Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard

[Storyfag]

Will the cross-platform bans also affect your Office 365 subscription, Azure services and LinkedIn profile?

Great question. "If you get banned in the Metaverse, you get fired in real life."

Twitter lynch mobs already do get this result from time to time, so it's gonna only get worse with Meta 8=0

 

[Catacombs]

The only winners with this deal are the shareholders, many of whom are glad to walk away from the bad press and public outrage with a multi-million-dollar pay day.

Embattled Activision-Blizzard CEO to get $390M payout in Microsoft deal

LOL

 

[vonAchdorf]

We know now why he announced at end of October that he would only get a 60k salary for this year.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

In before Microsoft purchases Interplay solely for the Battle Chess IP.

The best-selling game ever developed or published by Interplay.

Wait... Battle Chess was Interplay? Dang. I never realised. I just played the game.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to have an artist hand you eight disks’ worth of animation data and your boss tells you that you have to pack it down to one? Well, that's what happened to me. Brian (Fargo) also informed me that I would have to put my program and 200k of digitized sound on the same disk. Needless to say, I knew there were going to be hard times ahead for all of us working on Battle Chess.

It would have been much easier on me if we could have given away a hard disk and a 2MB RAM card with every game! I can remember Todd, Jay, Bruce and myself working weekends and long hours, without such luxuries as sleep, to meet deadlines like consumer shows and demos for overseas buyers, and then having to go home and promise our wives that it would be over soon. lt’s been one tough haul but we’re very proud of Battle Chess. Through all of this we kept one theme in mind, “Never ever let the quality slip.” I have to admit we had a lot of fun story-boarding the combats even though most of that credit goes to Todd.

We worked hard on this game because of Interplay. We have a lot of talented people here---we know if we work hard enough we can put out great games that we all can enjoy and be proud of.
-Michael Quarles, Battle Chess manual

Battle Chess was an Amiga original.

 

[Cael]

The biggest problem with Battle Chess, if I recall correctly was how long it took for the AI to make moves.

 

[Israfael]

Toys for Bob

New Star Control?

 

[PanDupa]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/phil-spe...-activision-blizzard-games-he-loved-as-a-kid/

Spoiler

Phil Spencer wants to revive dormant Activision Blizzard franchises like Hexen

A few days ago, Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Since then, questions about Call of Duty exclusivity and existing Activision Blizzard sexual harassment issues have dominated the headlines. However, a new interview between the head of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, and The Washington Post, revealed more information about the company's plans for dormant franchises and why it acquired Activision Blizzard.

The Wall Street Journal said that Spencer will talk to developers about working on a number of old franchises like Guitar Hero and Hexen. Hexen is essentially Doom with magic, and maybe id Software can make a sequel down the line. id Software was also acquired by Microsoft with the Bethesda purchase. Spencer said the following to the outlet.

I was looking at the ... list, I mean, let's go! King’s Quest, Guitar Hero … I should know this but I think they got Hexen ... We're hoping that we'll be able to work with them when the deal closes to make sure we have resources to work on franchises that I love from my childhood, and that the teams really want to get. I'm looking forward to these conversations. I really think it's about adding resources and increasing capability.

Apart from that, Spencer detailed the reasoning behind purchasing Activision Blizzard. The Wall Street Journal said that he's concerned with companies unfamiliar with gaming barging into the industry. Just take a look at Google. The corporation set up its Stadia internal studios and closed them down when it didn't see immediate results. Usually, it doesn't end well.

Microsoft wants to become the corporation out there that's known for gaming because there's a current vacuum in that space, in the West at least. Spencer said the following.

When we look at the other big tech competitors for Microsoft: Google has search and Chrome, Amazon has shopping, Facebook has social, all these large-scale consumer businesses … The discussion we’ve had internally, where those things are important to those other tech companies for how many consumers they reach, gaming can be that for us.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future when the Activision Blizzard deal goes through, barring any objections from the government. Hopefully, franchises like Hexen will return and deliver worthwhile new experiences.

 

[Gerrard]

consolidate moar to reduce number of game launchers

It will be interesting to see if this will lead to actiblizz dropping their atrocious launcher.

But yeah, I'd be worried if I was Sony. Nintendo will probably be fine because they're basically their own silo isolated from gaming in general, but the amount of big name windows/xbox exclusives MS has now is going to be pretty crazy.

Hopefully Ms will buy Sony and force them to release bloodborne on pc.

Blizz launcher is better than the garbage Windows store which doesn't even let you change the fucking language of applications, and guess how the language is selected automatically? By your system display language? No, by your "Region" setting. The one that controls date and time format, among other things. They even used to have a setting that specifically said "Language for Windows Store apps" and it was removed. Probably because it didn't do anything.

 

[Baron Dupek]

new mangement looks surely promising

nah

 

[Cael]

I don't know any of that lot. Never heard of them.

However, most large tech companies insist you put in your pronouns. Looking at that lot there, I am not seeing any dangerhairs or people with idiotic pronouns, just the standard normal ones. There may be hope yet.

 

[baud]

Toys for Bob

New Star Control?

isn't the license still with Stardock (they release Star Control: Origins not too long ago)? Though from what I remember, Stardock just has the name and none of the actual content like the species, which seems to belong to the original creators.
And I though the original creators were already working on a sequel (Ghost of the Precursors or something like that).

