The World Bank’s director criticized Microsoft for spending $ 69 billion to buy a game company when poor countries are facing difficulties

Microsoft recently stunned the technology world when it announced it was buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. However, it seems that not everyone is happy with the deal. World Bank President David Malpass on Wednesday criticized Microsoft for spending nearly $69 billion to buy the game studio at a time when poor countries are struggling to restructure debts and combat COVID-19.

More capital needs to be poured into poor countries, but these flows have been disrupted by unusual monetary policies in the developed world, Malpass said during a virtual event for the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

He said he was shocked by the size of the acquisition of the company behind the super-popular “Call of Duty,” Activision Blizzard. Malpass compares this to just $24 billion over three years in aid to the poorest countries, referring to contributions distributed in December by 48 high- and middle-income governments.

“You have to ask yourself, is this the best way of allocating capital? There has to be more capital flowing into developing countries,” he said.

Microsoft has yet to respond to Malpass’s comments.

For the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft paid $95 per share, 45% more than Activision Blizzard’s share price after Friday’s close.

Holding Activision Blizzard in hand means that Microsoft owns a huge number of blockbuster games, which are big series like Call of Duty (Activision), World of WarCraft and Diablo (Blizzard) and Candy Crush (King). . Besides, there are a series of large and small game development studios operating under the roof of Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized: “Games are the most dynamic and exciting field of entertainment on all platforms today, and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.”

Reference: Reuters