Led by Sweden’s Sjunde-AP-Fonden fund, the shareholder lawsuit had accused the now-former executives of Activision Blizzard, including the at-the-time CEO Bobby Kotick, of having breached fiduciary duties by agreeing to the $95-per-share price, which made the deal valued at $75.4 billion. They had alleged that Kotick rushed through the merger in an attempt to hang on to his role as CEO, along with $400 million in benefits.

It is worth noting that the lawsuit has come to an end due to a settlement, with both Microsoft and Kotick denying the allegations that had been levied against them. The reason for this settlement was stated as being to “avoid the distraction of litigation”. Sjunde, on the other hand, agreed to the settlement by noting that the $250 million payment was “fair”. The settlement will be considered complete once it is approved by the Delaware Court of Chancery’s chief judge, Kathaleen McCormick.

40 percent of the payout will be funded by Microsoft, with the rest being the responsibility of the liability insurance of the various executives who were part of the lawsuit. In its entirety, the settlement payout is an additional 30 cents for each Activision Blizzard share.

The acquisition had been considered officially complete back in October 2023, with Microsoft welcoming Activision Blizzard into the XBOX family. The at-the-time CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, said in a statement that the acquisition was part of a deliberate strategy, and that the companies will work together to “bring the joy and community of gaming to more people.”

“Together, we’ll create new worlds and stories, bring your favorite games to more places so more players can join in, and we’ll engage with and delight players in new, innovative ways in the places they love to play, including mobile, cloud streaming, and more,” he said.

The entire acquisition process was placed under a microscope by several regulatory bodies from around the world to ensure that Microsoft was complying with antitrust laws. A key point of contention at the time was the worry that Microsoft would make the Call of Duty franchise exclusive to its own platforms, giving it an unfair advantage in the marketplace when compared to Sony and Nintendo.

Consumers saw the first real fruits of this acquisition when Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was released on Game Pass on day one. This was followed up by last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Unfortunately, the loss in revenue this represented led to Microsoft raising the price of its subscription service. After much backlash, the company announced last month that it would be bringing the price of Game Pass down, with the main trade-off being that Call of Duty games will stop arriving on the subscription service on day one of their release.

“I was told that the Microsoft Gaming entity was a temporary legal thing that they set up specifically to facilitate the Activision Blizzard acquisition.” While far from an outright confirmation, this would indicate that the rebranding would have happened regardless of whether it was still Phil Spencer at the helm or if current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had taken the reins.

The rebranding was announced last month, with Sharma and CCO Matt Booty discussing how it will affect the company’s plans moving forward. In a joint statement, the duo said, “‘Microsoft Gaming’ describes our structure, but it does not describe our ambition. So, we are going back to where we started and changing our team’s name. We are Xbox. We are a high agency culture where wild and wonderful ideas thrive. Our job is not to smooth over our differences, but to connect everyone into something greater than any one studio or product.”

As for its ambitions with the next-generation Xbox, dubbed Project Helix, Booty and Sharma spoke about wanting to “lead in performance” and confirmed that the console will be able to play PC and console games.

The rebranding was followed up by Xbox unveiling a brand new black and green logo that served as a call-back to the original Xbox branding in 2001, when the first console in the line-up was launched. The new logo was revealed in a social media post, accompanied by a simple message proclaiming that “We Are Xbox”. The announcement drew plenty of comments from a host of gaming-adjacent companies, including Razer, Mountain Dew, and Discord.

Sharma’s “Return to Xbox” initiative was first brought up back in March, where she reportedly spoke about the future of Xbox as a brand, and how the company will refocus its efforts on making sure that its consoles become an attractive place for gamers once again.

“I have three commitments that I laid out. We will deliver great games,” she reportedly said. “Everything is downstream of great games, that means empowering studios to do our best work. The second thing is the ‘return to Xbox,’ we are going to start with console, and make sure that we understand that this is our reference experience. We will meet players where they are, and build experiences that are instant, seamless, and accessible. And third, we are living through an unprecedented era of change. We will build for the future of play.”

“I told everyone we were only going to make a movie if it’s right. In David Ellison, we found that partnership,” he said. “We want to make sure that the authenticity of it is captured on a human level so that it feels really real and infuse that with epic scope.”

