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Microsoft The Courts

Microsoft Wins Dismissal of Gamers' Suit Over $69 Billion Activision Deal (reuters.com) 22

Microsoft has won dismissal of a private consumer antitrust lawsuit over its $69 billion proposed purchase of "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, but the plaintiffs were given 20 days to refine their legal challenge. From a report: A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the lawsuit from a group of video game plaintiffs "lacks allegations" supporting their claim that the proposed acquisition would harm market competition. "Plaintiffs' general allegation that the merger may cause 'higher prices, less innovation, less creativity, less consumer choice, decreased output, and other potential anticompetitive effects' is insufficient," wrote U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Corley. "Why? How?" The decision does not affect the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) regulatory challenge to the largest-ever gaming industry deal.
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Microsoft Wins Dismissal of Gamers' Suit Over $69 Billion Activision Deal

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  • They win that a lot around here.
  • the fact that buying out one of the pillars of the game industry is somehow not going to hurt competition is insane. The only way a judge could come to that conclusion is corruption. They're just siding with whoever has the most money.
    • Re:Court packing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2023 @05:10PM (#63388707)

      Suit lacked specifics, and judge allowed the plaintiffs to refine their legal challenge.

      Because it's not the job of the judge, jury or the defendant to explain why and how damage will be caused. It's the job of the plaintiff. How is this not self evident and how foolish must you be to argue that the only reason a reasonable judge would state this self evident and long standing principle in legal precedent is "corruption"?

      • I just hope Microsoft doesn't ruin Diablo 4 on Linux through wine or proton. Or terrible-up the battle.net launcher in some typically-Microsoft way.

        That's probably too much to hope for. :(

        Oh well, there are other games...Steam has a lot of them...And also Star Citizen is running great on Linux...

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          >Star Citizen is running great

          Said no sane person, ever.

          Seriously, have you ever tried that abortion of a game? I'm a happy owner of the original crowdfunding package that comes with access to (both split parts of) the game, and every time every other year when I decide to see if it's any good and go to my account to install it, I'm reminded that investing in this thing was the best 30 EUR I ever spent.

          As it taught me to never invest in early access games, ever since 2016, which is when the game was supp

      • How is this not self evident and how foolish must you be to argue that the only reason a reasonable judge would state this self evident and long standing principle in legal precedent is "corruption"?

        Shhh he's on a role. Just grab some popcorn and watch the mental breakdown happen.

    • They stopped being a pillar when they added facebook integration to their games and started trying to artificially control the culture of their customers.
    • It would get them some console exclusives. Which, frankly, Microsoft really needs. There just isn't much reason to buy an Xbox right now.

      This is supposed to be an argument on behalf of gamers, but it isn't clear to me that gamers would lose out here. It means that Activision's games get published on fewer platforms, bad for gamers. That represents greater costs, since gamers need to buy an additional console, or just be unable to play certain games. It also means that Microsoft recovers its status in the
  • by Anonymous Coward
    "Xbox sucks!!1!" and "If you disagree with our case, you're an xbot!" aren't valid legal arguments. Imagine that.
  • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2023 @05:15PM (#63388721)

    For me, the most interesting part of these sorts of actions and comparable recent things where people take it upon themselves to do things that were traditionally in purview of "we leave it to the state to decide".

    We've recently seen this in everything from private demands for boycott for Russian goods in the wake of Ukraine war going well beyond what nations actually sanctioned (often causing regulators to actually start ramping up sanctions they stated they won't implement just a bit earlier because of this pressure), to this sort of internal legal arguments, where anti-competitive behavior typically policed internally by the state is increasingly facing pushes and challenges from private citizens.

    On one hand, it's great that private citizenry is more open about their issues and that they are capable of leading on things like sanctions against Russia in the West. On the other, you get lawsuits like this one, where it really doesn't benefit the cause to make a bad lawsuit that doesn't actually list details on why and how claims in the lawsuit are generated. This is a fairly basic omission, and that is the risk of having relatively inexperienced activists try to do the job that actually does require detailed expertise in the subject.

    Here's hoping they find an experienced law firm to take up the case and write up an actually acceptable legal claim that can proceed to trial.

  • "less creative" than *Call of Re-texture XIV*?! No wonder she didn't find that a credible claim...

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