About 75% of public comments in UK support the Microsoft Acquisition of Activision

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority announced today that about 75% of public comments in the country indeed support the Microsoft acquisition of Activision.

The CMA received more than 2,100 emails with opinions related to the acquisition from October 14th to the 28th. According to the CMA, “around three quarters were broadly in favour of the Merger and around a quarter were broadly against the Merger.”

There were various responses in favor of the merger, such as:

• Sony and Nintendo are stronger than Microsoft in console gaming, and the Merger will help Microsoft to compete more closely against them.
• Call of Duty has competition from a number of other games including Battlefield (Electronic Arts), Grand Theft Auto (Take Two) and FIFA (Electronic Arts).
• The Merger will lead to more funding and higher-quality games in the industry.

Among the reasons against the merger are:

• The Merger would lead to consolidation and would set a harmful precedent in the gaming industry of acquiring large publishers rather than encouraging organic growth.
• Microsoft will make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, just as it did with Bethesda after it acquired ZeniMax Media.
• Microsoft would be able to deteriorate the quality of Call of Duty games on PlayStation post-Merger, which could cause consumers to switch to Xbox.

Check out the rest of the views here.

[Source]: CMA: Summary of responses from members of the public to the issues
statement – [Archive] – [Screenshot].