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[Varteras]

Only if Guv takes it in the keister right there mate!

I'll up the stakes. Full spread on NeoGAF.

 

[The Pleasure]

I'll up the stakes. Full spread on NeoGAF.

 

[X-Wing]

US judge temporarily blocks Microsoft acquisition of Activision

A U.S. judge late on Tuesday granted the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) request to temporarily block Microsoft Corp's acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard and set a hearing next week.

www.reuters.com

 

[reksveks]

Did we get the CAT scheduled date yet or still waiting?

 

[X-Wing]

I call bullshit on judges not being politically motivated.

But just so we're clear, I'd prefer a Republican appointed judge to hear the case. I'd love to know that any hearing will be completely bereft of political influence or one not set up to be favorable to the plaintiff. I want decisions on facts alone.

Sarcasm?

 

[3liteDragon]

There is anyone who still think this deal will not happen?

 

[Barakov]

US judge temporarily blocks Microsoft acquisition of Activision

A U.S. judge late on Tuesday granted the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) request to temporarily block Microsoft Corp's acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard and set a hearing next week.

www.reuters.com

 

[Kurimao]

US judge temporarily blocks Microsoft acquisition of Activision

A U.S. judge late on Tuesday granted the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) request to temporarily block Microsoft Corp's acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard and set a hearing next week.

www.reuters.com

 

[Zathalus]

It would kill DirectX, because it would be a an API - adding work for developers - with no benefit in comparison to Vulkan and Opengl, which are platform agnostic and have stronger ties with MacOS, Android, Linux and most importantly better align with Nintendo and PlayStation - with its cutting edge game development graphics techniques - and would reduce API support for Epic with Unreal into the bargain.

It won't better align with PlayStation at all, Vulkan and DirectX 12 are incredibly similar at thier core so switching to Vulkan won't change anything with regards to PlayStation. It won't help with MacOS either as that uses Metal. The only platform advantages of Vulkan is basically Linux and that market is tiny, with almost everyone now relying on the Proton translation layer. Better to just let that be compatible then making the entire game Linux native as it is far less work. As for Android the overlap between mobile and PC games is tiny.

 

[Varteras]

Sarcasm?

I mean I don't want a decision on something like this to be part of a political game. For or against. It doesn't matter to me. I just don't trust our system to not let that seep in.

 

[ToadMan]

If it's who i'm thinking, it's the same one who keep striking down the Gamers' Lawsuit.

Same judge that dismissed the gamers lawsuit tho.

Dismissing lawsuits by a random group is not the same as hearing a temporary injunction request from the FTC, which is chaired by a Biden-appointed official. I'm curious if politics will be at play here.

This isn’t how judges or courts work in the US. The vast, vast majority of judges aren’t taking who appointed them into consideration in anything they do.

I know it’s a funny meme to dunk on the US and its institutions, but the judiciary remains incredibly independent of political pressures or influence like that. It’d be far more valuable to look at Corley’s previous rulings on matters like this to get an idea on how this is going to go.

Bear in mind this :


26 “Section 13(b) places a lighter burden on the Commission than that imposed on private

27 litigants by the traditional equity standard.”


Taken from the TRO filing which was approved.

The FTC case doesn’t have to reach the same level of legal weight as the “gamer’s” filing did - partly because the FTC is seeking an injunction to give it time to go through the administrative court process.

Also the existing CMA ruling and order not to proceed is being used by the FTC as a reference point - something the prior filing couldn’t make reference to. Bear in mind that MS-ABK closing the deal would break UK law as it stands.

So let’s see…

 

[feynoob]

Bear in mind this :


26 “Section 13(b) places a lighter burden on the Commission than that imposed on private

27 litigants by the traditional equity standard.”


Taken from the TRO filing which was approved.

The FTC case doesn’t have to reach the same level of legal weight as the “gamer’s” filing did - partly because the FTC is seeking an injunction to give it time to go through the administrative court process.

Also the existing CMA ruling and order not to proceed is being used by the FTC as a reference point - something the prior filing couldn’t make reference to. Bear in mind that MS-ABK closing the deal would break UK law as it stands.

So let’s see…

All that matters is whether our laws are effective to stop these corporations or not.
If MS can ignore both countries, then those laws are meaningless.

