Today, January 18, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard – initially information about this event came from well-known journalist Jason Schreier, and a few hours later a post appeared on the blog of the IT giant. Upon completion of the deal, which is valued at $68.7 billion, Activision Blizzard will become a subsidiary of Microsoft Gaming, which, in turn, is now the largest in the world. However, Microsoft representatives said that they would not interfere in the affairs of the acquired studio – it would continue to exist independently.
This means that after signing all the papers, Phil Spencer, who is the head of Microsoft Gaming, will have many more large studios under his leadership – Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob and Treyarch. In honor of such good news, Phil Spencer even promised that upon completion of the purchase, many games from the Activision Blizzard arsenal will go straight to the Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass libraries, and the studios themselves will maintain high cultural values, respect for employees and more.
The latter was probably added due to recent issues that Activision Blizzard, under the control of Bobby Kotick, has experienced. The company has been trying to get rid of the reputational scandal for a long time – employees go on strike or simply quit, the stock price is constantly falling, the quality of video games is falling from year to year. Now the situation has changed dramatically – the shares of Activision Blizzard have crept up, and many gamers perceive the takeover as a real salvation from Microsoft. The main thing is that the new parts of Call of Duty suddenly do not become exclusive to the Xbox.
