The Fiscalia Nacional Economica, Chile's market regulatory institution, announced its decision to approve the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. This highly controversial deal has been one of the biggest gaming stories of 2022, with Microsoft announcing its intention to purchase Activision Blizzard at the beginning of the year and receiving a set of legal pushbacks ever since.

To acquire Activision Blizzard, Microsoft needs the approval of 16 countries that will review the deal and judge whether it risks creating an antitrust situation where Microsoft has an unfair competitive advantage over its competitors. While Serbia, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia already approved this $69 billion deal, other antitrust organizations are still reviewing the acquisition and haven’t yet revealed their decisions.

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Chile's market regulatory institution, the Fiscalia Nacional Economica (FNE), published its decision to approve the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft on December 29, 2022. The organization explained that despite the merger generating horizontal and vertical overlaps as Microsoft is a major publisher and Activision Blizzard is one of the biggest video game developers, this deal doesn't threaten the balance of the gaming market and won't create an unfair situation for Microsoft’s competitors in Chile.

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To decide whether or not to approve the Microsoft Activision Blizzard acquisition, the FNE gathered various data and conducted a consumer survey among Chilean gamers. The organization conducted two analyses: a horizontal one to assess whether the acquisition would prevent other developers from competing with this new entity, and a vertical one to judge whether Microsoft could prevent other platforms from offering games developed by Activision Blizzard.

In its ruling, the FNE considered that the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal wouldn’t pose a threat to the overall balance of the video game industry in Chile. The organization concluded that even if Microsoft decided to turn Call of Duty into an Xbox exclusive, Chilean players would still be able to play first-person shooters from Electronic Arts, Take Two, Ubisoft, and Epic Games. Moreover, Chile's market regulatory institution deemed Call of Duty to be not as relevant for the Latin American region as it is for other parts of the world, as their consumer survey revealed that Chilean players would rather switch to a different game than change their preferred gaming platform.

Overall, the FNE declared that Activision Blizzard games were not the most popular among Chilean players and that the acquisition wouldn’t disrupt the local player base. Therefore, Chile approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, joining Serbia, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia on the list of countries in favor of the $69 billion deal. However, Microsoft isn’t any closer to acquiring Activision Blizzard as the company is still facing a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States.

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Source: Fiscalia Nacional Economica