Microsoft trash talks Call of Duty in response to investigation

Neither Activision nor its game titles are “important enough” to destabilize the gaming sector in the United Kingdom, Microsoft said in a authorized document publicized previously this week. The assertion arrived in response to an investigation by the U.K.’s Levels of competition and Marketplaces Authority (CMA), which highlighted considerations about how the merger concerning Microsoft and Activision could have an affect on competitiveness in the gaming industry. 

Earlier this 12 months, the UK’s CMA commenced investigating the expected acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft Corporation. In September, the CMA claimed Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard may perhaps have an effect on Sony, the company’s competitor within the country. 

In Microsoft’s reaction to the CMA, the company belies this assert by presenting Activision’s info and stats, even boasting that the company’s game titles are not essential enough to make or crack their opponents on the marketplace.

The first ruling from the CMA mentioned Activision Blizzard’s transition to Microsoft may possibly end result in “substantial lessening of competition” inside of the Uk markets. Nevertheless, in reaction to the statement, Microsoft released a comprehensive doc that seems to disprove those people claims—starting with Activision’s “limited shares” and Get in touch with of Duty‘s minimal marketplace electrical power. 

Activision’s titles have obtained level of popularity across the yrs, but thousands and thousands of console gamers throughout the world constitute a mere 10-20 percent of the total current market. “Even focussing narrowly on the ‘shooter’ style, Activision would not have the required industry energy to foreclose the downstream sector,” Microsoft claimed, incorporating that the genre “accounts for less than a quarter of console publishing revenues.”

Microsoft tore the extended and in depth Get in touch with of Responsibility franchise to shreds by making use of its very own numbers and declaring it lacked uniqueness in the gaming sector. The enterprise named just a couple of examples that highlight the very poor effectiveness of the sport in the gaming market, expressing the franchise was “consistently outranked” in a collection of criteria—including Metacritic scores, user polls on PlayStation, and its unpopularity on social media. 

“Even if Microsoft were being to withdraw or degrade Call of Duty from/on PlayStation, the Panel would have to believe that that Sony would go from staying the very clear industry leader for over two a long time to currently being placed at ‘such a drawback that [its] capability to contend is considerably limited’,” the doc reads. “This is not plausible.”

But the downgrade of Connect with of Duty did not quit at just the game. In its document, Microsoft mentioned most players on consoles do not play Call of Duty, and included that the recreation by itself is just a modest part of the in general gaming usage for gamers. In addition, according to Microsoft, Get in touch with of Responsibility players are “neither ‘special’ nor ‘unique’ in phrases of possibly their spending or user engagement” when compared to other players favoring other match franchises.

Microsoft also mentioned the merged entity that will be born with the acquisition of Activision “will not have important upstream sector electrical power.” The CMA will now have to overview the document introduced by Microsoft in the 2nd section of its investigation.

Correction Nov. 25 3:24pm CT: We have updated the date of publication of Microsoft’s response. We regret the mistake.