A 21-month tug-of-war has come to an end, and with it another major consolidation move that brings the games industry closer to collapse.

The CMA, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, was the only regulator to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to own Activision Blizzard King (ABK). But even they have backed down. They originally thought that Microsoft would have a monopoly on the cloud market, but having sold the cloud rights to ABK to Ubisoft (who will be in the news again later today), they are no longer blocking Microsoft’s biggest ever acquisition in the games industry.

Here’s the CMA’s reasoning: “In August this year, Microsoft made a concession that would see Ubisoft buy Activision’s cloud gaming rights instead of Microsoft. This new deal will place the cloud streaming rights (outside the European Economic Area) for all of Activision’s PC and console content produced over the next 15 years in the hands of a strong and independent competitor with ambitious plans to offer new ways of accessing this content. As a result of this concession, the Competition and Markets Authority agreed to re-examine the deal and opened a new investigation in August. That investigation has concluded today with the Competition and Markets Authority clearing this narrower transaction.

The new deal will prevent Microsoft from blocking competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, and will maintain competitive prices and services for cloud gaming customers in the UK. It will allow Ubisoft to offer Activision’s content under any business model, including multi-game subscription services. It will also help ensure that cloud gaming providers can use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” the ABK wrote.

A few hours later, both Microsoft and ABK announced that the deal had been completed, adding huge studios and IPs to Xbox Game Studios. We’re not going to bore you with the rantings of Xbox boss Phil Spencer and ABK CEO Bobby Kotick, because there’s no point. The video below shows just how… interesting the future is. There will be changes at the Call of Duty publisher.

Bobby Kotick, who previously buried himself when he was accused (threats, ignoring the situation within the company) and should not be working in the gaming industry in any way, will leave his position as CEO on January 1st. At least this is a positive thing, as it is incomprehensible how he could remain CEO when such events were happening within the company.

Source: Gematsu, Gematsu