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While Activision Blizzard is currently undergoing an investigation from the FEC and a lawsuit from the State of California, it will now have to contend with a lawsuit from the City of New York as well. The lawsuit was filed by the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, a group that owns stock in Activision Blizzard, and alleges that CEO Bobby Kotick undervalued the company by selling to Microsoft for only $95 per share, which, while about $30 more than what Activision was trading for at the time of sale, is "a paltry 1.16%" above its value in the summer of 2021, before the scandals broke. The suit, as shared with Axios, claims that Kotick and the board of directors sold so quickly and for so little to avoid personal liability for the misconduct lawsuits. This fact, the suit claims, also makes Kotick unfit to manage the sale, since he "stands to personally receive substantial material benefits whose value is not directly aligned with the merger price."

The action, as described by attorney Richard Hoeg, is simply a "books and records request," meaning the plaintiff is requesting access to a list of documents from Activision Blizzard, including information on the five other potential buyers it has mentioned in the past, board memos and information regarding the Microsoft deal.

The suit also mentions the purchase of $108 million worth of Activision Blizzard stock by three associates of Kotick days before the merger was announced. The trio are estimated to have made $60 million in profit, and the sale is currently being investigated as a possible case of insider trading by both the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Wall Street Journal. One of the three investors, Fox co-founder Barry Diller, has said the timing of the investment was just "one of those coincidences" and insists that the three of them "acted on no information of any kind from anyone."

Despite these concerns, 98% of Activision Blizzard shareholders voted to approve the merger with Microsoft in a vote on April 28. However, the deal is far from done. An unnamed source told Bloomberg in February that the Federal Trade Commission will be handling the antitrust review for the merger. FTC chair Lina Khan has been vocally critical of big tech company mergers in the past, to the point that Amazon has requested she be recused of investigations into the company.

There's plenty of action to back up her words, too. She, along with Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter of the Department of Justice, is also in the process of rewriting the merger guidelines "to better detect and prevent illegal, anticompetitive deals in today's modern markets." The FTC recently sued to block the acquisition of Arm by Nvidia, which was largely responsible for ending that deal, and are also reportedly currently in the process of investigating Sony's acquisition of Bungie.

Source

 

[CrAzYLiFe]

To be fair, they got this far because they know how to make money. They have insane amounts of research and data on how to make a successfull product, and that's what they do. Call of Duty is hated generally (I liked Modern Warfare 2019 multiplayer a lot) but it does appeal to people, and they buy it. More artistic things like Elden Ring occassionally make the bank but they're always risky to make.

Metaverse will be popular, too. NFT. The weakest shills are already lining up and trying to get that cake. Troy Baker - I knew he is scummy the moment I saw his interviews. No wonder he's one of the first to support NFT. Square Enix pushing it - as usual, they're hunting massive profits and trying to be global while the creative talent is not into it.
Cryptocurrency is bad for everyone, including gamers, but all the vegan activists can't do anything about it. All they can do is shame someone for eating meat or cheese.

Metaverse is just going to be an evolution of social networks. It does make sense and it will eventually make money, too, so unfortunately it is the reality.

The horror! I need to think about someone's feelings : O

I don't like that some people are allowed to have toxic masculinity, that thug life is promoted and applauded only for some people but at least it's slowly going away..

I wouldn't bet on the metaverse just yet, its bad enough at the moment getting nickle and dimed for everything, why then would I want to go into a digital world where it would be even worse haha

 

[Skelletonike]

I find it pretty silly that the government or whatnot stops purchases and sales.
If people want to sell, let them, if they want to buy, let them. It's not like Blizzard or Bungie deal with pimary or secondary goods.

 

[FAST6191]

I find it pretty silly that the government or whatnot stops purchases and sales.
If people want to sell, let them, if they want to buy, let them. It's not like Blizzard or Bungie deal with pimary or secondary goods.

I can see some value in antitrust/mergers and acquisitions type legislation, even if most of what we see today is toothless (them waking up from their usual coma to do something about ARM is about as bold as I have seen them in years), and in this case them vanishing into the maw of Microsoft before whatever concerned parties might have had their pound of flesh/the opportunity to get it would be a valid reason on the face of it (I say watching how many things declare bankruptcy to dodge issues).

