An Activision Blizzard executive posted a meme on Twitter mocking Sony for losing the Call of Duty deal to Microsoft. Microsoft employees have now poked fun at that. Lulu Cheng Meservey, the CCO of Activision Blizzard, posted on Twitter about the recent partnership between Microsoft and Call of Duty.
When the executive suite posts memes
The meme contains three images, the first with a person riding a bike. The second then the same person riding a bike with the caption “refuses to accept guaranteed long term access to CoD.” The third then has the person falling off the bike with the words “what if we lose access to CoD”. This backlash is just another example and development in the drama surrounding Microsoft’s deal with Activision/Blizzard and Sony’s rejection of the deal. Earlier in February, we reported that new allegations suggested Sony had abandoned talks to merge with Activision.
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) February 21, 2023
The meme comes after Meservey also fired back at Sony for trying to stop the future merger. “Microsoft is doing exactly what it promised … while Sony continues to reject the opportunity to get a long-term deal for Call of Duty and is trying to undermine the deal to protect its two decades of dominance in gaming.” The CCO then added in a follow-up tweet, “We are confident that regulators will find that our proposed merger will promote competition and create more opportunities for workers and better games for our players.”
Sony wants to prevent merger
Sony remains opposed to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard despite the two companies’ meeting in Brussels yesterday. But Microsoft has reached an agreement with Nvidia that will see Xbox games published on Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud service. This includes Activision Blizzard games (and Call of Duty) if the deal goes through. The companies then faced the European Commission, and Microsoft has been trying to convince the European regulator to approve the deal. Microsoft’s Brad Smith argued that with the merger, more gamers would have access to CoD.
We’re confident regulators will find that our proposed merger will promote competition and create more opportunities for workers and better games for our players.
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) February 21, 2023
The regulator had then suggested that the company could sell part of Activision Blizzard, such as the Call of Duty franchise, to get the deal approved. That was suggested by the U.K. regulator, the CMA, but Microsoft rejected it. In a statement, Activision Blizzard added the following: “The European Commission’s mission is to protect European consumers, not the world leader. Sony is trying to undermine that goal to protect its two decades of dominance in video games. We are quite confident that regulators will find that our proposed merger will improve competition and create greater opportunities for workers and better games for our players.”
We’ll see how all the drama unfolds.