Bobby Kotick Departs Activision Blizzard

As of the end of December 2023, Robert “Bobby” Kotick has officially retired from his role as CEO of Activision Blizzard.

Kotick’s departure leaves behind a legacy of controversy and potential complicity to the company’s toxic and hostile workplace issues in his wake, and is part a series of many leadership and policy changes to the company in response to the long, grandstanding saga of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. As another subsidiary under Microsoft, Jill Braff has been named head of studio for Bethesda and ZeniMax. Microsoft’s acquisition of Blizzard was officially finalized in October 2023.

The state of California ended up settling the Blizzard’s gender discrimination lawsuit for about $54 million, the very case that has pushed the series of dominoes that catalyzed the acquisition of the company in motion back on July 2021.

In its initial filings of the suit, California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) alleged that the company had a “frat boy” culture, but has went on to now conclude that “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard in the suit’s settlement text. If the court approves of this settlement, the payout will go to “cover direct relief to workers and litigation costs” and “a settlement fund dedicated to compensating workers.”

While being pushed back by the ABK Workers Alliance union, Blizzard will also be ending hybrid work for QA employees starting this year. The union believes that the in-office accommodations that have been offered due to this decision will not adequately meet the needs of its membership and that it will cause “many, many more employees being forced out of the company and into a desperate situation.”

As Blizzard will be continuing to face turbulence and ongoing changes under a new coat of paint, Microsoft pulls back from their VR projects as consumer trends shown interest in the medium dipped in 2023.

Leaving the Year With Leaks

Insomniac Games had the misfortune of experiencing a severe cyberattack credited to ransomware group Rhysida, who claims to have taken over 1.67 terabytes of data from the company.

After a deadline has passed demanding a ransom of $2 million dollars, Rhysida went on to leak a plethora of internal data and sensitive employee information, such as HR documents, screenshots of private messages, and unreleased images and assets of future projects, and even a playable build of one of those projects. Sony experienced a data breach by a different group in October that same year.

Insomniac has went on to respond to how demoralizing the attack has been, but nonetheless has vowed that teams will resume to push on and that work will continue on the projects that have been leaked. The leaked playable build contains a warning against piracy, which could result in legal action from Insomniac. Downloading it also potentially comes with the threat that it contains implanted malicious software after the hack’s tampering.

Allegedly, Rhysida has sold a tiny portion of this data to an unknown buyer, but a significant portion of 98% of the data allegedly has been released.

In less concerning news, sensitive military documents have been leaked on the War Thunder forums —again.

The Blockchain Is Not for Babies

While the Epic Games Store still won’t necessarily list games in its catalog with the Adults Only rating, the platform has adjusted its policy to now allow exceptions for games utilizing blockchain technology.

The ESRB board has been labeling games using blockchain technology with the AO rating, determined on “assess[ing] whether products may reward real money, prizes with real world value, or something that can be exchanged for or converted to real money.” NFT-based game Gods Unchained was removed from the Store for its AO rating, but has since been relisted on the platform after this policy update.

Government Goes After Gacha

Reguators China are attempting to introduce new policies to curb spending and monetization practices in online games.

Per several other past initiatives in an effort to reduce play time and addiction to games, some of the terms of these regulations include imposing spending limits on players, disallowing in-game items to be auctioned or used as speculative assets and that all Chinese games must be ran in servers based within China.

Researcher Leon Y. Xiao has further found that the policies will require that loot boxes shouldn’t make their contents exclusive and that unspent currency must be refunded to players if a game shuts down.

While in Korea, the Korean Fair Trade Commission has fined Nexon for changing and reducing the loot box probability rates without transparency across their published titles that contain this equivalent mechanic.

The New York Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft

On top of an ongoing string of other lawsuits pushing back against the exploitative use of the technology, The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft, opening what might possibly be one of the largest lawsuits against AI thus far by for copyright infringement.

The publication alleges that the AI technology used has been illegally pulling from the Times’ archive to train ChatGPT. Data that that plaintiff has currently reported has found the Times as one of the largest sources that the technology has pulled from, arguing that ChatGPT is for-profit that now directly competes with the Times’ own services.

Wizards of the Coast deservedly catches flack again, this time for the use of AI art going unchecked in a recent social media campaign for Magic: The Gathering.

