Asian Tech Press (Oct 16) -- Microsoft has completed its $69 billion acquisition of game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. after nearly two years of regulatory scrutiny.

Microsoft formally announced on October 13 that it has completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard after receiving approval from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK's antitrust regulator.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Activision Blizzard's common stock will no longer trade on the NASDAQ.

In January 2022, Microsoft announced that it had agreed to buy Activision Blizzard for a total of $68.7 billion, stirring up the gaming industry.

After more than 20 months of work, Microsoft finally succeeded in acquiring Activision Blizzard and will become the third largest gaming company in the world.

The deal will combine Microsoft's Xbox business with Activision Blizzard, the world's largest video game publisher with titles like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.

Accordingly, the deal has been facing antitrust regulatory challenges from a number of places, including the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.

And the acquisition is also Microsoft's largest since its inception, following the biggest deal it did in 2016 when it acquired U.S. workplace social platform LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.

In the gaming sector, Microsoft has also launched several acquisitions, including the purchase of Mojang Studios, the developer of the sandbox and survival game Minecraft, for $2.5 billion, and ZeniMax Media, the gaming company that owns series such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom, for $7.5 billion.

After the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete, Microsoft will have 30 game studios, making it the third-largest gaming company in the world in terms of revenue, behind China's Tencent and Japan's Sony.