goods, affects their taxpayers. Also, politics is politics. Even if one was to believe that the EU is wastefully overly aggressive with antitrust action, the converse argument could be made that the US DOJ foot drags too much with antitrust action, only negligibly addressing market monopolies.

            • With that kind of logic nothing ever matters and governments shouldn't ever do anything. No one is forcing you to give a shit about games, you just have to accept the fact that the video game market is bigger than most other markets so when it comes to the economy, employment and so forth the video games industry is very very relevant.

  • One inch closer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jarik C-Bol ( 894741 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @01:20PM (#63522993)
    And we inch ever closer to the Duopoly of Disney and Microsoft owning every form of entertainment. Who will be absorbed next?

  • This one is so obviously a bad idea that one has to wonder who got bribed.

  • As if Activision blizz was not already bad enough, now they add M$ to the mix and as a 90s gamer, this one really hurts me in the feels.

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