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XMicrosoft’s $68.7 Billion Deal to Acquire Activision Blizzard Will Create a New Gaming Behemoth
Microsoft is aiming to vault itself into the upper echelon of video games with its $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant behind such franchises as Warcraft Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush.
Announced Tuesday morning, it would be the largest acquisition in the Redmond company’s history, eclipsing its $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2017. Adding to its existing Windows PC and Xbox gaming businesses, Microsoft says it will become the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.
“Today, we face strong global competition from companies that generate more revenue from game distribution than we do from our share of games sales and subscriptions,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on a call with investors and analysts Tuesday morning. “We need more innovation and investment in content creation and fewer constraints on distribution.”
Activision Blizzard, based in Santa Monica, Calif., will bring Microsoft some of the most iconic franchises in modern gaming, 10,000 employees, and a recent spate of revelations of sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct.
Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard CEO, will continue to serve in that role, Microsoft said. After the deal closes, Activision Blizzard will report to Phil Spencer, who will have the new title of CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
Update: A Microsoft representative clarified that the statement referring to Kotick continuing to serve as CEO was a reference to the period from now until the deal closes, in which Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will continue to operate separately. The company isn’t commenting on leadership plans beyond that.
Under the all-cash deal, Microsoft will pay $95 per share of Activision stock, a 45% premium to Activision Blizzard’s Jan. 14 share price. Microsoft says it expects the deal to close in its 2023 fiscal year, which begins in July of this calendar year.
Activision Blizzard was on track for $8.7 billion in net revenue for 2021 as of November, up from $8.1 billion in 2020.
Microsoft’s gaming revenue rose 33% to $15.4 billion in its 2021 fiscal year, which ended in June.
Consumer spending on video games reached a record $60.4 billion last year, up 8% from 2020, according to data published today by the NPD Group research firm. Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War were the top-selling video games in the U.S. last year.
The announcement comes a week after Take-Two Interactive announced a $12.7 billion deal to acquire mobile game maker Zynga, promising to combine the companies behind Grand Theft Auto and FarmVille.
“Mobile is the biggest category of gaming, and it’s an area where we’ve not had a major presence before this transaction,” Spencer said. Activision acquired King, the Candy Crush maker, for $5.9 billion in 2015.
The addition of Activision Blizzard also promises to bolster Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. After the deal is completed, Microsoft “will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Game Pass,” including new titles and games from the company’s back catalog, Spencer said.
Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard comes about a year after Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the Maryland-based holding company for the video game publisher Bethesda Softworks, the company behind such games as Doom, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and the Wolfenstein series.
On the call Tuesday morning, Nadella also addressed Activision’s challenges with misconduct, saying that creating a healthy corporate culture is his top priority, requiring a mindset of continuous improvement.
“This is hard work,” Nadella said. “It requires consistency, commitment, and leadership that not only talks the talk but walks the walk. That’s why we believe it’s critical for Activision Blizzard to drive forward on its renewed cultural commitments.”
Activision Blizzard reached a consent decree with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Division in November 2021.
Just last week, Microsoft’s board hired an outside law firm to review the company’s own sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies and practices, including its handling of past allegations against Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, in response to a shareholder resolution that passed overwhelmingly in the fall.
Among the big U.S. tech companies, Microsoft may be in a unique position to make major acquisitions such as this right now.
“From a regulatory perspective, MSFT is not under the same level of scrutiny as other tech stalwarts (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google) and ultimately Nadella saw a window to make a major bet on consumer while others are caught in the regulatory spotlight and could not go after an asset like this,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note on the deal.
Microsoft had more than $130 billion in cash and short-term investments as of Sept. 30. Its market value is about $2.3 trillion. Microsoft stock was down slightly, less than 1%, to about $308 per share in early trading Tuesday morning, following the announcement of the Activision Blizzard deal.
Activision Blizzard is scheduled to report its fourth quarter and year-end results on Feb. 3. Microsoft reports its fiscal second quarter results next week, on Jan. 25.
This story first appeared on GeekWire. GeekWire’s Taylor Soper and John Cook contributed to this report.
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TikTok’s Latest Ad Strategy: Let Brands Crowdsource Creators
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
TikTok’s newest advertising program will allow brands to crowdsource content from creators.
Branded Mission, which the Culver City-based video-sharing app announced Wednesday, is currently being beta-tested. The program lets brands release briefs containing specific creative directions—such as incorporating a specific hashtag, visual effect or audio—with the goal of procuring videos that will become promoted ads. Creators with at least 1,000 followers will be compensated with cash payments if the content performs well.
Creators participating in the “authentic branded content” program, as TikTok described it, can choose which brand initiatives they wish to participate in—with each Branded Mission “page” highlighting details like how much money a creator could potentially receive for participating. TikTok told Business Insider that it’s testing various payment models, including a first-come, first-serve model as well as “boosted traffic” compensation.
“Creators are at the center of creativity, culture and entertainment on TikTok,” the social media firm said in a statement. “With Branded Mission, we're excited to bring even more creators into the branded content ecosystem and explore ways to reward emerging and established creators.”
