Despite making concessions to any state-level agency that will listen, Microsoft's would-be purchase of mega-game publisher Activision Blizzard continues to run into regulatory hurdles. The latest obstacle for the deal is the United States Federal Trade Commission, which has filed an injunction and restraining order to block the nearly $70 billion purchase from going through. The following proceedings will determine whether the US government allows the largest deal in video game history to proceed. The various steps in the regulatory process are complicated, but competently explained by the Associated Press. Essentially, the FTC had already signaled its opposition to the Microsoft-Activision deal on anti-trust grounds late last year but had not completed the process of formally blocking the merger.

Welcome to Pushing Buttons, the Guardian's gaming newsletter. If you'd like to receive it in your inbox every week, just pop your email in below – and check your inbox (and spam) for the confirmation email. There's only one thing I was going to be talking about in this week's Pushing Buttons, isn't there? Since Microsoft very inconsiderately announced the biggest acquisition in gaming history just after last week's edition went out, the entire games industry has been in a flap. The $69bn deal to buy Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Overwatch publisher Activision Blizzard absolutely dwarfs the $7.5bn that the house of Xbox paid for Zenimax/Bethesda in 2020, which already had me feeling slightly uneasy about the amount of cash being thrown around by giant corporations (see also Tencent, whose run of acquisitions shows no sign of slowing down.)

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Welcome back to Talking Tech. You likely heard me a couple days ago talking about Microsoft's huge deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, which is the video game publisher that makes a ton of big titles, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft through Blizzard, and a host of others. The big concern for some video game players, particularly owners of a PlayStation, is whether they should be worried that one of the industry's biggest games and Call of Duty may no longer be on the platform.