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FTC Sues Microsoft To Block $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Acquisition (washingtonpost.com) 43

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher Activision Blizzard, charging that the massive deal would allow the Washington tech giant to suppress its competitors in gaming. Washington Post: The lawsuit represents the FTC's most significant effort to rein in consolidation in the tech industry since prominent tech critic Lina Khan (D) became the commission's chair and was expected to usher in a new era of antitrust enforcement characterized by a willingness to bring cases in court rather than pursue settlements with companies.

The FTC lawsuit against Microsoft could foil the company's ambitions to become a heavier hitter in gaming frontiers. Activision is the owner of massively popular titles like "Candy Crush" and "Call of Duty," and its acquisition could bolster Microsoft in its competition with Japanese console makers Nintendo and Sony. The commission voted on Thursday on a party-line vote to issue the lawsuit in administrative court, with the three Democrats in favor of the complaint and one Republican against it.
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FTC Sues Microsoft To Block $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Acquisition More

FTC Sues Microsoft To Block $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Acquisition

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  • I guess M$ didn't hand enough bribes out.

  • Finally (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suman28 ( 558822 ) <suman28 AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday December 08, 2022 @02:12PM (#63114208)
    I hated this deal All big companies always say they will allow competition until after the deal is completed and they go back on their word.

    • Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @02:23PM (#63114252) Homepage

      Will the FTC sue Nintendo and Sony for doing the same to Microsoft?

      Maybe they can force them to release all those Playstation-only games on Xbox.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by suman28 ( 558822 )
        If you had any reading comprehension, you would be able to understand that I am not for Sony and Nintendo getting any sweet deals either.
        Big corporations screw the smaller businesses out of existence and enjoy monopolies while going back on their "sworn" testimonies.
        Ban all mega mergers

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The problem is Sony already has gotten those sweet deals and continues their anti competitive strategies while at the same time whining about the risk of someone doing the same to them.
        • If you would ban all mergers between companies that are both worth at least $X, would you also require any company that grows and exceeds $X to spin off subdivisions as independent companies until its value goes back under $X? It's kind of an interesting idea, I wonder if anybody has tried such a strict policy and what the result was. Like, "Whoops our share price jumped up today on a rosy economic forecast so now we have to split the company."

      • Will the FTC sue Nintendo and Sony for doing the same to Microsoft?

        Of course not. Because the FTC doesn't give a rat's ass about "monopoly" here (as if buying one out of many gaming companies would give MS a monopoly). This is a big, honkin' virtue signal. And if this stands, when Nintendo or Sony or someone like them swoop in and buy Activision instead, nary a peep will be raised by the very same crew at the FTC.

        • Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dontbemad ( 2683011 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @03:10PM (#63114422)

          virtue signal

          Can you people construct arguments that don't involve pleas to emotion and other related bullshit? How is a trillion dollar company buying an independent publisher of widely popular games a positive for competition, customer choice, or any related metric? And how, for fucks's sake, is this "signaling virtue"? Nintendo is famously single-platform when it comes to their games. You don't really have a point there at all, since they publish most of the biggest games on their console. Sony has made big acquisitions before, but none of them are even close to the scale of this (especially when you consider that Microsoft just bought Bethesda not too long ago).
          Seriously, is your brain so rotted by the conservative fear-mongering that you would willingly fight FOR corporate conglomeration?

          • virtue signal

            Can you people construct arguments that don't involve pleas to emotion and other related bullshit? How is a trillion dollar company buying an independent publisher of widely popular games a positive for competition, customer choice, or any related metric? And how, for fucks's sake, is this "signaling virtue"? Nintendo is famously single-platform when it comes to their games. You don't really have a point there at all, since they publish most of the biggest games on their console. Sony has made big acquisitions before, but none of them are even close to the scale of this (especially when you consider that Microsoft just bought Bethesda not too long ago).
            Seriously, is your brain so rotted by the conservative fear-mongering that you would willingly fight FOR corporate conglomeration?

            LOL, buying Activision isn't going to do jack shit to hurt competition. There are too many PC game makers for that to happen with this purchase.

            Second, Activision is happily offering their company for sale. Just who would you allow to buy them if someone made you King of Commerce?

            • > Second, Activision is happily offering their company for sale. Just who would you allow to buy them if someone made you King of Commerce?

              Someone who isn't a competitor trying to build a monopoly position in the marketplace, dipshit.,

            • Activision is happily offering their company for sale. Just who would you allow to buy them if someone made you King of Commerce?

              There's no reason why anyone should be allowed to buy them if it would give them undue control over the market. Your King of Commerce horseshit betrays your abject lack of understanding of the situation. The justification for granting corporate charters is that they serve a public need. If they don't do that, then there's no reason why they should even exist. As legal fictions granted by government, they exist at the pleasure of The People and for our benefit, and if their actions do not benefit us then the

          • MS like it or not are a small fish in the gaming market, they don't have a monopoly, they are not even top 5. You are basically saying no big company should be allowed to buy a smaller company.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

            Saying "virtue signal" is a way to virtue signal to your own team.

