After weeks of speculation and rumor that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) would ultimately approve the $69 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft, this morning’s ruling against the deal came as a surprise to many. But what may have been even more surprising was the object of the CMA’s ire: not Call of Duty, as many expected, but cloud gaming.
Call of Duty, and the possibility that Microsoft might make it Xbox-exclusive upon a successful acquisition, has been at the center of the merger discussion since the deal was first announced last year. But what many may not have noticed is that, at least for the UK regulator, cloud gaming has from the beginning been an equally major concern. And while the gaming...