Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard — now what? | Kaser Focus

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft today finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King after 21 months of prep work and grappling with regulatory bodies. The $69 billion deal sees several of gaming’s most lucrative franchises come under the Microsoft/Xbox umbrella, including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, etc. However, this begs the question: Now that the whole rigmarole of acquisition is done, what happens for Activision Blizzard now?

The short answer, coming from Phil Spencer himself, appears to be that Microsoft is working to get Activision Blizzard games onto Xbox Game Pass. He didn’t say specifically which games — and Activision Blizzard has said it anticipates its games hitting Game Pass next year at the earliest. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is likely to retire sometime early next year, probably taking with him his $15 million golden parachute.

As for the news outside the acquisition, the most important news that I can see is that games workers are starting to unionize in response to the increasing number of industry layoffs. According to my colleague Jordan Fragen’s recent report, there have been over 6,100 layoffs just since the beginning of the year. Now this week we’ve heard that workers from CD Projekt Red and Avalanche have begun the move to unionize, with the former doing so in response to the company’s multiple waves of layoffs.

In personal news, I’m hustling to finish my review of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in time for the embargo lift on Monday. I have no shortage of games to play in October once I’m done with that — Assassin’s Creed Mirage awaits me, as does Lords of the Fallen and Super Mario Bros Wonder (with new voice actor Kevin Afghani) later this month. I also realized that Microids is remaking its Agatha Christie title Murder on the Orient Express. I’m not sure why I’m getting remakes of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and one of my other point-and-click favorites in one year, but I’m not complaining.

What to play this week

What’s new:

• Lords of the Fallen
• Forza Motorsport
• Saltsea Chronicles
• Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless
• Star Trek: Infinite
• Wild Card Football
• Hotel: A Resort Simulator

New on subscription services:

• From Space (Xbox Game Pass)
• The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters (Prime Gaming)
• Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp (Prime Gaming)
• Tribe: Primitive Builder (GeForce Now)
• Bad North (GeForce Now)
• Call of the Sea (GeForce Now)
• For The King (GeForce Now)
• Golf With Your Friends (GeForce Now)
• Metro Simulator 2 (GeForce Now)
• Moonbreaker (GeForce Now)
• Narita Boy (GeForce Now)
• Rubber Bandits (GeForce Now)
• Sifu (GeForce Now)
• Star Renegades (GeForce Now)
• Streets of Rogue (GeForce Now)
• Supraland (GeForce Now)
• Supraland Six Inches Under (GeForce Now)
• The Surge (GeForce Now)
• Tiny Football (GeForce Now)
• Yes, Your Grace (GeForce Now)
• Cut the Rope 3 (Apple Arcade)