In other news…

Teenager Willis Gibson is the first human player to fully complete a version of Tetris on the NES. Going by “Blue Scuti” on his YouTube channel, the run lasted for about 38 minutes.

Devolver Digital capped off the holiday season with a quick Public Access Holiday Special that showcased several upcoming indie titles, such as The Plucky Squire, Pepper Grinder, and Baby Steps.

Actor James McCaffrey passed away. McCaffrey has starred in various film and television roles, and provided his voice for the titular role in the Max Payne series and was a regular talent for Remedy Entertainment’s various characters, such as Alex Casey in the Alan Wake games.

Publisher Versus Evil laid off its entire staff, effectively shutting down. Versus Evil was acquired by TinyBuild in 2013, and effectively all titles of their library, such as The Banner Saga games, have been moved under TinyBuild’s ownership.

Ubisoft’s The Crew will be going offline. The game has already been delisted from all online stores and will remain playable until March of this year.

While Sea of Stars has much to celebrate following their win of Best Independent Game at the 2023 Game Awards and achieving a 4 million player milestone, the game is removing the cameo appearance of Jirard Khalil. Also known as The Completionist, Khalil was met with allegations of financial fraud against his family-founded charity to support dementia research, the Open Hand Foundation.

Publisher Bushiroad Games and developer Eighting announced the production of a Hunter x Hunter fighting game. Bushiroad has published various titles based on anime and manga IPs, and was responsible for bringing the multimedia musical franchises Love Live! School Idol Festival and BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! into the mobile games market.

As even its own cast awaits an official greenlighting of a sequel to Illumination’s animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, rumors suggest the animation studio has pitched the idea of potentially also adapting the Smash fighting games into a film.

Likewise, Jack Black won’t be waiting for his next gig for too long as he is reportedly to play Steve in the Minecraft adaptation.

Meanwhile, the Paramount television series adaptation of Halo has been confirmed for a second season.

While the official server of MMO City of Heroes was shut down way back in 2012, NCSoft officially granted a license to a long active, private-run server Homecoming. Players are reassured that accounts will remain untouched and that the gameplay will continue to be free, hoping to be supported by donations.

Fans of Baba Is You will be pleasantly surprised by the release of Mobile Suit Baba, a tactical mission-based puzzle game that revisits the same quaint Baba characters and setting.

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Summer of Strikes

SAG-AFTRA has officially declared a strike. The labor union—which stands for Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists—comprises of a membership over over 100,000 film and television performers. In conjunction with the ongoing WGA (Writers Guild of America) strikes, these work stoppages are likely to upend and cancel a large portion of productions and any new releases in the film and television industry for an indefinite amount of time.

While only a few members of the games industry may be members of SAG and/or WGA, the issues at the heart of the the strikes affect and trickle down to all creative industries just the same, especially when it comes to the ongoing controversy around the uses of AI, entitlements to streaming and digital platform residuals, and overall better work conditions.

The strikes have defined specific limits to ensure participants and supporters do not cross the picket line, but those in pursuit of work may be able to find sources outside of the film and television industry. This however is not clearly defined, especially when the term limits of the Interactive Media Agreement have expired. The agreement provided members better benefits to remote work options, such as dubbing and voice acting—especially for projects outside the sphere of film and television like video games—in the midst of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when live work was on halt.

For those of you asking, yes, I’ll be attending the SM2 and the MK1 panels at SDCC. I wholeheartedly support the strike and my fellow SAG-AFTRA and WGA members, but the interactive (video game) contract is not a subject of the strike… yet.

— Yuri Strikenthal (@YuriLowenthal) July 14, 2023

Some troupes like Critical Role are continuing their production schedule, despite having members of SAG-AFTRA in their cast such as Matthew Mercer. Many actual play productions do not involve the direct involvement of SAG and/or WGA. On the other hand, other creator-led companies like Dropout have currently halted new production in solidarity with the strike, but have already finished enough work that can pack in a schedule for another year. Several of their own recurring cast members, such as Siobhan Thompson, are member of the WGA.

Talent often crosses over many mediums, and the blurring of these lines is another point of contention in the midst of the strikes, especially pointing to the unnecessary distinctions that have divided animation talent from the rest of the film industry.

