They are offering rational reasons, it’s an antitrust issue. You may not agree the ActiBlizzard takeover is anti-competitive but that’s a different issue than placing MS (or Apple or Tesla) above the law.
Well, as we can see from that article, it seems like the FTC’s stated rationale for some of their actions is not factually accurate.
I’m not sure the rationale is not factually accurate so much as it can be interpreted as such by the neutral observers at www.windowscentral.com.
And regardless, the sentiment expressed that “The tech sector is economically important, just keep that in mind in your investigations, Mr. FTC” is precisely the sort of attitude regulators should avoid.
I don’t think that interpretation originated with Windows Central. It was being reported back when it was first announced by other news outlets. The FTC should be neutral in their decisions, and that goes both ways whether it is the economic importance of the company, or the desire of a commissioner to make a name for themselves (reporting of that seems sketchy at best so far).
This piece talks about the claims made by FTC.
Also, it’s worth noting that the largest tech workers union, the Communications Workers of America, supports the acquisition due to commitments MS has made regarding unionization.
The headline on that GamesIndustry.biz article is itself misleading. The FTC didn’t claim MS made a promise to the EU. As the text of the article eventually acknowledges (weirdly long after quoting what the FTC said, but still).
FTC’s statement:
“Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda’s titles, including Starfield and Redfall, Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authoritiries that it has no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles.”
The EU regulators pointed out that Microsoft never made commitments to the contrary.
The EU confirmed that MS did indeed say it had no incentive to withhold games, which is what the FTC said MS said. The only people saying anything about a commitment are people attacking the FTC.
I demand the FTC make Last of Us available on Xbox
I believe that statement is talking about the more recent acquisition of Activision, where the previous statements are about the Bethesda acquisition, aren’t they?
The EU statement regarding the Bethesda acquisition:
Speaking to Axios’ Stephen Totilo, a representative for the EU agency that handled the deal offered no comment on whether it agrees that Microsoft did not stay try to its assurances to the EU on ZeniMax.
A representative told Totilo:
“The Commission cleared the Microsoft/ZeniMax transaction unconditionally as it concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns.”
They continued: “Microsoft did not offer any commitments to the Commission,” and added that conclusion did not rely on anything Microsoft said about future ZeniMax releases.
I believe that later section you are talking about is talking about MS’s more recent comments during the Activision acquisition, and discussing CoD, but I may be mistaken… I’m not sure how it can be reconciled with the previous part of the article otherwise though.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to by “that statement”, but if you mean the EU confirming the assurances re incentives, the EC report on the Zenimax acquisition, the one cited by Totilo, states:
That doesn’t equate to a commitment that they would release everything on other consoles though.
And, again, The EU rep specifically state that Microsoft did not make any commitments to the commission.
I know! That’s why the FTC didn’t say they made a commitment! As I say, the only people who are talking about a commitment are people who misinterpreted the FTC document as saying they did.
Why did the FTC bring it up then? If it was widely misinterpreted, it wasn’t worded well, and could be seen as being done by the FTC on purpose.
I mean, the EU had to clarify that they did not expect Microsoft to keep games non-exclusive, nor did they require them to.
Because they claim it shows MS is untrustworthy in its dealings around exclusivity. Did the strong incentives disappear overnight, or were they bullshitting to the EC?
Now that argument may not have much sway in court, and the EC considered it and said it wouldn’t matter in the context of the Zenimax acquisition, but it’s not an argument that they broke an explicit commitment.
I am very curious to see if the EC is as willing to ignore the possibility it in its own consideration of the Activision deal.
This specific part of the FTC’s statement seems to be suggesting that Microsoft lied to the EU, but the EU does not appear to think that MS lied to them.
Strong incentives to publish some games on other consoles may exist, while not meaning that all games would be published to all consoles.
That statement you quoted does not preclude all exclusivity.
Possibly? It wasn’t overnight though, it was nearly a year later, for Starfield at least.
It was worded using the EC’s own wording!
And yet the EC had to put out a statement clarifying their position.
They didn’t put out a statement, they were asked specifically by a journalist about commitments. They said MS didn’t make any.
I mean, this is all in the Games Industry article.