As the gaming industry has grown larger, the biggest of the industry’s competitors have taken different strategies to give themselves an advantage over the other industry titans. Microsoft has seen the biggest cases of acquisitions so far, having made industry records for their acquisitions of Minecraft and Bethesda Softworks. One major player in the industry with a lot of attention on them recently has been Activision Blizzard, which has been left in a vulnerable spot after numerous allegations of toxic workplace harassment and discrimination. Now, Microsoft has shown its hand in an Activision Blizzard acquisition, which would be the biggest in industry history.

The Verge has reported on this breaking news regarding an Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft. The company behind Xbox has expressed its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 million, which would make it by far the biggest acquisition of any kind for the gaming industry. Activision Blizzard’s stock price had dipped more than 30% in recent months due to the ongoing allegations and a variety of pushbacks from investors and the government to change. As such, this provided the opportunity for outside buyers to purchase enough stock to make an acquisition feasible, with Microsoft being the one now to swoop in. As Xbox head Phil Spencer stated to The Verge:

“As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard.”

It should be noted that with the potential Activision Blizzard acquisition being so large, Microsoft has many legal hurdles they will have to pass before the deal can be closed. The US government will have to clear the deal as not giving too much industry control to Microsoft after the negotiations, with current estimates suggesting the deal won’t close until 2023 at the earliest. Whatever happens, even the existence of this potential deal will lead to great changes at Activision Blizzard for the future. Let’s just hope the payload doesn’t go to those that caused the harassment and discrimination to occur in the first place.

What do you guys think about the potential Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft? Let us know in the comments below! Be sure to stay tuned for the latest Activision news, such as Overwatch’s new comic that explains the new name change for the character formerly known as McCree, here on Don’t Feed The Gamers. Follow us on Twitter to see our updates the minute they go live!