The new biggest buyout in video game history: Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

Just last week, Take-Two bought Zynga for $12.7 billion. At the time, it was the biggest video game buyout ever, far ahead of Bethesda's 2020 deal for $8.1 billion. We already understood the potential that Take-Two saw in Zynga for the mobile porting of its biggest licences. But this time, the numbers are simply stratospheric. Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Let's find out who's involved in this giant deal.

Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard: many studios change hands

When you hear the name Activision Blizzard, you necessarily think of the two entities that made it up in the first place and what they have published under this new name. The players of these licenses are counted by the millions over time: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Destiny, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, Vampire the Masquerade, Starcraft, Diablo, Quake or even Wolfenstein. As Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard, the social networks of both entities are sending the news back and forth.

Yet we think less of all the studios that make up this entity. Among them, there is now King (Candy Crush) since 2015 for a deal worth 5.9 billion dollars, but also other big names such as Treyarch, Beenox (Spider-man, Skylanders...), Infinity Ward, Raven Software, Toys for Bob, High Moon Studios, Demonware (matchmaking system), Beachhead Studios and Sledgehammer Games.

Technically speaking, while the deal has been completed, it is a phased buyout of shares in addition to a cash payment and, until the deal is completed, the two entities will operate independently. For Take-Two, who were hoping to get ahead of the game with their acquisition of Zynga, Microsoft's decision to buy Activision Blizzard overshadows that previous announcement and confirms Microsoft's place at the top of the market.

A historic deal in the tech world

If Zynga was at the top of the video game buyout rankings, Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard puts this latest giant buyout at the top of the entire tech sector's acquisition rankings. In second place, Dell's 2015 takeover of EMC ranks just below with a 67 billion deal.

Upon completion of the buyout, we will offer gamers as many Activision Blizzard games as possible in Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and iconic games from Activision Blizzard's incredible games catalogue. Today we also announced that Game Pass now has over 25 million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add value and new games to Game Pass.

Official Xbox blog post about the buyout

Finally, this deal comes in the midst of Activision Blizzard's long-standing troubles with its team management and problematic corporate culture that have been in the spotlight for many months. For full details of the Microsoft buyout of Activision, you can read the official blog post here.