Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
Speaker 1: tech are you? So as twenty twenty three winds down,
Speaker 1: we're looking back on some of the big tech stories
Speaker 1: that happened this year. I mentioned this one a few times,
Speaker 1: but I figured it would be better to do a
Speaker 1: full look back on Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which
Speaker 1: actually obviously stretches back more than a year. It was
Speaker 1: never a guaranteed deal and there was a significant amount
Speaker 1: of opposition to it all around the world. So today
Speaker 1: we're going to look at how the story began and
Speaker 1: how it unfolded, as well as we'll speculate a little
Speaker 1: bit about the future now that the two companies have
Speaker 1: put ink to paper. Now, let's start off with background
Speaker 1: on Activision Blizzard. The company traces its history to the
Speaker 1: earliest days of home video game markets. Activision launched out
Speaker 1: of Atari when a group of folks decided that it
Speaker 1: might be nice to receive credit and royalties for their work,
Speaker 1: rather than all that sweet cash and credit going to
Speaker 1: the company itself. So Activision made some real bangers like Pitfall,
Speaker 1: which if you're old like I am, you might remember
Speaker 1: fondly compared to more recent games. Of course, it's primitive,
Speaker 1: but trust me, at the time, Pitfall was amazing. Skip
Speaker 1: ahead to nineteen ninety one and a guy named Bobby
Speaker 1: Kodik would, along with some financial partners, by a significant
Speaker 1: amount of stock in Activision. He would later become the
Speaker 1: CEO of the company. That same year, the company that
Speaker 1: would become Blizzard would form. The original name for a
Speaker 1: Blizzard was Silicon and Synapse when it was launched in
Speaker 1: ninety one, but it took the name Blizzard in ninety four,
Speaker 1: and Blizzard also published some real bangers in video and
Speaker 1: computer games. It's the company behind Warcraft, which was a
Speaker 1: huge hit in the real time strategy community. They produced Diablo,
Speaker 1: which was a huge hit among the how many times
Speaker 1: can I click my mouse button in a row? Community,
Speaker 1: and it launched World of Warcraft, the I Will Never
Speaker 1: see the light of day again community, among many others.
Speaker 1: By the two thousands, Activision was creating or publishing genre
Speaker 1: defining franchises like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero. Blizzard's
Speaker 1: game StarCraft would become a cornerstone of esports. Blizzard also
Speaker 1: changed hands multiple times in the early two thousands, ending
Speaker 1: up with a company called Vivendi Games out of France.
Speaker 1: Activision merged with Vivendi in two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: the new company was called Activision Blizzard and Bobby Kotik
Speaker 1: became CEO of this newly merged company. Activision Blizzard continued
Speaker 1: to develop, up and publish successful games and franchises. It
Speaker 1: became one of the largest video game companies in the world. Now,
Speaker 1: let us switch gears to talk about Microsoft. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: Microsoft has had a really long history as well. I
Speaker 1: think it's safe to say that the company is best
Speaker 1: known for the Windows operating system. It's also the company
Speaker 1: behind the Office suite of productivity software like Word and Excel.
Speaker 1: Oh and it has a long history of Shenanigan's ranging
Speaker 1: from misleading business deals which go all the way back
Speaker 1: to the earliest days of the company, with Bill Gates
Speaker 1: pulling a fast one on rivals, to a legal case
Speaker 1: that very nearly forced Microsoft to break up into smaller companies,
Speaker 1: but a subsequent judge in the US would overrule that
Speaker 1: decision later on. Microsoft has been a big part of
Speaker 1: gaming for a really long time as well. The first
Speaker 1: edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator launched in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: but this title was actually built on an older simulator
Speaker 1: that originally came out in nineteen seventy seven. Microsoft waded
Speaker 1: into the video game console wars in two thousand and
Speaker 1: one with the launch of the original Xbox console. The
Speaker 1: Xbox three sixty would follow in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and then Xbox One would come out in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, Microsoft acquired Mojang Studios, the company behind
Speaker 1: the insanely popular title Minecraft, and in twenty twenty, Microsoft
Speaker 1: launched the most recent version of the Xbox. The Series
Speaker 1: X is the flagship. There's also the Series S. In
Speaker 1: recent years, Microsoft has focused more on video games as
Speaker 1: its business model has shifted quite a bit so in
Speaker 1: years past, new versions of Windows and updates to the
