Despite opposition from the UK CMA, and the ongoing legal battle in the USA, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard takes a step forward as the European Commission has approved it now.
In a press release the EU Commission made it clear that initially, they did feel the deal could "harm competition" in the console and PC gaming space (including cloud gaming). However, after their "in-depth market investigation" they changed their mind and said Microsoft "would not be able to harm rival consoles and rival multi-game subscription services" but that Microsoft could still "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".
So why are they approving it? Microsoft offered up these terms for cloud gaming for 10 years:
- A free license to consumers in the EEA that would allow them to stream, via any cloud game streaming services of their choice, all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license.
- A corresponding free license to cloud game streaming service providers to allow EEA-based gamers to stream any Activision Blizzard's PC and console games.
Once those were set the EU decided the commitments "fully address the competition concerns identified by the Commission and represent a significant improvement for cloud game streaming compared to the current situation".
The UK CMA are standing firm though, releasing a statement on Twitter in a small thread. To save you clicking around their statement says:
The UK, US and European competition authorities are unanimous that this merger would harm competition in cloud gaming.
The CMA concluded that cloud gaming needs to continue as a free, competitive market to drive innovation and choice in this rapidly evolving sector.
Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years.
They 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.
This is one of the reasons the CMA’s independent panel group rejected Microsoft’s proposals and prevented this deal.
While we recognise and respect that the European Commission is entitled to take a different view, the CMA stands by its decision.
We're still multiple months away from seeing what happens overall though, since the US FTC case is still pending.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: TheRiddickQuoting: Purple Library GuyNo, they just don't like monopolies, or even oligopolies. Which I'm morally certain you already knew before you asked.
Well its a bit late now isn't it. They should have complained way back when Disney and Apple started buying up the planet....
Antitrust laws only kick in once the involved companies reach a certain size of the market.
Quoting: TheRiddickDo people really love Activation and Blizzard that much?
Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: dirkdierickxMS will gladly make these changes, but probably violate them before those 10 years are up. EU will fine MS, but as usual the fine(s) will be peanuts and MS will be happy to pay.
EU fines does not work the same as US fines, EU fines are increased until you comply.
shame, if that is true, they haven't ordered M$ to remove the telemetry spyware/pup (potentially unwanted program) from Windows and other software and most of my time gaming is done on GNU/Linux and I do not plan on downgrading to windows 10/12 for my mane windows install but I do have Windows 10 installed but I only have that for when I can not run software/games on my current install of Windows
Quoting: MadWolfQuoting: TheRiddickDo people really love Activation and Blizzard that much?Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: dirkdierickxMS will gladly make these changes, but probably violate them before those 10 years are up. EU will fine MS, but as usual the fine(s) will be peanuts and MS will be happy to pay.
EU fines does not work the same as US fines, EU fines are increased until you comply.
shame, if that is true, they haven't ordered M$ to remove the telemetry spyware/pup (potentially unwanted program) from Windows and other software and most of my time gaming is done on GNU/Linux and I do not plan on downgrading to windows 10/12 for my mane windows install but I do have Windows 10 installed but I only have that for when I can not run software/games on my current install of Windows
they haven't ordered MS to remove it because it isn't illegal of MS to add it.
Quoting: elmapulhell, when doublefine was talking about the new psychonauts, they said that they were able to improve the game thanks to the microsoft funding, guess what improvment was quoted? graphics.Lol, Doublefine didn't realize they made a rather damning statement about Microsoft. Graphics are among the lowest aspects on the priority totem pole behind more important stuff like gameplay, level design, growth system, AI, performance, etc.
sigh, seriously if he said: "we have many new gameplay mechanics that were too troublemsome to implement, test, polish to make sure they are fun to play, but thanks to microsoft we were able to do it!" then i would be excited.
but no, microsoft creativity can be sumed up as: pretty graphics.
Now, I'm hearing about the recent news about Overwatch 2 and the parallels between it and Halo Infinite is uncanny. No wonder why Microsoft wanted to acquire Activision/Blizzard!
Quoting: GuestQuoting: F.UltraWouldn't it be failure to comply with GDPR?Quoting: MadWolfQuoting: TheRiddickDo people really love Activation and Blizzard that much?Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: dirkdierickxMS will gladly make these changes, but probably violate them before those 10 years are up. EU will fine MS, but as usual the fine(s) will be peanuts and MS will be happy to pay.
EU fines does not work the same as US fines, EU fines are increased until you comply.
shame, if that is true, they haven't ordered M$ to remove the telemetry spyware/pup (potentially unwanted program) from Windows and other software and most of my time gaming is done on GNU/Linux and I do not plan on downgrading to windows 10/12 for my mane windows install but I do have Windows 10 installed but I only have that for when I can not run software/games on my current install of Windows
they haven't ordered MS to remove it because it isn't illegal of MS to add it.
They where being criticized by the EU back in 2019 for not being in full compliance with the GDPR and again in 2022 when EU decided that the changes Microsoft have made was not sufficient. I'm not fully up to date on what if anything have happened with that case since then, all I know is that Microsoft claims that they are following the GDPR and that they only collects the data due to "Legitimate interest".
Now it is allowed to collect data about your users under the GDPR _if_ you can demonstrate that you have a legitimate use case for it, that you will and can destroy it if a user ask for it to be done, that the data will not leave the EU (and afaik MS have built some kind of internal firewall to make sure that data collected from EU machines stay in the EU) and that you are not allowed to sell the data (one big difference between the US and the EU here is that in the US a company owns the data that it has collected about you while in the EU you are the sole owner of that data so legally it is not a commodity).
I would also assume that investigating this is something that will take quite an amount of time.
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