To relieve UK regulators reluctance In order to approve the Microsoft acquisition, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick reached out to CNBC to make the case for the merger. Be Comments on the becoming of the United Kingdom “Death Valley”, if the merger was not approved, deserved it well deserved mockery. But maybe we should all be a little skeptical when one of the most controversial Game Executives in recent history decides to get on national television. This was a calculated move to win over European regulators with a strong political threat: the possibility of Asian technological superiority.
When CNBC interviewer asked Kotick about the post-acquisition console market’s competitiveness, the CEO deftly turned to the bigger problem in the room: Those damn Asian companies that made too many dollars, pounds, and dollars. How dare they!
“Sony Studios goes back 80 years. Nintendo has the very best characters in video games. I find [European regulators] are a little confused about where the competition is today. The best companies in the world right now are companies like Tencent and ByteDance. And these are all companies that have protected markets. We are fighting to enter the Japanese market, we cannot enter the Chinese market without joint venture partners
After 14 years, Activision Blizzard recently separated from their Chinese partner NetEase. As a result, popular games such as over watch And World of Warcraft Are no longer playable in China. my city reached out to Activision Blizzard to ask about the unique difficulties they were having selling games in Japan and which company’s products should compete against Nintendo. We have not received any comment at the time of publication.
It is not for nothing that the CEO of Activision Blizzard wants to give the impression that the USA and Europe are united against the two completely different nations of China and Japan. Microsoft is struggling to placate European regulators, who recognize that this is in the best interests of an American tech company not necessarily in the best interests of European consumers
And that’s what his PR spin on “Death Valley” is ultimately about: maintaining market dominance within the white nations that need high-paying jobs. “If you’re from the UK and you have an incredibly educated workforce, you have a lot of technical talent, places like Cambridge where you have the best AI and machine learning, I would think you would want to take on a transaction like this. where you’re going to see job creation and opportunity creation,” he said. Regardless, Microsoft had recently slashed
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While Kotick didn’t specify how many jobs Microsoft would create after he left CEO, he seemed confident that Europeans were inherently better off being employed by Americans. As if Microsoft weren’t ultimately a tech company like any other – it represents the “liberating” free market values of the red, white and blue. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s Sony’s platform or Microsoft’s,” says Kotick. “It’s really about the future of technology.”
Kotick has made headlines in recent years for allegedly threatening to do so Kill an assistant, to cover up problems in the workplace at Activision Blizzard and as the subject to an injunction. But isn’t all of this a lesser evil compared to the looming possibility that China and Japan might come out on top in the tech race? He would certainly benefit financially if regulators think so. Kotick is due for a massive payout of potentially $22 million if Microsoft succeeds in acquiring Activision Blizzard. And he will do anything for that golden parachute, even if it means appealing to Europe’s ugliest nationalist fears.
Luckily his implied threats doesn’t seem to have worked very well.
Update: 02/08/2023 at 14:24 CET:
A spokesman for Activision Blizzard made the following comment:
Regarding NetEase, Blizzard and NetEase attempted a final negotiation to consider a 6-month extension. We suggested keeping the status quo to give players continuity, but NetEase declined our offer to extend it. Our commitment to mainland China players remains strong as we continue to work with Tencent to distribute Call of Duty Mobile. We’ve met with several potential partners who share our player-first values to bring gameplay back to Blizzard’s iconic franchises.
