UK Blocks Microsoft / Blizzard Merger

[Curbstomp171]

And? Why not try addressing the point I made? There is absolutely no political upside for the Government to force the CMA to approve this deal and lots of downsides.

But seeing as you are some sort of, self appointed, expert. Perhaps you could explain the direct economic benefit of this merger to the UK and how it affects future investment in the UK's tech sector?

So not only was I right, but the MS ABK deal was the first thing they brought up and what they spent he majority of the hearing on. And they grilled the ever living f*ck out of Sarah Cardell (who also lied several times during the hearing)

I am happy to give you this L

[Nymrohd]

So not only was I right, but the MS ABK deal was the first thing they brought up and what they spent he majority of the hearing on. And they grilled the ever living f*ck out of Sarah Cardell (who also lied several times during the hearing)

I am happy to give you this L

Would love a link to that (I believe you, just to read it on my own). Tories always seemed extremely pro corporate so it would not surprise me. At the same time I did find what @Pann said to be reasonable; inflation is the main political issue across the world, several countries are doing their best to at least seem to be doing something so Sunak needed to find someone to blame.

[Pann]

So not only was I right, but the MS ABK deal was the first thing they brought up and what they spent he majority of the hearing on. And they grilled the ever living f*ck out of Sarah Cardell (who also lied several times during the hearing)

I am happy to give you this L

What were you right about? That "the CMA are under heavy pressure including from their own Prime Minister,"? I said that the meeting was likely to do with CMA action regarding the cost of living which was discussed.

This was a non-inquiry hearing which is not even guaranteed to generate a report let alone evidence that the CMA is under pressure from the government.

Nothing jumped out at me with regard to Cardell lying nor did the committee seem to take an issue with the honesty of her replies, perhaps you could point out where she lied?

But I really must congratulate you on your precognition abilities. It is quite some feat to be able to proclaim that they spent the majority of the hearing discussing the MS/ATVI deal when at the time of your post the meeting had only been going for just over 25 mins and still had almost 40 minutes to go.

If only you'd bothered to watch (a little more of) the meeting you could have answered you own question - "what "oral evidence" does the CMA have to provide regarding COL?"

An hour long non-inquiry meeting, where the deal was not the main focus, is in no way evidence of the government exerting pressure on the CMA to approve the deal.

Based on this meeting there is absolutely nothing that persuades me that Sunak has any intention of intervening.

If anyone is interested in watching the hearing it can be found here: - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/inde...5-e537eca5d70f (it is quite boring)

[Curbstomp171]

Would love a link to that (I believe you, just to read it on my own). Tories always seemed extremely pro corporate so it would not surprise me. At the same time I did find what @Pann said to be reasonable; inflation is the main political issue across the world, several countries are doing their best to at least seem to be doing something so Sunak needed to find someone to blame.

https://t.co/MufLLPxIgW

Correct, Rishi Sunak and his party are pro business which is why they're grilling and pressuring the CMA, her hands were shaking and she looked like she was about to cry a few times

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What were you right about? That "the CMA are under heavy pressure including from their own Prime Minister,"? I said that the meeting was likely to do with CMA action regarding the cost of living which was discussed.

This was a non-inquiry hearing which is not even guaranteed to generate a report let alone evidence that the CMA is under pressure from the government.

Nothing jumped out at me with regard to Cardell lying nor did the committee seem to take an issue with the honesty of her replies, perhaps you could point out where she lied?

But I really must congratulate you on your precognition abilities. It is quite some feat to be able to proclaim that they spent the majority of the hearing discussing the MS/ATVI deal when at the time of your post the meeting had only been going for just over 25 mins and still had almost 40 minutes to go.

If only you'd bothered to watch (a little more of) the meeting you could have answered you own question - "what "oral evidence" does the CMA have to provide regarding COL?"

An hour long non-inquiry meeting, where the deal was not the main focus, is in no way evidence of the government exerting pressure on the CMA to approve the deal.

Based on this meeting there is absolutely nothing that persuades me that Sunak has any intention of intervening.

If anyone is interested in watching the hearing it can be found here: - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/inde...5-e537eca5d70f (it is quite boring)

Damage control, you argued that they wouldn't talk about the ABK deal because its just "vidya games" yet that was the dominant subject. I even said it wouldn't be the only subject but you kept dismissing it because "vidya games"

Cardell did lie literally 2 minutes into the hearing, she claimed that the EC and the UK reached the same conclusion which is false, the EC doesn't consider cloud gaming to be a separate market from the overall gaming which is the pillar of the CMA argument against the ABK deal and one that's very likely to get tossed in the garbage by CAT

The EC also said the deal would promote competition, the EC also said that the behavioural remedies are easy to monitor, there's almost no alignment

They also had to keep grilling her on international business because she kept dodging the question.