The adaptation is being headed up with TV creator Taylor Sheridan – known for Sicario, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and Yellowstone – as screenwriter alongside Pete Berg. The latter is also working as the movie’s director. Both are producers on the project as well, along with 101 Studios’ David Glasser.

Rumblings of Call of Duty getting adapted into a movie have been going around for several years. Reports from as far back as 2017 have indicated that Activision Blizzard was in talks to create movies based on the Black Ops and Modern Warfare sub-franchises under the larger Call of Duty umbrella.

“We have plotted out many years. We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going,” said the at-the-time co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios, Stacey Sher, in an interview. “There’ll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it’s like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on.”

As for the upcoming adaptation, no other details have been revealed. With the release date set, however, we can be certain that plans are likely in place to begin filming by the end of the year, with post-production wrapping up by the end of 2027. The story itself will likely draw on Sheridan’s experience in working on projects that involve intense, high-octane action punctuated with long, drawn-out scenes that build up tension, much like Sicario.

On the gaming side of things, the most recent entry in the franchise was Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which saw a negative reception due to many factors. With the year moving along, however, rumors have already started popping up about what the next entry might entail. One such rumor from earlier this month has indicated that this year’s entry will be a new one in the Modern Warfare series, as a follow-up to 2023’s Modern Warfare 3. Just months after the title’s release, reports had already indicated that the next Modern Warfare was “already well into development” thanks to the commercial success of the series.

Another report from earlier this month has also indicated that Call of Duty could be taken off the Game Pass line-up, with Microsoft seemingly prioritizing “more niche and PC-focused” outings.

While a variety of factors contributed to his decision to leave, a major one was how the now-defunct esports league for Overwatch, dubbed Overwatch League, had massive expectations placed on it. He noted that its potential success got “overmarketed” to the people who would be paying to field teams for the event, with some claiming that Overwatch League would end up becoming even bigger than the NFL.

This led to a lot of commitments being made, which in turn would get “billionaire investors” involved, interfering with the ongoing development work on Overwatch. “And so all your plans [for Overwatch content] at that point kinda go out the window,” he said. “You’re not working on new world events, you’re not focused on Overwatch 2, you’re just treading water.” Ultimately, the entirety of the Overwatch League essentially became an attempt to “let’s make lots of money really fast,” according to Kaplan.

“Originally the business model was going to be that they [Overwatch League] were going to do in-person events, and there’s going to be big ticket sales and merch and all of that,” he continued. “I think, really quickly, everybody learned we can’t do in-game events when we have a London team and a Shanghai team… like, how does this work? So that fell apart super quickly. The merch was good but it wasn’t going to be making NFL money, whatever insanity people thought that was going to be.”

“So everybody [the investors] quickly defaulted back to, ‘hey, didn’t Overwatch make 500 million dollars just in the live game last year?’ What can we sell, and what can you give us? That pressure comes onto the [dev] team, and [add to that] the pressure to ship Overwatch 2, and then all the care and love that we had for the live game and the live service—like let’s make events, new heroes, new maps—we’re losing all these resources.”

Kaplan noted that he, along with product director Ray Gresko, felt more in control of Overwatch as a whole in its early years, before Overwatch League happened, which he said “ended up being an albatross.” Eventually, however, Kaplan would be driven to resign from the company after one particular meeting with the at-the-time CFO (chief financial officer) of Activision Blizzard. In this meeting, he was given specific revenue targets for Overwatch, along with targets for ongoing revenue. Failure to meet these targets would result in lay-offs for 1,000 employees.

“What ultimately broke me and my Blizzard career was I got called into the CFO’s office and he sits me down and he says—he gives me a date which at the time was 2020 and was going to slip to 2021, but at the time it was 2020—and he said: ‘Overwatch has to make [redacted] in 2020, and then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of [redacted]’ and then he says to me ‘if it doesn’t do [redacted] we’re going to lay off 1,000 people, and that’s going to be on you.’ And that was the biggest f*** you moment I’ve had in my career, it felt surreal to be in that condition.”

