Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard Discussion Thread (Part 1)

Being against is not the argument. There is no an objective argument to be made against the deal.

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I don’t think so, both groups are incentivized for this not to go to court. For the CMA it would be a long battle against very sharp lawyers that will catch the CMA skipping in areas that hurt their pocket book.

Additionally, who’s to say microsoft would choose to fight in the UK. They could go to the US to invalidate any CMA rulings against US mergers. Theyd have a better chance winning there and the CMA cant even defend themselves lol. CMA would be wise to take a small concession win and move on.

I’m talking about the CMA trying to get public feedback, there are most likely more Sony fanboys that will write in and shit on the deal than Xbox fanboys writing in to praise the deal. It will probably not matter in the long run.

They always ask for a public feedback I think?

But it does not matter. Opinion like ā€œSTOP THE COUNTā€ will be discarded anyway.

I am talking mostly about UK yeah. I got the feeling that even though the CMA may know they will probably lose, they would anyway ā€œtakeā€ MS to court, just for the sake of delaying the acquisition or just showing they are doing their job. It sometimes look like that is that they want, or that they havenĀ“t got any idea about the field they are dealing in.

there is no real ā€œcourtā€ option for the UK/CMA. Microsoft can appeal to the CAT tribunal who can review and see if anything was improper and if there is, it gets sent back to the CMA for a re-review.

Delaying deal won’t change much because every other party is waiting for this deal to close before doing the action. Granted UK government will implode soon anyway :joy:

I dont think going to court in the UK is the option theyd pursue. I think theyd work in US courts instead to destroy the CMAs enforcement mechanism on US companies rendering them useless basically. Then theyd ignore their ruling and continue as is.

I didnĀ“t know that would be the course of action… Interesting.

Idk the way CMA are already acting I wouldn’t be shocked if they used public opinion over fact haha

Absolutely and the money people put in their pockets.

Pull this off and you’ll win the case.

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The deal is going to go through but at this point I’m convinced that the UK regulator must have a kid that is a sony fanboy and he/she has been crying to their dad about this merger.

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Given what I’ve seen online, it’s probably their adult son.

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Hey CMA look at this friendly new title!

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How did the CMA end up with this if giphy have no employees or office in the UK? If MS bought a studio or publisher in the future that isnt located in the UK, do they still need CMA’s approval?

Well, it seems so.

Its amazing, because the CMA didnt review the Sony Bungie acquisition because they didnt have a presence in the UK. Its truly mind-boggling how inconsistent they are.

Unless their consistency is messing with US Tech Firms.

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To be fair Activision does have multiple studio branches in the UK as well as being a major sales force here - they really SHOULD be investigating this deal ultimately even if we disagree with their methodology. But equally Bungie games have customers here too so you’re right in that they perhaps should have investigated that too.

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The thing is that Giphy had no employees in UK. Yet CMA was able to block the deal.

Guess, something should be done with CMA.

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