Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

DoNews, Jan. 18 (Liu Wenxuan) Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, and Activision Blizzard employees will report to Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft's gaming division. Microsoft says it will add Activision Blizzard's games to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass as much as possible, including new games and previously released titles.

Prior to this, Activision Blizzard had been plagued by scandals, and Activision Blizzard's representatives had revealed to the Wall Street Journal that since the company broke the workplace discrimination and harassment scandal in the middle of last year, 37 employees had been fired and forced to leave, while 44 people had been punished.

According to Activision Blizzard's original plan, this was the news that should have been announced before Christmas last year, and CEO Bobby Kotick finally chose to postpone the public in order to save the company's face.

The Wall Street Journal previously exposed Bobby Kotick's years of condoning sexual harassment within the company and a series of discriminatory behaviors against women. There is even an employee rights group A Better ABK that has sent a petition on Twitter asking CEO Bobby Kotick to step down, and nearly a thousand employees have signed their support.

A previous bloomberg news pointed out that Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan was "very frustrated and even shocked" by the incident in internal documents, in addition, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer also said that "will re-evaluate (Xbox) and Activision Blizzard's partnership and take the initiative to make adjustments."