Since the release of the MMORPG WoW in 2005, players have paid about €13 a month to Blizzard if they want to play World of Warcraft. This may change soon. Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard, but they have to swallow some bitter pills if they want the okay from global regulators. As a French gaming site reports, this deal could mean the end of the mandatory subscription.
This is the situation:
- In January 2022, Microsoft offered to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. Activision Blizzard wants this deal – but both companies are so large that there is a risk of monopolization.
- Therefore, the deal must first be approved by various regulators worldwide.
- Microsoft has already had to make some concessions under pressure that could have significant impacts on the games from Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft has a problem with cloud gaming
This is the problem for Microsoft: A problem Microsoft is currently facing: The authorities fear that if Microsoft owns and distributes Activision Blizzard’s games, it could become too dominant in cloud gaming. Therefore, the UK regulator, CMA, did not approve the deal.
The regulators fear this scenario:
- Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard and offers Activision Blizzard’s games exclusively for its own cloud gaming services.
- If gamers want to play Activision Blizzard’s games from the cloud, every customer needs “Xbox Cloud Gaming”. Other providers would not be able to offer popular games like Overwatch or Call of Duty anymore.
- Thus, Microsoft would have a significant market advantage over the competition in a growing market.
Examples of cloud gaming include GeForce Now, PlayStation Now, Amazon Luna, and Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming. Google Stadia has failed with the idea.
For the okay from the EU, Microsoft makes a big concession
This is a concession from Microsoft: To obtain the EU’s approval and dispel this fear scenario, Microsoft has already had to make a significant commitment. President Brad Smith says (via Forbes):
“The EU commission has demanded that Microsoft automatically license popular games from Activision Blizzard for competing cloud gaming services. This will empower millions of customers worldwide to play the games on any device they want to play the games on.”
As the French site Jeux Video writes, Microsoft’s plan is to make all Activision Blizzard games sold for consoles and PC available on cloud gaming systems for 10 years.
This includes the Xbox Game Pass, but also services like Nvidia GeForce Now or Boosteroid.
WoW could come in “flat rate” offers for gaming
What would that mean for WoW? The French site Jeux Video concludes: If Microsoft ultimately buys Activision Blizzard, WoW will come to cloud gaming systems like GeForce Now or the Xbox Game Pass. There, it could then be played without an additional subscription.
- Currently, there are 6 months of GeForce Now for €30.
- The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs €13 per month – but there are specific peculiarities.
Ultimately, the subscription requirement for WoW would be eliminated, and players could instead take a subscription for a cloud gaming service and play not only WoW but many other games with a kind of gaming flat rate like Netflix.
The situation seems completely open at the moment, whether Microsoft can buy Blizzard
What’s the catch? For Microsoft’s commitments to have any relevance, the regulators still need to approve the deal and allow Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard.
Whether the regulators will approve the deal is currently unclear. Even after the concessions, the opposition from the UK regulatory authority remains. The CMA reaffirmed its resistance again on May 15.
There is also a lack of an explicit statement from Microsoft that “popular games from Activision Blizzard” also includes World of Warcraft.
At the moment, it seems that Microsoft is first making big promises and issuing commitments to get the regulators to approve the deal. What impact these commitments have in reality seems difficult to assess. It is currently about billions of US dollars.
