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Microsoft Settles Gamers’ Antitrust Lawsuit Over $69B Activision Blizzard Buy | The lawsuit from gamers across multiple states claimed that Microsoft could cancel premium video game titles and raise prices.

The lawsuit from gamers across multiple states claimed that Microsoft could cancel premium video game titles and raise prices.

The lawsuit, filed in California federal court in 2022 by gamers across multiple states, stressed that the merger will create among the largest video game companies in the world, with the ability to raise prices, limit output and reduce consumer choice. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella recently testified that there are so-called “network effects” — the idea that the value of a product increases as more people use it — ensuring that platforms that grow to scale first have significant competitive advantages over smaller competitors because they receive more content from third-party developers, according to lawyers for the gamers. The deal married Microsoft, which owns the Xbox console, a game streaming service and the most popular personal computing operating system in the world, and Activision, maker of Call of Duty, Warcraft and Candy Crush.

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