Microsoft, Activision Blizzard and the future of gaming

film of the year so far, “”, took $1bn in its first month. The biggest game, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II”, took the same amount in just ten days. Spurred on by the pandemic, which saw video-game spending increase by nearly a quarter in 2020, the games industry will be worth more than $170bn in worldwide revenues, about five times as much as the global box office.Gaming’s growth is drawing the attention of regulators. In January Microsoft, which makes the Xbox console, , publisher of titles including the “Call of Duty” franchise, for $69bn. It is the biggest acquisition in Microsoft’s history and by far the biggest in that of the games industry. Regulators from 16 territories have probed the deal. In the past two months Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority () and the European Commission have scrutinised it in detail; America’s Federal Trade Commission () is expected to make a decision imminently. If any of those three mega-regulators says no, it could be game over.