“As someone who’s worked on a lot of games, made a lot of games, you get in these meetings where they’re like ‘Fortnite has 1400 people working on it, so if we just hire 1400 people and make it free-to-play, we’ll make that money, right?’ I had believed that I would never work in any place but Blizzard, I loved it, it was a part of who I was, and I thought that I was a part of it. And I literally thought I’d retire from the place. I never thought the day would come, but that was it. Luckily for Blizzard, that CFO is no longer there.”

While Kaplan would leave the company in 2021, Overwatch 2 would eventually come out as a free-to-play game in its Early Access form in 2022, before getting an official launch in 2023. The free-to-play competitive hero shooter is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. More recently, Blizzard decided to remove the “2” from the title and just call it Overwatch.

According to GameFile, Kotick has recently filed a response, with his lawyers denying this allegation. Rather, Kotick and his lawyers are now alleging that Sjunde AP-Fonden filed its lawsuit “to exert collateral harm on Activision” and help Embracer Group.

“This Delaware lawsuit was apparently aimed to help pave the way for Embracer to increase its foothold in the California market at the expense of Activision, making it more difficult for Activision to recruit talent and expand through [mergers and acquisitions] activity of the sort that Activision relied on to grow historically,” said Kotick’s legal team.

This newest allegation originates from the fact that Sjunde AP-Fonden’s view chairman Emma Ihre also served in an executive role at Embracer Group at the time. The lawsuit itself was a bid to help “Embracer’s desire to boost sales of its games while leaving Activision hamstrung in the development of its own games that competed against Embracer’s titles.”

Responding to this through its own statement, Embracer Group has denied Kotick’s latest allegations. A representative for the company said that it was “humbled by Mr Kotick’s remark” about its competing with Activision. “Nevertheless, perhaps difficult to accept for Mr Kotick, but we did not and do not need any help from a Swedish pension fund in competing with Activision,” continued the company representative.

“Thus, in short, there was no coordination or collaboration between Embracer and [Sjunde AP-Fonden] relating to any of Mr Kotick’s statements. No agenda or instructions were directed from Embracer via Emma Ihre or directly to [Sjunde AP-Fonden].”

While Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was called into question by several regulatory bodies from all around the world, including the US Federal Trade Commission, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, and the European Commission, the lawsuit by Sjunde AP-Fonden revolved around allegations of Activision Blizzard suffering from systemic issues with harassment and sexual misconduct. One report claimed that Kotick himself was involved in several instances of harassment and misconduct, with it stating that the CEO was not only aware of it happening, but also went as far as to protect abusers and withhold knowledge about these instances from the company’s board.

While Kotick would stay on in his executive position for quite some time following these reports, he eventually announced his departure from the company following the completion of its acquisition by Microsoft. Amidst this, 2022 also saw Activision settle its sexual harassment lawsuit, with the settlement amount said to be valued around $18 million.

The company would also sign an agreement with California’s Civil Rights Department as part of the latter’s 2021 lawsuit that would result in it paying $54 million for allegations of systemic sexual harassment and racial discrimination, as well as unequal pay for women.

“Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers,” wrote Khan. “As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand. As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.”

Khan’s statement comes after she fought quite hard during her tenure as the head of the FTC against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. At the time, she had warned the industry about the negative effects that the merger – valued at around $69 billion at the time – would eventually end up being worse for the gaming industry. Khan had also argued against the merger stating that Microsoft would prevent studios under Activision Blizzard from releasing their games on non-Microsoft platforms

The FTC had tried to appeal against the acquisition through an appeal for an injunction from back in 2023. However, back in May, the appeal had been denied, along with US Judge Daniel P. Collins writing that the FTC had failed to show the “likelihood of success on the merits as to any of its theories,” with regards to antitrust violations.

As for the premise that Microsoft would make Activision Blizzard games exclusive to Xbox, Collins wrote that “all major manufacturers have engaged in this practice,” before going on to note that Sony and Nintendo “both have significantly higher number of exclusive games on their platforms than [Microsoft] does.”

This ultimately led the FTC to drop its appeals for an antitrust case against Microsoft, with the regulatory body releasing a statement saying that public interest is “best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case.”

“Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that the complaint in this matter be, and it hereby is, dismissed,” said the FTC when it announced that it was dropping its appeal.

As for Game Pass, along with the Ultimate tier of the subscription service now being priced at $30 per month, Microsoft also unveiled the $9.99 Essential tier, which offers more than 50 games on PC, console and cloud, as well as the $14.99 Premium tier, which offers more than 200 games, with first-party titles becoming available within a year after their release dates. The Ultimate tier, offering more than 400 titles, will also include first-party games on day one of their release.

Shortly after this announcement, Xbox president Sarah Bond also noted that the subscription service had been quite successful, having generated a record high of $5 billion in the previous fiscal year. “It’s a profitable business, and as more creators join Xbox Game Pass, payments to creators increase, so we think it’s a good business for creators,” she said.

According to the report, there have been a total of 71 million games sold in 2025 across PC and consoles in Europe, which marks a 6 percent drop over the same period from 2024. This data accounts for sales having taken place up to July 28. Of the 71 million game sales, 52 million were digital copies, while 19.7 million were physical copies. These are 3 percent and 9 percent reductions over the previous year, and around 74 percent of games sold this year in Europe have been digital, which, when it comes to percentages, is a 2 percent rise from 2024.

The best-selling game in Europe in 2025 has been EA Sports FC 25. The title was released back in 2024, and taking it into account, Assassin’s Creed Shadows currently sits in the number 2 spot for game sales overall in Europe across PC and consoles. The top 20 sales chart, which you can check out below, also include other games released this year, including The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and Nintendo Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World. It is worth noting that digital sales data for Nintendo games hasn’t been revealed.

The data, coming from official European charts company GSD, also interestingly omits Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It was noted as being missing because publisher Kepler Interactive hasn’t shared sales data for the game with GSD. An analyst from GSD, Sam Naji, also revealed some details about how game spending has changed for PC and consoles over the year.

In his analysis, Naji said that the first 19 weeks of 2025 saw spending drop by 2 percent compared to 2024, down to €1.33 billion, while the number of copies sold dropped by 9 percent. He attributed this to the average price of games having gone up by around 8 percent, with gamers spending an average of €29 per game, when compared to 2024’s average of €27 per game. He also noted that digital spending had gone up by 8 percent compared to a 6 percent drop in number of units sold, attributing it to a 15 percent rise in average price for digital games – €22 to €25 per game.

Best Selling Games in Europe for 2025 Across PC and Consoles:

1. EA Sports FC 25 (EA)
2. Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
3. Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
5. Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros)
6. Split Fiction (EA)
7. Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Activision Blizzard)
9. Mario Kart World (Nintendo)
10. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (Plaion)
11. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Bethesda)
12. Star Wars Battlefront 2 (EA)
13. Elden Ring: Nightreign (Bandai Namco)
14. It Takes Two (EA)
15. Grand Theft Auto Online (Rockstar)
16. NBA 2K25 (2K Games)
17. F1 25 (EA)
18. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft)
19. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)
20. Battlefield 1 (EA)

“Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that the complaint in this matter be, and it hereby is, dismissed,” said the FTC in an order announcing the dismissal of the governing body’s complaint. Microsoft president Brad Smith took to social media platform X to praise the decision. “Today’s decision is a victory for players across the country and for common sense in Washington, D.C.,” wrote Smith. “We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement.”

The FTC complaint being dropped comes a few weeks after its appeal for a denied injunction from 2023 also getting denied by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals. The court stated that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was not violating US antitrust laws, with Judge Daniel P. Collins writing that the FTC hadn’t shown the “likelihood of success on the merits as to any of its theories,” with regards to the case.

Back when the FTC had first set out to fight Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of its core arguments was that the company would use its position in the industry to dominate the console market by releasing games exclusively on its own platforms. This led to Microsoft inking deals with both Sony and Nintendo to ensure that major franchises like Call of Duty wouldn’t be withheld from other consoles.

Collins also pointed out that, despite being industry practice to have exclusive games in order to push console hardware sales, Microsoft is currently in the weakest spot behind Sony and Nintendo when it comes to having exclusives of its own. “All major manufacturers have engaged in this practice,” Collins wrote, continuing that competitors like Sony and Nintendo have “both have significantly higher number of exclusive games on their platform than [Microsoft] does.”

