Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard Worth $69 Billion Makes It the Third Largest Game Company in the World

Microsoft acquired game studio Activision Blizzard last October. The largest game store was worth 69 billion dollars (1.6 trillion CZK).

After the successful completion of the entire deal, the American software giant turned into the third largest game company in the world, at least in terms of revenue. It was just behind Tencent and Sony.

So recently the creator of the Xbox gaming platform has become the owner of several famous names in the game world – let’s mention at least Call of Duty, Diablo, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft and World of Warcraft.

The executives of the game studios insist that the acquisition will not have a negative impact on the game World of Warcraft, according to them, the benefit is instead collaboration with the teams working on titles others owned by Microsoft, such as Minecraft or The Elder Scrolls series.

World of Warcraft Executive Producer Holly Longdale said that while she has “no idea right now,” she is optimistic about a transition between the final titles. “But who knows? It’s still early days,” said v interview with the BBC.

The fate of Activision Blizzard’s games has become the subject of much speculation among fans, especially whether Microsoft will include the titles in its Game Pass – a game subscription that works in the same way to, for example, Netflix streaming services.

Concerns were also raised in January news about the positions of 1,900 workers Microsoft’s gaming division, which came at a time when Activision Blizzard announced that it would no longer work on an adventure game project called Odyssey. The cuts represent about eight percent of Microsoft’s gaming division workforce.

However, Longdale insists that the acquisition is beneficial for players, including by deepening cooperation between the individual studios. A specific example is the ability to remove from the game avatars of eight-legged spider characters, which are numerous in the fantasy world of Azeroth, which can be appreciated by players with severe manifestations of arachnophobia.

“We took this special option from the game Grounded, which is being developed by Microsoft’s Obsidian studio,” said the representative.

Although the developers do not expect major changes, according to them, World of Warcraft must actively work on the tasks facing the development community in general today – to find new ways to appeal to players who don’t want to spend hundreds of hours developing their characters. , and to compete with the competition not only for money, but also for the attention of consumers. According to Longdale, the game studio’s competition today is, for example, Netflix.

The subject of representation is also a subject; game characters today should not support racial or gender stereotypes.