Microsoft announces purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

A deal that has rocked the entire gaming industry is obviously going to bring about some major changes. It has been revealed that Microsoft has acquired shares from the company’s key shareholders. This was largely made possible by the scandals haunting Blizzard in 2021. These include sexual harassment, a toxic environment, and an inept management response to the scandals. Against this backdrop, the company’s shares have fallen in price and competitors have taken advantage of this.

The bottom line is that there is little left to be done. The deal has to be approved by the antimonopoly authorities. And if there are no problems at this stage, the merged company will become the world’s third-largest gaming industry in terms of revenue.

In fact, the process of the deal is not yet complete. Tentatively in July 2023, Activision Blizzard employees will take over from Phil Spencer. In the meantime, the company will operate as a standalone division, with Bobby Kotick continuing to lead it.

What Microsoft is getting

The deal will give the company three major divisions: Activision, Blizzard, King. Each of them is almost completely autonomous, with separate studios and departments.

Activision

The biggest division of the company. The publisher is known not only for Call of Duty series. From the pen of the developers Activision has come out quite a number of masterpieces. Of course, the main treasure of the division is the shooter. Every year new Call of Duty series is released and sells millions of copies.

Blizzard

In many ways it was the Blizzard scandal that led to the collapse of the entire company. Although the financial performance of the division was the lowest in the whole of Activision. That said, it’s not entirely clear what this has to do with. Blizzard needs no special introduction. The company has such projects as Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft to its credit. Perhaps it was the success of the latter that caused the management to lose the thread of control, although it was able to organise the release of the card game Hearhstone. After that, however, the company began to reshuffle its staff and there were no more major projects.

King

A division specialising in mobile games. It has already brought the company more revenue than Blizzard as early as 2020. This was largely due to the success of Candy Crush Saga. That said, King cannot be called a developer of major mobile projects. The division’s main role is to work with mass audiences.

What are the expected consequences?

It is difficult to predict exactly how this event will affect the entire gaming industry. But it is worth highlighting the main points:

1. Consoles. The situation in the console market after the deal will be seriously complicated for Sony. The fact is that the exclusivity policy was an important factor for consoles. Each console released its own unique projects, but now all that will be in question. Now the companies have two options. They can come to an agreement, and if that fails, the likelihood of Sony losing a number of top games will increase.
2. Computers. Don’t expect much change here. Xbox Game Studios games are unlikely to disappear from Steam, but there is a chance that Microsoft will try to revive the Starcraft series.

In the end it is safe to say that the only significant changes will affect the console market. Otherwise, we should not expect much change. On the contrary, PC owners and mobile game lovers can benefit from such a deal. After all, the number of new games in Blizzard franchises will definitely increase.