I expect naught but rational reasoned discourse in this topic.
I think the question itself shows how difficult this is. Think about what the word market, in its most basic non-technical sense means. A market would be a place where merchants and customers exchange goods. In other words, a place of distribution.
Obviously those are not technical terms, but it shows how these two concepts are closely intertwined. A market is at its core all about distribution. So, the line between distribution method and market seems intrinsically very blurry to me.
Colloquially, it has been common to say things like "the used games market", the "home video market", "the rental market", etc. Radio stations and CD stores were both distribution methods but they wouldn't generally be thought of as the same market. I'm pretty sure you could find countless posts on this forum talking about the handheld market, or the mobile games market, etc.
Cloud streaming of gaming is a particularly close case, because if you imagine latency was not a thing, the differences would be almost non-existent between a purchasing a digital copy of a game vs a cloud version of a game. Lag changes things, but whether it's to the point where they shouldn't be considered the same market, I dunno.
My inclination based on zero technical expertise is that I would classify it as its own market. But I think reasonable minds could differ. My question about the decision is more on why the Activision deal would lead to a monopoly in this market.
