On the back of the Star Wars Battlefront 2 debacle in 2017, many European regulators, including the UK and French ones, have started to take an increasingly scrutinising and judging stance, on loot boxes offered for purchase to children and young persons who play video games. Why are loot boxes potentially dangerous? What are the…
Back in 2020, Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster seemed a given, to all insiders from the book publishing industry. Well, they changed their tune in November 2021, when the US department of justice filed a lawsuit to block the deal. And won. Why did the Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon &…
Film distribution remains inefficient and not user-friendly enough, despite the many disruptions caused by online piracy and the advent of film streaming. Is the outcome of the streaming wars going to bring more consolidation in film distribution? What about aggregating film streaming services together, to make them more affordable to end-users? Let’s explore. To access…
Since Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the largest independent video games’ developer and publisher worldwide, competitors and national competition authorities alike have been busy, around the world, in assessing the potential substantial lessening of competition that such a large deal may entail. Let’s dive in, and assess where this acquisition is at, in…
While at the Podcast show on 25 May 2022, I struck a conversation with Kevin Fairburn, senior account manager for the Japanese musical products brand Zoom at Sound Service MSL Distribution Ltd, who mentioned that online retailing of musical instruments (‟MI”) and products was more strictly regulated, in the United Kingdom (‟UK”), since its Competition…
