Meta backs up Microsoft-Activision deal, expresses support in recent statements to Brazilian regulatory body

Last week, PlayStation chief Jim Ryan expressed his displeasure about the Call of Duty contract offer of Microsoft, calling it “inadequate on many levels.” And as different regulators around the globe continue to scrutinize the deal between Activision and Microsoft, Meta stepped to the latter’s rescue in the documents it submitted to the Administrative Council for Economic Defense of Brazil. Meta greatly favors Meta in its statements and defends its stand against the points being pushed by Sony and the concerns about the merger starting a huge monopoly problem. 

According to the parent company of the social media giants Facebook and Instagram, it “does not believe that a segmentation of the development and publishing of electronic games by platform/hardware is appropriate.”

“In any scenario, barriers to market entry are generally low,” Meta added. “App shop models (on all platforms) have led to an increase in the number of new published electronic games, as developers no longer need to organize their distribution.”

Meta further argued that the gaming market continues to expand, and everyone has the chance and tools to dive into it. It says that there are already different APIs, SDKs, and a wide variety of other free resources to developers by huge companies (e.g., Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and more), allowing them to easily create new electronic games and features. Additionally, it underscored that with the growing new business models games industry now, developers have more ways to monetize and put their content to market effectively, be it through in-app, subscription, or free-to-play ad-supported models. Meta also claimed that the problem of the merging and the “boundaries between platforms” is mitigated by the fact that cloud computing now allows everyone to stream and upload games using almost any internet-connected device. 

Moreover, to prove its points regarding “low barriers to market entry,” Meta mentioned different e-game distribution platform launches like Google Stadia in 2019, Apple Arcade in 2019, Netflix Games in 2021, and more.

When asked about the “main game developers/ publishers that effectively compete with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard in the global and national scenarios (from the perspective of the Brazilian consumer,” Meta enumerated a long list of companies, including Bandai Namco, Capcom, Epic Games, Konami, Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Ubisoft, and more.

Earlier this month, UK’s regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, expressed concern about the deal, pushing it to move to its second investigation phase. Despite this, the agreement seems inevitable, and the only way for Sony to handle the reality is to accept it, man up, and welcome the new challenge the merger will bring with open arms.