This Tuesday it was announced that Microsoft reached an agreement to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68 billion dollars, so its studios and all its licenses will become part of the Xbox family when the transaction is completed, in the middle of next year. In addition, Microsoft will also receive a company famous for its workplace discrimination and harassment culture, so they are facing a great challenge to show that they seek positive change for the industry.
microsoft announced the agreement through an official statement, in which it mentioned some of the studios and licenses it was acquiring, in addition to sharing some of its plans for when this acquisition is completed. Among the plans is to implement an inclusive culture at Activision Blizzard, but in an interview for the Washington Post Phil Spencer was a little more clear about it.
Related: Activision Blizzard games would come to mobile thanks to Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Since the state of California sued Activision Blizzard due to its work culture of discrimination and harassment in the middle of last year, the public perception of the company has gone from bad to worse, as in the following months we saw employees and former employees giving testimonies of what they witnessed while working in the company . Additionally, in late 2021 it was revealed that Bobby Kotick was aware of the issues but chose to ignore them, prompting Microsoft, PlayStation, and Nintendo to take internal action.
Due to all these problems, the directors of ActivisionBlizzard they felt that the best idea was to sell the company to a larger corporation, so they turned to Microsoft to buy them out. In the words of Phil Spencer: “I think the leaders [de Activision Blizzard] they believe in the opportunity they have in their plan”, ensuring that he feels confident that he can solve current problems, and that they expect employees to achieve “your best work”.
Read more: Microsoft plans to bring as many Activision Blizzard games to Xbox Game Pass as it can.
phil spencer He also said he was excited about the licenses that Xbox is going to acquire, among which are some franchises that marked his youth. “Hopefully we can work with them when the deal closes to make sure we have the resources to work on franchises that I love from my childhood and that teams really want to do.Spencer said. “I look forward to these conversations. I really think it’s about adding resources and increasing capabilities.”.
Previously Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, said that he hopes that Microsoft will revive Guitar Hero and Skylanders, since these types of franchises need a team dedicated to their manufacture and he believes that Xbox has the necessary resources to do so.