Indications suggest that the acquisition will primarily enhance metaverse applications in the business sector rather than in gaming. This is evident as CEO Nadella emphasizes productivity, and metaverse enthusiast Kotick departs from Activision.
When Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was unveiled in January 2022, there was considerable talk about the metaverse. However, the emphasis seemed to be on business communications rather than gaming. Public statements and leaked documents suggest that the Activision deal might hold more promise for the future of cryptocurrency than the metaverse.
In Microsoft’s announcement of the Activision deal in January 2022, the metaverse was prominently featured. The company stated, “This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business […] and will provide building blocks for the metaverse” in the first paragraph. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also noted, a few paragraphs later, that “Gaming […] will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.“
Nadella expanded on his metaverse vision in an interview the next month, stating to the Financial Times:
“We are, quite frankly, developing metaverse applications, if I may use that term. These are experiences within business applications, productivity tools, meetings, and games—all three on a unified platform.”
Nadella’s focus on work is evident, with “meetings and games” being considered as a single entity. Microsoft’s metaverse platform, Mesh, is designed to complement its Teams business communications platform and includes interactive games within 3D immersive meeting spaces for team bonding.
The metaverse was conspicuously absent from Microsoft’s gaming statements at the start and completion of the deal on October 13. Furthermore, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer indicated his diminished enthusiasm for it in later statements in 2022.
Spencer in an interview with Bloomberg
Spencer raised questions about the concept of the metaverse, stating, “My view on the metaverse is that gamers have been in the metaverse for 30 years.” He expressed caution about play-to-earn in the context of the Web3 metaverse but didn’t elaborate much. In later comments, he referred to the metaverse as “a poorly built video game” and expressed a preference for not spending most of his time in a metaverse that resembled a meeting room.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has shown enthusiasm for the metaverse, expressing his belief in the realization of the metaverse vision presented in works like “Snow Crash” by Neil Stephenson and “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. However, on the day the Activision deal was announced, during a CNBC interview featuring both Kotick and Spencer, Kotick discussed the metaverse while Spencer did not mention it. Kotick will remain with Activision until the end of the year.
Spencer may be more optimistic about cryptocurrency, as leaked internal documents suggested that Microsoft was planning to integrate crypto wallets into Xbox. Spencer downplayed the leak, mentioning that “so much has changed,” but did not deny the information. If the plans for crypto integration remain, they could potentially extend to Microsoft’s new gaming acquisitions.
