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Leaders | CoD and chips

社论 | 微软与暴雪

Leaders | CoD and chips

社论 | 微软与暴雪

Trustbusters should let Microsoft buy Activision Blizzard

反垄断者应该同意微软收购动视暴雪

Blocking the deal is as likely to harm consumers as it is to protect them

阻止收购对于消费者而言并非有利无弊

In the past two decades video gaming has gone from a nerdy hobby to a blockbuster industry, with revenues over five times bigger than the cinema box office. Today it is home to one of the largest tech mergers in history. In January Microsoft agreed to pay $69bn to buy Activision Blizzard, a game studio. Yet the megadeal may not go ahead. America’s Federal Trade Commission—one of 16 regulators around the world to have taken an interest—will probably say soon that it will sue to block it.

过去二十年里，电子游戏已然从一项电脑迷的爱好变成了现象级产业，其行业收入是电影票房的六倍多。如今，史上最大手笔的科技并购案之一也出现在了电子游戏行业。今年一月，微软同意以690亿美元收购游戏开发商动视暴雪。然而，这笔巨额交易可能就此止步。全球关注此次收购的16家监管机构中，美国联邦贸易委员会可能不久后就会提起诉讼，阻止收购。

Trustbusters have two main worries. The first is the jewel in Activision Blizzard’s portfolio: “Call of Duty”, a military-themed first-person shooter game, the latest version of which sold over $1bn-worth of copies in just ten days. It is available on both Microsoft’s Xbox games consoles and Sony’s competing PlayStation. Regulators fear Microsoft could make “Call of Duty” exclusive to the Xbox, undermining competition between the ecosystems.

反垄断者主要担忧两件事。首先是动视暴雪旗下大热游戏《使命召唤》。这是一款以军事为主题的第一视角射击游戏，其新作《使命召唤2》的销售额在短短10天就超过10亿美元。玩家可在微软的Xbox和其竞争对手索尼的PlayStation平台下载畅玩。监管者担心微软会让《使命召唤》成为Xbox独占游戏，破坏其与PlayStation之间的竞争。

Microsoft says that it does not want to freeze out PlayStation. Its aim is to add titles to Game Pass, its monthly subscription service which, in effect, rents out a bundle of games rather than selling them individually. Herein lies regulators’ second concern. At the moment Game Pass is chiefly an Xbox service, but it could one day have much broader reach as games are streamed from cloud-computing services onto people’s televisions, web browsers and phones. Microsoft’s cloud-computing business, Azure, might give it a technological edge while Game Pass—expanded to include Activision Blizzard’s portfolio—provides the best content. Trustbusters worry that Microsoft could gain an insurmountable lead in a nascent market.

微软表示，它并不想排挤PlayStation，而是要丰富Game Pass的游戏库。Game Pass是微软推出的月度订阅游戏服务，它实际上是将游戏打包租赁，而非单独售卖。监管机构的第二个担忧便源于这一点。虽然Game Pass在当前主要是Xbox的一项服务，但随着游戏可以从云计算服务平台被串流到电视屏幕、网页浏览器与手机，终有一天，它的影响力会更加广泛。微软的云计算业务Azure或许会赋予其技术优势，而Game Pass将动视暴雪的作品收入囊中后，又可提供最优质的内容。反垄断机构由此担心，微软可能会在这一新生市场中获得不可逾越的地位。

注释：

1. Xbox Game Pass是一项由微软推出的通过月付游玩游戏的服务，用户在每个月缴纳一定数额的金钱后，就可以游玩到Xbox Game Pass游戏库中的所有游戏，并且微软还将向游戏库中增加游戏。

2. portfolio: the range of products or services offered by a particular company or organization

Neither worry is a reason to block the merger. Take “Call of Duty”. Microsoft is starting from third place in the console market—in which it sells the Xbox at a loss—and Activision Blizzard earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year from selling “Call of Duty” to more numerous PlayStation users. Recent history suggests Microsoft should hesitate to give up those revenues. In 2018 at&t, a telecoms company, bought Time Warner, a media giant. It then pulled stellar exclusive content, such as the sitcom “Friends”, from rival broadcasters’ streaming platforms in an effort to promote its own service. That helped cause a collapse in profits and the unwinding of the merger. Although Microsoft would have good reason not to make “Call of Duty” exclusive, regulators could in any case insist it honours a promise to keep selling the game to PlayStation users on reasonable terms.

