Will rights to Blizzard games be sold by Microsoft?

A Microsoft decided to restructure Activision Blizzard. For this to happen, however, it was necessary to implement some changes in the company.

In order to make the acquisition possible, a negotiation of Activision Blizzard’s broadcasting rights took place, which will now be the responsibility of Ubisoft.

The established agreement is valid for both PC and console titles, which will be released over the next 15 years.

However, despite ceding the broadcasting rights to the UbisoftMicrosoft will not be left without a profit, on the contrary: the company acquiring the games will need to make a one-time payment to Microsoft for each title.

In addition to this amount, it will also be necessary to transfer the amount of possible compensation based on purchases of each game, as well as the amount of use. The amounts involved in this negotiation were not disclosed.

Image: Reuters/Reproduction

Understand what changes at Blizzard

The agreement between Microsoft and Ubisoft will bring changes. Microsoft will no longer be able to release any Blizzard games, or at least not exclusively on Xbox Cloud Gamingwhich is its cloud game streaming service.

Furthermore, the company no longer controls the existing licensing terms of its competitors’ games. Therefore, you will no longer be able to take actions such as making negotiations difficult or rejecting a possible entry of your games on PlayStation Plus, for example.

This entire part will be under the responsibility of the company that will receive the rights to the games, Ubisoft. In fact, they already expressed the animation in X (formerly Twitter).

“We are pleased to announce a new agreement that will bring Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft+ via streaming, following the completion of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Additionally, we will license the games to a variety of cloud streaming and subscription services.”

Ubisoft+, Ubisoft’s game streaming platform, will be able to add titles from Activision Blizzard in your catalog from the beginning of the purchase. In addition, the company also gains the right to negotiate the full availability of games within Xbox Cloud Gaming.

However, at first, Ubisoft will not offer game streaming in the cloud, but it intends to soon make this possibility available through Multi Access, which is its premium plan service.

All details will still be passed on by the company itself. From what is known, Ubisoft secured, after negotiations, the distribution rights on streaming platforms, even for the main titles in the franchise, such as “Call of Duty“. These and other series will be released from now until 2038.

However, this arrangement was different in Europe. Due to local laws, the company had to agree to some specific terms and, therefore, will continue to provide streaming in the cloud.

For legal reasons, the Microsoft will remain responsible for controlling the games that will or will not be part of its own platform.