FTC Is Investigating Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition Deal

On, January 18th Microsoft made one of the biggest moves in the gaming industry after announcing its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard and its properties for $68.7 billion.

Will we get WoW mobile? Will subscriptions be tied to the Xbox games pass? And how will this pickup impact Overwatch 2? Just how there are many questions from communities across Blizzard’s various titles, the US government has some of its own.

Now, as reported by Bloomberg earlier this week, the deal is now undergoing a U.S. antitrust review which will be handled by the Federal Trade Commission as opposed to the Justice Department.

While antitrust reviews are fairly common, especially with deals of this magnitude, the deal will be under increased scrutiny. This is due to a joint announcement earlier this year by commission chair Lina Khan and her Justice Department counterpart, Jonathan Kanter, regarding the two departments’ joint effort to toughen merger reviews.