          • Because sadly, political discourse and policy is not based on rational throught. The question we should be asking is: With all the megamergers that have happened over the past 30 years, why would the FTC draw the line in the sand here? Ridiculous all of it. We are all surfs.

            • Re: Finally (Score:4, Interesting)

              by jbengt ( 874751 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:19PM (#63114674)

              With all the megamergers that have happened over the past 30 years, why would the FTC draw the line in the sand here?

              Because the new leadership of the FTC believes those megamergers that have happened over the last 30 years were a bad idea. But they can't change the past, so they draw the line where they can.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                With all the megamergers that have happened over the past 30 years, why would the FTC draw the line in the sand here?

                Because the new leadership of the FTC believes those megamergers that have happened over the last 30 years were a bad idea. But they can't change the past, so they draw the line where they can.

                To what end? You can hardly say it's to ensure a level playing field if the net result is to keep the playing field uneven in favor of the incumbents.

      • that's now how any of this works. Sony can make all the exclusive games they want. So can Nintendo. What they can't do is buy up market leaders in the game making industry.

        Buying up all the market leaders to shut down competition == bad.

        Starting your own game studio to compete with those market leaders == good.

        Do I need to get out the puppets?
  • I believe proposals to make Clippy into the final boss is what pushed FTC into action.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      Dude is as thin as a paper clip. It's almost impossible to get direct hit. I honestly don't blame them.

  • Obviously I'm not playing whatever the popular games are. I haven't played any of their games since uh maybe ever. I played Warcraft a little bit when it was new and before they bought blizzard.

    Let MS buy them. They'll kill the company and a whole bunch of new game companies will spring up.

  • Good for the FTC - go farther (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @02:48PM (#63114336) Homepage

    I wish all governments would stomp on mergers and acquisitions. There is absolutely nothing beneficial to society, when big companies merge, or when they buy up smaller companies that might compete with them. Seeing as the sole purpose of a government is to be of benefit to the society it governs, well...

    After the "too big to fail" nonsense back in 2008, you would hopt that governments would be active working to limit the size of huge companies. I would like to see a hard regulation along the lines of "above size X, no more M&A" and "above size Y, you must divest". Where X and Y should be a lot smaller than the current size of MS, Google, Amazon, Apple & Co.

  • Can someone who understands American business explain to me why the FTC is suing in the courts over this? I thought this agency is tasked with approving such an acquisition, why are the courts involved?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      I thought this agency is tasked with approving such an acquisition, why are the courts involved?

      They are, but in cases like this, they handle it through the courts. You can think of them as kind of an attorney general in charge of market matters.

      • Most federal agencies have no direct enforcement ability with regards to regulations, it's all handled through the courts via civil suits. Which is why there's so much breaking of regulations, it's easy to get away with until the feds decide that it's time for another warning.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by PCM2 ( 4486 )

          But the alternative would be to have government ministries similar to the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution, where they could basically "regulate" however they wanted, and the party being singled out would essentially have no recourse.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rwrife ( 712064 )
      The FTC doesn't actually have any constitutional authority, the courts do.
    • The agency is tasked with overseeing acquisitions. One never receives a formal approval with a stamp on a legal document. As is often the case, one can do whatever they want without the government getting their say first. However, that doesn't mean there aren't enforcement mechanisms. The FTC has been legislated the authority to sue to block/dissolve mergers.
  • Suing claiming that this stifles competition is dumb. There is a LOT of competition in the video game space.
    • There's always lots of competition right up until there isn't. Activision is the largest independent game studio (depending on whether you count Tencent) if this merger is allowed you have very little grounds to block other mergers.

    • It shouldn't be just about impact on other businesses; it should also be about impact on consumers.

      Look what happened with Mojang: Microsoft took an independent company with a product that was purely standalone, and added requirements that it be tied into the greater Microsoft ecosystems.

      Same thing is likely to happen with Bethesda properties, and that alone should be grounds to block the merger.

  • 420 million?

  • The question is whether they are ready to fight.

    Given the recent track record of FTC is losing the anti-trust cases:
    https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com]

    But many other companies just give up, not wanting to waste their energies.

    The question is whether Microsoft and Activision are willing to fight for this merger. If they do, it might take months, or even years. If past is any indication, they are very likely to win (with maybe some concessions). However they can also call it off, do separate agreements, and mov

  • 69... (Score:3)

    by bustinbrains ( 6800166 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:53PM (#63114846)

    Nice rounding, I guess. The actual offer was $68.7 billion. But you go ahead and round it up.

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