As is now tradition, an enormous piece of gaming news landed right after last week's Pushing Buttons went out to readers: Microsoft's huge $70bn purchase of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush owner Activision Blizzard, a deal that has been in the works since January last year, was unexpectedly blocked by a UK regulator. This might not seem interesting to anyone except those involved with the business of video games, or people with an inexplicable interest in the actions of regulatory authorities in Britain, but wait! It is quite interesting, because the response from these two giant companies has been entertainingly petty. All corporations are entitled brats. For decades, US- and UK-driven neoliberalism has empowered them to consider themselves legally equivalent to actual people, and deserving of privilege, ostensibly because they create wealth and jobs.

The Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust lawsuit in a bid to block Microsoft's planned $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The FTC started looking into the deal and its potential impact on the video game market soon after it was announced in January. Evidently, the agency was concerned enough to pump the brakes on the buyout. The FTC said that, were the deal to go through, it "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business." The FTC's commissioners voted in favor of the lawsuit along party lines, with the three Democratic members approving it.

In November, the San Francisco Police Department proposed approving the use of remote-controlled robots with deadly force. This was after a law came into effect requiring California officials to define the authorized use of military-grade equipment. It would have allowed police to equip robots with explosives "to contact, incapacitate or disorient violent, armed or dangerous suspects." San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approved this proposal, initially, despite opposition by civil rights groups. However, during the second of two required votes, the board voted to ban the use of lethal force by police robots. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this is unusual as the board's second votes typically echo the first results.

Microsoft agreed Wednesday to make the hit video game Call of Duty available on Nintendo for 10 years should its $69 billion purchase of game maker Activision Blizzard go through -- an apparent attempt to fend off objections from rival Sony. The blockbuster merger is facing close scrutiny from regulators in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. Microsoft, maker of the Xbox game console, faces resistance from Sony, which makes the competing PlayStation console and has raised concerns with antitrust watchdogs about losing access to what it calls a "must-have" game title. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, tweeted that Microsoft "entered into a 10-year commitment" to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo. Microsoft President Brad Smith tweeted his thanks to Nintendo, which makes the Switch game console, saying the same offer was available for Sony.

The announcement comes shortly before a Dec. 8 closed meeting of the FTC. While the FTC declined to comment on whether it is meeting with Microsoft this week, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft plans to meet with FTC Chair Lina Khan on Wednesday to persuade her to approve the deal. When asked if there was any significance to the announcement coming relative to the FTC meeting, Spencer responded, "The things I've heard and seen written in the press is maybe some intent on our side when we make public commitments to Sony, that our private commitments are untenable or don't work for partners, or for Sony specifically."

Recently some members of the video-game community were enraged by news that FromSoftware's oblique open-world adventure Elden Ring has been nominated in the best narrative category at the forthcoming Game Awards. Like the developer's other titles (the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, for instance), this complex game tells its story through short snippets of dialogue rather than long cinematic cutscenes, and via objects in the world, rather than endless scrolls, audio messages or emails. The player has to do most of the work in assembling a cogent narrative, which suited me fine, because, through the 200-hours I've spent with the game, I simply do not care about the plot – I have my own. I wander the dangerous lands of Caelid and Dragonbarrow as an existential assassin, like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter or Mad Max, not bothering to try and make sense of the world, just keen to explore and fight and survive. I like this story better – especially when my son joins me and we take on foes together, revelling in the story that builds of is own accord as we play.

U.K.-based Friendly Guy achieved this self-imposed feat by crafting a loadout tailored for speed, stealth and support. He chose light weapons such as SMGs to keep his movement speed as fast as possible, equipped the Spotter Scope as his tactical item to tag enemies for his team and chose the Suppression Mine as his field upgrade to disorient enemies at high-traffic locations. As for perks, he went for the Phantom preset, which includes every perk that a nonviolent ninja would need: Battle Hardened to shake off tactical grenades, Double Time for longer sprints and Cold-Blooded paired with Ghost to essentially make him invisible on the minimap.

Again, the logic would dictate that Activision wants to migrate all its old "Warzone" players into "2.0," While Activision may have allowed players a way to continue to access all of their old unlocked/purchased content, it's doubtful the company would want its old free-to-play game to compete with its new one.

I don't know for sure that Microsoft would remove Call of Duty from the PlayStation -- it might not benefit them -- but they might,

Consider the last two years: The company rode Call of Duty's potency to new heights following the release of "Call of Duty Mobile" in 2019 -- downloaded by over 650 million users globally, according to Activision -- and the free-to-play battle royale "Warzone" in the spring of 2020. But by last winter the company was dogged by fallout from a sexual discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed that summer by the state of California against Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Activision and the studios that develop Call of Duty. The franchise's annual installment, the World War II-based "Vanguard," also fell short of sales expectations and stock prices plunged from a high point of $103 per share in February 2021 to $56.94 on Dec. 1 that same year. The company announced the following month it would be acquired by Microsoft.