By GARRETT BABB
Staff Writer
Recently Microsoft, one of the world’s leading technology companies and most notably (to this particular article) the owner of the ever-expanding “Xbox” franchise has just made an incredibly bold and influential financial move. Microsoft has just recently purchased Activision and Blizzard, two giants in the gaming industry which have produced some of the most notable games of our generation such as Overwatch, Call Of Duty, Diablo, Sekiro, and many more. This purchase along with Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda (which was a huge deal in its own right) has made Microsoft even more prominent in the gaming industry, making it the third-largest company in the industry and allowing for even more exclusive titles to be added to their ever-expanding Xbox portfolio. Although the deal isn’t technically completed yet, it is almost a guarantee that the whole thing will go through and will be fully completed sometime between July 2022 and July 2023, meaning that once it is there will be huge changes in the gaming industry. For starters, many new games from Activision and Blizzard will become Xbox and PC exclusive with pre-existing games being added to Xbox Game Pass for pass holders to get either for free or heavily discounted prices, which solidifies Gamepass as easily the best deal for players to get quality games for cheap with no rivals. Another big change will be to the company Blizzard which has had a lot of issues and controversies in the past, even being once dubbed the “worst and most unethical gaming company in America” after its various sexual harassment charges in the workplace and lack of a functioning ethics department as it pertains to the control of their social media and function as a company. Many are hoping that this purchase will bring a new dawn to the company and allow for shifts in leadership to improve its functionality. But regardless of speculation and guesswork as to what will happen now that this purchase has been announced, everyone can agree that the impact this will have on the gaming community will be massive.