2023-08-22 13:12:26
The American software giant Microsoft has submitted to the British Competition Authority (CMA) an amended version of its proposed acquisition of the American video game publisher Activision Blizzard, finally hoping for a green light after a refusal in April. Microsoft is planning in particular significant disposals of online gaming rights, which will be sold to French Ubisoft.
The CMA, which had blocked the operation at the end of April, fearing that it would reduce competition too much in the market for dematerialized games, specifies “having opened a new phase 1 investigation into an agreement restructured by Microsoft to buy Activision”.
The British competition policeman confirms Tuesday, August 22 in its press release its decision to block the original merger, an operation which was valued at 69 billion dollars which was to give birth to the third player in the sector in terms of turnover , behind the Chinese Tencent and Sony.
Microsoft won’t buy streaming rights
“As part of the new agreement, Microsoft will not buy streaming viewing rights (streaming, editor’s note) for all present Activision games” nor those of “games that will be broadcast for the next 15 years (except in the European economic area)”, details the CMA. “These rights will be sold to Ubisoft”, a competing French publisher, “before the acquisition of Activision by Microsoft”, she continues.
The latter will thus have the right to sell licenses on Activision content to “any supplier of dematerialized games”. “This will allow players to access Activision games in different ways,” said Sarah Cardell, CMA’s general manager, who said that the review of the new version is “not a green light”.
“Our objective has not changed, namely that any future decision on this new wording of the agreement must ensure that the growing market for online games will continue to benefit from competition that promotes choice and innovation,” she argues. The new deadline for a decision on the preliminary inquiry is October 18.
A standoff for several months
The CMA’s decision had drawn the ire of Microsoft, its chairman Brad Smith decrying a “darkest day in (Microsoft’s) four decades in Britain” and adding that it was shaking the US software giant’s “confidence”. in “future opportunities for developing a tech business in Britain”.
Microsoft had challenged in court the blocking of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard by the CMA but had finally agreed in early July to suspend the legal proceedings to find common ground with the regulator, which was to go through new proposals from the American group.
The US competition authority, the FTC, for its part suspended in July the procedure before the administrative justice that it had initiated in December against the acquisition of Activision Blizzard as it was initially envisaged. The European Commission for its part approved this takeover in May.
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