Back in 2023, the original injunction was denied at the time because the Judge at the time noted that Microsoft’s push into cloud gaming on various platforms dispelled the idea that Activision Blizzard games being “exclusive” to Xbox in some way would harm competitors in the gaming market.

This now-dropped case by the FTC was the last thing plaguing Microsoft when it came to potential antitrust issues with regards to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The deal has otherwise been considered complete since October 2023, however, with Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer welcoming the new studios under the Xbox Game Studios banner.

According to Bloomberg, the appeal has also now been denied by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals. The appeal was rejected by the court, stating that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft was not in violation of any antitrust laws in the US. Judge Daniel P. Collins wrote in an opinion that the appeal was denied because the FTC hadn’t shown the “likelihood of success on the merits as to any of its theories,” with regards to antitrust violations.

The major bone of contention for the FTC was that, once the acquisition was completed, Microsoft would prevent studios under the Activision Blizzard umbrella from releasing their games on to non-Microsoft platforms like Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Switch. However, when the injunction had been denied back in 2023, the judge at the time noted that Microsoft making its games playable over the cloud dispelled the issue.

When it came to releasing future games exclusively on Xbox platforms, the judge also noted that it is standard practice in the gaming industry to release software exclusively for a platform that the company would like to promote. The judge also brings up the fact that, when compared to primary competitors to Xbox in the form of Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft has fewer exclusive games than the other companies do.

“All major manufacturers have engaged in this practice,” Collins wrote, continuing that competitors like Sony and Nintendo have “both have significantly higher number of exclusive games on their platform than [Microsoft] does.”

The report by Bloomberg also notes that this recent denial of appeal might have more long-term effects in how the FTC would tackle concerns about deals between companies in the technology space moving forward. While no immediate effect has been noted for now, an administrative trial in the in-house court at the FTC is also likely to be dismissed.

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard had been officially considered “complete’ back in October 2023. In a post welcoming the new studios under the Xbox banner, Microsoft Gaming head Phil Spencer spoke about wanting to create “new worlds and stories” together. In January 2024, Microsoft reported a 49 percent growth in gaming revenue in the wake of the acquisition. However, this also came in the wake of layoffs affecting 1,900 members of staff across Microsoft’s gaming division.

In February 2024, Spencer also spoke about wanting to bring more games from studios under Activision Blizzard, as well Bethesda, to PC and Xbox Game Pass on day one of release. While he didn’t necessarily say that Call of Duty would come to the subscription service, he did speak about “back-end work” happening behind the scenes at the time to facilitate bringing in Activision Blizzard titles to the service.

Speaking on the Grit podcast, former EA chief creative officer Bing Gordon spoke about how EA had the chance to buy Activision Blizzard IPs, including Guitar Hero, and even Blizzard as a whole. According to Gordon, “EA saw all those first and passed on all of them.”

For the context of time frame, EA had a chance to buy Blizzard before its acquisition by Activision back in 2008 when it was merging with Vivendi Games. EA reportedly declined the offer at the time.

“This is why I have double-high respect for [Robert Kotick] saying, ‘no, no, this is going to be good to own.’ And then you kept the people around,” said Gordon talking to former Activision boss Kotick. “I’m pretty sure that some of those companies, the creative leaders, would not have stuck around [for a company other than Activision], so you did some kind of miracle of keeping them productive for long periods of time.”

Incidentally, in the same podcast, Kotick revealed that there were several talks about a merger between EA and Activision Blizzard. “They tried to buy us a bunch of times, we had merger conversations a bunch of times,” said Kotick.

“While you were doing Blizzard, that EA passed on, and you were doing King, EA did PopCap — just stupid things,” responded Gordon, talking about EA’s own attempts at entering the casual gaming market at the time.

Since Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company has seen quite a spike in growth of gaming revenue. 49 percent revenue growth was reported by Microsoft back in early 2024. More recently, Microsoft has expressed interest in bringing the “full portfolio” of games by Activision Blizzard on to Game Pass.