Well that's it. Microsoft has completed their acquisition of Activision Blizzard King thanks to the UK's Competition & Markets Authority clearing the way.
As announced by the UK CMA, they said the new deal where Microsoft does not purchase Activision's cloud gaming rights, which instead goes to Ubisoft would "preserve competitive prices and better services":
In its original investigation, the CMA found Microsoft already held a strong position in relation to cloud gaming and blocked the deal.
The sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft will prevent the distribution of important, popular content – including games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft – from coming under the control of Microsoft in relation to cloud gaming. The restructured deal substantially addressed the concerns that the CMA had following its original investigation, which concluded earlier this year.
The CMA did identify limited residual concerns with the new deal, but Microsoft gave undertakings that will ensure that the terms of the sale of Activision’s rights to Ubisoft are enforceable by the CMA.
The CMA consulted on these undertakings and is satisfied that this will provide the safety net needed to make sure this deal is properly implemented.
UK CMA
Microsoft also have their own announcement to note it's finished that's just celebrating the deal. In the post they confirmed the plan to add Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms.
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What are you thoughts on this finally being completed?
Any feelings on Microsoft and Xbox aside, game industry consolidation is worrying. With many publishers and developers getting swallowed up, it hands a lot of power to a few companies. We've seen so many times now what happens like with the troubles at Embracer as just one recent example.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Hopefully we will still be able to use the battle.net launcher and won't be forced to switch to ms game pass.
1 Likes, Who?
anyone_yun Oct 14, 2023
I can’t understand how people are welcoming this as good news
Last edited by anyone_yun on 14 October 2023 at 12:00 pm UTC
Last edited by anyone_yun on 14 October 2023 at 12:00 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
Hopefully we will still be able to use the battle.net launcher and won't be forced to switch to ms game pass.
I hope they remove that shitty launcher, and let us login like Halo, gears and forza on steam, always hated battle.net launcher.
Put it all in Microsoft Store and Steam.
0 Likes
All shit that was due ever since Vivendi bought it. Of all possible endings, the Microsoft one is probably the happier one.
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I can’t understand how people are welcoming this as good newsThey've obviously forgotten (or never knew) the outcome for the Rare and Argonaut libraries.
3 Likes, Who?
I can’t understand how people are welcoming this as good newsThey've obviously forgotten (or never knew) the outcome for the Rare and Argonaut libraries.
we got KI and Battle Toads, sea of thiefs, and a new Perfect Dark coming most of rare top games where nintendo exclusives, so what we forgot?
Last edited by massatt212 on 14 October 2023 at 1:23 pm UTC
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The Argonaut titles, for starters.I can’t understand how people are welcoming this as good newsThey've obviously forgotten (or never knew) the outcome for the Rare and Argonaut libraries.
we got KI and Battle Toads, sea of thiefs, and a new Perfect Dark coming most of rare top games where nintendo exclusives, so what we forgot?
(After Argonaut's bankruptcy in 2004, their IPs were bought back and transferred to its founder's other company. Their company after that one was Ninja Theory, which Microsoft bought in 2018.)Seriously, though, Rare made a lot more than the few titles you've named plus their handful of Nintendo exclusives, even once you filter out the licensed content from the period where they mainly acted as programmers-for-hire. Getting bought out severely reduced their output, and completely changed the character of what little remained.
4 Likes, Who?
The Argonaut titles, for starters.I can’t understand how people are welcoming this as good newsThey've obviously forgotten (or never knew) the outcome for the Rare and Argonaut libraries.
we got KI and Battle Toads, sea of thiefs, and a new Perfect Dark coming most of rare top games where nintendo exclusives, so what we forgot?
Seriously, though, Rare made a lot more than the few titles you've named plus their handful of Nintendo exclusives, even once you filter out the licensed content from the period where they mainly acted as programmers-for-hire. Getting bought out severely reduced their output, and completely changed the character of what little remained.
i check rare hardly made anything good.
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i check rare hardly made anything good.Rare were an extremely influential game-developer, and your opinion on their output doesn't change the facts that I stated above.