Speaker 1: Office Suite where the flagship products for the company. That's
Speaker 1: mainly what they focused their sales on, but the revenue
Speaker 1: strategy has changed a bit. It focuses more on subscrib
Speaker 1: options than product sales, and they also have other services
Speaker 1: that they make money from, like cloud computing. Video games
Speaker 1: and consoles are one of the product lines that are
Speaker 1: still going strong in Microsoft, though there are also subscription
Speaker 1: elements to those as well, and Microsoft faces a couple
Speaker 1: of heavy hitters in the video game industry, namely Sony
Speaker 1: and to a lesser extent, Nintendo, but Sony is the
Speaker 1: real rival to Microsoft's total domination of the home video
Speaker 1: game market. In twenty twenty one, a scandal erupted at
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard. Now, to be clear, the problem that was
Speaker 1: the focus of the scandal had been in place for
Speaker 1: a really long time, but in twenty twenty one it's
Speaker 1: when it all sort of became public dirty laundry. Multiple
Speaker 1: parties came forward and accused the company of allowing a
Speaker 1: toxic environment to flourish. At Activision Blizzard. There were allegations,
Speaker 1: like serious allegations of stuff like sexual harassment cases, including
Speaker 1: at least a couple that were really more bordering on
Speaker 1: sexual assault cases, and a lot of the stories ended
Speaker 1: up being the same where employees were told that they
Speaker 1: had to settle the matter internally within the company and
Speaker 1: that human resources was supposed to be the first and
Speaker 1: really only resort. Meanwhile, that department was allegedly burying these matters,
Speaker 1: so that they wouldn't go any further. There were other
Speaker 1: serious allegations as well, claiming the company discriminated against women,
Speaker 1: and that it violated the law in how the company
Speaker 1: treated pregnant women, and that it was also guilty of
Speaker 1: retaliating against employees who brought issues up, another thing that
Speaker 1: is against the law. The accusations also said that Bobby Kotik,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the company, was fully aware of the
Speaker 1: situation and that he did nothing about it, or worse,
Speaker 1: not that he did nothing, but that he also faced accusations.
Speaker 1: They specifically withheld in from the board of directors. There
Speaker 1: were folks calling for Kodek's resignation, a call that CODEC
Speaker 1: pointedly ignored. Not at the time, very few people knew
Speaker 1: what was going on behind the scenes, but this was
Speaker 1: when Microsoft was in early negotiations considering an acquisition of
Speaker 1: the company, and it wasn't public knowledge yet. A big
Speaker 1: move like that requires stability in both companies that are
Speaker 1: part of a merger, and while a change in leadership
Speaker 1: might have been appropriate considering the accusations involved over at
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard, it would also make the acquisition process more complicated,
Speaker 1: and apparently business wins out over matters of toxicity and
Speaker 1: abuse of employees. So Kdek stayed put, and various employees
Speaker 1: in US agencies filed lawsuits against Activision Blizzard. The company
Speaker 1: actually settled one of those lawsuits out of court in
Speaker 1: September twenty twenty one. It agreed to settle a similar
Speaker 1: lawsuit just this year, after Microsoft had already completed the acquisition.
Speaker 1: There's a dark legacy of sexual discrimination that Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: must overcome, and there are different camps that view the
Speaker 1: acquisition in very different ways with regard to that. There
Speaker 1: are some who worry that with Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: the new parent company is just going to sweep everything
Speaker 1: under the rug and walk away and make that just
Speaker 1: a matter of the past, and no one will ever
Speaker 1: see any justice from the various indignities and worse that
Speaker 1: they experienced under Activision Blizzard. The other camp hopes that Microsoft,
Speaker 1: by taking charge, will actually address these things in a
Speaker 1: way that is accountable and will end up seeing justice
Speaker 1: done for the people who were negatively impacted by Activision
Speaker 1: Blizzard's environment, and that perhaps Microsoft will clean house as
Speaker 1: part of the process. Some of that has actually come
Speaker 1: to pass, as we have seen some changes in executive
Speaker 1: leadership in recent days, but we'll get back to that.
Speaker 1: So on January eighteenth, twenty twenty two, Microsoft announced its
Speaker 1: intention to acquire Activision Blizzard. The transaction was to be
Speaker 1: all in cash nearly sixty nine billion, with a b
Speaker 1: dollars worth of cash, which is a whole lot of cash.