 

[Varteras]

Bear in mind this :


26 “Section 13(b) places a lighter burden on the Commission than that imposed on private

27 litigants by the traditional equity standard.”


Taken from the TRO filing which was approved.

The FTC case doesn’t have to reach the same level of legal weight as the “gamer’s” filing did - partly because the FTC is seeking an injunction to give it time to go through the administrative court process.

Also the existing CMA ruling and order not to proceed is being used by the FTC as a reference point - something the prior filing couldn’t make reference to. Bear in mind that MS-ABK closing the deal would break UK law as it stands.

So let’s see…

Yeah. I fully expect the FTC to lean hard on the situation with the CMA.

 

[mrmustard]

There is anyone who still think this deal will not happen?

Me, i'm 99% sure it won't happen.

 

[Sony]

Bear in mind this :


26 “Section 13(b) places a lighter burden on the Commission than that imposed on private

27 litigants by the traditional equity standard.”


Taken from the TRO filing which was approved.

The FTC case doesn’t have to reach the same level of legal weight as the “gamer’s” filing did - partly because the FTC is seeking an injunction to give it time to go through the administrative court process.

Also the existing CMA ruling and order not to proceed is being used by the FTC as a reference point - something the prior filing couldn’t make reference to. Bear in mind that MS-ABK closing the deal would break UK law as it stands.

So let’s see…

'Give it time to go through the administrative court process' doesn't make sense, as the FTC can stall that for as long as they want. Needed more time is the least of FTC's concern now, they control the schedule, not MS. If anything, this injunction is a risk for FTC.

 

[Sony]

There is anyone who still think this deal will not happen?

As much as I like this deal to go though, I don't think MS will win the CAT appeal in a way that cirumvents CMA. Circumventing CMA is important because if CAT decides to give back the case to CMA, you get an endless loop of arguments from CMA. It's pretty evident that CMA has determined an outcome as is searching for the argument afterward.

 

[FireFly]

Some (maybe all, idk) also allows to use Vulkan. TLOU PC port ran without issues on Vulkan. The major problems reported were only present when using DX.

It seems that it's a mod that uses the DXVK translation layer.

Fix crash - Improve performance - Fix stuttering - Vulkan MOD

run the game in vulkan using dxvk helps with crashes, performance and stuttering

www.nexusmods.com

No, quite the opposite actually. Devs typically position their dev resources that serves the sales of their product best. DirectX only makes sense because it is built into windows and it is mandatory for Xbox, Without Xbox, DirectX losses the low hanging fruit sales across Xbox from around 20-60m consoles - depending on when in a generation.

So why are Sony releasing their games on DirectX rather than Vulkan?

Going Vulkan or Opengl retains all the same Windows PC gamer market, but makes it very easy to then port to Nintendo or PlayStation's custom Vulkan APIs, and easier to port to MacOS, and provide native support to SteamOS, and look to the future by having a game using a graphics API that will natively work with all Cloud OS solutions. And AMD and Intel's graphics cards favour Vulkan, so it would also give devs more chance of getting marketing deals from any of the three graphics card vendors too.

Being easier is not sufficient to break Microsoft's gaming OS domination. The relatively recent big Vulkan games I can think of are Saints Row, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Crysis Remastered, Sniper Elite 5 and Doom Eternal. According to your own logic, being on Vulkan made it easier to port to other platforms. Yet none of these games released on a platform other than Windows!

The reason is that the decision to release on a given platform is taken by the publisher not the development team, and is based on the expected financial return for the development time invested. As non-Windows platforms have comparatively tiny audiences, publishers judge that releasing on these platforms is not financially viable. This is not changed by Vulkan, as my examples prove.

But even if more games release on non-Windows platforms as a result of Vulkan, that would still not be sufficient. If you're a gamer are you going to pick a platform where say 70% of the games you want to play are available or one where 100% of the games you want to play are available? This is the same reasoning CMA used in their conclusion that Proton cannot break the Windows gaming monopoly:

"The strong position of Windows in OSs, especially among PCs used for gaming, is reflected in a similarly large proportion of PC games that are developed for Windows. Of the games available on Steam, 99.97% are compatible with Windows, compared to 21% for MacOS, and 14% for Linux. This means that a cloud service provider that uses Windows will benefit from access to a significantly wider range of games that work on its system without any porting or emulation than will a cloud service provider that chooses other non-console OSs such as Linux or MacOS. Data on game performance using Proton suggests that it is an imperfect substitute for gaming on Windows, and a significant proportion of games cannot be played without issues."

