MS's 92 Trillion Won Blizzard Acquisition Approved in UK... Final Hurdle Overcome

The UK's antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), approved Microsoft's (MS) acquisition of Activision Blizzard on the 13th (local time). This comes a full 21 months after MS announced the Blizzard acquisition in January last year.

In a press release on the same day, the CMA stated that MS had modified the contract terms to alleviate competition concerns, calling MS's concessions a "game changer that promotes competition."

In January 2022, MS revealed plans to acquire Blizzard in a merger and acquisition deal worth $68.7 billion (approximately 92 trillion KRW), the largest in the history of the information technology (IT) industry.

Since then, the acquisition was approved in over 40 countries including the European Union (EU), but it was blocked by U.S. regulators and the UK CMA, causing the acquisition deadline to be extended by three months from the original July 18.

In April, the UK CMA provisionally concluded that the acquisition should not proceed and even filed an injunction lawsuit requesting the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to order a halt to the Blizzard acquisition deal.

These authorities were concerned that MS acquiring Blizzard, a dominant player in console and PC gaming with titles like 'Call of Duty' and 'World of Warcraft (WOW),' would hinder competition in the cloud gaming market.

However, the tide turned rapidly after a U.S. court dismissed the FTC's injunction request.

Unusually, the CMA announced that it would reconsider if MS changed the contract structure to address competition concerns immediately after the ruling.

In response, MS proposed in August to sell cloud streaming rights to the French game company Ubisoft and acquire Blizzard without cloud gaming rights.

Additionally, MS included provisions allowing the CMA to enforce the sale of these rights to Ubisoft, resolving the remaining concerns.

The CMA stated, "We sent a clear message that the deal would be blocked if concerns were not comprehensively addressed," adding, "This prevents MS from controlling this rapidly evolving market, enabling consumers to benefit from more competitive prices, better services, and greater choice."

MS expressed gratitude, saying, "We appreciate the CMA's thorough review and decision," and added, "We have cleared the final regulatory hurdle, and we believe this acquisition will benefit gamers worldwide and the gaming industry."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.