The European Commission approves the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft

Brussels stands out from London and Washington. The European Commission has given the green light to the operation that will allow Microsoft to take over Activision Blizzard and all its franchises, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Diablo, in exchange for 68.7 billion dollars. There are no concessions except those raised by Microsoft. This is an important victory for both companies, which, however, must continue to battle to overcome the two remaining obstacles: the FTC’s blockade, which took the operation to the United States courts, and the CMA’s no before which appeal was made to the UK Court of Appeal.

The European Commission approves the purchase of Activision Blizzard after an in-depth investigation and with a single condition “that it fully addresses the identified competition concerns.” This requirement proposed by Microsoft itself consists of the following two 10-year commitments:

• A free license for consumers in the European Economic Area (EEA) to stream, via any cloud game streaming service of their choice, all current and future Activision Blizzard games for PC and console for those who have license.
• A free license to the corresponding cloud gaming services to allow EEA gamers to stream any Activision Blizzard PC and console game.

The European Commission takes into account that Activision Blizzard currently does not allow streaming of its games in the cloud nor does it offer its own service. Consequently, the licenses that Microsoft will give as owner of the company guarantee that gamers in the EEA will be able to buy any Activision Blizzard game and play it through the cloud gaming service they want. In addition, Microsoft’s commitment is also to quality and content, so in this sense there will be no differences between platforms.

“These 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 European Commission says in a statement. “They will allow millions of consumers in the EEA to stream in streaming Activision Blizzard games through any cloud gaming service they want in the EEA, as long as they purchase it from an online store or it’s included in an EEA multi-game subscription.”

The position of the European Commission is completely contrary to that exposed by the CMA. Brussels not only welcomes Microsoft’s commitments, but also says that bringing Activision Blizzard games to cloud streaming services “will boost the development of this technology in the EEA.” The CMA said otherwise for the UK. The Commission also appreciates the feedback positive from cloud streaming service providers and their interest in having the license that Microsoft has promised. He also recalls that some companies like Nvidia (GeForce Now) have already signed a bilateral agreement.

The situation is the least curious. Now that the European Commission has approved Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, the American technology company has the option of operating within the European Union as the publisher’s parent company, but it cannot do the same in territories where the operation has been rejected. . This is the case of the United Kingdom, where the CMA’s decision is pending appeal, or the United States, where it will be a judge or an out-of-court agreement with the FTC that will decide whether or not the merger can be carried out. Each organization investigates the purchase based on how it believes it will affect its market, but Europe’s yes will give Microsoft ammunition for the two remaining battles.