The CMA has revealed that six more game companies have expressed their support for the Microsoft Activision deal.
As reported by Tom Warren, these represent only a few of several UK based or related game companies who answered the CMA’s call for responses to their investigation of the deal.
We had previously reported that this deal has the support of the UK gaming public, other game companies, and even union organizations. While the reasons and the degree that they support the deal vary, they all believe that the changes the deal will bring will be positive to the industry.
4J Studios identified themselves as a major partner for both Microsoft Game Studios and Mojang AB. While they are well known for porting Minecraft to a wide variety of consoles, including the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, they also worked on the Xbox 360 versions of Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie.
To be clear, 4J has not been acquired by Microsoft to any degree and remains fully independent.
In their words:
“We do not see the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard as anything other than a natural evolution of the industry and it does not give us any cause for concern for our own future opportunities.”
4J also revealed that Microsoft honored their prior agreements with Mojang before their purchase, and that Microsoft did not pressure them to favor their platforms. They were even encouraged to make the “Mario Mash-Up Pack” in Minecraft as a Nintendo exclusive.
The remaining studios have been made anonymous, so we will refer to them as studio a, b, and c.
Studio a is an independent developer who have worked with Sony, Microsoft, and Activision. They made three points to the CMA:
Microsoft has proven themselves trustworthy in 25 years of experience. Studio a believes Microsoft will honor their commitments with their competitors Nintendo and Sony
The industry is already moving towards consolidation and mergers, as cloud gaming is poised to grow in the market. The Microsoft-Activision is the biggest one so far, but other mergers and acquisitions are slated to happen in the future. In their words, it is “a natural evolution of the business”
Chinese competitors to Microsoft have an advantage in the market. If Microsoft is not allowed to acquire Activision Blizzard King, that may open them up to acquisition by the likes of Tencent. Studio a opines that it is best for UK consumers to keep these Chinese game companies at bay.
Studio b is a AAA developer and publisher that puts games on all platforms, including consoles, PC and mobile. Studio b says it is ‘difficult to predict exact effects of the anticipated acquisition’, but ‘ we do not expect the Merger to pose any risks to the distribution of our own games on Xbox or other consoles.’
Studio C describes its business as ‘primarily focusing on releasing video games for various game platforms, including both Xbox and PlayStation.’ Based on their narrative, this also seems to be a small to medium sized independent game studio. This studio has the most detailed and interesting story to tell.
Studio C is finding growth for their sales on Xbox but not on PlayStation. They describe PlayStation’s high player numbers and console sales as focused on the larger AAA titles. They say PlayStation ‘isn’t a level playing field for every publisher and developer.’ Smaller studios like theirs are ‘100% reliant on players knowing about your game already, and searching for it on the store.’
In contrast, Xbox has become a better platform for their games, because there are ‘numerous means of players finding your game on Xbox, including in special sections on their store, and through the Xbox Game Pass service.’
‘We’ve found that, whenever there is large public buzz around Xbox, there are more Xbox hardware sales, and as a result we see even better ongoing results on Xbox.’
With this statement, Studio C concludes that the Microsoft-Activision deal will be good for smaller game companies like them, as the better Xbox does, the better they sell games on Xbox.
We’ll end this with Studio C’s final remarks.
“The acquisition will not all of a sudden make Xbox the dominant platform. It’s far more likely that it may help to create a more level playing field between Xbox and PlayStation which, at this point in time, is sorely needed. PlayStation needs better competition, to force the platform to up its game, and this will surely help to do that.’
