Microsoft acquired Activision, pigs can fly, and the sky is falling. What does it all mean?

The road to the metaverse is paved with a $68.7 billion investment.

November 5th, 2007: Activision sends Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare into the wild, a bold reinvention of a franchise moored in the Second World War. It is met with rapturous applause, launching the series into the stratosphere.

November 5th, 2021: Activision Blizzard publishes Call of Duty: Vanguard, a return to its original milieu in an attempt to remedy both its troubling identity crisis and increasingly weary audience. Sales, though ostensibly strong, were not particularly impressive; it failed to surpass its predecessor from the year prior.

Such is the tragedy of Activision Blizzard’s flagship title, ironically drowning in the primordial soup of World War 2 from which it emerged so triumphantly. Though Warzone, its battle royale companion piece, is the zeitgeist-seizing success many thought it to be, the series commands far less cultural cachet than it once did. However, in the shadow of the mobile rendition of the series generating a cool billion in its first nineteen months of release, a premium release faltering ever so slightly raises the heat on the once unimpeachable annual model.

Activision Blizzard is a fraught enterprise. Damning allegations of institutional rot on both ends have stained everything with either name set to it - to which the top brass shrugged and refused to pull the breaks on their gravy train. Much of the industry writ large has been urged come to terms with the virulence of these behaviours, and this moment in particular has caused something of a universal reckoning amongst the studio in question and its peers.

Today, Microsoft announced its intention to purchase Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion - the largest of its ilk in history. Hushed tones concealed a boggling Tuesday surprise, setting the internet alight with rumour and supposition. Crash Bandicoot now lives permanently in the Xbox stable? Overwatch 2 will launch on Games Pass? Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow?

As recently as last week, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer noted that both he and his team were “saddened and sickened” by the toxic environment present within a company bearing a reputation such as Activision Blizzard’s - he then pledged to change his relationship with them specifically. In hindsight, this is a sly double entendre, particularly when talks between the pair were said to have begun late last year. Regardless, this radical a cultural shift is bound to reorganise Activision Blizzard in an internal and external sense; their role within the Xbox hierarchy and overarching project is, evidently, of supreme importance.

This deal is excavating uncharted territory - no deal this great has ever been brokered in the industry, nor commerce in general. Microsoft are playing their hand with gaudy zeal, unafraid to tackle its competition in a game of attrition. Much like Apple in the SVOD space, their tech tendrils can reach into the deepest of pockets. In a moment wherein the current generation of hardware is scarcely available to the average consumer, absorbing Activision Blizzard and its library is a knowing embrace of the virtual. The as-a-service designs of Overwatch - as well as its AWOL sequel - and Warzone are purely digital pursuits, relying less on state-of-the-art architecture and more on cloud-based engagement.

When these franchises land on Games Pass, they will be readily available to stream to your console. Stuck on an Xbox One from 2013? No problem. Forget performance issues, just find yourself a stable connection and play to your heart’s content. This is Microsoft’s ambitious gambit: big names on one platform accessible to all. For all of Sony’s insistence on prestige, particularly its “Director’s Cut” upgrades demanding a questionable fee, the online ecosystem is an ever-flowing stream of revenue. A flat subscription for everything engulfed by the shade of Xbox Game Studios’ sun is enough for the average player.

For those ready to be ensnared within the multitude of corporate metaverses, which is, frankly, a paralysing idea, the diverse row of demographics now covered by the Xbox regime is impressive. Proudly sat in the same infographic as Diablo, Overwatch, and Call of Duty is Candy Crush - King’s crown jewel and a mobile monolith. If home consoles are the tip of the iceberg, the underbelly keeping it afloat can be found on your phone’s native app store. Will Master Chief and Spyro each have their own endless runner and/or match-three puzzle game? Gears 6, moreover, could feature a map made entirely of candy vistas and soda lakes.

Phil Spencer and co. want you to make anything you own with a screen into an Xbox. It is hard to judge whether Microsoft are running in the same race as Nintendo and Sony - both of whom seem to be succeeding by their own merits. In the war for your thumbs and eyeballs, Microsoft seem to be amassing an indomitable legion. Ultimately, whether their audacious investment into an erstwhile powerhouse can prove to remedy its tarnished reputation and air of decline sends them into rarefied territory remains to be seen.

Until then, I’ll sit back and watch the acquisition rumours from the other camps fly by.