 

[Israfael]

isn't the license still with Stardock (they release Star Control: Origins not too long ago)? Though from what I remember, Stardock just has the name and none of the actual content like the species, which seems to belong to the original creators.
And I though the original creators were already working on a sequel (Ghost of the Precursors or something like that).

Well, considering that MS now owns the company (although it seems Reiche et al. left TfB two years ago), maybe they can buy the name and the other missing IPs as well. Although no one probably remembers Star Control, so the chances of that are close to nil

 

[Hobo Elf]

I wouldn't mind The Unholy War making a comeback if we're talking about Toys for Bob IPs.

 

[Infinitron]

Lots of fancy titles on that org chart, but in the end probably the only ones who truly matter are Matt Booty and Spencer himself.

 

[Duraframe300]

new mangement looks surely promising

nah

There is ZERO. ZERO point for the pronouns on this chart. Not a single one differs from the norm, but because some randos feelings will be hurt we need to include completely useless information. Reminds me of the dipshits that need to include every single one of their degrees in any circumstance. But instead of moving away from this shit we somehow made it worse.

 

[Caim]

new mangement looks surely promising

nah

This was pointed out elsewhere, but note that the men all have jobs that have directly to do with making the games work and selling them, while the women all are tangentially related to the games.

 

[Morgoth]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/raven-software-activision-blizzard-union/

Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software unionizes

By Otto Kratky January 21, 2022 9:01AM

Weeks into a walkout, workers at Activision’s Raven Software are reportedly forming the first-ever AAA North American game workers union.



Raven Software workers, mostly QA testers, walked off of the job in early December following a mass layoff of other QA testers at the studio. While it has carried on since, the walkout has had no effect, with none of the previously fired QA testers, who had been contractors, being rehired.

Seemingly in response, a 34-person group of workers, also QA Testers, at Raven Software is forming a union. Called the Game Workers Alliance, the group has already taken to Twitter to explain its principles. Through the union, workers at Raven Software, the primary developer behind the massively popular battle royale title Call of Duty: Warzone, are seeking to reduce crunch, create transparency between leadership and workers, and ensure that Quality Assurance testers receive “respect, appropriate compensation, and career development opportunities.”

Before the newly formed union can accomplish any of its goals, it has to be recognized by Activision. In the same thread on Twitter, the union asks that “Raven Software and Activision leadership voluntarily recognize our union and respect our right to organize without retaliation or interference.”

Coming on the heels of Activision Blizzard’s acquisition by Microsoft, it’s not clear what the response to the Game Worker’s Alliance will be. In the terms of the acquisition, both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft confirmed that neither is engaged with unions and refused to acknowledge any ongoing strike or walkouts, including at Raven Software.



It’s worth noting that none of Microsoft’s employees are unionized, and that leadership at the company, including the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, doesn’t have much experience with them. In an interview with the The Washington Post, Spencer admitted to as much, saying, “I’m going to be honest, I don’t have a lot of personal experience with unions. I’ve been at Microsoft for 33 years. So I’m not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I’ll say we’ll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us.”

A union forming despite the acquisition is unsurprising, at least to those advocating for workers’ rights within Activision Blizzard. In an interview with Digital Trends, Jessica Gonzalez, founder and community organizer of the ABetterABK workers’ alliance, said “the news doesn’t change unionizing efforts. We are still pushing forward.”

Activision Blizzard has reached out to Bloomberg regarding the union’s formation, emphasizing its relatively small size within the company. According to Bloomberg, the publisher is “carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the GWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees.”

 

[ElectricOtter]

havent made a good game since rock n roll racing

ZzZzZzZz

 

[IDtenT]

Now they can just shut down the studio.

 

[BLOBERT]

just a loose end for microsoft.

Boby Kotic didn't kill himself. heh

BRO IF YOUR GOING IN THIS DIRECTION MAYBE WE NEED A BIG TITTY GILF LIKE GHISLAINE TO HELP TAKE THE FALL

 

[purupuru]

Raven Software workers, mostly QA testers, walked off of the job

The title is very misleading.

 

[Lambach]

new mangement looks surely promising

nah

No Chief Diversity Officer? I thought it was an unwritten rule that every company with over 100 employees or so must have a completely useless black woman that occupies that position and exists just to receive a paycheck and send some newsletters about diversity and shit every once in a while. That's how it is in my company and a couple of others I know of.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Imagine getting tricked into unionizing by predatory game journos without even asking them why they aren't part of a union.

 

[Hobknobling]

I am not totally against unions, but usually you need to have some sort value as an employee to make the union work. The average non-technical employee in a professional gaming studio is underqualified to clean toilets at a truck stop. You have no leverage if you are completely replaceable.

Unions are usually most effective when the union members are valuable employees, but the work market lacks competition between employers. This is the case when there is only a single big employer (mining industry, lumber industry...) at the area. The tech industry does not work like this.

 

[Cael]

I am not totally against unions, but usually you need to have some sort value as an employee to make the union work. The average non-technical employee in a professional gaming studio is underqualified to clean toilets at a truck stop. You have no leverage if you are completely replaceable.

Unions are usually most effective when the union members are valuable employees, but the work market lacks competition between employers. This is the case when there is only a single big employer (mining industry, lumber industry...) at the area. The tech industry does not work like this.

You are telling me checkout operators at the local supermarket are valuable employees that are irreplaceable?