Microsoft claims its $68.7 billion dollar purchase of Activision Blizzard will provide the “building blocks of the metaverse.” In reality, the deal is more likely to refocus the metaverse conversation on gaming, to the detriment of the companies that need the metaverse to encompass so much more. If anything, this deal is more like an anti-metaverse play.

Let’s face it, Activision-owned franchises like Call of Duty or Candy Crush have little to do with the metaverse. Even Activision’s massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft—which like other such games possess some metaverse DNA—has only a tenuous connection to that new world. Yes, World of Warcraft gives Microsoft another platform that’s meaningful for being more than “just a game.” But MMOs are not part of a collectively shared, immersive internet that spans fantasy roleplay to cooking tutorials for wintertime stews.