Written by Edwin Francisco
Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer announced that they already have an agreement that they will buy Activision-Blizzard.
This has been confirmed by Bobby Kotick himself.
This is major news, mainly because Activision-Blizzard has been one of the major league publishers and holds a lot of well known franchises like Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, StarCraft, WarCraft and a lot more.
It’s a surprise mainly because Activision-Blizzard is a big brand.
But then again, it was kind of expected that Activision-Blizzard needed a change.
The company’s image hasn’t seen any positive light for the past years especially with the recent sexual harassment case and it has been known that the company has this “frat boy” culture.
Activision-Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick has tried minimizing the situation.
But regardless of what the company does, it seems like it’s not enough.
Employees have even walked out in protest at the lack of action the company has done to protect them.
It seems that Microsoft gave Activision-Blizzard the opportunity of the change it needed.
Microsoft Buys Activision-Blizzard, So What Now?
Image: Activision
Because at this time, it feels like Activision-Blizzard can’t solve this on their own.
It is said that Bobby Kotick will step down as CEO of the company once the sale has been finalized.
This is the first step to improving the image of the company.
The sale might take a few months before it gets finalized, there are still a lot of legal hurdles in this.
A lot even question is this purchase of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft leading to a monopoly?
Some say it’s not because Sony has been buying other game companies as well, but some say it is because Activision-Blizzard has a lot of game franchises under its belt.
So, will the government step in and stop this acquisition?
It has been reported that right after the announcement of the purchase, the government is overhauling its guidelines for mergers.
Once the sale is done, what will happen to the games?
Most likely that a lot of them will go to the Xbox ecosystem and most of them will be added to Gamepass.
Some franchises might get exclusivity, but a lot of people wonder if Call of Duty will be Xbox exclusive in the future.
So far, Phil Spencer has announced that the Call of Duty brand will remain cross platform.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Remember that when Microsoft bought Mojang for Minecraft, a lot of people were afraid that the game might not continue on the PlayStation.
But Microsoft proved them wrong by not only keeping the game Minecraft on PlayStation but also by releasing the newer game, Minecraft Dungeons.
But then people are right to be worried mainly because just last year Microsoft bought ZeniMax Media, which is the parent company of Bethesda.
There were a lot of rumors that the future of Elder Scrolls will be exclusive to the Xbox, Phil Spencer didn’t deny the rumors.
What is the end goal for this purchase?
There is speculation that this is not just the games, but the main goal is getting the user base.
Think of how strong the fan base of Call of Duty is, how many people play Warzone, or count the number of players in World of WarCraft, or even the number of people playing Candy Crush.
Think about Microsoft’s presence in the ESports scene with StarCraft, Hearthstone and Overwatch now under their belt.
Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard to add games to their Gamepass lineup is just the tip of the iceberg.
There is a long term goal with this acquisition that cements not only the Xbox brand in gaming history but also Microsoft’s future.
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