Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)

Do you believe the deal will be approved?

  • Yes, will be approved without changes.

    Votes: 221 24.9%

  • Yes, will be approved but with structural changes to ABK.

    Votes: 102 11.5%

  • Yes, will be approved but only with behavioral concessions.

    Votes: 262 29.6%

  • No, will not be approved.

    Votes: 301 34.0%
  • Total voters
    886
  • Poll closed .
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Ar¢tos said:
Meh... There are a lot worse things to drink.
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You speak like a very experienced pro Sir!
Film Festival Greetings GIF by Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
 
Timberwolf25 said:
I haven't watched this yet, but it might be interesting.
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Having watched a fair bit I am dismayed by how someone like Tom Warren passes for a journalist. He looked really small when he was talking about the COD contract. Filtering every bit off conflicting information from the exact same source that didn't comply, refused to spell it out. When confronted he just tripped himself into baseless speculation. Embarrassing, if only because he has been wrong many times already. Too many.
 
Thirty7ven said:
Having watched a fair bit I am dismayed by how someone like Tom Warren passes for a journalist. He looked really small when he was talking about the COD contract. Filtering every bit off conflicting information from the exact same source that didn't comply, refused to spell it out. When confronted he just tripped himself into baseless speculation. Embarrassing, if only because he has been wrong many times already. Too many.
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He's been an M&A analyst for many years, what are you on about?
Steve Harvey Wow GIF by NBC
 
James Sawyer Ford said:
They pounced during a moment of desperation for Bobby and Activision

If he could take it all back he would

Too late now.
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I already mentioned this before, this a good deal for kottick.
One single lawsuit was enough to make him sell his company. Do you think Activision will stay the same, if this deal fails?
There is a lot of stuff in the closet that could come out if this deal fails.

Getting that parachute bag is his priority at this point. He wants to get out of that ship.
 
havoc00 said:
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice said Wednesday that their new focus when evaluating mergers will include the impact a deal will have on competition for workers along with how a series of acquisitions, rather than one-offs, could result in harmful effects on the market.

The new guidelines, currently in draft form, encapsulate the agencies' push to keep pace with the digital age and a changing market. The proposed rules apply to both vertical and horizontal mergers. Almost two years ago, the FTC voted to withdraw the previous version of the vertical merger guidelines released in 2020, citing flaws.

In the new guidelines, they outlined 13 points they will use to evaluate whether a merger should be blocked:

1. Mergers should not significantly increase concentration in highly concentrated markets.
2. Mergers should not eliminate substantial competition between firms.
3. Mergers should not increase the risk of coordination.
4. Mergers should not eliminate a potential entrant in a concentrated market.
5. Mergers should not substantially lessen competition by creating a firm that controls products or services that its rivals may use to compete.
6. Vertical mergers should not create market structures that foreclose competition.
7. Mergers should not entrench or extend a dominant position.
8. Mergers should not further a trend toward concentration.
9. When a merger is part of a series of multiple acquisitions, the agencies may examine the whole series.
10. When a merger involves a multi-sided platform, the agencies examine competition between platforms, on a platform, or to displace a platform.
11. When a merger involves competing buyers, the agencies examine whether it may substantially lessen competition for workers or other sellers.
12. When an acquisition involves partial ownership or minority interests, the agencies examine its impact on competition.
13. Mergers should not otherwise substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.

www.cnbc.com

The feds just laid out new guidelines for approving mergers — here they are

The new guidelines are meant to give businesses and courts a sense of how the two agencies determine whether a deal is unlawful.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
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Ultimately this doesn't change anything, though. They can change their processes as much as they want to but they still don't have the power to actually block M&A. They still have to take whatever they learned through their administrative process to federal court. Unless federal judges change how they apply law to M&A or unless Congress actually changes law to support the FTC then nothing actually changes.
 
DrFigs said:
I guess I'm lost as to why the CMA would change its mind like this. Is their work really that shoddy that they can't stand by their own decisions? Blocking it over cloud was weird.. but it was THEIR decision. So it's confusing about the competency of regulators imo.
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Personally I believe their original decision would not have stood up to scrutiny at the CAT. Asking MSFT to divest the entire business related to CoD (which is like half of ATVI) was not at all proportional to the SLC (possible full or partial foreclosure in a nascent market). Then when the EU Competition Commission decision came down which made it impossible for MSFT to fully or partially foreclose the majority of market participants (which operate BYOG services) it was game over for the proportionality argument entirely, especially when the CMA can accept licensing remedies which they consider structural. THEN when every other country on the planet Earth approved the merger either implicitly or explicitly it was game over on the basis of comity.

