Image c/o Jakud Porzyck/NurPhoto (Getty Images)

Yesterday, I woke up to the surprising news that Microsoft was planning to buy Activision Blizzard. This acquisition will, according to Microsoft, grant them access to hundreds of millions of gamers and position it as "the world's third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony."

A press release from Microsoft named the dollar amount and added, "Activision Blizzard is a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher with legendary games including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch and Hearthstone. This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft's gaming business across mobile, PC, console, and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse."

According to the same press release, "Activision Blizzard has nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and billion-dollar franchises." When the deal goes through, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios. 

This will come as Microsoft's largest acquisition of all time, coming it at more than double the $26 billion it paid for LinkedIn back in 2016. Understandably, this purchase leaves plenty of gamers with some concerns - not all of Microsoft's purchases have stood up against time and technology very well (RIP, Skype). 

Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard comes on the heels of acquiring Bethesda last year (for a comparatively smaller sum of $7.5 billion). 

“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a statement. “We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all.”

It remains to be seen how this deal is going to play out and what Microsoft's larger plans are for the developer. What are your thoughts?