It's been almost a year and half since (NASDAQ: MSFT) made its acquisition bid for Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), and the two companies have faced an uphill battle in their efforts to merge ever since. Until now, it has seemed as though there was a good chance that the deal would never go through, given regulatory obstacles that seemed insurmountable.

Yet in one fell swoop, it now appears that nearly all of the barriers to getting the Activision-Microsoft merger done have disappeared. That has caused the video gaming stock to soar, and that could have competitive ramifications across the industry.

It was only a couple of months ago that many investors had decided that the Activision-Microsoft deal was likely dead. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is the primary regulatory body in the U.K. charged with assessing potential monopolistic and anticompetitive threats, seemed to put the brakes on the deal. The CMA observed that it believed allowing the two companies to join forces would lead to reduced innovation in the video game space, adversely affecting choices available for video game enthusiasts.

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Source Fool.com