CMA simply saw the writing on the wall (that the CAT would send it back regardless) and decided that it was within their best interests to be constructive as opposed to obstructionist.
 
James Sawyer Ford said:
They pounced during a moment of desperation for Bobby and Activision

If he could take it all back he would

Too late now.
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But he had his chance to walk away today or get Microsoft to give them 120 dollars a share like you said, I mean it was so clear that was going to happen and made no sense otherwise. If only you were in the room to consult them.
 
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King Dazzar said:
He didnt sound as convincing as I would have expected though. It was interesting hearing him mention some of the UK's gaming heritage i.e Sinclair and BBC micro.
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This is all so CMA can save face. So they are pretending it's in their hand and shit. Making it sound like they have control over things about this deal.

They are not gonna say we have CMA by the balls. Read the room lol
 
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Despite the internet and my laugh emoji collection trying to tell me this deal is in the bag. I'm still convinced we are maybe putting too little emphasis on the legal impact for Judge Marcus Smith, the CMA and the CAT this deal has if he grants the adjournment of the appeal.

Initially it seemed like he extend the time for the CMA evidence for their benefit, as he wanted it to assure him of their competency, but in hindsight the extension was probably for him to think about the state of the board and consider fully the impact of him granting the adjournment, and if it will leave an easy means to lance every CMA report block in the 11th hour, which might mean the bar for him to grant adjournment might be raising the more he considers his position.

I think it is more than an outside bet he doesn't like what the CMA give him on the first attempt as evidence
 
PaintTinJr said:
Despite the internet and my laugh emoji collection trying to tell me this deal is in the bag. I'm still convinced we are maybe putting too little emphasis on the legal impact for Judge Marcus Smith, the CMA and the CAT this deal has if he grants the adjournment of the appeal.

Initially it seemed like he extend the time for the CMA evidence for their benefit, as he wanted it to assure him of their competency, but in hindsight the extension was probably for him to think about the state of the board and consider fully the impact of him granting the adjournment, and if it will leave an easy means to lance every CMA report block in the 11th hour, which might mean the bar for him to grant adjournment might be raising the more he considers his position.

I think it is more than an outside bet he doesn't like what the CMA give him on the first attempt as evidence
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If he accepts the evidence tomorrow without much issue will the august 2nd ftc case be your new angle? Because I actually suggest you start talking more about how it's actually New Zealand that's gearing up to kill the deal, I think that's a more fun twist.
 
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PaintTinJr said:
Despite the internet and my laugh emoji collection trying to tell me this deal is in the bag. I'm still convinced we are maybe putting too little emphasis on the legal impact for Judge Marcus Smith, the CMA and the CAT this deal has if he grants the adjournment of the appeal.

Initially it seemed like he extend the time for the CMA evidence for their benefit, as he wanted it to assure him of their competency, but in hindsight the extension was probably for him to think about the state of the board and consider fully the impact of him granting the adjournment, and if it will leave an easy means to lance every CMA report block in the 11th hour, which might mean the bar for him to grant adjournment might be raising the more he considers his position.

I think it is more than an outside bet he doesn't like what the CMA give him on the first attempt as evidence
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I think you're reading too much into it. The Judge literally walked the CMA and MSFT/ABK lawyers through exactly what they'd need to do to get the deal over the line ASAP while following due process and remaining within statute. CMA will issue a derogation to their April decision and file a Final Report that allows the companies to close while holding separate while they initiate an expedited new investigation into the altered deal with acceptable remedies.
 
feynoob said:

Redirect Notice

www.google.com
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Ah, yeah of course but tbh I don't see these kind of things staying in the closet even with MS taking over. If anything I think we're gonna see a lot of shit coming out, people leaving etc. Being a MS subsidiary will mean more eyes on ABK, not less. I can see a lot of people involved leaving, if these issues are as widespread as some claims make it out to be.

Edit: That is, of course, under the assumption that MS care enough about the PR to off potential higher ups etc. involved. Which I would deem highly probable.
 
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Vox Machina said:
I think you're reading too much into it. The Judge literally walked the CMA and MSFT/ABK lawyers through exactly what they'd need to do to get the deal over the line ASAP while following due process and remaining within statute. CMA will issue a derogation to their April decision and file a Final Report that allows the companies to close while holding separate while they initiate an expedited new investigation into the altered deal with acceptable remedies.
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But from his words you could tell he was very sceptical that they could produce what he wanted, especially in Sony's change of heart to sign a deal. He is open minded but legally this decision could completely break the strength of all CMA draft decisions, costing the UK tax payer lots of money in litigation and weakening the CMA/CAT authority.

