The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday took its most aggressive actions since Lina Khan became chair to rein in the power of Big Tech, pursuing a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of a game developer on the same day it opened arguments in another case against Meta’s purchase of a virtual reality start-up.The FTC suit against Microsoft would block the company’s $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher Activision Blizzard, charging that the deal would allow the Redmond, Wash., tech giant to suppress its competitors in gaming.Shortly after the commission took action in Washington on a 3-1 party-line vote to sue Microsoft, lawyers for the FTC in San Jose argued that Facebook parent company Meta is squashing competition in the niche market of virtual-reality-powered fitness apps by buying the maker of the popular VR workout game “Supernatural.” The case comes as enforcers have signaled during the Biden administration that they plan to more frequently bring long-shot cases against companies to court, even when there’s a risk they could lose.The joint actions signal that the newly empowered Democrats at the FTC are starting to unleash an agenda that could have far-reaching consequences for the world’s most powerful tech companies, following months of partisan gridlock that blunted Khan’s ambitions.Meanwhile, Meta is fighting to defend its ability to rely on acquisitions to build out immersive digital worlds, known as the “metaverse.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has staked the future of the company on those ambitions, changing the company’s name and investing billions of dollars into bringing the metaverse to the masses."