Activision Blizzard

Physical ‘copies’ of the new Call of Duty are just empty discs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Activision Blizzard, call of duty, GamingNo Comments

Cartridges and discs used to be how you got the latest games, but that’s been changing as downloads have become more convenient and reliable. But some people prefer the sure thing: a physical copy, so they can play offline or with a bad connection. To them, Activision says “qq”: the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II disc is basically just a link to a 150-gigabyte download. Now, to be fair, games that size don’t fit neatly on even high capacity Blu-ray discs, which for distribution purposes max out at around 50 gigs. Not that we haven’t seen multi-disc games before (I never finished Final Fantasy VIII because the final disc was scratched… someday, Edea), but clearly Activision decided it wasn’t worth the bother in this case. That’s something of a shame, because there are people all over the world who, for one reason or another, would prefer a physical copy of the game. There’s the ever-present fear that one’s digital access might disappear for whatever reason, or perhaps one has a spotty connection — a common issue in the military, I understand. Even those with decent internet might find themselves uncomfortably close to transfer caps if they start their month with a 150-gig spree (even more once Warzone gets added). It’s been getting tougher for people making that choice — still a perfectly valid one for TV and movies, if you’re willing to wait a bit, by the way — but generally they have been able to get a working, if not fully updated and optimized version of the game that just works when you put the disc in. That’s not the case with CoD:MWII, as discovered by players who pre-ordered the game and received the disc slightly early. Far from having the full game on it, the disc is almost completely empty. This 72-megabyte app is basically just an authenticator and shell that initiates the enormous download process. I’d be willing to bet that most of those 72 megabytes are 4K video files of logos. There’s even a pre-order steelbook bonus (that’s a metal case for the disc and anything else it comes with). Players may be disappointed to find that this fancy reinforced packaging protects nothing of value. Obviously there is great waste entailed in the production of perhaps millions of discs (though the numbers are likely much lower than they used to) for no reason. But waste is endemic in consumerism. The bait and switch of it is the galling thing — that Activision is taking the worst of both worlds. There’s literally no point in even providing a physical version of the software if none of the reasons for doing so are fulfilled by it. It’s the equivalent of the next season of Stranger Things coming on a disc that just loads up Netflix and starts streaming. Why bother? It’s worth asking whether Activision could have built a version of the game that fit on a disc at all. Considering how proudly they’ve been advertising the realism of the graphics, probably not. A single 4K texture unit, say for a building front or character model, may be scores of megabytes, and any AAA game will have countless such textures. Meanwhile the audio and video assets also have to fit on there, and they can only be compressed so far before they degrade. Chances are the team thought that while a functional disc version would be theoretically possible, it would not be an adequate representation of the game they’d worked so hard on. One sympathizes: imagine spending all that time doing high-resolution photogrammetry of an Amsterdam street only to have it look like a level from Quake. Would the outcry if they announced no physical edition at all be worse than them shipping a fake one? Hard to say. At least the former takes “courage,” as Apple would no doubt put it, while the latter is just misleading and wasteful. We may be entering an era where digital delivery is the standard, but there are good and bad ways of doing it. This was a bad way.

Can you teach an old game new tricks? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in Activision Blizzard, Gaming, overwatchNo Comments

