The Federal Trade Commission of America has published a letter expressing their displeasure regarding Microsoft’s recently announced changes to Game Pass.
You might remember the FTC: they heavily fought against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Of course, they lost and Microsoft was able to go ahead with its world domination purchase of the Call of Duty publisher. However, since then the FTC has not let ceased fighting and is still actively in the process of appealing the decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As part of this process, the FTC continues to provide more evidence, such as another letter from earlier this year which discusses the near 2,000 layoffs across Activision-Blizzard.
The FTC’s newest letter was published on July 18 and addresses Microsoft’s announced plans to change Game Pass’ pricing and tiers, which will include a new “Standard” tier that does away with day one games. Only PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will get Microsoft games on day one now, and both of those tiers will get price hikes. The FTC is not impressed with this decision, stating that “For consumers unwilling to pay 81% more, Microsoft is introducing a degraded product, ‘Game Pass Standard,’ at $14.99/month. This product costs 36% more than console Game Pass, and withholds day-one releases.”
The FTC goes on to say that this price increase and degradation of the existing product is “exactly the sort of consume harm from the merger that the FTC has alleged.”
Unsurprisingly, the FTC also points out that the price hike and tier changes coincide with the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. They point to Microsoft’s own words that the merger would benefit consumers “by making [CoD] available on Microsoft’s Game Pass on the day it is released on console (with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition.)”
It’s unclear if the FTC will be successful in its attempts to appeal the merger, or when a verdict will be rendered. If the FTC were successful the ramifications would presumably be massive, especially as Microsoft is now in the process of bringing Activision-Blizzard games to Game Pass.