TikTok’s previous advertising strategies have relied on creators with large followings, with the recently announced TikTok Pulse targeting users with at least 100,000 followers. Branded Mission, on the other hand, gives creators with smaller platforms a chance to make more revenue beyond programs like TikTok’s Creator Fund.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Greater Good Health Raises $10M To Fix America’s Doctor Shortage
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
The pandemic highlighted what’s been a growing trend for years: Medical students are prioritizing high-paying specialty fields over primary care, leading to a shortage of primary care doctors who take care of a patient’s day-to-day health concerns. These physicians are a cornerstone of preventative health care, which when addressed can lower health care costs for patients, insurers and the government. But there’s a massive shortage of doctors all over the country, and the pipeline for primary care physicians is even weaker.
One local startup is offering a possible answer to this supply squeeze: nurse practitioners.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Beach-based Greater Good Health unveiled $10 million in new funding led by LRVHealth, adding to $3 million in seed funding raised by the startup last year. The company employs nurse practitioners and pairs them with doctor’s offices and medical clinics; this allows nurse practitioners to take on patients who would otherwise have to wait weeks, or even months, to see a doctor.
“This access and equity issue is just going to become more pervasive if we don't do things to help people gain more access,” Greater Good founder and CEO Sylvia Hastanan told dot.LA. “We need more providers to offer more patients appointments and access to their time to take care of their needs. And in order to do that, we really need to think about the workforce.”
There has been a growing movement in the medical industry to use nurse practitioners in place of increasingly scarce primary care physicians. California passed a law in 2020 that will widen the scope of nurse practitioners and allow them to operate without a supervising physician by 2023. Amid a shortage of doctors, there’s also the question of what will become of the largest and longest-living elderly population in recent history, Baby Boomers. Public health officials are already scrambling for ways to take care of this aging demographic’s myriad health needs while also addressing the general population.
“By the time you and I get old enough where we need primary care providers to help us with our ailments and chronic conditions, there aren't [going to be] enough of them,” Hastanan said. “And/or there just isn't going to be enough support for those nurse practitioners to really thrive in that way. And I worry about what our system will look like.”
Nurse practitioners function much like doctors do—they can monitor vitals, diagnose patients, and, in some cases, prescribe medication (though usually under the supervision of a doctor). Nurse practitioners need to get either a master’s degree or higher in nursing and complete thousands of hours of work in a clinical setting. All told, it usually takes six-to-eight years to become a nurse practitioner, compared to 10-to-15 years to become a practicing physician.
Greater Good Health’s platform puts nurse practitioners in often years-long care settings where they manage patients—most of whom are chronically ill, high-risk patients that need to be seen regularly and thoroughly. This allows them to follow up more carefully on patients they have managed for years, instead of catching up on a new patient’s history and treating them in the moment. Patients, meanwhile, don’t have to see a rotating door of clinicians and can talk to a provider they already have an established rapport with.
The one-year-old startup will use the funding to provide learning and development opportunities for its nurse practitioners and also connect them with each other through virtual support groups. Burnout has been an issue across health care during the pandemic, spurring an exodus of nursing and support staff and leaving health care facilities woefully understaffed. Greater Good hopes that keeping nurse practitioners in more stable, years-long care situations and offering them career development opportunities will help retain them and keep them in the workforce longer.
“We want them to be well-rounded and balanced both in work and life, and we see that returns us healthier, more engaged and ready nurse practitioners,” Hastanan said.
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
Plus Capital Partner Amanda Groves on Celebrity Equity Investments
On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, Amanda Groves talks about how PLUS Capital advises celebrity investors and why more high-profile individuals are choosing to invest instead of endorse.
As a partner at PLUS, Groves works with over 70 artists and athletes, helping to guide their investment strategies. PLUS advises their talent roster to combine their financial capital with their social capital and focus on five investment areas: the future of work, future of education, health and wellness, the conscious consumer and sustainability.
“The idea is if we can leverage these people who have incredible audiences—and influence over that audience—in the world of venture capital, you'd be able to help make those businesses move forward faster,” Groves said.
PLUS works to create celebrity partnerships by identifying each client’s passions and finding companies that align with them, Groves said. From there, the venture firm can reach out to prospective partners from its many contacts and can help evaluate businesses that approach its clients. Recently, PLUS paired actress Nina Dobrev with the candy company SmartSweets after she had told them about her love for its snacks.
Celebrity entrepreneurship has shifted quite a bit in recent years, Groves said. While celebrities are paid for endorsements, Groves said investing allows them to gain equity from the growth of companies that benefit from their work.
“Like in movies, for example, where they're earning a residual along the way, they thought, ‘You know, if we're going to partner with these brands and create a tremendous amount of enterprise value, we should be able to capture some of the upside that we're generating, too’,” she said.
Partnering in this way also allows her clients to work with a wider range of brands, including small brands that often can’t afford to spend millions on endorsements. Investing allows high-profile individuals to represent brands they care about, Groves said.
“The last piece of the puzzle was a drive towards authenticity,” Groves said. “A lot of these high-profile artists and athletes are not interested, once they've achieved some sort of level of success, in partnering with brands that they don't personally align with.”
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.