Blizzard has a lot going on. The company’s leadership is a toxic trash heap nightmare (hi Bobby Kotick!) and it’s only partially cleaned house. Its failure to deliver on the lofty promises of the Overwatch League makes the game’s scene, both competitive and casual, even less of a sure thing. And Microsoft is currently in the process of trying to buy parent company Activision Blizzard, an outcome that would further consolidate the gaming industry but might ultimately help save Blizzard from itself. In the midst of all of this, Blizzard released Overwatch 2, making a risky bet that lightly modernizing the aging multiplayer hit would be enough to keep it relevant in a new era of ubiquitous online gaming. Overwatch 2 is technically a “sequel” to the cartoon hero-based team shooter, but you’d be forgiven for thinking you were playing the same game that launched back in 2016. Some things are new. The core gameplay is now 5v5 instead of 6v6. There are three new heroes at launch (Kiriko, Junker Queen and Sojourn) with more on the way in later seasons. You can take these new heroes out for a spin on a handful of new maps — Toronto, New York City and Monte Carlo among them — and in a new reverse tug-of-war game mode where you fight it out to move a large jogging robot the furthest. There are also graphical improvements that will probably stand out more to people playing Overwatch 2 on PC and not to folks like me, playing casually on last-gen consoles (I know) or to anyone so overwhelmed by Blizzard’s telltale particle effects that they can’t even tell what’s happening half the time (also me). The big question: Is it enough? From lootboxes to a battle pass Arguably the biggest change here, and the reason why, controversially, you can’t play on old Overwatch servers, is Overwatch 2’s shift to free-to-play. When the original Overwatch launched, Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode — and slightly later, Epic’s Battle Pass — hadn’t taken the world by storm yet. In the original Overwatch you’d play and level up, earning randomized loot boxes along the way or buying them if you really felt like it. Overwatch 2 adopts the seasonal battle pass model that competitors like Fortnite, Valorant and Apex Legends use, selling players a subscription for unlockable perks like skins and voice lines. Controversially, I actually like the battle pass model in theory. Going free-to-play is great for casual players that dip in and out for a few months here and there or for anyone trying to convince friends to check out yet another new game. And the seasonal progression gives people who play casually a sense of progress, though arguable the loot boxes did this just as well. So far in Overwatch 2, the battle pass doesn’t offer a ton to look forward to. One problem is that unlike a game like Fortnite where everyone can use every skin, there are 35 playable characters in Overwatch. With each stage of the battle pass only offering one skin and many players specializing in a single hero or a small rotation of them, the odds aren’t great that there’s even something juicy in there for everyone. The non-skin unlockables aren’t very exciting either and it’s weird that in the course of launching a brand new game (supposedly!) Blizzard didn’t think of cooler ways for players to visually customize their characters beyond souvenirs, which after playing for hours I still haven’t even noticed. Maybe some players are excited about the battle pass — and that’s great — but it’s clear Blizzard is just trying to drive everyone to buy skins in the shop. So far the broader player base doesn’t seem very happy about it, actively campaigning to persuade people to save their money so the company learns a lesson. Overwatch 2’s shop offers a rotating selection of skins, but many of these once came for free through loot boxes, which were, all around, a much more fun experience. I only played Overwatch regularly for a handful of months years ago and I was surprised just how many skins I collected back then that now regularly retail for $20, which feels like way too much. Especially for stuff that you used to be able to earn by playing the game. The first Overwatch 2 Halloween event even has a special skin you can earn by watching streamers on Twitch, but the skin is… the same Winston werewolf Halloween skin that was in the game in late 2016. There’s obviously a lot of chaos at Activision Blizzard these days, but a lot of this comes across as phoned in, considering that the game is brand new. That said, the skin is very cute (werewolves!) and although I am truly awful at Winston I’ll be streaming Overwatch 2 because I don’t have it. Image Credits: Blizzard Three new heroes offer new ways to play Overwatch’s characters have always been the heart of the game and the new game is no exception, introducing three new heroes: Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko. The three female heroes — one tank, one DPS and one support — round out the cast in a nice way. It feels like a lot of thought went into Kiriko in particular, and she plays like a mix of Moira and Genji (or arguably Zenyatta), bringing some nice mobility options to the support position with the ability to fly across the map on cooldown to follow other players. The skill ceiling is obviously high here (she can heal and throw little daggers at the same time!) so there’s a lot of depth to what will be possible with Kiriko. Sojourn and Junker Queen also have fun kits and seem promising, with the former offering a very mobile power slide and Soldier 76-ish DPS and the latter introducing a damage-over-time tank with a cool Mortal Kombat-esque knife throw that pulls enemies right to you. Necessary aside: As a longtime WoW player,

Activision Blizzard’s Johanna Faries highlights the company’s emerging ‘anti-tox’ strategy • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Activision Blizzard, call of duty, Disrupt, esports, Gaming, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022No Comments

