EU regulators have approved Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. This follows the recent rejection of the deal in the UK over competition concerns in cloud gaming, something the EU regulators were able to consider remedied due to Microsoft’s offering of 10 year licenses with cloud gaming services.
The approval today was expected, following reports that the EU would move forward and allow the deal to go through.
According to the approval by the European Commission:
“The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard (‘Activision') by Microsoft. The approval is conditional on full compliance with the commitments offered by Microsoft. The commitments fully address the competition concerns identified by the Commission and represent a significant improvement for cloud gaming as compared to the current situation.”
The deal is cleared to proceed, as long as Microsoft complies with several key remedies over concern over cloud gaming. Microsoft offered several concessions to get the deal across the line, and those mirror the spate of 10-year deals the company has been signing with companies and platforms regarding both console and cloud gaming.
In the region (EEA), Microsoft offered the following for 10 years:
- A free license to consumers in the EEA that would allow them to stream, via any cloud game streaming services of their choice, all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license.
- A corresponding free license to cloud game streaming service providers to allow EEA-based gamers to stream any Activision Blizzard's PC and console games.
With Activision Blizzard’s games not currently available on any cloud platforms, the European Commissions actually sees the deal as a likely net positive.
“In addition, the availability of Activision's popular games for streaming via all cloud game streaming services will boost the development of this dynamic technology in the EEA. Ultimately, the commitments will unlock significant benefits for competition and consumers.”
With one very major hurdle out of the way with the EU approval, focus shifts to the USA's lawsuit to stop the acquisition, and an appeal of the UK’s rejection.
