Its 81 pages. Always intresting to have abit of a insight into it
But Idas made a recap
New Zealand first/final decision is august 11
But Idas made a recap
I finally had time to read the full notice (81 pages) that Microsoft sent to the Commerce Commission in New Zealand explaining why the acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be legally fine.
Almost all the interesting info is blocked for confidentiality reasons :S For example, there are almost 2 pages of blank space where MS explains the commercial reasons for the acquisition.
Anyway, there are some cool pieces of info beyond the legal reasoning:
- MS says that they have 24 first-party development studios (because they also count Casual Games Suite as one, the developers of Solitaire, Mahjong or Sudoku). So, we have to update the OT :p
- Tencent is constantly mentioned (23 times), as well as Sony and how the new PS Plus offering is a Gamepass competitor.
- Lots of references to new entrants in the video game market (Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Google, Nvidia, etc), how easy is nowadays to start a studio and create a super successful game even with just one developer (for example, Flappy Bird is mentioned).
- Valve and Epic are also mentioned quite a bit as competitors post-transaction.
- Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush represented 82% of Activision Blizzard's 2021 net revenue :o You can bet that those franchises are going to remain multiplatform in the future.
- The only Japanese publishers mentioned as competitors post transaction are Nintendo and Bandai Namco, no mention of SEGA, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, etc. In fact, they also include Roblox or CD Projeckt RED as competitors. It makes economical and legal sense because CD Projeckt RED was Europe's most valuable game company in 2020 and Roblox had around 190 million average monthly players in 2021. But I find it funny how for MS all those Japanese publishers are just a "long tail of smaller competitors". :p
- Lots of talks about how online display advertising, cloud services and merchandising are also relevant markets for this acquisition, but that they don't believe that the transaction could cause competition problems in those markets. They also say that there is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a "must have" for rival PC and console video game distributors. So, that a new competitor could do what they do and be successful (that's true but not everyone has +3000 developers working on a single IP). :p
Anyway, cool document! Let's see if the final decision includes a little bit more of data.
New Zealand first/final decision is august 11
When to expect the first (or final) decision by country/competition regulator regarding the Activision Blizzard acquisition:
All the dates could be extended, of course.
- South Korea, July 14th (already late)
- South Africa, July 15th (already late)
- New Zealand, August 11
- US, end of August
- Japan, end of August/beginning of September
- UK, September 1st
- Australia, September 15th
- EU, not formally notified yet but probably very close, so I would say end of September
Update: I finally found info about South Korea. It was one of the first countries to be notified (April 14th) and they can take up to 90 days for a decision since the notification. So, they should say something very soon.
