this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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There was nothing fair about the offer, because they should never have been in a position to make it in the first place. It's a failure of legal system that this is allowed to happen at all.
Meh. From my antitrust course in law school (which was admittedly a long time ago), nothing about this screams antitrust. I don’t see that this deal gives Microsoft monopoly power over any defined market, and Microsoft definitely hasn’t flexed any existing monopoly power over the gaming space.
Certainly Microsoft has a history of anticompetitive action and flouting monopoly power whenever it has the chance in a sector. But I don’t see this deal as giving Microsoft a vertical or horizontal monopoly. It’s just typical consolidation within the industry. It’s not for consumers, but it isn’t the result of illegal price fixing type arrangements between competitors or using an existing dominant market share to overpower the market. That isn’t illegal. That’s just a shitty industry with shitty practices.
The best argument against allowing the deal to close, under US law, is likely targeted towards the cloud and subscription models. Microsoft really does seem to have a huge edge there. But I’m not sure anyone in the industry (except Epic Games) wants to challenge the subscription practices on another player’s hardware.
How so? This is just a company buying another company. They aren’t the only player in the space, they aren’t the only company making games or consoles. This isn’t monopolistic.
It may or may not be good for consumers in the long run, but whether it’s “fair” that Microsoft can buy a game studio isn’t really what the law is worried about. They care about lack of competition in the space, and there are still plenty of large competitors. Valve, Sony, and Nintendo can still easily compete with Microsoft even after this acquisition.
Microsoft saying, “We promise to continue releasing this title we now own on our competitor’s console” is more than fair. They don’t need to do that, but it’s a win-win for them and for Sony so they might as well. It works out well for them because PlayStation users will pay them money for the game, while it being free on GamePass will still incentivize coming to PC or Xbox to play it.
Say what you will about the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but a deal to continue publishing on a competitor’s console is perfectly “fair.”