At ZebethMedia Disrupt today, Activision Blizzard General Manager Johanna Faries elaborated on the company’s plans to clean up some of the worst behavior in the franchise’s community, even as new lawsuits and allegations about its own culture continue to emerge. Last month, Activision Blizzard released a formal code of conduct for the Call of Duty community, which encompasses its broad consumer player base and the competitive scene. While the policy is pretty basic — no harassment, hate or cheating — it’s something the company can point to when it enforces the rules. “I’m happy to say, especially since you know the time that I’ve been in the chair, we’ve really raised the bar in terms of paying attention to ‘what does an anti-tox strategy need to look like? What does creating fair play environments, safe play environments look like?’” Faries said. “We just released for example — and it started in the beta — a first-ever franchise-wide code of conduct, which I know may sound like table stakes, and in many ways it probably is — but it’s here now. Faries noted that Activision Blizzard has teams “focused 24/7” on anti-toxicity, weaving together automated machine learning solutions with human moderation. The goal is to make it easier for players to quickly report bad behavior but also to incentivize the kind of good behavior that should serve as a model for the community. The crackdown on toxic behavior — which often disproportionately impacts marginalized players who still struggle for representation in streaming and gaming — goes hand in hand with weeding out players who cheat, according to Faries. “So there’s more to come on this, but I was really proud to see in addition to Ricochet [anti-cheating tech] and a lot of our anti-cheat anti-hacking initiatives that we’ve rolled out as well… our anti-toxicity focus is one that is a masthead going into this upcoming launch and for years to come,” Faries said. “We’re putting the best systems in place to make sure that players have the tools, but also have again the incentives, to continue to raise the bar of what it means to play fair to play with respect for everyone to play with integrity.” Over the weekend, Activision seemed to put its money where its mouth was, allegedly banning top competitor Doug “Censor” Martin from competing in the Fortune’s Keep tournament, citing his interactions with Call of Duty streamer Nadia Amine. Martin previously filmed a joke marriage proposal to the female player, who has faced a firestorm of sexism and baseless accusations that she’s somehow cheating at the game. In a tweet, Martin said that Activision “blocked him from competing” in the tournament over harassing Amine, though Activision Blizzard hasn’t yet confirmed the claim. If the company did indeed dole out an event ban over directing unwanted attention at a fellow player, it would track with its new emphasis on cleaning up behavior in the notoriously toxic Call of Duty scene.

Activision Blizzard is once again being sued for sexual harassment • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 13, 2022Posted in Activision Blizzard, bobby kotick, GamingNo Comments

For over a year, Activision Blizzard employees have protested against the company’s poor handling of ongoing sexual harassment allegations. Now, an anonymous Jane Doe has filed yet another lawsuit against the gaming giant for sexual harassment, gender discrimination and sexual battery, among other complaints. “For years, Activision Blizzard’s open ‘frat boy’ environment fostered rampant sexism, harassment and discrimination with 700 reported incidents occurring under CEO Robert Kotick’s watch,” the lawsuit explains. “The sexual misconduct was often committed by executives and in the presence of HR.” A report from the Wall Street Journal last year found that the CEO knew for years about rampant sexual harassment at the company, but failed to act. In this case, the plaintiff alleges that a former product manager Miguel Vega sexually harassed her in the workplace for years; she says that he non-consensually groped and tried to kiss her at work, verbally abused her and insinuated that if she gave in to his sexual advances, she would get a raise. Doe first met Vega at a game night in 2009 or 2010. “They soon formed a virtual friendship and she regrettably sent him compromising photos of herself,” the lawsuit says. By 2011, Doe met her future husband and her relationship with Vega ceased, but she reconnected with him upon seeking work at Activision Blizzard in 2016. The plaintiff told a manager about Vega’s behavior in 2017, but he didn’t face consequences. Later, he began threatening to leak the intimate photos that she sent him over a decade earlier. By August 2021 — a month after California regulators sued the company for gender-based harassment and discrimination — the plaintiff brought her concerns to HR once again. “On August 23, 2021, despite Mr. Vega’s threat of revenge pornography, Ms. Doe mustered the courage to report Mr. Vega’s sexual harassment to manager Christopher Bruens. Mr. Bruens relayed her report to HR. Very shortly after, Mr. Vega left a voicemail for Ms. Doe in a poor attempt to mitigate the harm he caused her. On September 1, 2021, Activision Blizzard terminated Mr. Vega,” the lawsuit says. Now, Doe is attempting to hold Activision Blizzard accountable for cultivating a hostile work environment and failing to protect her from sexual harassment. She is requesting a jury trial, seeking compensation for damages, medical expenses, legal fees and lost earnings. Lisa Bloom, the lawyer defending the plaintiff, tweeted that her firm represents eight women who claim that they experienced sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard. We filed another sexual harassment lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on Friday.We currently represent 8 women with sexual harassment claims against this company. If you or someone you know was a victim of its rampant frat boy culture, please contact me. — Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) October 11, 2022 Activision Blizzard has not responded to ZebethMedia’s request for comment. In a statement to Kotaku, spokesperson Rich George said, “We take all employee concerns seriously. When the plaintiff reported her concerns, we immediately opened an investigation, and Mr. Vega was terminated within 10 days. We have no tolerance for this kind of misconduct.” Microsoft plans to purchase the gaming giant for $68.7 billion, pending regulatory approval. If the deal goes through, Kotick is expected to step down as CEO.