The Federal Trade Commission has officially joined Sony and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority with a lawsuit against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The news comes after Nintendo and Valve’s recent agreement towards a 10-year deal for Call of Duty titles to be hosted on their platforms. In a press release issued today, the US regulator stated its intentions to block Microsoft from acquiring the video game developer and its gaming franchises such as Call of Duty. The FTC echoed similar complaints made by the deals’ other opponents, stating that the $69 billion deal would “…enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.”
“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”
The FTC claims that the acquisition would give Microsoft the means to manipulate Activision’s pricing, degrade Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, change the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withhold content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers and more. The regulator pointed to Microsoft’s previous acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, as an example of the tech company “…acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles” making several of Bethesda’s titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives.
Following the FTC’s decision Frank Shaw, lead communications for Microsoft tweeted a pdf file titled Get The Facts: How Microsoft is Committed to Growing Gaming Communities. The document highlighted all the previous statements pertaining towards the concerns of the merger and restates how Microsoft is willing to work with the regulators to alleviate them.
Despite the FTC’s addition into the opposition of the deal, Microsoft remains optimistic. In an open letter to employees Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick restated his confidence in the deal succeeding.
“…The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn’t align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge.” said Kotick. “Thanks to the hard work by all of you every day, we’re on a strong path, bringing epic joy to players around the world with what I believe are the greatest games in the industry. At the same time, the competitive landscape is shifting, and, simply put, a combined Microsoft-ABK will be good for players, good for employees, good for competition and good for the industry…”