For a living, I influence high level corporate strategy in the games industry. I’ve consulted for all the biggest companies in the space, including all the tech giants’ various gaming-related groups.
Let me be abundantly clear: the decision is utter nonsense. I’m not going into the details here, but the decision is an abysmal abomination and should be very concerning to all technology businesses, both because it signals that a relevant regulatory body is willing to make arbitrary and horribly-justified decisions with major material impacts, and because a story is emerging about the international regulatory collusion that drove this. It ABSOLUTELY IS an undemocratic power grab from politically-driven regulators that abrogates their core duties in favor of empowering themselves and their own political factions.
Additionally, it’s extra embarrassing for the UK because it signals an overly cozy relationship with Sony (which has more operations / employees in country) that reeks of regulatory capture by a local lobby. That and a willingness to jump through hoops for an ambitiously activist US FTC. Unfortunately, the net result is the UK coming off as a complete joke. I’m strongly advising clients to avoid expanding operations in the country and to genuinely consider abandoning the market.
Take it or leave it, but I write this all as someone who had otherwise been strongly arguing AGAINST the deal, because I think it’s bad for the games industry. But this kind of sloppy and arbitrary behavior from regulators is even worse, for all gaming and tech businesses… and, to some degree, for all business in general.
Edit-
I can’t elaborate on my reasoning here, but the full picture is out there for anyone interested in looking into it. This is a long and thorough rundown of the situation that serves as a good starting point: https://naavik.co/digest/microsoft-activision-blizzard-timel...