Indefinitely borrowed from else where, below…
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Basically: FTC isn't technically lying. EC isn't lying. And neither one is accusing MS of lying - technically. EC is clear, in a technical way, that MS isn't lying. FTC knows that MS isn't lying, but they want you to believe that they are lying or are at least deeply untrustworthy. So they misdirect readers from the full context of MS's statements so they can rhetorically
strongly imply that MS cannot be trusted because they break promises. They don't ACTUALLY accuse MS of this (and MS has been lying if any of this were actually true), but it's not true and MS hasn't been lying. In fact, MS has been doing exactly what they actually told the EU they would do - keep Zenimax games en masse available to buy on PlayStation and then take future games on a case by case basis. No games have left PSN. Check. Some games are exclusive. Check. Some games came to PlayStation. Check. (Not just Deathloop and Ghostwire, either. Quake Remaster was never promised or revealed, but still came to PS. It would be trivial to drop a platform - even a finished one.)
So, MS isn't untrustworthy, at least not from this incident. And yet it gets two full paragraphs of writeup to setup untrustworthy MS as incorrigible and likely to strike again with ABK. And why don't we accept the proffered 10 year contracts that would lock MS in (with whatever manner of horrible contract break clause that MS will sign) and directly address the concerns we have?? Well, because MS is untrustworthy and no deals with them can be trusted. They're
liars, you see (we didn't technically say this, so we're not liars either teehee)!!
And so our ONLY OPTION is to sue!! (Oh were we supposed to explain what the harm actually is if this happens? Um. Yea. MS will do all the bad things on the list of things that are bad! [literally, FTC wrote 1 sentence and repeated the list from their statute.] And that's it. They spent absolutely NO EFFORT on showing if this would actually cause any problems.
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It is unfortunate that the media is wildly misinterpreting this lol. The clarification caused more confusion. Most of the people in here are not accusing the FTC of lying, though. We know they're not. But they're ALSO not accusing MS of lying either. Instead, they phrased their document in a very specific way that conveniently left out important context that would explain that MS was not actually saying what the FTC WANTS US TO THINK they said. FTC wants us to think that MS "assured" the EU that there was no reason for future Zenimax games to be exclusive. We know this isn't true in the sense that MS made no assurances at all - this is what EU wanted to be sure to make clear. But we ALSO know that MS specifically said that future Zenimax games will be on a case-by-case basis, from the documents that MS has shown.
What Totillo and MLex don't ask is whether MS gave EC any indication that future games might not be exclusive. The answer, according to MS, is yes. If the EU said no, then MS would be lying TWICE - both back in the Zenimax case AND yesterday in the response to all this. Considering that the EU has chosen NOT to call out MS for lying and instead made clear something else that could only possibly harm FTC's case (however minimally anyone may think that is), I'm going to suggest that they don't think MS lied. In fact, MS has done exactly what they told the EC they would do - even though they weren't actually promises. Ie: EC knew that they planned to make SOME games multiplat (like Quake, which wasn't known or promised to PS) and SOME games exclusive.
And yet.... the FTC writes this:
Microsoft's previous representations to the EC about its incentives after its purchase of ZeniMax were not borne out by Microsoft's own post-merger behavior. Instead, Microsoft put its true post-merger incentives on full display when it decided to deny rivals its newly acquired future releases and thwart consumers who would choose to play them on a competing product. Microsoft's past behavior should also cast more suspicion on its non-binding public commitments to keep Call of Duty available on PlayStation consoles through the end of Activision's existing agreement with Sony.
Click to shrink...
They don't technically accuse MS of lying. But they do use some neat rhetorical trickery to implicitly suggest that MS lied to the EU and is now lying to the FTC here again. Or maybe just maliciously misled? They definitely ascribe
intent to whatever they're not technically accusing MS of doing. And therefore, this then forms the basis (the one and only support) of the argument that MS can't be trusted to keep COD on PlayStation. And in an unspoken way, it is also the basis for arguing why MS's commitments to Sony, Nintendo, Steam, the CWA, consumers, and regulators themselves are simply untrustworthy and not worth considering. Any potential remedies go completely unmentioned whatsoever in this document. Some minor stretches follow, but essentially this leads then directly into the final section where they describe the harm that MS would cause to the industry with such ignomious actions!
Except.. no they don't, they spend one sentence on it and just repeat the prompt. "And in conclusion, MS will cause the bad things in the list that we all know is bad." Untrustworthy MS is at the heart of their argument, because it is the backdrop for them rejecting the concessions that would DIRECTLY ADDRESS their central concerns in this case [foreclosure, labor, etc], and instead reach for the block.