Speaker 1: According to the press release that Microsoft was behind, this
Speaker 1: would put Microsoft in third place among video game companies,
Speaker 1: at least by revenue. They said that the Chinese company
Speaker 1: Tencent was in number one and the Japanese giant Sony
Speaker 1: was in place number two, and I suspect Microsoft listed
Speaker 1: Sony this way, acknowledging it as a larger video game company,
Speaker 1: because it was a strategic move. I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard knew that this merger was going
Speaker 1: to face scrutine all around the world, and it would
Speaker 1: mean two very powerful companies in the video game space
Speaker 1: would consolidate, and that could be viewed as a threat
Speaker 1: to competition in the overall industry. So they end up
Speaker 1: pointing out, hey, even if we're together, Sony is still
Speaker 1: bigger than we are. It was kind of a strategic
Speaker 1: way of saying we're not a threat to competition. Look,
Speaker 1: we still won't be as big as Sony or Tencent.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, that scrutiny would exactly follow
Speaker 1: it in the way that Microsoft anticipated, and Sony would
Speaker 1: play a very large heart of it. I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this, but first let's take a quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsors. All Right, we're back. I had talked
Speaker 1: about how Microsoft was trying to kind of pregame by saying, hey,
Speaker 1: even when we're together, we're gonna just be in third place,
Speaker 1: And they're positioning it in a way where they're like, hey, yay,
Speaker 1: we're all the way moving up to third place. But
Speaker 1: it was kind of a sly way of saying, there's
Speaker 1: still two companies that are bigger than us, even given
Speaker 1: this this merger. The situation also explained why Bobby Kodick
Speaker 1: was adamant with regard to staying in charge at Activision Blizzard.
Speaker 1: Before it looked like he was just doubling down as
Speaker 1: a leader of a company that had a callous attitude
Speaker 1: toward employees, specifically employees who were also women. But now
Speaker 1: the complication of this massive business deal put things into
Speaker 1: a new perspective, people said, Aha, this is why Bobby
Speaker 1: Kodick refuses to step down. It's not that he really
Speaker 1: thinks he's in the right here, but because there's this massive,
Speaker 1: sixty nine billion dollar deal going on and he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to mess it up by stepping down and having
Speaker 1: someone else take charge. So it got very cynical for
Speaker 1: good reason. It didn't take long for folks to screw
Speaker 1: the deal and for people to start raising their concerns.
Speaker 1: In fact, in April twenty twenty two, several US senators
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC
Speaker 1: about this proposed merger, and they cited worries about consolidation
Speaker 1: in the tech industry in general, which does make sense
Speaker 1: because there is a very small collection of very large
Speaker 1: companies that dominate the tech space here in the United States,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft is one of them already, and their move
Speaker 1: appeared to be in alignment with concentrating even more power
Speaker 1: within that small group of companies. The senators also reference
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigations and litigations surrounding Activision Blizzard. They were
Speaker 1: among those who were worried that a merger could mean
Speaker 1: that employees who had been affected by the activities of
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard might find themselves without means to have their
Speaker 1: issues addressed in the wake of a merger, like how
Speaker 1: can they see justice if there's a new boss in
Speaker 1: charge in the just essentially say upslates wipe clean. But
Speaker 1: the real opposition to the deal, I would argue came
Speaker 1: from overseas. Specifically in the United Kingdom. The Competitions and
Speaker 1: Markets Authority or CMA launched an investigation into the deal
Speaker 1: out of concern that it would lead to significant decrease
Speaker 1: in competition in video games. There were worries that Microsoft
Speaker 1: would reserve Activision Blizzard titles to Microsoft exclusive platforms like
Speaker 1: Xbox consoles and Windows based PCs, that Microsoft would deny
Speaker 1: companies like Sony and Nintendo from getting access to really
Speaker 1: hugely popular video game franchises, and that this would constitute
Speaker 1: anti competitive practices. Essentially, they were worried about Microsoft locking
Speaker 1: all of these popular video game titles to an exclusivity
Speaker 1: deal with itself. Microsoft repeatedly committed to giving its competitors
Speaker 1: access to those pop titles. Time and again, a Microsoft
Speaker 1: representative would refute the concerns, and this got to a
Speaker 1: point where Microsoft agreed to sign to ten year commitments
Speaker 1: that would cement that Microsoft would not lock games like
Speaker 1: the Call of Duty franchise behind an exclusive arrangement. It
Speaker 1: turned out that Sony representatives had been raising concerns with
Speaker 1: regulators about this very thing. That Sony had been arguing
Speaker 1: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merging together would cause direct harm
Speaker 1: to companies like Sony and Nintendo, and ultimately, they argued consumers.
