Yesterday we talked about how the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal had been approved by the European Commission (on antitrust) touting licensing deals that were pro competition. As we stated in that article, the licensing agreements only extend to cloud gaming services, they exclude consoles and other non-Microsoft controlled hardware. The EC and Microsoft are calling this very pro-competition even though cloud gaming represents around 1% of the market.

It looks like the folks at the European Commission have decided that Microsoft buying out Activision Blizzard for $69 billion (with a B) is not going to be a violation of their antitrust rules. The approval means that there are only a few roadblocks to the deal going through. South Korea and China have not decided yet, while the US and UK have challenged it. The deal has been called the world’s biggest gaming takeover and is viewed by many as a bad thing for competition as it would leave Microsoft in control of a majority of game development groups.

Game reviews are always fun things to do. I mean it is playing a game and then writing about anything you found while playing it (sounds like fun). The challenge comes from being objective in your writing Vs subjective. Something that I might personally dislike in a game might be the thing that makes a game fun for someone else. It is with that in mind that we bring you our first game review in years. We will be breaking the game down into a couple of areas, objective and subjective findings. So. Let’s kick this off with the fun part, the subjective part.

The UK’s CMA (Competition and Markets Authority has added new restrictions on Microsoft and Activision Blizzard after already issuing a formal anti-trust warning over the deal back in January. Now the regulator has added additional orders that prevent either party from “acquiring an interest” in each other without written permission from the CMA.