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Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard on October 13, 2023. The acquired business became part of Microsoft Gaming, bringing the Activision, Blizzard and King portfolios into Microsoft’s corporate group. The clearest franchise examples are Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, Skylanders, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Bubble Witch and Pet Rescue.
That list describes franchises brought into Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard King portfolio, not a title-by-title legal schedule. Broad corporate portfolio pages can include publishing or licensing relationships, so a displayed property should not automatically be treated as an outright Microsoft-owned intellectual-property asset.
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What did Microsoft acquire, and when did the deal close?
The transaction closed on October 13, 2023. Microsoft’s completion announcement described Activision Blizzard as the publisher of major console, PC and mobile franchises, and the acquired operations now sit within Microsoft Gaming.
The legal structure matters when interpreting the word “owned.” Activision Blizzard survived the merger as a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Before closing, the business was organized around three major labels: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment and King Digital Entertainment. Those labels remain useful for explaining where a franchise originated, even though they now belong to the same Microsoft Gaming group.
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The acquisition did not turn every game into an Xbox-only product overnight. A franchise’s availability still depends on existing platform agreements, release decisions, regional rights and the business unit operating it.
Which Activision franchises are now part of Microsoft’s portfolio?
Activision supplied the acquisition’s best-known console and PC properties. Microsoft’s Xbox announcement specifically named several series, while Activision Blizzard’s corporate history adds older and toys-to-life properties.
Call of Duty
Call of Duty is Activision’s flagship franchise and the largest single example of what Microsoft gained. It spans premium annual releases, free-to-play offerings and a substantial connected online ecosystem across console and PC. Activision Blizzard’s 2022 annual report said Call of Duty, Warcraft and Candy Crush together generated 79% of consolidated net revenue in 2022, showing why the series was strategically important to the deal.
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot is a platform-game series that began as a console property and later expanded through remakes, sequels and spin-offs. It is one of the clearest Activision examples named in Microsoft’s acquisition-era communications.
Spyro
Spyro is another classic platforming franchise associated with Activision’s portfolio. The series includes the original games and modern remastered releases, making it both a legacy brand and a recognizable modern collection.
Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk represents Activision’s skateboarding catalog. Its identity is tied to licensed professional-skateboarding presentation, trick-based gameplay and soundtrack-driven design rather than a single continuing annual product.
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Guitar Hero is Activision’s rhythm-game franchise built around plastic instrument controllers and licensed music. Its hardware-dependent model differs sharply from Call of Duty’s online-service structure, but it remains one of the named Activision properties Microsoft acquired.
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Skylanders
Skylanders pioneered the toys-to-life format, in which physical figures are placed on a portal to bring characters into a game. Activision Blizzard’s corporate history reported more than 240 million Skylanders toys sold and $3 billion in revenue by 2015. Those figures describe the historical toys-to-life business, not current sales.
Pitfall and other legacy properties
Microsoft’s completion announcement reached back to Pitfall, an older Activision property. Pitfall is best understood as a legacy example rather than evidence of a current release pipeline. Activision’s wider catalog contains additional historical names, but the strongest reader-facing franchises confirmed in the acquisition communications are Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero and Skylanders.
Which Blizzard franchises did Microsoft get?
Blizzard’s portfolio is concentrated in long-running PC and online universes. Several names are related: Warcraft is the broader setting and brand family, while World of Warcraft and Hearthstone are distinct products built from it.
Warcraft, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone
Warcraft is the umbrella franchise. World of Warcraft is its subscription massively multiplayer online role-playing game, while Hearthstone is a digital collectible card game set in the same universe. Treating those names as three unrelated franchises obscures the way Blizzard’s portfolio is structured.
Diablo
Diablo is Blizzard’s dark fantasy action role-playing series. It is built around character progression, randomized loot and cooperative play, with releases reaching PC, console and mobile audiences.
Overwatch
Overwatch is Blizzard’s team-based hero shooter. Its characters and competitive matches make it a live-service property rather than a conventional one-and-done premium campaign series.
StarCraft
StarCraft is Blizzard’s science-fiction real-time strategy franchise. It is a central part of Blizzard’s historical identity even though its release cadence has been much slower than that of the company’s largest live services.
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Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard’s multiplayer online battle arena, bringing characters from Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo and other Blizzard universes together. Its cross-franchise design illustrates how Blizzard’s properties reinforce one another.
Which King franchises are included?
King brought Microsoft a mobile-first portfolio built primarily around free-to-play puzzle games and in-app purchases. The merger included King Digital Entertainment, not just Activision and Blizzard’s console and PC businesses.
Candy Crush
Candy Crush is King’s best-known match-three franchise and the company’s most important documented property. The 2022 annual report grouped Candy Crush with Call of Duty and Warcraft as the three franchises responsible for 79% of Activision Blizzard’s consolidated net revenue that year.
Farm Heroes
Farm Heroes is another King puzzle series. Microsoft’s completion announcement specifically mentioned Farm Heroes Super Saga, making that subtitle a useful example of the broader Farm Heroes family.
Bubble Witch
Bubble Witch is King’s bubble-shooter series. It uses a different puzzle format from Candy Crush but follows the same mobile, free-to-play orientation.
Pet Rescue
Pet Rescue is a King puzzle franchise centered on clearing blocks and rescuing animals. Like the other King properties, it is primarily associated with mobile distribution rather than boxed console releases.
Does Microsoft own every game shown on an Activision Blizzard portfolio page?
No. A corporate portfolio page is evidence that a property is presented as part of the group’s business history or catalog; it is not necessarily a complete legal chain-of-title document.
