According to one of the reports of the regulatory commission that is supervising the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsofttalks between the two companies they started just three days after the report on internal abuse published by The Wall Street Journal. As the chronology points out, on November 16 of last year, the WSJ made public both the cases of harassment within the studio and the fact that Bobby Kotick had full knowledge of the different accusations. This caused a significant drop in the price of the company and its shares that could be the trigger for the subsequent actions of Microsoft.
Two days after the article was published, Phil Spencer sent an email to Xbox employees claiming to be concerned and disturbed by the report, also adding that he was willing to “reconsider Xbox’s relationship with Activision”. The next day, the CEO had a first telephone contact with Kotick in which he was “interested in discussing strategic opportunities between the two companies.” On November 20, the two had a new conversation in which Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was also present.
The purchase of Activision Blizzard was made public on January 18, about eight weeks after the start of negotiations, which seems like a record considering that we are facing one of the most ambitious acquisitions ever made in the video game industry. The report published by the SEC also points to the existence of four other companies interested in the purchase, one of which was only looking to acquire Blizzard. Although the names of these four companies are not public, the document does indicate that Microsoft was faster and more aggressive than its competitors.
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