 

[Dick Jones]

As much as I like this deal to go though, I don't think MS will win the CAT appeal in a way that cirumvents CMA. Circumventing CMA is important because if CAT decides to give back the case to CMA, you get an endless loop of arguments from CMA. It's pretty evident that CMA has determined an outcome as is searching for the argument afterward.

The CMA made a decision and released their findings. They telegraphed the cloud issue the exact moment when they dropped the console issue. The CMA have found the cloud market to be separate as have the EC and the FTC. You're talking shite on claiming the CMA went out of their way to pre judge a decision.

The civil service in the UK and Europe works way different to what you think it does.

 

[ToadMan]

'Give it time to go through the administrative court process' doesn't make sense, as the FTC can stall that for as long as they want. Needed more time is the least of FTC's concern now, they control the schedule, not MS. If anything, this injunction is a risk for FTC.

Indeed. If the injunction is successful then the deal is dead but the FTC court case is scheduled so the timescales are known and have been for months now.

Courts are a risk for all participants - but as things stand, the FTC has about as strong a case today as it has had to get an injunction up.

 

[ToadMan]

All that matters is whether our laws are effective to stop these corporations or not.
If MS can ignore both countries, then those laws are meaningless.

Yes but equally, the laws cannot be there to stifle innovation or arbitrarily block activities because we don’t like the look of them. There is a presumption of innocence that guides legal actions.

So the process has to be done and we have to see it being done.

Whichever way this falls now, the various agencies have done what they could within the bounds of law and explained themselves publicly. Whether an individual agrees with the outcome or not at least we all got to see how the decision was made.

 

[feynoob]

Yes but equally, the laws cannot be there to stifle innovation or arbitrarily block activities because we don’t like the look of them. There is a presumption of innocence that guides legal actions.

So the process has to be done and we have to see it being done.

Whichever way this falls now, the various agencies have done what they could within the bounds of law and explained themselves publicly. Whether an individual agrees with the outcome or not at least we all got to see how the decision was made.

This is the ultimate test right now for these regulators and government. Can they control these corporations right now or will this be the start of the power of corporation.
Whatever decision happens from this deal will shape up the future.

 

[Godot25]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

I would laugh my ass of if judge would deny FTC's injunction and Microsoft will close whole shit over FTC and CMA
...especially since all legal experts around here told us that it's not possible.

 

[feynoob]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

I would laugh my ass of if judge would deny FTC's injunction and Microsoft will close whole shit over FTC and CMA
...especially since all legal experts around here told us that it's not possible.

It's sad that we are cheering for this behavior.

 

[jm89]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

Ah are we back to random lawyer sources.

Weren't random lawyer sources telling us the CMA would approve reported by equity report as well? How'd that work out?

 

[Godot25]

It's sad that we are cheering for this behavior.

Honestly, I don't give a damn about Activision Blizzard games, so benefits for me are little and I would be more glad if Microsoft spent fraction of that money on another publisher (Capcom?).
So I'm primarily here for shits and giggles. And to see reaction of people who were adamant after CMA block that deal is dead seeing it pass.

 

[DeepEnigma]

 

[Godot25]

Ah are we back to random lawyer sources.

Weren't random lawyer sources telling us the CMA would approve reported by equity report as well? How'd that work out?

Sorry. I forgot to get my accurate information from totally valid lawyers here on GAF

 

[feynoob]

Honestly, I don't give a damn about Activision Blizzard games, so benefits for me are little and I would be more glad if Microsoft spent fraction of that money on another publisher (Capcom?).
So I'm primarily here for shits and giggles. And to see reaction of people who were adamant after CMA block that deal is dead seeing it pass.

The problem isn't that. The issue is that a giant tech is trying to ignore the law here.
If these guys get their ways, we will be heading towards corporations dystopian like cyberpunk in the future where corporations have majority of power.