Speaker 1: Sony reps also said that Microsoft would squeak around guarantees right. Oh, sure,
Speaker 1: they'll release the game, but they'll make sure that the
Speaker 1: Microsoft version of the game has more features and more
Speaker 1: content in it, and that the version that gets released
Speaker 1: to platforms like PlayStation or Nintendo consoles will be stripped
Speaker 1: down and inferior. Maybe they'll have a content, maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be lower fidelity, something along those lines, maybe it'll have
Speaker 1: performance issues. By the way, Sony locking stuff behind exclusive
Speaker 1: content for themselves is something that they have done a
Speaker 1: lot of, so you could argue they knew a lot
Speaker 1: about this kind of idea because they themselves had sort
Speaker 1: of perfected it. But no matter, I think the concern
Speaker 1: was a legitimate one, even if Sony itself had been
Speaker 1: guilty of doing the same thing to other platforms. Phil Spencer,
Speaker 1: the head of the Xbox division over at Microsoft, ultimately
Speaker 1: made a public statement that said the company would release
Speaker 1: Call of Duty titles to PlayStation for as long as
Speaker 1: there's a PlayStation to release titles too. Essentially said, we're
Speaker 1: never going to get out of the business of creating
Speaker 1: video games for other platforms. It doesn't make sense because
Speaker 1: while we could dominate the market and be anti competitive,
Speaker 1: there's more money to be made by making titles for
Speaker 1: other platforms. That's that's what we want to do, ultimately,
Speaker 1: is make more money, not have some sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: de facto dominance in the market. This was after more
Speaker 1: than a year of back and forth in various regulatory arenas.
Speaker 1: So not only did the two companies face stern opposition
Speaker 1: in the UK, here in the United States things were
Speaker 1: getting thorny as well. The Federal Trade Commission announced it
Speaker 1: was opposed to the deal. In fact, the FTC sued
Speaker 1: Microsoft to stop the deal from happening. Again. The concern
Speaker 1: was that the deal marked a decrease in competition in
Speaker 1: the market and that it would give Microsoft an unfair
Speaker 1: advantage over other companies. And again this is something that
Speaker 1: Microsoft has a well earned reputation of doing in the past,
Speaker 1: So it's not like Microsoft is some innocent babe in
Speaker 1: the woods. The company has been found guilty of engaging
Speaker 1: in anti competitive practices. So in some ways you can
Speaker 1: look at this as the FTC saying, ah, you're back
Speaker 1: up to year old tricks again Microsoft. By early twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, the European Union had also jumped into this mess,
Speaker 1: and regulators in the EU said that they too were
Speaker 1: concerned about the deal. At this point, things were starting
Speaker 1: to look pretty uncertain. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard were facing
Speaker 1: critical scrutiny in the UK, the EU, and the US.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of initials. The deal was supposed to
Speaker 1: close in the summer of twenty twenty three, but at
Speaker 1: this point that seemed like that was going to be
Speaker 1: wishful thinking. In fact, the deal itself was by far
Speaker 1: not a guarantee. There were serious doubts coming up. For
Speaker 1: a few short weeks, things actually started to look up
Speaker 1: for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard because the CMA, potentially the
Speaker 1: harshest critic of all the regulators. Arguably the FTC wins
Speaker 1: out in the end, but the CMA had serious concerns
Speaker 1: about this deal, but in March of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: CMA said, you know what, we're not as concerned about
Speaker 1: this whole thing as we used to be. They essentially
Speaker 1: said they were no longer concerned on March twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. However, on April twenty sixth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: a month later, the CMA did another one to eighty
Speaker 1: and formally moved to block the deal from happening, saying Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna let this go through. So what the
Speaker 1: heck happened? Where did CMA go from saying Okay, our
Speaker 1: concerns have been met to Nope, we can't allow this
Speaker 1: to happen. Well, according to the CMA, the new issue
Speaker 1: was a concern that the acquisition would create an unfair
Speaker 1: market in cloud gaming. Microsoft reps said the issue appeared
Speaker 1: to stem from a quote flawed understanding of the market
Speaker 1: end quote which is throwing some shade at the CMA.