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The clearest example is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which appears on the current Activision Blizzard franchise page alongside the other properties. The reviewed corporate and regulatory materials do not establish a title-by-title ownership chain for every displayed game. Sekiro should therefore be described as a property shown in the portfolio, not automatically as an outright Microsoft-owned franchise without a separate rights check.
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The same caution applies to properties involving publishing arrangements, regional rights, co-development, licensing or third-party intellectual property. For a legal or commercial decision, consult the relevant game’s publisher and developer credits, trademark records and current distribution agreements rather than relying on a marketing portfolio list alone.
How do the acquired franchises differ by label, genre and business model?
The three labels brought together very different kinds of games. The table below separates origin, audience and commercial model while indicating how directly each group is documented in official materials.
| Original label | Representative franchises | Main platforms or format | Typical business model | Evidence strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activision | Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, Skylanders | Console and PC; Skylanders also used physical toys | Premium game sales, live-service spending, licensed music or physical collectibles depending on the series | Named in Microsoft acquisition communications and Activision Blizzard corporate materials |
| Blizzard | Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm | Primarily PC and online services, with console and mobile releases for selected games | Subscriptions, premium sales and in-game purchases | Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch are identified in the SEC filing; StarCraft and Heroes of the Storm appear in corporate history and franchise materials |
| King | Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Bubble Witch, Pet Rescue | Mobile | Free-to-play design with in-app purchases and advertising-related mobile monetization | Candy Crush is identified in the SEC filing; the other series appear in Activision Blizzard corporate materials |
What financial and market facts show why the acquisition mattered?
The revenue concentration is unusually clear. Activision Blizzard’s 2022 annual report attributed 79% of consolidated net revenue to Call of Duty, Warcraft and Candy Crush combined. That figure covers the company’s consolidated business for that year; it is not a forecast and does not describe Microsoft’s later results.
Skylanders demonstrates the value of a franchise beyond software. The corporate history’s report of more than 240 million toys sold and $3 billion in revenue by 2015 reflects the series’ historical toys-to-life peak. It should not be read as a current sales figure or as proof that the physical-figure market is still operating at that scale.
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European regulators described the competitive landscape in specific regional terms. During the 2023 merger investigation, the European Commission said that four Sony PlayStation consoles were bought for every Microsoft Xbox console in the European Economic Area. That was a historical EEA comparison used in the regulatory analysis, not a current global market-share statistic.
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How can players access these franchises after the acquisition?
There is no single access route for the whole portfolio. Availability varies by game, platform, edition, country and commercial agreement.
- Console and PC retail: Premium releases such as many Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro and Diablo titles can be sold through platform stores or physical retailers, subject to the specific game’s release status.
- Game Pass: Microsoft announced that Activision Blizzard games would be offered through Game Pass. The announcement does not make every title permanently available, so check the current Game Pass catalog for the exact game, edition and region.
- Battle.net: Many Blizzard PC games are distributed through Blizzard’s PC ecosystem, with account, patching and payment requirements that differ from console stores.
- Mobile stores: Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Bubble Witch and Pet Rescue are primarily mobile products. Device compatibility, in-app purchases and regional availability are controlled by the relevant mobile storefront and publisher listing.
- Cloud gaming: Eligible Activision Blizzard PC and console games are covered by Microsoft’s 10-year European Economic Area cloud-streaming licensing commitments. The remedy concerns qualifying games and participating cloud services in the EEA; it does not mean every title is available on every cloud platform worldwide.
What did the European cloud remedy change?
As part of the European regulatory process, Microsoft made 10-year EEA licensing commitments for eligible Activision Blizzard PC and console games. In practical terms, qualifying cloud-streaming providers can obtain rights under the remedy’s terms rather than being excluded solely because Microsoft owns the acquired business.
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The commitment is limited by geography, eligibility and the games covered. It does not create a universal right to stream every Activision, Blizzard or King title, and it does not apply in the same way to mobile games or to regions outside the EEA.
Which franchises are the safest examples to cite as Microsoft-owned?
For a general audience, the strongest examples are the franchises directly named in merger, completion or segment documents: Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, Skylanders, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo, Overwatch, Candy Crush and Farm Heroes. StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, Bubble Witch and Pet Rescue are also well-supported by Activision Blizzard’s corporate history and franchise materials.
Use “part of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard King portfolio” when discussing the group as a whole. Reserve an unqualified statement that Microsoft owns a particular title for cases where the title’s current legal rights have been independently confirmed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I check whether a specific Activision Blizzard game is in Game Pass?
Search the current Game Pass catalog in the Xbox app or on the service’s regional website, then check the exact platform and edition. Catalog membership can change, and a PC listing may not imply console or cloud availability.
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Check the game’s current copyright and trademark notices, publisher and developer credits, and any regulatory or investor filing that identifies the relevant entity. A franchise page alone may describe publishing or licensing rather than complete intellectual-property ownership.
What does Microsoft’s 10-year cloud agreement mean for players outside Europe?
The commitment is tied to the European Economic Area and to eligible Activision Blizzard PC and console games. Players elsewhere must rely on the rights and catalogs offered by services in their own region.
Why are Activision, Blizzard and King still used as separate names?
They are the businesses and creative labels that existed before the merger, and each has a distinct audience, platform history and operating identity. Microsoft can manage them under Microsoft Gaming without erasing those established brand names.
Did the acquisition include King’s mobile games or only console and PC titles?
It included King Digital Entertainment, so mobile series such as Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Bubble Witch and Pet Rescue are part of the acquired portfolio. Their mobile storefront distribution and monetization remain different from console and PC releases.
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