Pulling Call of Duty from Steam was a ‘failure’

In a new filing from Microsoft, it details the company’s “findings” and “conclusions” after the trial The last victory in court v. Federal Trade Commission The Xbox maker exposed it Call of duty Leaving Steam was part of Activision’s plan to grow Battle.net. But according to the docs, this controversial move was a “fiasco”.

In 2018, Activision announced that the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 It will bypass Steam and launch exclusively on Blizzard’s Battle.net service. And for five years, Activision stuck to that plan, even though it frustrated fans. Then in 2022, Activision reversed course and released Call of Duty Modern Warfare II on Steam. Did she do it because she cared so much about the fans and wanted to do something nice? Nah, it turns out that the publisher’s plans to grow Battle.net with Call of duty It failed, and Activision just gave up after a few years of trying.

The information comes from a July 13 court filing from Microsoft that is part of Her ongoing legal battle is against the Federal Trade Commission Where the government entity is trying to prevent Microsoft from moving forward with its plans to Buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. In the new document, Microsoft’s legal team uses two examples to demonstrate that a “platform” (which includes consoles, digital stores, and streaming game services) need not Call of duty To achieve success and that “getting” into the popular FPS series does not guarantee success.

Call of duty Quitting Steam hasn’t helped anyone

Microsoft highlights Activision’s 2018 decision to make cod Battle.net exclusively on PC as a “fiasco”. The reason behind the controversial move was to “draw users to Activision Blizzard’s PC game store, and grow” Battle.net, the new filing explains. However, that didn’t pan out, and Battle.net’s monthly active users “remained relatively constant over the period it had exclusive access to it.” Call of duty. Steam’s monthly active users have been growing more and more over the same time period, expanding from 67 million users in 2017 to 132 million users in 2021.

The point Microsoft’s legal team is trying to make is this Call of duty It is not essential to success, and even if the platform has it, it does not mean that the platform will see a significant increase in the number of customers. So, according to Microsoft, even if it did Call of duty An Xbox exclusive, which he keeps saying won’t happen, wouldn’t matter because there are already platforms that have succeeded without it cod.

In this same section of the document, Xbox lawyers point to the Switch as another example of how the platform has succeeded despite not having access to Call of duty. Microsoft’s legal team also suggests that if Activision content becomes an Xbox exclusive, PlayStation maker Sony could respond in various ways, including cutting prices or buying more third-party studios and publishers.

While all of this may be true, it ignores the fact that even when cod It was exclusive to Battle.net, and was still available to anyone who owned a PC. This wouldn’t be the case for PlayStation owners if the shooter series became an Xbox exclusive.

If you’re tired of all the legal drama and court documents, I have some sad news: It’s not over yet. Thursday, The Federal Trade Commission has appealed the court’s decision earlier this week which allowed Microsoft and Activision to proceed with the merger. Meanwhile, The Xbox maker has yet to deal with the UK’s CMA, which has not yet agreed to the deal. This is not over yet.

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