Business Weekly
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2022
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this edition of Business Weekly, we look at the gaming industry’s biggest deal so far, as Microsoft stumps up nearly $69bn to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind mega-games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. We hear how Microsoft wants to increase its slice of the gaming sector. Mobile stock trading apps have been booming in popularity during the pandemic, opening the door to millions of new, often young, or first-time investors. For many in the finance sector it is great news, but there have been questions raised about whether people always know the amount of financial risk they are taking on. Also, we focus on China’s economy, and hear what impact the ‘zero Covid’ policy and approach has made. Plus, we stop and smell the roses of the global flower industry - and follow one supply line from Kenya to Amsterdam to find out how green the sector really is. And as the original Winnie the Pooh book falls out of US copyright, we hear what potential new adventures might be in store for the “bear of very little brain”. Business Weekly is presented by Sasha Twining and produced by Matthew Davies.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Weekly with me, Sasha Twining. |
| 0:09.2 | Now, as always, we have a real mix of subjects for you. |
| 0:12.5 | On this edition, we're going to talk about trading apps amid claims they are too much like computer games in the way that they attract novice investors. |
| 0:20.7 | Plus, we'll follow the trail of a bunch of flowers and the supply line that stretches from |
| 0:25.8 | Kenya to Amsterdam to find out how green the flower industry actually is. |
| 0:31.8 | But first, we're going to start at the intersection between work and downtime, or business and gaming, to put it another way, with a bit of this. |
| 0:41.9 | The whole world is burning. |
| 0:45.8 | Sometimes the only way to put out the flames is with more fire. |
| 0:57.0 | If you're a gamer if you're a gamer, you will recognise that as Call of Duty, one of the most popular online games. |
| 1:03.4 | It's from Games Maker Activision Blizzard. |
| 1:06.2 | And this week, in the gaming industry's biggest ever deal, |
| 1:09.8 | Activision Blizzard was bought by the tech company |
| 1:12.6 | Microsoft for a shade under $69 billion. So what do you get for that sort of money? Well, alongside |
| 1:20.4 | Call of Duty, Activision also has blockbusters like World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. It says it has |
| 1:26.7 | 400 million monthly active players. |
| 1:30.8 | Alongside the games, however, you also get a history of corporate sexual harassment of employees |
| 1:36.6 | and misconduct by some top managers. |
| 1:39.2 | The company says a number of people have been disciplined over the claims and it is addressing the issue. |
| 1:44.8 | Now, for Microsoft, this is the biggest acquisition in its history. And it now pits them against |
| 1:50.7 | other industry players in the game sphere, including Sonny and China's Tencent. My colleague |
| 1:56.2 | Jamie Robertson asked Carolina Milanesi, senior technology analyst at Creative Strategies, |
| 2:01.6 | why Microsoft has done this deal. |
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