Speaker 1: They also said something along the lines of it, sure
Speaker 1: is a shame that the CMA is determined to make
Speaker 1: the UK lag behind in technological innovation. Like it was
Speaker 1: kind of it was kind of like a like the mafia,
Speaker 1: making a threat in a way like the way that
Speaker 1: you see in mob movies where someone's like, hey, it's
Speaker 1: a nice shop you got here. Sure would be a
Speaker 1: shame if someone would, I don't know, set fia to it.
Speaker 1: It kind of felt like that sort of threat, like
Speaker 1: a threat that's worded in a way to potentially raise
Speaker 1: plausible deniability. But yeah, that's that's what Microsoft was saying.
Speaker 1: Plus they were just saying, y'all are stupid because you
Speaker 1: don't understand the market. Shortly after the CMA made its
Speaker 1: change of mind and said no, we're not going to
Speaker 1: let this go through, the EU regulators actually dropped their
Speaker 1: concerns and they approved the deal, so they removed one
Speaker 1: of the massive obstacles that were in the way of Activision,
Speaker 1: Blizzard and Microsoft, but the UK and the United States
Speaker 1: were still uncertain. Good news arrived in the US as
Speaker 1: a judge found that Microsoft's commitments to ensuring that popular
Speaker 1: titles would remain on competitors' platforms were sufficient enough to
Speaker 1: allow the deal to proceed. This knocked down the FTC's
Speaker 1: concerns on the matter. The judge said, well, Microsoft has
Speaker 1: made a commitment to negate the problems that the FTC
Speaker 1: has brought up, and as long as Microsoft follows that,
Speaker 1: then there's no anti competitive issue here because the company
Speaker 1: has committed to making sure that competitors have access to
Speaker 1: those titles. That was one of the cornerstones of the
Speaker 1: FTC's argument. So the judge said, FTC, your your argument
Speaker 1: doesn't have merit to it and essentially dismissed the case.
Speaker 1: This happened on July eleventh, and remember Microsoft hoped to
Speaker 1: close the deal in June twenty twenty three, so this
Speaker 1: is after when the original closing date was supposed to
Speaker 1: have happened. All Right, we've got a bit more to
Speaker 1: cover about this case, but before we can get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: during its legal case with the FTC, Microsoft said some
Speaker 1: stuff that everyone already knew but that the company had
Speaker 1: never really admitted, namely, that Sony had run away with
Speaker 1: the victory in the console wars. Right in the announcement,
Speaker 1: Microsoft had mentioned that Sony was a larger company in
Speaker 1: the video game space than Microsoft was, but then this
Speaker 1: was slightly different. This was Microsoft saying that the PlayStation
Speaker 1: consoles consistently outsold Xbox consoles. Again, this wasn't a secret,
Speaker 1: like everyone knew this, but for Microsoft to acknowledge it
Speaker 1: seemed like it was a pretty big deal. And Microsoft
Speaker 1: was using it in defense right. They were saying, how
Speaker 1: could we be decreasing competition in a market when we're
Speaker 1: not the dominant player in the market, Sony dominates us.
Speaker 1: So this isn't bringing down competition, It's actually helping us
Speaker 1: improve our position in a market that is already extremely
Speaker 1: competitive and we are losing. So it helps support the
Speaker 1: story that Microsoft wasn't about to run away with everything.
Speaker 1: But I bet it's stung to say it out loud.
