Word is it might not even happen at all because of antitrust challenges.

I completely agree. Steam is the best there is for many games though. Obviously i'd like to see more on GOG but being realistic getting some of these physical/Battle.net only games on Steam would be an improvement over how they are now and it's unlikely MS would support GOG currently, they only use Steam bc that's where they can sell the most copies.

I'd say it is nearly certain that Microsoft's purchase of Activision will go through. Just look at Disney having bought out Fox's entire entertainment portfolio. That is in TV/movies which is a far more consolidated industry than video games.
Then there is the operating systems market which Microsoft totally dominates. Windows is still going strong after Microsoft successfully fended off antitrust suits.

A government agency wanting to be more strict on mergers and acquisitions is going to have a hard time to really crackdown on antitrust stuff without Congress passing new legislation to assist in that effort. Right now almost any big business deal can just point to Disney/Fox and say "How is that okay but my deal isn't?"

I'm not saying giant buyouts are a good thing, just that we don't have that strong of antitrust laws.

If, as you say, the laws will change, then what was ok in the past won't be ok anymore (and vice-versa in other areas, of course), so past examples can't be used if anything will change. And sometimes even if they don't in terms of the letter of the law, the way it's interpreted may change, possibly following clarification rulings from high courts.

Curious. I did not know about it. Though that project was withing a well established franchise, so it would be a low risk endeavour.

It is always possible that in more than one situation plans were made, talks may be had, and work may have started, but some bad reception at some point (release or test group) led to the cancellation of the full thing because indicators were not favorable.

Dude, the US allowed Disney to buy 20th Century Fox without antitrust stopping it, I'm pretty sure it'll go through. The US federal government is pretty much toothless when it comes to corporations.

Exactly this. If freakin' Disney is allowed to gobble up whatever they please, there is no way in hell this is gonna be stopped.

A precedent has been set. If it somehow gets declined, all they have to do in court is point at Disney and ask "Why was that allowed?".

I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft is next

Defiance tried this. It was a TV series broadcast on the Syfy Network that also had an MMORPG developed by Trion Worlds that was released at the same time. The intention was for the two mediums to parallel each other -- the MMO receiving updates alongside new plot arcs from the TV series, and the TV series reflecting the outcome of a few world-event/challenges that took place in the MMO.

A very cool idea, but I don't recall the TV show ever explicitly mentioning anything that happened within the MMO. And the TV series got canceled after just a couple seasons while the MMO continued on its own. So, I wouldn't call it a smashing success, but it was at least an example of trying to develop interactive and non-interactive entertainment side-by-side (and the difficulty of doing so).

Wow, I had no idea. Thank you very much for the information.

Rise from the dead, thread, for we have juicy happenings. The Federal Trade Commission has sued Microsoft to block the purchase of Activision-Blizzard over anti-competition concerns.
https://www.gematsu.com/2022/12/federal-trade-commission-sues-to-block-microsoft-from-acquiring-activision-blizzard

I'm not surprised, this administration has been a lot more aggressive in going after these kinds of deals. Though it's still a bit chilling how people were fine with or praising the merger as some great deal, as though the only way Activision-Blizzard games could possibly come to Xbox Game Pass is by getting bought out by Microsoft.

Holy crap they're actually doing something. Likely will fail, but glad they bothered to try.

How many other major mergers have they ignored, too? Are they only interested in this because it's from Microsoft?