So, the trick to understanding anything the British government and its various agencies do is this:Bear in mind they really have no idea about anything computer-related, let alone the internet, or cloud gaming, or AI. They might as well be your 90 year old Nan who yearns for the "good ole days" of coal fires and rotary dial telephones.As an example, one of their agencies tried to set up a phone app designed to warn people of the dangers of pirating movies etc. But they didn't bother to check the name that they gave to the app and it turned out to be identical to a movie torrenting site's name.This is the level of understanding these people have about anything technology related. I guarantee you that no one involved in rubber stamping this deal has the slightest inkling what cloud gaming is. They likely genuinely think that they have scored a win over Microsoft in doing this, which is kind of sad. All they have done is delayed the inevitable, and made themselves look clueless into the bargain.
Still have no idea why foreign governments have any authority over what two American companies do, seems more like an issue for American regulators
Lots of confused people here. Ubisoft does not and won't own Activision Blizzard, Microsoft still going to be the big daddy, the parent company and owner of Blizzard. Ubisoft will only have the rights to broadcast Actiblizz games on the cloud and they have the rights to do it everywhere with the exception of the EU market.But at this pace, Microsoft is gonna buy Ubisoft next.
They have authority over US companies because if those said companies want to operate internationally they need to obey the countries laws, American companies are not exempt to the laws and to that guy who thinks the UK is irrelevent evidentally Microsoft disagrees with you otherwise they could ignore the UK market and continue trucking they've choosen to jump through hoops as the UK is one of their biggest markets outside of the US.
Potentially good news for Mac owners; MS are an Apple-friendly company. The macOS battle.net app needs a lot of work; it's buggy as hell at present, and has been for months. (So much so that WoW installation often fails on a new system). And who knows, we may even see a native D4 client.
All I want out of this is a purging of the higher ups, making them go away so that creativity isn't stifled by greedy decisions.
This means Bobby Kotick will finally be gone.Reminder he's responsible for:Diablo Immortal and it's predatory Monetization.Diablo 4 it's failure of -99.4% playerbase, twitch viewership and EXTREME predatory Monetization.World of Warcraft - Trading Tender added to the cash shop after Ion lied in 4 seperate dev interviews saying it would NEVER be sold.World of War5craft Classic - WoW Token added, after it was promised in multiple interviews that it would NEVER be added.The sooner Bobby is gone, the sooner Microsoft can clean-house of all the useless job positions (microsoft has 10k+ microsoft-certified employed programmers).I hope you have your CVs updated.
not a monopoly, move along....
First let me say that I have absolutely no clue as to how these business legislations work, but I can't wrap my head around something: if Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard, why do other people, let alone other countries have a say in it? I understand that a monopoly can be very bad, but they have the money to buy, the other has the willingness to sell, so what's the problem? If they abuse their monopoly position, they will lose clients. Simple as that. Someone already mentioned the fact that like 8 huge companies own every little company, so...same thing.To me is boils down to something in the lines of: you can't build a costco/ lidl ( whatever big retail shop you can think of) in this neighbourhood, because it will ruin the little family run grocery store next to it.
A lot of confused people out there.Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are both companies that do international business. They have to comply with the laws of the countries where they do business, so they are subject to scrutiny from the regulatory agencies of those countries if they want to continue to do business there.The sale of the cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft is nothing, Cloud gaming is a way to play a game without having dedicated hardware or a PC. Cloud gaming is very niche and Google bailed on it when they shut down Stadia. Perhaps it grows in the future, but for right now it's not even a thing to worry about as far as WoW or other Blizzard games go. it was just a move to appease the CMA as Microsoft still has acquisition plans and doesn't want a hostile regulatory body standing in the way.The deal was going to go through regardless of whether the CMA gave their blessing or not. The breakup fee was far more than the fine the CMA could issue. A measure of last resort, but it was on the table.Microsoft will own Activision Blizzard by October 18th, 2023.
The UK putting their opinion where it doesn't belong.what a shocker.