All this starts when people try to normalize behaviors like these.

 

[GHG]

Honestly, I don't give a damn about games

We know.

This is par for the course at this stage.

 

[Banjo64]

Honestly, I don't give a damn about Activision Blizzard games, so benefits for me are little and I would be more glad if Microsoft spent fraction of that money on another publisher (Capcom?).
So I'm primarily here for shits and giggles. And to see reaction of people who were adamant after CMA block that deal is dead seeing it pass.

Maintain that you don’t care while creaming over a mega-corp ignoring regulation. Sure sure. Believable.

 

[GHG]

Sorry. I forgot to get my accurate information from totally valid lawyers here on GAF

Like who? DeepEnigma and Topher ?

 

[EdGalTBR]

As much as I like this deal to go though, I don't think MS will win the CAT appeal in a way that cirumvents CMA. Circumventing CMA is important because if CAT decides to give back the case to CMA, you get an endless loop of arguments from CMA. It's pretty evident that CMA has determined an outcome as is searching for the argument afterward.

Are you a lawyer or something? CMA can't make an endless loop.

 

[xHunter]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

I would laugh my ass of if judge would deny FTC's injunction and Microsoft will close whole shit over FTC and CMA
...especially since all legal experts around here told us that it's not possible.

Buddy, when it was reported/rumoured that the CMA was going to approve it, you were also saying this:

Sony is not going to the CAT. It's almost impossible to win and even if you win, you are just going straight to same CMA. Not to mention fact that merger can be meanwhile closed.

You were literally saying the same shit that others are saying now, so stop acting high and mighty.

 

[Clintizzle]

Guys, I made a wow to not ejaculate untill Microsoft close this deal.

It's been two years now and I feel like I'm going to explode. I literally can't be fucked reading this thread so can someone please tell me how much longer I have to wait?

 

[Heisenberg007]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

I would laugh my ass of if judge would deny FTC's injunction and Microsoft will close whole shit over FTC and CMA
...especially since all legal experts around here told us that it's not possible.

So you want them to bypass regulatory laws and that would make you happy?

 

[Heisenberg007]

Guys, I made a wow to not ejaculate untill Microsoft close this deal.

It's been two years now and I feel like I'm going to explode. I literally can't be fucked reading this thread so can someone please tell me how much longer I have to wait?

 

[feynoob]

Guys, I made a wow to not ejaculate untill Microsoft close this deal.

It's been two years now and I feel like I'm going to explode. I literally can't be fucked reading this thread so can someone please tell me how much longer I have to wait?

Spoiler: You can hold on. Don't worry, stay strong.

 

[jm89]

Buddy, when it was reported/rumoured that the CMA was going to approve it, you were also saying this:


You were literally saying the same shit that others are saying now, so stop acting high and mighty.

 

[Dick Jones]

Guys, I made a wow to not ejaculate untill Microsoft close this deal.

It's been two years now and I feel like I'm going to explode. I literally can't be fucked reading this thread so can someone please tell me how much longer I have to wait?

17 years... all going to plan

 

[feynoob]

 

[Bernardougf]

Spoiler: You can hold on. Don't worry, stay strong.

Pffff.. send a photo of phil shirtless.... and see the thing explode

 

[drganon]

Honestly, I don't give a damn about Activision Blizzard games, so benefits for me are little and I would be more glad if Microsoft spent fraction of that money on another publisher (Capcom?).
So I'm primarily here for shits and giggles. And to see reaction of people who were adamant after CMA block that deal is dead seeing it pass.

 

[KungFucius]

Sarcasm?

It appears to be ignorance. Being "political" just means believes something different from the poster and their side is all about truth or some bullshit. As if the decision to either approve a giant merger or stop it on the grounds that it will hurt competition is not political. All mergers hurt competition on some level, so the decision on how much is too much will be political to some extent. One party will lean towards business regardless of any real world consumer risks while the other party will lean towards the consumer side. There are other biases anyone looking at this will also bring to the table, especially how they handle hypotheticals. The path the cloud market will take is extremally hypothetical at this point. All we know is that many have failed to gain traction and MS is the lead by offering cloud as a supplement to their platform.

 

[Bojanglez]

It seems that it's a mod that uses the DXVK translation layer.

