Activision Blizzard calls UK ‘closed for business’ after Microsoft takeover veto

The Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard has accused the UK of being "closed for business" after the competition regulator blocked its attempted takeover by Microsoft, which would have been the largest acquisition in gaming history.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) prevented the $68.7bn (£55bn) cash purchase because of concerns it would squash the cloud gaming market, sparking furious pushback from both sides of the deal. Microsoft said it would "discourage technology innovation and investment in the UK", while Activision Blizzard vowed to "reassess our growth plans for the UK".

The tie-up would have created a gaming behemoth, merging Activision's plethora of "AAA" titles, which also include World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Candy Crush Saga and Overwatch, with Microsoft's burgeoning stable of first-party developers, its Xbox consoles and its control of PC gaming.

The block follows the CMA's decision in October last year to prevent Meta acquiring the animated gif search engine Giphy.

Anne Witt, a law professor and member of the EDHEC Augmented Law Institute, described the Activision decision as "huge news".

She said: "The CMA is the only competition agency globally to have ever prohibited a big-tech merger, and now they've done it twice. While the UK is a little behind in terms of platform regulation, the CMA is really taking a leadership role in big-tech merger control."

The regulator's decision on Activision Blizzard had seemed to be tilting in Microsoft's favour after it announced earlier this month that it was content with the Seattle-based company's promises to make Call of Duty available on other platforms for at least a decade. Those promises, it said, preserved competition in the home console market, against protests from the PlayStation owner Sony.