You know what time it is? That’s right, it’s tax season!
Layoffs continue, and the Washington Post has cut about 20 jobs and has shut down their gaming coverage, Launcher. Jeff Bezos is the current owner of the publication through his private investment firm, Nash Holdings LLC.
Following charges of abuse and domestic abuse, studio Squanch Games has officially received and announced co-founder Justin Roiland’s resignation. Roiland has also been released from Adult Swim and Hulu. His various projects such as Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, and potential future Squanch Games releases currently intend to continue without his involvement.
Blizzard games have officially gone offline in mainland China. Blizzard was unable to settle on an agreement with NetEase Games, a company responsible for the distribution of their services in the region for over a decade. Blizzard was meanwhile already shopping for other publishers in the midst of these negotiations, of which NetEase representatives have accused of simply being unfair with differing conditions and offers.
On top of other shady negotiations that Blizzard has been upholding, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has dropped its request to Activison Blizzard for a Proletariat studio union vote after accusations that CEO Seth Sivak has made the process difficult. The CWA has found that Sivak made “totally false” claims and manipulative statements that Proletariat workers were pressured into a union campaign.
Internal strife continues to occur at Blizzard’s own main offices, in which a manager from the company claims he was ousted due to his refusal in meeting a quota by giving an employee a low evaluation.
NVIDIA is testing a an AI-based tool that adjusts eyes to look towards the camera in an effort to “maintain eye contact”. Tests released of the tool have justifiably earned divide opinions, viewed as possibly useful in some circumstances to outright unnecessary and ghoulish.
Neopets is facing a class-action lawsuit over a huge data breach that occurred in July 2022. Neopets users who feel as though they were impacted by the incident should check out more information about the pending lawsuit here.
The Pokémon Kadabra officially returns to the official Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG). Kadabra’s absence from the TCG stems from a suit back in November 2000 in which illusionist Uri Geller claimed the Pokémon bore likeness to his image. In Japan, Kadabra is in fact called “Yungerer”. He has since penned a letter reliquishing control and grudges over the Pokémon that has been reciprocated.
Illustrator Deb JJ, who drew attention for outing Fortnite’s undercutting of their services, has managed to ironically acquire a gig from McDonalds to design for a Lunar New Year campaign in the midst of troll comments they received from their newly acquired attention.
A report, as investigated by People Make Games, alleges that leadership at Valve blocked diversity efforts and fostered a hostile work environment. According to several interviews in People Make Games’ investigation, the company has a huge diversity problem, continuing to have a lack of women in developer roles. Senior employees also refused to make a comment on Black Lives Matter during the outbreaks of protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
Neil Druckmann claims that Naughty Dog has “moved on” from Uncharted
Meanwhile, co-creator of the first Last of Us Bruce Straley has come out of the woodwork to speak in support of unions, following notice of his lack of credit on the HBO series adaptation. Since his departure from Naughty Dog and founding of his own studio, Wildflower Interactive, Straley has commented on dealing with difficult and crunch conditions working at Naughty Dog.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is confirmed to be the next game update for Granblue Fantasy Versus. The update is expected to add new moves, characters, and the implementation of rollback netcode. The game will also have a new lobby system, in which players can lightly explore and interact with other players with chibi avatars on an island, and will feature and some mini-games that have been compared to the likes of Fall Guys.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit in attempts to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit is speculated to be a move on the FTC’s part to get ahead of European regulators.
War Thunder was once again being used as a vessel to leak military secrets, in which a user on the game’s forums open shared scans of an operations manual of a US fighter jet. This is already about the third time this has happened around the game’s community, the first time back in October 2021 in which a user leaked classified documents just to debate about the game’s accuracy depicting a tank.