5 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Oct 14, 2023
Seriously. AAA studios have proven time and again that most of their games are beautiful empty shells filled with micro-transactions scams. EA, Ubisoft and Activision/Blizzard all fall into this category. Gaming studios for shareholders. Not my cup of tea. Sad for the players and the real creators that would like to create games they want to play. They are gradually killing the industry. I haven't bought a AAA game in ages, I involuntarily tend to encourage indie developers, lately. I find that their games are of better quality.All of those companies were making fantastic games back before they became too big to give a crap. Every once in a while, a 'gem' falls out of the coal, and we get stuff like Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor. But for the most part, they just churn out the same crap year after year.
The new Assassin's Creed doesn't even look all that better, graphically, then the last 4 of them...
2 Likes, Who?
CanadianBlueBeer Oct 14, 2023
I don't want to give M$ any $ but... conflicted.
Keeping my WoW sub as next year is the 20th anniversary.
Still have my stupid fallout 1st sub (mostly for the junk storage and the cheaty world).
Oh, and M$ published a HowTo install Linux? A rather decent one too.
Don't give a rats patootie about consoles anyway. :P
Guess I'm just gonna have to see what they DO in the future.
(if they ever put the windows GUI on top of a Linux kernal and make their own distro...
well, that'll be the time to snag a keg. My brain will be thoroughly fried)
mumble....
(yes, I really really hate M$)
Keeping my WoW sub as next year is the 20th anniversary.
Still have my stupid fallout 1st sub (mostly for the junk storage and the cheaty world).
Oh, and M$ published a HowTo install Linux? A rather decent one too.
Don't give a rats patootie about consoles anyway. :P
Guess I'm just gonna have to see what they DO in the future.
(if they ever put the windows GUI on top of a Linux kernal and make their own distro...
well, that'll be the time to snag a keg. My brain will be thoroughly fried)
mumble....
(yes, I really really hate M$)
1 Likes, Who?
By acquiring CoD, Overwatch 2 and King's F2P, Microsoft actually just got worse than it was before.
3 Likes, Who?
walther von stolzing Oct 14, 2023
i check rare hardly made anything good.Rare were an extremely influential game-developer, and your opinion on their output doesn't change the facts that I stated above.
I mean, they made Conker's Bad Fur Day -- how do you top that?
(only joking, of course.)
1 Likes, Who?
I've gotten tired of the news, so I'm glad it's over. Do I like that it happened? No. Did I like what Activision Blizzard was before the takeover? No. So, even though I think it's bad news... kinda meh for me.
1 Likes, Who?
I mean, they made Conker's Bad Fur Day -- how do you top that?HAHAHAHA!
(only joking, of course.)
I would've linked to the "Great Mighty Poo" song here, but it's so crass that I'm pretty sure it's against half the rules of the universe, never mind GOL. 
3 Likes, Who?
chickenb00 Oct 15, 2023
I've gotten tired of the news, so I'm glad it's over. Do I like that it happened? No. Did I like what Activision Blizzard was before the takeover? No. So, even though I think it's bad news... kinda meh for me.
This is how I feel too. I don't like the industry consolidation, I don't like Microsoft throwing its billions around, I don't care about the "but Sony" argument, but most of all I'm tired of thinking about it and especially reading about it. News media falling over themselves to write on it, the endless for-and-agaonst arguments...
Very disappointed the purchase completed, but glad to move on from this anyway.
1 Likes, Who?
matiaslavik Oct 16, 2023
Can't wait for next BlizzCon: "Do you guys not have Windows??"
1 Likes, Who?
Thanks for this article Liam, I have printed it off and added it to my medkit for when I need to induce vomiting.
2 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Oct 16, 2023
I don't really care about who owns Activision/Blizzard, as I simply try to avoid their games anyhow. The ones I was irritated about was Obsidian and inXile, as they used to make Linux native games... Zenimax has been broken / anti-Linux for a long time.
1 Likes, Who?
Can't wait for next BlizzCon: "Do you guys not have Windows??"Just tell them "Didn't you get the memo? You guys are Microsoft now. And Microsoft loooves Linux, they said so!"
2 Likes, Who?
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