Regardless, people can monetarily support participants in the strikes through funds such as the Entertainment Community Fund, Groceries for Writers, and the official SAG-AFTRA Emergency Relief Fund.

A strike for UPS workers is potentially looming as well, which will potentially involve the participation of over 300,000 workers. The strike would potentially last about 10 days, and can potentially make a negative economic impact of over $7 billion.

In good news, Sega of America’s union election has ended in victory for the union, with the 91-26 vote cementing them as the largest multi-department gaming industry union.

The Microsoft Bidding Battle (Continued)

It’s beginning to look like Microsoft’s bid to buy Activision might go through. The US Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block the sale was shot down by California Judge Jacqueline Corley, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has extended their deadline for their review on the situation until August 29th. Microsoft has reportedly offered to sell aspects of their cloud gaming business in Europe, which was the major hang-up the CMA had with the sale.

The FTC is appealing the decision, but it will most likely not move further. There is also the fact that Corley’s son works for Microsoft. (Knowing how this country works, who is to say if anything will come out of that!)

Other Bad Behavior and Some Bye’s

Niantic, developers behind Pokemon GO, have been accused of hosting a “boy’s club” culture at the studio by former employees, according to a new lawsuit. The Jane Doe accuser in the lawsuit claims she was underpaid compared to men who she had a higher job title than.

Two voice actors who worked on Genshin Impact, Corina Boettger (Paimon) and Brandon Winckler (various voices), have reported on large amounts of pay owed to them from the game haven’t appeared.

Hoyoverse, creators of Genshin Impact, have replied, claiming the pay was in fact sent to the actors’ recording studio, Formosa Group, who was then supposed to pass the payment onto them. While Hoyoverse is saying they are looking into alternatives to compensate those with withheld pay, Winckler says he will no longer work on the game unless it becomes union work.

The person who was accused of swatting Ubisoft Montreal’s offices in 2020 has been identified and sentenced to three years of community service. Yanni Ouahioune was allegedly mad that he was banned around 80 times from Rainbow Six: Siege.

TinyBuild Games, publisher of titles such as the Hello Neighbor franchise, is under fire for claiming to use AI to find toxic and slacking employees at the studio. CEO Alex Nichiporchik has said that they aren’t using the technology in that way, but instead brought it up as an example of good and bad uses of AI, whatever that means.

The Borderlands movie, a film everyone totally wanted, has been in post-production hell for quite a while. Now, one of its writers, Craig Mazin, has replaced his writing credit with a pseudonym. This does not bode well for the quality of the film, which was test screened last year and did so poorly, that reshoots are still being done to this day. Mazin has recently made a name for himself with the Chernobyl mini-series, but he also put his name on Scary Movie 3 and 4. You be the judge here.

18+ developer Illusion, creator of games such as Koikatsu Party, VR Kanojo, and other, far more other infamous and controversial eroge games, is shutting down and ceasing sales on August 18th. No direct reason has been listed, but it’s been generally accepted that their games were very widely pirated, which led to low sales.

Microsoft’s in-house hype man Larry Hryb, also known by his gamertag “Major Nelson”, is leaving Microsoft after twenty years. Hryb was seemingly part of a recent wave of layoffs in the sales and support sector. His XBox podcast is supposedly only going on hiatus, and where he’ll be heading next is unknown.

New Games and New Mediums

EA Games has opened a new studio, Cliffhanger Games, to work on a new Black Panther title. Cliffhanger is made up of ex-Halo, Call of Duty, and God of War devs. This is a separate game from the Skydance Black Panther and Captain America game announced last year.

Athough not overshadowing its American chapter’s union victory, Sega has greenlit a new “blockchain-based game” in one of their successful franchises. No word on specifics on what IP that specifically is, but with how popular the blockchain is now, we’re sure it’ll crash and burn.

Final Fantasy XVI is being adapted for stage as a musical. The stage show will be held by the Takarazuka Revue company, who is famous for having women perform every role.

Limited Run Games hosted their own E3-style showcase again this year, and they announced a variety of new titles as well as new ports of old games. Highlights include the Zelda CDi-styled Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, a title in the style of Mischief Makers called Double Shake, a finished version of the previously cancelled Shantae GBA game, and new ports of Clock Tower and Tomba.

