11/8/2023 0 Comments Blizzard battle.net![]() ![]() ![]() See what your friends are playing, add new friends, coordinate play time, discuss strategies, or just stay in touch. A judge recently denied the FTC's request for an injunction that would've temporarily blocked the deal, and as a result, the UK regulator that previously blocked it became willing to chat about compromise.Stay connected with wherever you are. Regarding Microsoft's attempt to buy Activision Blizzard, it looks like it might go through after all. The series is clearly doing well back in Gabe's embrace, and Activision isn't the only company to come crawlin' back to Steam recently. Over half-a-year after it released, Modern Warfare 2 is still one of Steam's top 10 bestsellers by revenue, as well as one of the top 10 most-played games on Steam by daily users. That was definitely a mistake, though, and it's not hard to believe that Call of Duty's exclusivity really did hinder it, especially considering how well it's doing on Steam now. They've also said it was a mistake not to put Call of Duty on the Nintendo Switch. If you haven't been following, Microsoft and Activision are trying to convince the world's regulators and judges that Microsoft isn't going to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive after it buys Activision Blizzard, and pointing out that Activision's previous efforts to restrict Call of Duty's availability were boneheaded is part of their strategy. Pretty slick move by Activision, then, releasing Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 on Steam just in time to point out that didn't grow while CoD's PC versions were exclusive to it. Not all of Blizzard's players use (there are mobile Diablo Immortal players and Overwatch console players, for instance), but if Call of Duty were still a exclusive with Diablo 4 out, I doubt Microsoft would be able to argue that the service didn't grow at all during its exclusivity period. That figure dropped back down to 27 million in the first quarter of this year-it is highly variable, apparently-but that's before the release of Diablo 4, which surely shot it back up. Things are different now: According to the company's quarterly earnings reports, Blizzard games were back up to 45 million monthly active users during the last quarter of 2023. 's monthly active users ('MAUs') remained relatively flat during the period when it had exclusive access to digital sales of Call of Duty on PC, from 2018 through 2022." In 2018, Activision decided to take the game off of Steam and make it exclusively available on -largely in an effort to attract users to, and grow, Activision's own platform. "Before 2018, Activision sold digital versions of PC Call of Duty titles on Valve's successful Steam platform. "Activision's attempt to take PC digital sales of Call of Duty exclusive to its platform was a resounding failure," reads part of the document. In a court document filed today (related to the recent hearing over Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard), Microsoft's legal team affirms the notion that Call of Duty's exclusivity ended because it wasn't performing like Activision Blizzard had hoped-but what success would've meant is stated in terms of 's success, not CoD's, which leads me to quibble with it a bit. ![]()
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