Activision Anti-Trust Talk is Wishful Thinking

“Won’t someone think of Sony?!” That has been the theme of seemingly endless articles released since the announcement that Microsoft is buying Activision. 

It can only be that because, let’s face it, with even a second’s thought, this deal is not unfair or illegal. I’m talking from a corporate perspective, of course.

And yet armchair lawyers across the world are calling for the deal to be stopped on the basis of, basically, hurt feelings.

Anti-trust is not going to look at this deal for longer than it takes to write a signature. Why? Because it levels the playing field.

Activision and anti-trust

The word of use when Bethesda was bought was “monopoly”. It hit meme-levels in seconds, and was repeated over and over in the hopes that someone would pay attention. The Bethesda purchase didn’t make Microsoft a monopoly, nowhere close. And neither does Activision.

There are countless publishers across the world, many of them operating in America. And if you want to just count “big” publishers – whatever that means – you can’t count less than five without missing some.

Let’s try. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, EA, Epic, Embracer, Square, Take Two, Namco, Ubisoft, Capcom…

Notice I missed one? Even without Activision, there are plenty of third party (and first party) publishers out there.

Even including Bethesda and Activision, Microsoft isn’t making as much revenue as Sony. And that’s before they potentially cut new iterations of Call of Duty off from PlayStation.

But What About Exclusivity?

What about it? Games released under Microsoft aren’t exclusive. They never will be. They’re released on Xbox, PC and other devices via streaming. There’s literally nothing stopping you picking up your phone and playing a Microsoft game right now, and it’d only take you a couple of seconds to set up.

And no, international lawyers looking at this don’t care that you want to play it in 4k on your TV via download. You can play it – any barrier to that will be your own.

It’s funny, because Sony are much more likely to get in trouble over a major purchase than Microsoft here. They have a higher revenue (although they’re still only second to Tencent) and would make their games almost entirely exclusive, except as an afterthought release on PC. Hopefully that changes.

Sony bought six studios last year – Valkyrie, Bluepoint, Fabrik, Firesprite, Nixxes and Housemarque. As the biggest console manufacturer paying their way to getting bigger, should they have been investigated over these purchases? Should they have been blocked, as Sony gets closer to monopoly?

No. That would be ridiculous. These studios don’t represent a major shift in the industry, they didn’t ensure that no other company could operate, and it didn’t destroy any competition.

Activision doesn’t either. It’s just bigger.

But Call of Duty

The truth is that consolidation is never a good thing, but it’s happening. Big tech has noticed the video game industry, and big money can and will be spent. Like Sony threw its weight around in the 90s, much bigger companies are now beginning to do so today.

That doesn’t mean those companies should be banned from doing so – no more than Sega’s often amateur efforts in the 90s meant Sony could pick them off.

It just means that things are changing. On an individual level, that’s bad news for Call of Duty fans who own a PS5. Either buy a new console, sell your PS5 or resign yourself to never playing it again.

That sucks, for one reason or another depending on your circumstances. But it’s not illegal. It’s not immoral. It’s just business being done.

Those countless articles calling for legal intervention are just desperate words. It won’t happen – it shouldn’t happen. If third place can be torn apart or have transactions blocked because it suddenly poses a threat to second place, both second and third place should be torn apart too.

This is happening, and believe me when I say it will not be the last time.