The lowlight was the apparent porting of the first three Gex games. It is, unfortunately, tail time. The full showcase can be watched below:

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And the biggest talk of the week of course being all of the reports of the severe injuries as a result of a poorly constructed a foam pit at TwitchCon. The foam pit was part of a booth for Lenovo, and streamers were encouraged to jump in the pit while being livestreamed despite its shallow build. Streamer Adriana Chechik has the most severe case of injuries reported thus far, having broken her back in a couple of places and is now getting surgery to stabilize it.

Former QA worker for Nintendo of America, Mackenzie Clifton, has reached a dispute settlement with the aforementioned company. In a complained filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) back in April, Clifton alleged that Nintendo of America fired them for their associations with union activities. Nintendo of America is now ordered to post a notice both in email and on-site reassessing QA workers’ rights under the NLRB.

Square Enix Montreal is rebranding as Onoma.

Konami is now trying to enter the NFT market.

Overwatch 2 players are still catching no break, and several characters were locked out from being playable when the game’s servers when back online.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard faces another lawsuit filed by a former employee of the company alleging sexual harassment and the threat of revenge porn by their former manager.

Playrix Games, developer behind mobile titles such as Gardenscapes and Homescapes, is closing all offices based in Russia and Belarus due to the further escalations of the Russia-Ukraine war. They are attempting to relocate employees to other locations.

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is ending service in January next year. The game was approaching its one-year anniversary this coming November.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is coming to the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series systems.

Kingdom Hearts fans rejoice: Animator Seth Kearsley has digitized his copy of what was assumed to have been a “lost” pitch for a Kingdom Hearts animated series back in 2003. Kearsley’s storyboards and rough drawings of the concept have been circulating online for quite some time without any indication that the pitch was fully realized—until now.

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There’s were so many big news drops this week, so this is but a sliver of what was announced. Oh, and non-show things did happen too.

Games Done Quick (GDQ) has withdrawn and canceled what would have been their upcoming in-person event in Orlando, Florida, making a hardline stance against the state’s recent legislative policies. GDQ representatives have spoken against the Florida’s lax COVID-19 policies and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric present in local legislation that they feel would endanger their group and attendees.

Bonnie Ross officially resigned and left 343 Industries and Microsoft. 343 Industries has worked on several Halo titles since 2007. Pierre Hintze will take over as studio head immediately. 

Square Enix recently partnered with Oasys, a blockchain company, now becoming one of the largest games publishers to invest heavily in blockchain technology.

Genshin Impact is getting some sort of animated project. The adaptation will be developed under Ufotable, who is known for their work on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and the Tales and Fate series.

In the tabletop gaming world, Wizards of the Coast has finally filed an injunction against NuTSR for using Wizards trademarks to publish “blatantly racist and transphobic content”. This long-winded legal saga has been going on for years.

Babylon’s Fall will be ending service in February 2023. The game has been online for less than a year.

Also having been active for less than a year, the relaunched G4TV has been hit with huge staff layoffs.

A huge portion of Fanbyte’s staff have also been laid off. The publication has been under Tencent since 2020.

And getting into all of the major show news…

A majority of the announcements made in the latest Ubisoft’s Foward event was all about Assassin’s Creed.

D23 Expo

Huge hardcore Disney heads and investors making bills rain know the D23 Expo is a huge deal, and this year features a substantial amount of games-related announcements from the House of Mouse.

Return to Monkey Island releases on September 19 for the Nintendo Switch and PC. The game will be published by Devolver Digital in will be in coordination with Lucasfilm Games, the latter acquired by the Walt Disney Company back in 2012.

The Sega Genesis Gargoyles game from 1995 is getting remastered. No release date has been determined, but it is slated for release on consoles and the PC.

Disney Illusion Island will be a multiplayer co-op platformer that will release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. The game is a revisit to a previously canceled title that would have been Metroidvania-like.

Indie studio Bithell Games has been given the green light to help develop TRON: Identity, an adventure-mystery visual novel set to release next year in 2023. The game seems to take place in a new setting that has yet to be explored in the rest of the franchise.

Disney Dreamlight Valley, Disney’s newest online roleplaying game, will have its first major content update revolving around the universe of Toy Story. Dreamlight Valley’s character creator is available and free to try,  in which the character you produce can be imported into the full game.