I am not sure it particularly represents anything useful, granted I am not sure the initial California claim can stand up to scrutiny if that document they filed is anything to go by, but if indeed everybody gets their day in court then there is scope to open up this sort of proceeding.

I will also note we have seen a Florida pension fund take on the Twitter buyout as well ( https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2...ed-by-florida-pension-fund-over-44bn-takeover ) which leads me to wonder if someone has decided this is an interesting option for the activist investor (activist investors being nothing new -- Peta, the militant animal rights group, has a fair few shares in slaughterhouses and meat companies and have been doing things there for years https://finance.yahoo.com/news/guys-put-apos-activist-apos-174359753.html ). Most pension funds also being beholden to unions at some level as well.

 

[Skelletonike]

I can see some value in antitrust/mergers and acquisitions type legislation, even if most of what we see today is toothless (them waking up from their usual coma to do something about ARM is about as bold as I have seen them in years), and in this case them vanishing into the maw of Microsoft before whatever concerned parties might have had their pound of flesh/the opportunity to get it would be a valid reason on the face of it (I say watching how many things declare bankruptcy to dodge issues).

I am not sure it particularly represents anything useful, granted I am not sure the initial California claim can stand up to scrutiny if that document they filed is anything to go by, but if indeed everybody gets their day in court then there is scope to open up this sort of proceeding.

I will also note we have seen a Florida pension fund take on the Twitter buyout as well ( https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2...ed-by-florida-pension-fund-over-44bn-takeover ) which leads me to wonder if someone has decided this is an interesting option for the activist investor (activist investors being nothing new -- Peta, the militant animal rights group, has a fair few shares in slaughterhouses and meat companies and have been doing things there for years https://finance.yahoo.com/news/guys-put-apos-activist-apos-174359753.html ). Most pension funds also being beholden to unions at some level as well.

I mean, unless it's something that belongs to the government, companies can be bought and sold. Often happens to smaller game studios and no one cared about that.

Regarding the Twitter thing, it was pretty unexpected and quite funny imho (also, the comment about twitter being a spot for "free speech" is quite ironic since in the past few years it's become almost as bad as facebook when it comes to censorship.

As for Peta, they're a bunch of hypocrites and have been for at least 10 years.

 

[FAST6191]

I mean, unless it's something that belongs to the government, companies can be bought and sold. Often happens to smaller game studios and no one cared about that.

Regarding the Twitter thing, it was pretty unexpected and quite funny imho (also, the comment about twitter being a spot for "free speech" is quite ironic since in the past few years it's become almost as bad as facebook when it comes to censorship.

As for Peta, they're a bunch of hypocrites and have been for at least 10 years.

Countries do have a vested interest in preventing monopolies (see vertical integration in the 19th and early 20th century in the US, or indeed why we don't necessarily have guilds any more) and gutting of their best industries for parts (see vulture capitalism in the 80s), possibly also state security (see making things in China means China owns you and you also give them a nice bit of research for free) and soft power (cultural exports, and in case you missed it then games is massive business and possibly bigger than films at this point depending upon how you measure it, is soft power). How much scope they have to influence things or how much they should do is a political hot button topic in some circles some do lean towards almost anarcho capitalism, where others are for a managed economy, and even without those the middle still has its debates).

Plenty of people care about the smaller studios (go back as long as you like and buyouts from EA, Ubisoft, Konami, Square (Enix) and whatever else see people with pattern recognition be all "well it was a good run", indeed even the game devs themselves note that if you watch various GDC talks -- there was a good one covering the Tron game actually). The question for governments tends to come when a buyout will crush an industry or notable segment thereof by means of monopoly. That can be hard to justify in games (or "AAA"/non mobile games) as EA, Valve, Sony, Nintendo, Konami and everybody else that might have their own conference or stage show at E3 when that was relevant is still in play though, however if MS can be slapped for Internet Explorer bundling then there is scope for something. Not to mention this, assuming it is not some activist investors, is about ensuring some investors get to have their say in court rather than MS being able to turn around and say "Activision does not exist, is just a trademark we hold and a minor holding company with no real assets" when someone comes knocking about misdeeds a bit later, if this case does not get resolved before the merger then there is scope for some recompense where there might not be if they acted later.

 

[Dr_Faustus]

I don't have a surprised pikachu face large enough to express my shock.