As a good businessman should, Phil Spencer, the chief executive officer of gaming for Microsoft Corp., seems to welcome hard questions when $70 billion is involved. That’s the estimated offer Microsoft has made to acquire Activision Blizzard, a California-based video game holding company responsible for Call of Duty and Candy Crush. The deal is currently under review by regulators in the Federal Trade Commission to make sure that the acquisition of one big video company by another will not meaningfully reduce the competitive market in the video game industry.
Spencer says in an interview with Bloomberg Studio 1.0 that he understands why these questions have to be asked, specifically by “people who maybe aren’t as close to the gaming industry.” As the regulators ask the “hard questions” about the impact this deal will have on the video game industry as a whole, Spencer says that he feels good about the progress that is being made. This would suggest that the discussions are leaning his way, but he also makes a point to highlight how new the whole process is to him. In the interview, he said, “I’ve never done a 70 billion-dollar deal, so I don’t know what my confidence means. I will say the discussions we’ve been having seem positive.”
Spencer also addressed the work culture concerns that come with Activision. The company is known to underpay women and is accused of not dealing with harassment complaints by their female employees. Basically, they are accused of having a sexist work culture, and that culture comes with the deal if Microsoft successfully acquires the company. There are also some Activision employees that have begun the process of forming a union.
None of this seems to worry Phil Spencer though. He says that he has looked over Activision’s plans to do better going into the future, and he believes that they are really committed to those changes. He also says that Microsoft is willing to work with unions once they have a specific offer to bring to the discussions. As he said about a $70 billion deal, he mentions his inexperience with but general support for unions.
“I’ve never run an organization that has unions in it, but what I can say in working through this is we recognize workers’ needs to feel safe and heard and compensated fairly in order to do great work. We definitely see a need to support the workers in the outcomes that they want to have.”
Bloomberg
All of this has been very agreeable and positive, but it will be interesting to see what happens when actions speak louder than words. Not that we have any reason to doubt Phil Spencer specifically, but we have to admit that all of the easy answers were obvious. They will support workers, get rid of sexism, and not take over the gaming industry. On the topic of the gaming industry, it’s interesting that he continues the interview with plans to move past platform-specific gaming. He shares a scenario where kids come over to play, one with a PlayStation and one with an Xbox, but sadly they are not able to play together because of the unfortunate competition between companies.
But competition between companies is part of what his deal is being reviewed for. Antitrust laws ban monopolies by big companies and promote competition. That way, the entire industry is not owned and operated by one company. Taking steps to blur the lines between competing companies feels suspect. Only time will tell, for both the deal and for the proposed positive changes Activision and Microsoft have lined up.
