Today the European Commission granted French telecom and media group Vivendi permission to merge its videogame unit with Activision, thus bringing to fruition the merger first announced back in December. The Commission had to be sure that the joining of the two companies wouldn't cause a monopoly in the marketplace. They could have just asked us, but no, they had to be all official.

The Commission said for "all categories of game software, the combined firm would continue to face several strong, effective competitors, such as Electronic Arts, and the game console manufacturers, such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft".

EU approves Vivendi-Activision deal [Reuters - Thanks Thibaud!]

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