Microsoft finally closed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard last week after getting approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. Shortly after, Ubisoft is sharing details about its ownership of the streaming rights for all Activision Blizzard games outside the EU.
In Microsoft’s concession in the Activision Blizzard deal, the tech giant sold all its games’ cloud streaming rights to the French publisher for the next fifteen years. Giving up the rights to cloud streaming was key to the approval of the merger in the UK. So, what does this mean for gamers?
Ubisoft now controls all Activision Blizzard games coming to cloud gaming services outside with the exception of EU countries and regions where Microsoft already had previous deals with cloud gaming providers. Gamers in the European Economic Area (EEA), including EU countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, will get a free license to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice” all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console titles that they have purchased.
Outside of the EU, it will be up to Ubisoft to decide which cloud gaming services can stream Activision Blizzard games including Xbox Cloud Gaming. Theoretically, Ubisoft could potentially withhold a future Activision Blizzard game from Microsoft’s cloud streaming service. Microsoft now needs to pay a wholesale arrangement fee to license Activision Blizzard titles for its cloud streaming service.
A number of cloud gaming providers pitched offers to the Competition Markets Authority. The regulatory body then picked out which companies worked best to alleviate its cloud gaming concerns but it was up to Microsoft to make the final decision on which company it would partner with.
We’ve been active in the streaming space for a long time and that’s one of the reasons Microsoft came to us; we were the first studio that Google worked with for Stadia; the first company that Amazon worked with for Luna; and we’ve been partners with NVIDIA GeForce Now for years,” says Chris Early, Ubisoft’s SVP of strategic partnerships and business development. “To Microsoft, it made sense that if somebody was going to be familiar with the space and know what the value would be for streaming, it would be us. And we saw the value as well.”
It’s expected that Activision Blizzard games will now be available on Ubisoft Plus. The publisher has already started the groundwork to bring these games to the Ubisoft cloud gaming subscription service. However, it isn’t clear when these titles will be playable.
The cloud streaming deal between Microsoft and Ubisoft lasts for 15 years while the licenses are perpetual. This means Ubisoft will still have the streaming rights to these games even after the 15-year deal ends.
“Our expectation is that they will be on Ubisoft Plus, and then we have the rights to be able to license them individually to companies as well,” Early said. “Perhaps there’s a company somewhere in the world that wants to license those rights and add to the streaming service they have or start up a new streaming service, and I think that’s going be part of the fun of the next 15 years or more of how streaming evolves.”