上述两种担忧，都不足以成为阻挠两家公司合并的理由。以《使命召唤》为例，微软目前仅在游戏主机市场排行第三，亏本销售Xbox。PlayStation拥有更多的玩家，而动视暴雪在此平台上的该款游戏年销售额高达数亿美元。近些年来的种种事件则表明，微软在放弃巨额游戏收益上应该慎之又慎。2018年，美国电信公司AT&T一举收购传媒业巨头时代华纳。为了推广自家服务，AT&T从对头广播电视公司的流媒体平台上撤下了情景喜剧《老友记》等热门独家剧集。这可以说是造成了AT&T收益暴跌，时代华纳随后被剥离。尽管微软有充分理由不去独享《使命召唤》，但无论如何，监管机构都可以坚持让它信守承诺，继续以合理条件向PlayStation的用户群体出售这款游戏。

注释：

1. 美国电信巨头AT&T以超过800亿美元“天价”收购时代华纳后，时代华纳便更名为华纳传媒，并进行了一系列改革。HBO Max便是华纳传媒打造的全新旗舰产品。HBO Max还获得了经典美剧《老友记》全部236集的独家播放版权，这也意味着《老友记》离开了Netflix。

http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2019-07-11/doc-ihytcitm1183723.shtml

2. 兰德尔·斯蒂芬森（AT&T首席执行官）在达拉斯举行的一次会议上表示，“我们拥有的许多优秀剧集，目前在其他平台播出，现在是时候将其收回了。” 从Netflix和Hulu等服务中拿回热门剧集，将有利于AT&T让消费者订阅自己的流媒体服务，也是对竞争对手公司的重大打击。

Television also offers a lesson about game streaming. In 2016 Hollywood was rife with fears that Netflix would become a monopoly. Some argued it wielded so much power that fed-up creative types were scared to criticise it. Its advantage did not last. Today its growth is stalling as it faces competition from Amazon and Disney. Games are harder to make and stream than sitcoms. But plenty of firms are capable of challenging Microsoft, including gaming rivals like Nintendo and technology giants like Nvidia and Apple. Microsoft would not own blockbuster games from “Fortnite” to “fifa”, made by the studios Epic Games and Electronic Arts, respectively. By one estimate, a merged Microsoft-Activision Blizzard would account for only 14% of global gaming revenues among the biggest listed gaming companies.

影视业也为游戏串流发展提供了参照。2016年，好莱坞弥漫着对网飞公司即将垄断行业的担忧。有人称其影响力过大，因此创意人士哪怕对其感到厌倦也会怯于发声批评。但网飞的优势并不长久。如今，由于面临亚马逊和迪士尼的竞争，网飞的发展陷入了停滞。游戏比影视更难制作，更难流式传输。但是很多公司都有能力挑战微软，包括任天堂等游戏竞争对手、以及英伟达和苹果等科技巨头。微软无法拥有Epic Games制作的《堡垒之夜》和美国艺电公司制作的《实况足球》等畅销游戏。根据预测，微软与动视暴雪合并后，其收入将仅占全球大型上市游戏公司收入的14%。

注释：

1.游戏流式传输：“如今，各种游戏层出不穷，各种设备不断涌现，并且越来越多的用户采用全新而有趣的方式玩游戏。有了 Xbox Game Streaming 和 Xbox 远程游戏，用户可以随时随地获得 Xbox 游戏体验。”

https://learn.microsoft.com/zh-cn/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/system/overviews/game-streaming/game-streaming-overview

Stay frosty

谨慎观望

Trustbusters are twitchy about technology mergers, having failed to stop Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp in the early 2010s, which led to a time when social media was less competitive than it should have been. But Microsoft is experimenting with an unproven business model, not picking off a competitor. Game Pass is only about 15% of Microsoft’s revenues from Xbox games and streaming accounts for well under 1% of game spending today. The fact that a market is only just getting off the ground is a reason for regulators to be cautious, not for them to intervene. Preventing Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard is as likely to harm consumers by stopping a new product from taking shape as it is to protect them from a big company with excessive market power. ■

反垄断者在21世纪10年代初未能阻止脸书公司收购Instagram和WhatsApp，导致社交媒体间的竞争程度一度低于应有水平。因此，他们对科技公司合并感到惴惴不安。但微软是在试验一种未经检验的商业模式，而非排挤竞争对手。Game Pass仅占微软Xbox游戏收入的15%左右，而游戏串流服务在目前游戏支出中所占比例远低于1%。市场尚处于起步阶段，监管者持谨慎态度乃应有之义，但却绝非横加干预的理由。阻止微软收购动视暴雪虽能保护消费者免受霸市公司侵害，但这也会阻碍新产品新事物的发展，给消费者造成的伤害同样不小。

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