The more he thinks about this, and remembers he had to school both Microsoft and the CMA on the law in regards of the CMA duty to the public interest and their own determination of the deal being materially different/Special reason to grant a further look at remedies, fully without input from Microsoft, yet they couldn't provide evidence of that, and couldn't even confirm what the restructure was. So he is well aware they are now backfilling evidence.
 
PaintTinJr said:
But from his words you could tell he was very sceptical that they could produce what he wanted, especially in Sony's change of heart to sign a deal. He is open minded but legally this decision could completely break the strength of all CMA draft decisions, costing the UK tax payer lots of money in litigation and weakening the CMA/CAT authority.

The more he thinks about this, and remembers he had to school both Microsoft and the CMA on the law in regards of the CMA duty to the public interest and their own determination of the deal being materially different/Special reason to grant a further look at remedies, fully without input from Microsoft, yet they couldn't provide evidence of that, and couldn't even confirm what the restructure was. So he is well aware they are now backfilling evidence.
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We are lucky to have you living in this guy's head so that we may know what he is thinking.
 
Thirty7ven said:
So private companies can exploit the loopholes in the law to stonewall government regulation, but regulators are held to an higher standard than the law itself?
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I hope that's a joke post. Yes, the government agencies acting to preserve the law should act according to it, meaning they should bring cases that focus on the letter of the law and win those on the merits of the case. When the upholder of the law is trying to win by running out the clock rather than presenting a strong case that is a problem and was rightfully called out by the judge.

The FTC seems to be trying to find ways to work around the law and block deals that current US law doesn't give them the power to block, hence the recent string of losses.

I'm a "liberal" person by nature but it is because of shenanigans such as this that I tend to align more with the "conservative" viewpoint on the free market and business (though not always).
 
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Now let me preface this entire post by saying that 1) I am high as a kite. 2) I am drunk off my ass, via berry Palm Bays. To keep with the tropical theme, I am smoking Hawaiian Breeze and honestly every two minutes, I lose track of where I'm at and have to remember.

But...I truly feel that gaming as a whole is heading towards some very dark times. We saw all the internal workings of every company involved. MS's agreement to keep ActiBlizz games on competing platforms runs through 2025. And now we know that what they buy, they will keep as exclusive, as per Phil Spencer and Bethesda's emails. It's a gentleman agreement, not a true deal. Past 2025, they will keep ActiBlizz games from the competition as they work into consolidating their gaming division to become mobile centric. Phil Spencer may talk a lot about how he wants players to be happy but he was already ready to pull the plug on XBox back in only 2019.

Now MS's gaming division is the least lucrative part of their empire. Nintendo exists solely for hardware and software. Sony's gaming division, is the most lucrative part of the company eclipsing by far their whole movie division.

There is no scenario in which Sony doesn't fire back by buying a big Japanese publisher. Or many. It's their literal bread and butter, Playstation makes Sony what it is. And Japan makes it very hard to acquire a publisher via a foreign source. Tango was already owned by Bethesda, when they bought them. But MS trying to buy Sega, Capcom or Square-Enix.....fuck I am lost....Ah right. Laws in place to keep major companies from Japan, within Japan.

I can pretty much guarantee two things. 1) MS will make every Activision Blizzard games exclusive to the XBox service/ecosystem, which is headed towards mobile to maximize profit. 2) Sony will buy out one or many major Japanese publishers as a strike back.

And this...will lead to less games being available to customers who simply might not own the shitty plastic box of their choosing. And I will admit, I blame Microsoft for this. Internally they are flat out saying that they want to buy everything they can control, and destroy their main competition. Sony saw that and knows that.

Sony WILL make a move. Or two. Or even three. And it will crater the userbase for many iconic franchises, because of all of this motherfuckeryness.
 
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gametimedecision said:
Is "Bobby didn't seem convinced the deal was gonna go through on his CNBC interview" the new "activision is gonna walk on the 18th"?
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Ha! No, certainly not from me. I think the deal is done. And I once posted that I suspected something may have even been agreed following the chancellor visit, but pending the FTC outcome. But thats really just conjecture. My surprise is because of my confidence in the deal going through. Not the opposite. Hence I thought he may have spoken with more conviction.

//DEVIL// said:
This is all so CMA can save face. So they are pretending it's in their hand and shit. Making it sound like they have control over things about this deal.

They are not gonna say we have CMA by the balls. Read the room lol
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Hmm, maybe, on the CMA face saving, perception piece. As for the rest. I don't think its as melodramatic as all of that. And considering due to the CMA, that they've extended because of, with the possibility of, yet to be clarified, concessions. I see it more of a shade of grey than a black and white, who's fondling who's testicles.
 
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