Banning the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard could hurt the ambitions of the UK authorities, Bobby Kotick believes. In an interview with CNBC, the head of Activision Blizzard said that if the deal does not take place, the country will lose the opportunity to become a European Silicon Valley.
Kotick pointed out that after the completion of the deal Activision Blizzard could hire 3-5 thousand people in the UK. In his opinion, a country that is going through a serious recession after leaving the EU and which has “Cambridge, the best AI and machine learning tools”, it is unprofitable to miss the chance to create so many jobs in the technology sector. In addition, the prohibition of such transactions can generally harm the development of technology.
Separately, the Cat noted that the British regulator, like the European Commission and the FTC, does not quite understand who competes with whom in the gaming industry. According to him, the real competition is not between American and European companies, but between Western and Asian ones. The head of Activision Blizzard added that China’s Tencent is now considered one of the best gaming companies in the world, which takes advantage of the fact that it is difficult for Western developers to get into the “protected” market of China. In particular, in the current realities, Activision Blizzard cannot enter the Chinese market without the help of a partner.