Speaker 1: The FTC, for its part, would appeal the ruling saying
Speaker 1: that hey, actually, our concerns are well merited and they
Speaker 1: we should be allowed to stop this merger. But that
Speaker 1: appeal is still pending as I record this episode, So
Speaker 1: that is a we'll talk about it again in a second,
Speaker 1: but it's an unresolved matter. But with the recent win
Speaker 1: for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard on the books, where a
Speaker 1: judge had said that Microsoft was fine to pursue this
Speaker 1: merger in the United States, the company's moved to convince
Speaker 1: the CMA back in the United Kingdom to reconsider their
Speaker 1: position of blocking the deal from happening. So they took
Speaker 1: the concerns that the CMA raised and they proposed a
Speaker 1: new deal in an attempt to mollify those concerns. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one of the concessions that Microsoft made was
Speaker 1: that it would sell the streaming rights to Activision Games
Speaker 1: to Ubisoft Entertainment for non European markets. This was a
Speaker 1: specific move to assuage the concerns that the deal would
Speaker 1: somehow unfairly impact the cloud gaming market. The CMA took
Speaker 1: this newly revised deal and they took their time reviewing it,
Speaker 1: and then finally in October, they dropped their opposition to
Speaker 1: the merger. The FTC was still urging US courts to
Speaker 1: review the case that they had appealed, but because there
Speaker 1: was no active appeal case going on, technically it meant
Speaker 1: there were no real legal obstacles in the way of
Speaker 1: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, and so they finalized the merger
Speaker 1: that happened on October thirteenth, twenty twenty three. It took
Speaker 1: nearly a year and nine months from when Microsoft announced
Speaker 1: its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard to win the deal
Speaker 1: was actually finalized. Meanwhile, the FTC is still appealing that
Speaker 1: earlier court decision that ruled in favor of Microsoft. The
Speaker 1: FTC says it wants to unwind the merger. Now I
Speaker 1: don't think that's likely to happen, but I do think
Speaker 1: it may see Microsoft have to pay some sort of
Speaker 1: settlement out of court in the process. As I record this,
Speaker 1: the matter is still pending in US courts. Microsoft most
Speaker 1: recently successfully requested an extension to file a response to
Speaker 1: a motion to compel, so that is a motion that
Speaker 1: the FTC brought against Microsoft to compel Microsoft to share
Speaker 1: documentation relating to the case. The court has granted Microsoft's
Speaker 1: request and has extended the time limit to compel to
Speaker 1: that motion to January second, twenty twenty four. So while
Speaker 1: the acquisition has already happened back in October, the matter
Speaker 1: itself technically remains unresolved until next year, and that brings
Speaker 1: us up to speed on the whole matter. I suspect
Speaker 1: the merger will remain in place. The process of unwinding
Speaker 1: the deal seems so complicated that it's very hard to
Speaker 1: imagine a court commanding it to happen. Technically, I guess
Speaker 1: it could, but it seems unlikely. However, if the FTC's
Speaker 1: appeal actually works, this would send a massive message to
Speaker 1: businesses at large and the tech industry in particular, that
Speaker 1: there is a new focus on competition and antitrust situations.
Speaker 1: Then again, we also have to acknowledge that here in
Speaker 1: the United States, it's an election year in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and if there's another change in administration, we're likely to
Speaker 1: see those changes trickle down into regulatory agencies as well,
Speaker 1: and things that are of huge concern right now may
Speaker 1: be dismissed later on. And by that I mean companies
Speaker 1: that are looked at as being anti competitive may end
Speaker 1: up getting a pass depending on how elections go, same
Speaker 1: as it ever was. It's one of the big reasons
Speaker 1: why regulatory change in the United States happens rarely, and
Speaker 1: it is increasingly difficult to happen in a world a
Speaker 1: political world where there's very little bipartisan support for anything anymore.
Speaker 1: There's so much tribalism in the various political camps that
Speaker 1: you typically just see people opposing one another. In my view,
Speaker 1: it's because if one party says yes, the other party
Speaker 1: has to say no. Doesn't matter if they actually agree
Speaker 1: on the thing. At the end of the day. It's
Speaker 1: just like by law, if you're in favor of it,
Speaker 1: I have to be opposed to it. That can That's
Speaker 1: what it seems like. Maybe I'm being far too cynical,
Speaker 1: but that's look back on how the Microsoft Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: acquisition deal actually finally coalesced in twenty twenty three, with
Speaker 1: the acknowledgment that the FTC is trying to undo the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and who knows where that's going to go again,
Speaker 1: I'll be surprised if it changes. Oh and one other update. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bobby Kodik, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, has stepped down
Speaker 1: finally now that the deal is done, and so that
Speaker 1: thing that people have been asking for since twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one has finally come to pass. There's also been some
Speaker 1: changes in executive leadership over at Microsoft's Xbox division, and
Speaker 1: it looks like there's going to be some shuffling that
Speaker 1: will go on as Microsoft determines whose role fills what
Speaker 1: position within the newly merged company. So I'm sure that
Speaker 1: the changes are just at the very beginning. We'll have
Speaker 1: to see what happens in twenty twenty four. That's it.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well, and I am going
Speaker 1: to wish you a happy new Year, and I'll be
Speaker 1: back with predictions with what I think might happen in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. We know how well those go. It's
Speaker 1: been a few years since I've done one of those.
Speaker 1: And until then, I'll talk to you again, really soon.
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