A Formal Thread about Activision/Blizzard

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,449
12,253
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male

Bedinsis

Elite Member
Legacy
Escapist +
May 29, 2014
1,652
838
118
Country
Sweden
What would be the point in that? Then he'd have two sets of devil horns.
Well, judging by some of the accounts, he seems to be quite the... "horny" type. I refer to the sexual harassment that allegedly happened under his watch; if he himself did not take part in it then he is still a scumbag for letting it happen but it undercuts this joke.
 

Bedinsis

Elite Member
Legacy
Escapist +
May 29, 2014
1,652
838
118
Country
Sweden
Sigh. The ABK Twitter posted updates when we were deciding what to do for COD: Vanguard review that certain changes that they wanted made were made. ZP reviews are decided two or three weeks in advance because it takes a week for Yahtzee to play the game, then the video, etc.

Based on their update, we went ahead with the review, and then when it was in progress, the stuff came out about Kotick.

So yea, it's an evolving situation and we're back to not bothering with Activision stuff until we hear other guidance from the ABK Twitter.

I might have missed something in the intervening posts of this thread, but what has ABK Twitter said? (or whoever you're listening to now)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock

Bedinsis

Elite Member
Legacy
Escapist +
May 29, 2014
1,652
838
118
Country
Sweden

I might have missed something in the intervening posts of this thread, but what has ABK Twitter said? (or whoever you're listening to now)
I asked in the chat on their Slightly Something Else stream today. I got the response:

"People that work at Activision Blizzard have indicated things improved, we didn't put a blanket boycott on their work forever."

At 23:23 in the chat of this stream:

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Gergar12

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 24, 2020
3,932
864
118
Country
United States
Sony and Microsoft are both bad, but paying video games devs to not sell to both Xbox and fucking PC is a douchy move. Also, Kotick is basically an average CEO with poor marketing. Every CEO would be greedly, but some of the smarter ones would market it better.
 

Ag3ma

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2023
2,574
2,208
118
At 23:23 in the chat of this stream:
Valve isn't really a game developer. It's a company that can do game development, but...

From interviews with Gabe Newell, Valve does not appear to work like most companies. Perhaps in some ways a sort of "dream workplace" for some people. As long as the Steam platform still sells games, the money keeps rolling in. It seems to hire a lot of very talented people... and then to an extent lets them do what they want. It feels almost like an academic department: a load of principal investigators who can go away and do their own research just so long as they can justify the grants to their funding bodies (or for lower level staff, to their principal investigator). It seems that Half-Life 3 doesn't get made because management orders it done, it gets made when enough Valve staff decide it's an interesting thing to do and club together to do it. Lots of little studios get snapped up with Valve, and they often seem to stop making games, too. Remember "Firewatch", by Campo Santo? Campo Santo were bought by Valve, and where's their next game? Also disappeared into the ether. The Half Life series seems to have stalled because they couldn't think of a new way to take the FPS that was sufficiently interesting and innovative: Alyx was only made to help with the VR sales.