Its me again friends. I just wanted to share the information our European lawyer Idas on other era posted about some interesting tid-bids about the MS/ABK acquisition! And since I know a lot of you dont visit that site I thought it would be a shame for you to miss it. Here we go!
I finally had time to read the full notice (81 pages) that Microsoft sent to the Commerce Commission in New Zealand explaining why the acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be legally fine.
Almost all the interesting info is blocked for confidentiality reasons :S For example, there are almost 2 pages of blank space where MS explains the commercial reasons for the acquisition.
Anyway, there are some cool pieces of info beyond the legal reasoning:
MS says that they have 24 first-party development studios (because they also count Casual Games Suite as one, the developers of Solitaire, Mahjong or Sudoku). So, we have to update the OT
Tencent is constantly mentioned (23 times), as well as Sony and how the new PS Plus offering is a Gamepass competitor.
Lots of references to new entrants in the video game market (Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Google, Nvidia, etc), how easy is nowadays to start a studio and create a super successful game even with just one developer (for example, Flappy Bird is mentioned).
Valve and Epic are also mentioned quite a bit as competitors post-transaction.
Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush represented 82% of Activision Blizzardâs 2021 net revenue :o You can bet that those franchises are going to remain multiplatform in the future.
The only Japanese publishers mentioned as competitors post transaction are Nintendo and Bandai Namco, no mention of SEGA, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, etc. In fact, they also include Roblox or CD Projeckt RED as competitors. It makes economical and legal sense because CD Projeckt RED was Europeâs most valuable game company in 2020 and Roblox had around 190 million average monthly players in 2021. But I find it funny how for MS all those Japanese publishers are just a âlong tail of smaller competitorsâ.
Lots of talks about how online display advertising, cloud services and merchandising are also relevant markets for this acquisition, but that they donât believe that the transaction could cause competition problems in those markets. They also say that there is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a âmust haveâ for rival PC and console video game distributors. So, that a new competitor could do what they do and be successful (thatâs true but not everyone has +3000 developers working on a single IP).
What do you think guys? The part talking about Japanese publishers is really interesting and I also found quite enlighting to see ABKâs net revenue generators. It seems to me that, apart from COD, everyting else will/could become exclusive in due time.
Nothing new there and I would not write off CoD exclusivity. It is obivous though that Microsoft will make exclusive almost every new game (only smaller ones is a question market). For example if they release a remaster of that cart game, it might be multiplatform. New Crash game? Hard to say too.
Though I donât believe that Microsoft is gonna entertain multiplatform even for smaller games too (look at Pentiment).
Yeah I think the same. I also found intelligent to compare ps subsription services with gamepass. Some think it shouldnt count but I think really good arguments could be make in this space.
As Sony want to position it as such, it makes sense to point at it. EA Play, Ubisoft+ are nothing but PS+ is a platform holder owned subscription service.
World of Warcraft and Candy Crush arenât even multiplatform for them to âremainâ multiplatform.
I know! So we are looking at codâŚfor now 
( I bet candy crush is like almost 50% of those numbers)
They have been pretty straight forward about COD remaining multi platform lol
Yes.
I do think they would want to avoid a legal compulsion for it to be so, but that for the foreseeable future it will be multi.
In 5, 7, 10 years? The industry could be a very different place and they could be under different leadership. But as things stand today, they would put it on ps5, switch or switch 2 if itâs feasible.
WoW could easily be made Xbox exclusive. They likely keep Mac support though.
I think because MS clarifies Nintendo and Namco Bandai are competitorsâŚother Japanese publishers are not (in their definition) which means âŚeveryone else is a potential acquisition.
Wow needs to be ported to Xbox first. Unlike FF, it was not designed for consoles in the first place at all and it will need someâŚrework for consoles.
Warzone 2, F2P Zombie, Warzone 1 and contractual obligations will be multi, but everything else is up in the air.
Interesting, Iâve always said Valve would be a smart purchase if they ever got the chance. Perhaps that would be difficult if theyâre using them as an example of other major competitors in the industry.
To be fair on this point they also did not release any new games in 2021 outside of Call of Duty (there was a couple next gen ports however), but these are still the obvious big earners in the company either way.
Bandai Namco seems out of place, but Iâm under the impression theyâre the largest games publisher in Japan outside of the main console companies. Maybe thatâs why? I mean otherwise Iâd assume they compete in some highly specific field - you mention CDPR but they do own GOG games which is a games distribution service so it makes sense as a competitor. Iâm not really sure about Bandai Namco, maybe it is just their size as a company.
Honestly wouldnât surprise me if WoW on consoles was already on the way. If not it should be once the deal closes, but I still hold the opinion of âif itâs live service it might make sense to make it multi-platformâ in which case itâd likely be smart to release WoW on Playstation even if they donât have to.
Their revenue is also pretty close to ABK. ABK had 8b, Bamco had 7b.
As long as FF14 is not on Xbox, I see no reason for WoW to be on Playstation 
Wow, yeah, so, theyâre pretty big then. That is spread across multiple industries of course but that makes more sense as to why Microsoft would bring them up as a competitor.
Weâll just have to get FF14 on Xbox one of these days.
Since WoW and candy crush are not even related to console. Hence, console exclusivity talks is really restricted to CoD only.
Even, diablo and other Blizzard IPs are not mentioned in the 85% bracket
Any Free to play stuff could remain multi platform
CoD campaign⌠Well that remains to be seen for a very long long time
They are quite similar to ABK in many ways, for example they get quite alot of the big third party publishing deals (Elden Ring being a recent example).
They also bring in alot of revenue for a non platform holder (similar to ABK), in addition they own tonnes of arcades and some of the biggest gaming IPâs for example Pacman.
Outside of Nintendo it makes sense to me they would be one of the biggest competitors in Japan.
It seems Sonyâs concerns about the acquisition are only focused in COD availability? This is what they said. (Idas is on a roll!)
I was just reading the answer from Sony and itâs very interesting: they consider Call of Duty a gaming category in its own right . They say that the franchise has a network of loyal users so ingrained in gaming culture that even if a competitor had the (huge) resources required to develop a similar product, they would not be able to create a rival to it.
So yeah, it sound like the crux of this acquisition will be CODâŚbut again, thw whole thing feels like trying to explain why the rest of the things will/could become exclusive but not COD (something they had already made clear like a couple of weeks later since the announce of deal was done)
Says the company that makes exclusive content, timed release deals for said game. The company that also handicapped entire other categories on Xbox [Fighting games, JRPGs] last-gen.
Microsoft will point to FF and the case is closed 
Oh, right. Also their exclusive deals for game modes and other content.