Cardell said there's "mutual high regard" between the UK and EC, which is crap because as soon as the EC approved yesterday, the CMA went on their Twitter unprovoked and damage controlled, they're absolutely insecure because they have by far the weakest case they've ever had against a merger

CMA Chair Bokkerink says they have a "vigorous, objective, unbiased process" which is a pile of crap. The CMA had to drop their console theory of harm back in March because they fk'd the math up so bad that a 6th grader would feel embarrassed for them....so the CMA are either incompetent or biased, its one or the other

Face it, you were wrong, period

[prwraith]

Feels like even a blind man could recognize why this merger is anti-consumer. Why is this a controversy at all?

[Pann]

Damage control, you argued that they wouldn't talk about the ABK deal because its just "vidya games" yet that was the dominant subject

Cardell did lie literally 2 minutes into the hearing, she claimed that the EC and the UK reached the same conclusion which is false, the EC doesn't consider cloud gaming to be a separate market from the overall gaming which is the pillar of the CMA argument against the ABK deal and one that's very likely to get tossed in the garbage by CAT

They also had to keep grilling her on international business because she kept dodging the question.

Cardell said there's "mutual high regard" between the UK and EC, which is crap because as soon as the EC approved yesterday, the CMA went on their Twitter unprovoked and damage controlled, they're absolutely insecure because they have by far the weakest case they've ever had against a merger

Absolute nonsense. It's obvious that you didn't bother to watch it hence your post less than half way through claiming that they spent the majority of time talking about the deal.

I never once argued that they would not talk about MS/ATVI because of "vidya games". I said that the Tories would not intervene in the merger of two gaming companies.

You really need to stop repeating what you've read from some bloke on Twitter. She said that the CMA and the Commission had reached the same conclusion that the merger presented a threat to competition in the cloud gaming market however the Commission had deemed that MS's proposals were enough to mitigate the potential threat whereas the CMA believed that they were insufficient.

[Edge-]

https://t.co/MufLLPxIgW

Correct, Rishi Sunak and his party are pro business which is why they're grilling and pressuring the CMA, her hands were shaking and she looked like she was about to cry a few times

Skimmed the early bits of the video and haven't the foggiest clue where you came to this conclusion unless you didn't watch it at all. She speaks clearly, calmly, and uses her hands to gesture about as people sitting down often do.

[BeepBoo]

If they're going to deny a merger like this under the pretense of "it's anti-competition and we want to force non-exclusivity of game titles" then they need to get on nintendo's and sony's ass

[Edge-]

If they're going to deny a merger like this under the pretense of "it's anti-competition and we want to force non-exclusivity of game titles" then they need to get on nintendo's and sony's ass

For...?

Nintendo hasn't purchased any major companies in a while now. Sony only really purchased some mid-sized independent developers and then Bungie, who get to largely keep doing their own thing and are even smaller than the Bethesda acquisition by Microsoft.

[Nymrohd]

If they're going to deny a merger like this under the pretense of "it's anti-competition and we want to force non-exclusivity of game titles" then they need to get on nintendo's and sony's ass

But that is not the reasoning at all?
The reasoning is that it gives Microsoft an effective monopoly in an emerging market. The EU counters that the monopoly is diluted with longer licensing deals (and I assume, if someone else wants to be competitive in that market, they have that decade to catch up).

___________

Do we know if the CMA proposed any remedies?

[Tech614]

But that is not the reasoning at all?
The reasoning is that it gives Microsoft an effective monopoly in an emerging market. The EU counters that the monopoly is diluted with longer licensing deals (and I assume, if someone else wants to be competitive in that market, they have that decade to catch up). Do we know if the CMA proposed any remedies?

Basically the EU and CMA have the same concerns. The EU just has some amount of power to try to enforce past the 10 year window on MS, the CMA has no such power as they can only approve or deny the merger they can't do anything once it's complete if they approved it to hold and enforce MS to any of their claims which is why the CMA doesn't do behavioral remedies.

[Curbstomp171]

Skimmed the early bits of the video and haven't the foggiest clue where you came to this conclusion unless you didn't watch it at all. She speaks clearly, calmly, and uses her hands to gesture about as people sitting down often do.

