The US Federal Trade Commission has opposed Microsofts plan to acquire Activision Blizzard strongly. And now it is about to stand even more hard of the consumers as a result.

A group of ten Call of Duty players have filed a lawsuit to stop the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

A group of ten Call of Duty gamers has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in a federal court in California. This is to stop the merger between the tech giant and one of the world’s largest video game maker. The deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard is worth 68.7 billion dollars and has prompted international investigations from the u.s. government.

This new complaint comes as one of the key elements of the FTC complaint. The FTC argued that only several neo-profit companies have the ability to make the most difficult, mass-produced, highly-anticipated videogames that can be sold for real, expensive, and extremely anticipated by gamers,” and that stifle these companies could be very detrimental to consumers, employees and the world’s economy as an entire time.

The FTC also said that Microsoft lied when he told European regulators it wouldn’t have the incentive to stop or limit making ZeniMax games available for purchase on rival consoles. The tech giant acquired ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks in 2021, and announced that it’s making all the games for the Starfield and Redfall appendages exclusive to Microsoft.

The group alleges the deal violates the Clayton Antitrust Act.

The complaint alleges the acquisition would give Microsoft the power to gain large sales in video game industry, and then let it foreclose rivals, limit production, reduce consumer choice, raise prices, and further inhibit competition.” According to the lawsuit, the deal “is a violation of section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act” in that the effect of the potential consolidated can affect the competition to substantially limit or create a monopoly in different markets in the video game industry.”

The new lawsuit also explains the fact that Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation systems play very hard with each other and are very competitive with each other now. Enclosing Activision Blizzard titles on PlayStation would harm competition between Xbox and PlayStation.

The gamers asked the court to declare that the merger was violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act. The lawsuit seeks to get rid of the deal permanently.

According to the group’s lawyer, the complaint is intended to protect the market against monopolistic mergers.

Microsoft released a statement defending the proposed deal saying it will “expande competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers.” Microsoft president Brad Smith said earlier that company is “absolutely confident” in our case. Those people welcome the chance to present our case in court.”

The attorney for the plaintiffs, Joseph Saveri, said that “with the industry continued to grow and evolve, it is very important that we protect the market against monopolistic mergers that will hurt consumers in the long run.”

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have until July to finish the merger, before they should renegotiate the terms of the deal.