Somehow, we’re still getting Avatar content in the year 2022, so trust us, Avatar: Reckoning will be coming out eventually. Reckoning is intended to be an online MOBA for mobile devices.

Nintendo Direct

The rumor of the rumor was true: The latest Nintendo Direct wasn’t delayed, but it wasn’t shown live in the UK. Speculation believes it might possibly be due to the The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel subtitle in relation to the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II—

And after much waiting, “Breath of the Wild 2” is officially now known as Tears of the Kingdom. The game will be released in May 2023.

Previous leaks have proven that the stark, red-blue character design of the main character in the upcoming Fire Emblem Engage is apparently real. The game revolves around a mechanic in which you can summon past Fire Emblem characters to aid you in battle.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is getting a remake. The game will be billed under the official Story of Seasons localization trademark for its English-language release. A remake of the GameCube game that came out in 2003, the game will not only feature a significant graphics overhaul, but will now allow you to play a male, female, or non-binary protagonist on top of flexibly being able to woo any of the game’s marriage candidates regardless of gender.

Various Nintendo 64 games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online. Titles like the first Mario Party, Pokémon Stadium, and GoldenEye 007 are included in this lineup.

Tales of Symphonia is getting remastered. The remaster seems to be based on an older PC port and will run at 30 FPS, much to the chagrin of fans who played it at 60 on GameCube.

John is ready to be hurt again because Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE is the new game from Tookyo Games and Spike Chunsoft. Yeah, the Danganronpa team is bringing the band back together for a new mystery solving game. It launches Spring 2023.

Splatoon 3 is having its first Splatfest near the end of this month!

Nintendo Switch Sports will now have golf. But you have to wait.

Pikmin 4 has been confirmed as the next mainline game in the respective series.

And a little more of Bayonetta 3 has been shown.

You can watch the entire Direct below.

Sony Playstation’s State of Play

God of War: Ragnarok now has a story trailer.

Tekken 8 has been officially announced. The game is currently being built from the ground up using the Unreal Engine.

Bandai Namco is debuting a new IP called Synduality.

Pacific Drive, the debut game by Ironwood Studios, has now dropped a reveal trailer. Ironwood Studios is based in Seattle, Washington, comprising of a team of developers who have previously worked in AAA.

The entire State of Play is can be watched below.

Accompanying the State of Play’s showcase was the RGG Summit, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s own showcase regarding their studio’s IP, announcing that:

The previously unreleased in the West Yakuza spin-off Yakuza: Ishin is set to release as a remake titled Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Judgment and Lost Judgment are now officially available for the PC.

And finally, Like a Dragon 8 is set to release in 2024. It seems as though that Yakuza series is set to drop the “Yakuza” moniker here on out, following Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Like the seventh game in the series, the game will remain a turn-based RPG. Protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and veteran Kiryu Kazuma are to return.

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Sony has bought Bungie.

While Bungie is suing a Destiny 2 player for cheating and harassment.

Co-creator of The Last of Us and former employee of Naughty Dog Bruce Straley returns to the games industry.  Straley has been transparent about bowing out from games due to burn out and has opened up a new studio, Wildflower Interactive, that hopes to do things much differently.

A new Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel game is coming into the foray! Dawn of the Battle Royale!! is expected to release on the Switch around this coming winter.

Nintendo Japan vowed that they will provide benefits to same-sex partnerships. The company’s policy introduces a new “Partnership System”, that writes, “employees who are in a domestic partnership with a same-sex partner [will] have the same benefits as employees in an opposite-sex marriage”. Same-sex marriages currently remain unrecognized in Japan.

Blizzard Albany, formerly known as Vicarious Visions, is unionizing. This publicly declaration is not that long after the studio’s respective name change and pivot after being acquired by Blizzard Activision.

The FaZe Clan is now officially a publicly traded company and is on the stock market. This is not that long after several members have been long kicked out of the group for promoting cryptocurrency fraud. 

Sadly, speaking of even more crypto—

Square Enix is beginning to implement NFTs in their merchandise. Although there are chances that a variant of the teased Honeybee Inn Cloud (in a dress) figure will not be subjected to the company’s new marketing strategy, it has become increasingly clear that they are sadly committing to it for all intents and purposes.

Meanwhile…

Minecraft vows that there will be no NFTs associated with or within the game in any foreseeable future.

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