You didn't watch the video then

https://twitter.com/EverbornSaga/sta...38739893313538

Dude is grilling her ass on if she colluded with the FTC

Damage controlling lol the CMA is a laughing stock right now (especially after they went on Twitter and threw a fit yesterday) I can see why the Parliament aren't happy with them

[BeepBoo]

But that is not the reasoning at all?
The reasoning is that it gives Microsoft an effective monopoly in an emerging market. The EU counters that the monopoly is diluted with longer licensing deals (and I assume, if someone else wants to be competitive in that market, they have that decade to catch up). Do we know if the CMA proposed any remedies?

What emerging market?

For...?

Nintendo hasn't purchased any major companies in a while now. Sony only really purchased some mid-sized independent developers and then Bungie, who get to largely keep doing their own thing and are even smaller than the Bethesda acquisition by Microsoft.

I don't care about where games come from. Just because nintendo has tons of teams doing internal work (or contracts out work, or however they do their business) doesn't make it different to me on the consumer side from a company just buying out another studio to get their IP. The end result is the same: IPs getting marked as exclusives.

[Curbstomp171]

But that is not the reasoning at all?
The reasoning is that it gives Microsoft an effective monopoly in an emerging market. The EU counters that the monopoly is diluted with longer licensing deals (and I assume, if someone else wants to be competitive in that market, they have that decade to catch up).

___________

Do we know if the CMA proposed any remedies?

The theoretical "market" according to the EC isn't even a market and is just another way of distributing games, even if you want to consider cloud gaming a "market" its less than 1% of the entire gaming market as a whole....

If cloud is a potential market, the EC wants to promote competition in it, the CMA wants to kill it and nip it in the bud or at least that's what they're arguing

CMA: "We can't risk Microsoft having a dominant position in this nascent market that makes up less than .5% of the overall gaming market so we must kill the potential market"

Also the CMA claimed that the cloud gaming market would be worth billions by the end of 2024, when that argument is brought up in the appeal, CAT is going to ask the CMA what drugs they were on when they came up with this number

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What emerging market?

That's the best part, other regulators including the EC don't even consider cloud gaming a separate market, the CMA are the only regulator that counts cloud gaming as a "market"

This is one of the reasons why the CMA is going to get land-slided in the appeal process because being the only regulator on EARTH (the FTC doesn't have any power so no one is considering them) is absolutely grounds for irrationality

[Tech614]

I don't care about where games come from. Just because nintendo has tons of teams doing internal work (or contracts out work, or however they do their business) doesn't make it different to me on the consumer side from a company just buying out another studio to get their IP. The end result is the same: IPs getting marked as exclusives.

"I don't understand how any of this works and just want to complain I can't play Zelda"

This has jack shit to do with any of this.

MS can do w/e they damn well please with any of the IPs they already own just like Sony and Nintendo can. This doesn't go to regulators like trying to purchase a whole ass massive company does. The fact you think this is remotely comparable or anyone can do jack shit about it, is hilarious. Part of the reason for the regulation is they couldn't do jack shit about it if they actually let MS buy ATVI.

[Nymrohd]

What emerging market?

Cloud gaming. With >1Gbps connections becoming increasingly common, the idea is that cloud gaming is an emerging market as it is a different distribution network.

[BeepBoo]

This doesn't go to regulators like trying to purchase a whole ass massive company does.

Ok, so prove to me that activision+microsoft is bigger and more exclusive after they combine than nintendo or sony. I'll wait.

[Edge-]

I don't care about where games come from.

This is why you don't work at a regulatory agency. Well, one of the many reasons why, probably.

Just because nintendo has tons of teams doing internal work (or contracts out work, or however they do their business) doesn't make it different to me on the consumer side from a company just buying out another studio to get their IP. The end result is the same: IPs getting marked as exclusives.

So you don't appear to understand the topic of this thread or the issues around this acquisition at all, then.

[BeepBoo]

Ok, so prove to me that activision+microsoft is bigger and more exclusive after they combine than nintendo or sony. I'll wait.

Cloud gaming. With >1Gbps connections becoming increasingly common, the idea is that cloud gaming is an emerging market as it is a different distribution network.

It's not, and it's not even an emerging market as there have been massive cloud gaming startups from HUGE companies that have all failed. Streaming or downloading; makes no difference. It's just a game hosted and run on someone else's hardware for a fee. Big fucking deal.

[Curbstomp171]

Ok, so prove to me that activision+microsoft is bigger and more exclusive after they combine than nintendo or sony. I'll wait.

I mean this is technically true but this is the entire point of competition, MS+ABK = a better Sony and Nintnedo, issue with the CMA (and the FTC but they're irrelevant) is that it maintains a status quo

If the argument that Xbox sells more consoles and has more exclusives is a bad thing, its basically arguing that competition in itself is bad and that the market leaders must be protected