A court filing from Epic’s lawsuit shows Google allegedly agreed to pay ~$360M over three years to keep Activision Blizzard from launching its own app store (Paresh Dave/Reuters)

Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Internal emails: Google sets rules for hosting HQ guest speakers, like making a business case and considering company goals, after row over an Indian historian  —  Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google this week introduced rules for inviting guest speakers to its offices, days after it canceled …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Activision Blizzard reports Q3 net bookings down 3% YoY to $1.83B vs. $1.7B est., and MAUs down 6% YoY to 368M; Modern Warfare II made $1B+ in its first 10 days  —  Activision Blizzard reported that its bookings for the third quarter ended September 30 fell 3% to $1.83 billion compared to a year ago.

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Filing: European Commission sets a provisional November 8 deadline to complete the review of Microsoft’s proposed $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition  —  EU antitrust regulators will decide by Nov. 8 whether to clear Microsoft Corp’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of “Call of Duty” …

Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
The NLRB says Activision Blizzard withheld raises from QA testers over their union activity; Activision is negotiating with Raven testers who voted to unionize  —  The National Labor Relations Board has investigated and found that video game titan Activision Blizzard withheld raises …

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU regulators sent game developers ~100 questions on the Microsoft-Activision deal, including whether Microsoft will block rivals’ access to Activision’s games  —  EU antitrust regulators are asking games developers whether Microsoft (MSFT.O) will be incentivised to block rivals’ access to …

Brad Smith / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft’s President discusses the FTC opposing the Activision Blizzard acquisition and says the company offered Sony a 10-year Call of Duty licensing deal  —  Far from harming competition, it’ll allow us to compete against more powerful companies through innovation.