It's over, and I'm not exactly confident the gamers won.
It’s with my hat in my hand and a sorrowful expression on my face that I, standing outside the proverbial front door in this metaphor, must give you the sad news that 10 gamers have fallen in battle. They’re still alive, it’s just that Microsoft has settled against them in court “with prejudice”. In case you’re out of the loop, back in December 2022, a group of 10 Call of Duty fans filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft opposing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
The suit claimed that “the proposed acquisition would give Microsoft an unrivalled position in the gaming industry, leaving it with the greatest number of must-have games and iconic franchises. Microsoft would have the ability to foreclose important inputs to rivals of console gaming by making some or all of Activision Blizzard’s important catalogue of games, including Call of Duty, exclusive to Microsoft platforms or partially exclusive.”
The lawsuit was tossed in March 2023, as a judge determined that the plaintiffs had not proven it was “reasonably likely” that Microsoft would make games like Call of Duty exclusive, adding that their evidence was “unpersuasive”.
They were able to refile the action, which they did, though their request for a preliminary injunction to stop the merger dead was denied in May 2023 because there was “nothing in the record that suggests upon the merger Microsoft can do anything to make these Call of Duty versions currently owned by Plaintiffs somehow stop working, let alone that it would do so.”
While the exact agreement of the settlement isn’t clear, considering how little steam the suit itself seems to have gathered—and the fact that the suit has now been dismissed “with prejudice” as per Hollywood Reporter, meaning it can’t be refiled.
I’m being speculative here, but I’m not stupendously optimistic that these determined gamers have scored any sort of decisive blow against a company rich enough to make a $68.7 billion purchase. At the moment, all we know is that lawyers have agreed that “each party shall bear their own costs and fees”—the details will be under lock and key for a while yet. Microsoft may have very well thrown money at the headache to make it go away, but it’s got that in spades.
I’m being a bit blithe, here—and it’s mostly because the image of 10 Call of Duty players rocking up to trade fisticuffs with Microsoft in the courtroom is pretty funny (I wonder if Bill Gates carries brass knuckles on him, just in case). However, the actual consequences of the purchase have been markedly less funny.
Since the acquisition, Microsoft cut 1,900 jobs at Xbox and Blizzard and closed several studios, including the creators of genuine success story Hi-Fi: Rush and Arkane Austin—with another 650 layoffs following in September of this year. It’s been a bit of a bloodbath, though it’s not necessarily all bad. Microsoft’s notably more pro-union, allowing Blizzard’s World of Warcraft team to form one 500 people strong. Every $68.7 billion stack of dollar notes has its silver lining.
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