Fix crash - Improve performance - Fix stuttering - Vulkan MOD

run the game in vulkan using dxvk helps with crashes, performance and stuttering

www.nexusmods.com

So why are Sony releasing their games on DirectX rather than Vulkan?


Being easier is not sufficient to break Microsoft's gaming OS domination. The relatively recent big Vulkan games I can think of are Saints Row, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Crysis Remastered, Sniper Elite 5 and Doom Eternal. According to your own logic, being on Vulkan made it easier to port to other platforms. Yet none of these games released on a platform other than Windows!

The reason is that the decision to release on a given platform is taken by the publisher not the development team, and is based on the expected financial return for the development time invested. As non-Windows platforms have comparatively tiny audiences, publishers judge that releasing on these platforms is not financially viable. This is not changed by Vulkan, as my examples prove.

But even if more games release on non-Windows platforms as a result of Vulkan, that would still not be sufficient. If you're a gamer are you going to pick a platform where say 70% of the games you want to play are available or one where 100% of the games you want to play are available? This is the same reasoning CMA used in their conclusion that Proton cannot break the Windows gaming monopoly:

"The strong position of Windows in OSs, especially among PCs used for gaming, is reflected in a similarly large proportion of PC games that are developed for Windows. Of the games available on Steam, 99.97% are compatible with Windows, compared to 21% for MacOS, and 14% for Linux. This means that a cloud service provider that uses Windows will benefit from access to a significantly wider range of games that work on its system without any porting or emulation than will a cloud service provider that chooses other non-console OSs such as Linux or MacOS. Data on game performance using Proton suggests that it is an imperfect substitute for gaming on Windows, and a significant proportion of games cannot be played without issues."

Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein YB were definitely on Stadia (Linux), so when Google mentioned that they reassessed their business after MS bought Bethesda, it could be argued that this was a key factor. id were a massive proponent of Vulkan and a major contributor to it, I imagine MS may force them to refocus on DX. So not only were all Bethesda games likely to never come to them, any future Linux development was likely to be inhibited without id pushing Vulkan. It is a clear sign of MS using their power to influence markets outside of just console exclusives, they are also manipulating OS and cloud markets too.

 

[Topher]

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard appeal proceedings appear to lean in favour of the merging parties, UK antitrust lawyers say

Microsoft’s appeal against the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block its merger with video game publisher Activision Blizzard appears to be headed towards a remittal of the case to the UK antitrust regulator, […]

www.equityreport.co.uk

I would laugh my ass of if judge would deny FTC's injunction and Microsoft will close whole shit over FTC and CMA
...especially since all legal experts around here told us that it's not possible.

Why does Microsoft care if there is an injunction or not? If they can ignore the CMA's order then they can ignore federal judges as well, right? Explain how that works since you've taken your place among the "legal experts around here".

 

[Topher]

Buddy, when it was reported/rumoured that the CMA was going to approve it, you were also saying this:


You were literally saying the same shit that others are saying now, so stop acting high and mighty.

 

[feynoob]

Buddy, when it was reported/rumoured that the CMA was going to approve it, you were also saying this:


You were literally saying the same shit that others are saying now, so stop acting high and mighty.

This why receipt are great.

 

[feynoob]

Yesssss. Take that non cloud users.

 

[DryvBy]

Good thing they had a good showing of games since they are basically going to be blocked from buying companies to keep games off of other platforms.

 

[FireFly]

Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein YB were definitely on Stadia (Linux), so when Google mentioned that they reassessed their business after MS bought Bethesda, it could be argued that this was a key factor. id were a massive proponent of Vulkan and a major contributor to it, I imagine MS may force them to refocus on DX. So not only were all Bethesda games likely to never come to them, any future Linux development was likely to be inhibited without id pushing Vulkan. It is a clear sign of MS using their power to influence markets outside of just console exclusives, they are also manipulating OS and cloud markets too.

Apparently Stadia was using a variety of translation techniques:

Yes. Windows games on Stadia are in Play!

The Stadia team confirmed that Google and developer partners have been using various known techniques to get Windows games running on Stadia.

clouddosage.com

So it's not clear what was being used for id engine games. Also I don't think id has confirmed they are abandoning Vulkan?