Microsoft & Activision Blizzard’s no good, very bad week

Here’s hoping you had a better week than these two gaming giants.

Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard might be in trouble

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the proposed sale. The CMA cited Microsoft’s dominance in the cloud gaming space, and how a lack of competition there could stifle innovation and increase costs for gamers. Google recently abandoned Stadia, their cloud gaming platform and there are few other companies with the means to tackle cloud gaming.

“Microsoft already enjoys a powerful position and head start over other competitors in cloud gaming and this deal would strengthen that advantage giving it the ability to undermine new and innovative competitors,” said Martin Coleman of the CMA. Microsoft already said they plan to appeal the decision.

Is the merger dead? Microsoft will have to make some concessions to try and push the deal through. If they are unsuccessful, Microsoft will have to pay Activision Blizzard a “reverse termination” fee of $3 billion. Gamespot and GamesIndustry.biz both have excellent articles on what comes next that are worth checking out.

Apart from the merger, Activision Blizzard had their own set of problems emerge this week. First, Blizzard recently pulled their games from China, and are now being sued for $44 million. Meanwhile at home, Blizzard is losing so many developers, they had to create a “crisis map”  to decide what games it can and cannot launch with its current staffing levels. Finally, Activision’s biggest game, Call of Duty, appears to be completely broken on some AMD graphics cards.

A rough week indeed.

Get your free PlayStation games while you can

Own a PlayStation 5 and have a PlayStation Plus subscription? Well then you have until May 9 to get 19 classic PlayStation games for free.

The PS Plus Collection was introduced at the launch of the PS5 to provide owners of the new console with a collection of classic PS4 games for free, if they signed up for a monthly PS Plus subscription. However, nothing good lasts forever, and Sony said May 9 is the last day to claim the games.

Adding the games to your library is easy, just go into the PlayStation Plus subscriber area and look for the PS Plus Collection. It should be near the top. Add each game to your library, and they are yours forever. You don’t even need to download them before the deadline. The 19 games included are:

Batman: Arkham Knight
Battlefield 1
Bloodborne
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Zombie Chronicles Edition)
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Days Gone
Detroit: Become Human
Fallout 4
Final Fantasy 15
God of War
Infamous Second Son
Monster Hunter World
Mortal Kombat X
Ratchet and Clank
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
The Last Guardian
The Last of Us Remastered
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Until Dawn

Union hedgehog

Shortly after acquiring Angry Birds maker Rovio, Sega is back in the news. Workers in their Irvine, California office filed for a union election, led by a supermajority of 144 employees across Sega of America's quality assurance, live service, localization, marketing, and product development departments. Sega of America president and COO Ian Curran responded to employees, saying:

Union matters are new to me and SOA and we are investigating and considering the options available to the company. …Some of you may support unionization and some not. That is your legal right. No SOA employee will be treated any differently whether they support or do not support unionization. We have a wonderful culture at SOA with a strong commitment to working together as a team. In my mind, it is the SOA employee culture that makes us such a successful company.

Side quests (more stories worth reading)

🍎 Epic Games lost its antitrust suit against Apple for blocking competing marketplaces on iOS. Epic said it would appeal.

🏎️ The next Forza Motorsport game will offer a ton of accessibility options, including one that allows blind or vision impaired gamers to play.

🤖 Armored Core 6 gets a release date (August 25) and a new trailer. It is the latest game by FromSoftware, makers of Elden Ring, Bloodborne and many others.

🖥️ PC ports of Sony games like The Last of Us are making a ton of money, so expect to see more of them.

🔫 Call of Duty is getting a board game version of its popular brand in 2024.

🦖Metacritic is trying to block bigotry on its site following a homophobic review-bombing campaign. Said campaign was a response to an optional same sex kiss in Horizon: Forbidden West’s DLC.

🎮 Patrick Klepek of Waypoint wrote an excellent piece on Jedi: Survivor that explains how hard it can be to review a game that is not yet finished. Later in the week, he found out he would be jobless, as Waypoint is shutting down.

🚘 Remember the game Twisted Metal on PlayStation 2? Not ringing a bell? Well, it was basically a blow-up-the-other-car game, and it’s being made into a show for Peacock. Watch the first teaser trailer.

🧛 Not to be outdone, a Vampire Survivors show is apparently in the works.

New Releases this week:

5/1: City of Beats (PC)
5/2: Age of Wonders 4 (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
5/2: Redfall (Xbox and PC)
5/4: Mia and the Dragon Princess (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
5/4: Ravenlok (Xbox and PC)
5/5: Duru – About Mole Rats and Depression (PC)
5/5: These Doomed Isles: The First God (PC)

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