Almost a year and a half ago, in January 2022 in particular, Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard in a deal worth approximately $70 billion, thus uniting two of the largest forces in the video game sector in the world, in the largest An acquisition of all time, as Microsoft will pay $ 95 per share in cash, to acquire one of the largest American game makers ever, famous for popular electronic games such as “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft”.
Activision Blizzard is one of the largest video game publishers in the world, with annual revenues of approximately $8.8 billion, while Microsoft is a dominant player in the computing software industry and owns the Xbox division of game consoles. The procedures of which were expected to end by the middle of this year 2023 require international regulatory approvals by many government commercial bodies for antitrust concerns, and also require shareholder approval, and if the acquisition is approved, the deal will be the largest purchase in the history of video games, in addition to that It will make Microsoft the third largest gaming company in the world.
This acquisition sparked great controversy in many circles, as a number of US senators expressed the Federal Trade Commission, which had previously raised many concerns about large mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector, expressed their concerns about the merger between the two aforementioned companies, and concerns were also raised. Several, regarding Microsoft’s possible ownership of the “Call of Duty” series, which represents great value in the video game industry, and in Japan the deal met with strong opposition from the “Sony” company, which controls home entertainment devices, especially through the “PlayStation”, in The time when “Microsoft” is trying to compete through “Xbox” and its acquisition of games from “Blizzard”, means that the home entertainment market for Xbox will be the strongest, and it will compete with “Sony” strongly.
This is the analysis of the experts, who are following the issue of the aforementioned acquisition deal, which was supposed to take place by the middle of this year had it not been for the big slap it received by the British anti-monopoly oversight authority, as the authority opposed the implementation of the deal, saying: It would harm competition, especially in games. Cloud, citing that when Microsoft acquired the video game company Bethesda in 2020, its games became exclusive to the Xbox, and with this opposition Britain has joined other countries opposing the deal, including the United States and Canada. Microsoft chief Brad Smith criticized the decision, saying it was Microsoft’s darkest day in Britain, and threatened to move the company’s operations to the European Union as being friendlier than Britain.
It is a battle for monopoly, then, and it is commercial as it appears on the face of it, but there is another, non-commercial aspect of the subject that a number of experts have pointed out. Some believe that it is coming from the well-known conspiracy theory, but ignoring it is not wise. , without forcing anyone to adopt this idea or that.
“They don’t want your children to be educated,” says a Western expert in a video clip. “They don’t want you to think too much.” That is why our country and our world has become so saturated with entertainment.. media.. game shows.. TV shows.. amusement parks.. drugs.. liquor.. and all kinds of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained so that you don’t get in the way of important people by thinking too much. You have to wake up and understand. There are people who lead your life and you don’t know them.
To what degree can some agree with this opinion, and to what degree can some reject it and subject it to the idea of conspiracy?
It is not important that we search now for the percentage of those who agree or disagree, as this debate will not end. The important thing is to ask ourselves: Why are these battles taking place between the manufacturers of electronic games, and why are these companies racing to capture the minds and interests of people, and competing to monopolize games and their platforms, and what is the content of these Games that control the minds of young and old, so that addicts can hardly leave their places in front of them until they return to them in haste with their hearts attached to them?
We have to look at the content of these games, and the number of hours that billions of players spend in front of them. We have to think to know how the makers of these games interfere in the formation of their personalities and behaviors, and how they drown them in fun and entertainment at the expense of more important and useful things. We have to observe how entertainment games control these billions of players, to understand how game companies play games that control human minds.