The former chairman of the US Federal Trade Commission recently expressed his views on the XGP price increase incident.The former FTC chairman mentioned previous efforts to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the continued impact of the acquisition on the industry.
Microsoft proposed to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023, and finally completed the transaction for $75.4 billion.But the FTC had strongly opposed and tried to stop the acquisition.Although the court rejected the injunction request and the FTC insisted on appealing until early 2025, its appeal was eventually dismissed and the agency subsequently terminated the lawsuit.
Lawyer Lee Hepner quoted Microsoft's previous statement on social platforms, promising that the XGP price will not be raised after the acquisition is completed.But he also shared the chart showing that the increase in XGP price has increased significantly since the acquisition was completed, and pointed out that the warning of then FTC Chairman Lina Khan was completely correct.The former chairman retweeted the tweet and added that the acquisition case did have a negative impact on players and developers, "the deepening of market monopoly is often accompanied by price increases", and "monopoly companies" are completely likely to harm consumer rights without scrupulously.
Microsoft's recent series of measures have indeed put pressure on employees and players.After the acquisition was completed, Microsoft has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs, with more than 10,000 employees being fired, several studios including The Initiative were closed, many game projects were cancelled, and XGP has experienced two rounds of price increases.Players responded fiercely to the latest price increase, and a large number of users rushed to unsubscribe before the price adjustment took effect, resulting in the XGP official website being paralyzed for a while.Although Microsoft claims to be increasing game content and membership rights, users obviously don't buy it.
XGP has long been popular with players for its "subscribe and play" mode.But even before this price adjustment, the service and Microsoft were repeatedly questioned.Former B-school leader Pete Hines once pointed out that the model harms the interests of developers, publishers and the industry as a whole, while Arkane Studio founder Raphael Colantonio bluntly stated that the XGP model is difficult to sustain.
