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Xbox Boss Shrugs Off Union Question As Activision Blizzard Employees Push For Better Working Conditions
20.1.2022
Upheaval at Activision Blizzard last year over workplace misconduct sparked an unprecedented level of labor organizing at the Call of Duty publisher. Those actions recently culminated in an ongoing strike and the distribution of union cards, while the misconduct reckoning that precipitated them...
Call of Duty Studio Vaguely Promises To Do Better A Month After Sexual Harassment Report
21.12.2021
Call of Duty studio Treyarch just issued the latest in a long series of murky apologies from Activision-owned studios regarding the ongoing investigation into company-wide sexism, harassment, discrimination, and bullying. In a tweet issued today, a little over a month after the Wall Street Journal...
The Best Video Game Surprises Of 2021
16.12.2021
Face it: The past year has been…not great. Over the course of 2021, the global temperature rose at a once again alarming rate, Marvel released not one but two panned films, and we’ve all gotta come to terms with the sobering realization that this covid-19 pandemic might never fully end. A fitting...
Indie Studio Forms First Video Game Union In The Country
15.12.2021
Developers at Vodeo Games, the indie studio behind this year’s excellent turn-based pinball RPG Beast Breaker, revealed over at Polygon today that they’ve unionized. Management at the studio is voluntarily recognizing the newly formed group, called Vodeo Workers Unite, making it the first of...
Call Of Duty: Warzone Devs Stage Walkout Over Layoffs
6.12.2021
Quality assurance testers and other developers at Raven Software, the Activision studio in charge of the extremely lucrative free-to-play battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone, are walking out on the job today to protest surprise layoffs that were foisted on staff beginning last Friday. The group...
The Game Awards Won't Take Sides On Activision Fallout To Focus On Reveals
3.12.2021
As Geoff Keighley’s annual Game Awards show enters its eighth year, the creator and host told The Washington Post today that he’s still thinking about how to “navigate” Activision Blizzard’s involvement in the ceremony following the latest reports of sexual misconduct at the publisher.Read more
10 Dope-Looking Games Fighting For A Chance To Get Finished
10.11.2021
Indie games can allow creators to think outside the box, bucking mainstream trends to do work that’s more original and daring. But while creating those games can be liberating from a creative standpoint, gaining financial momentum for pitches can be a debilitating process. The Pitch Ya Game contest...
Frustrated Ubisoft Workers Are Asking For Your Help So The Company Doesn't Ignore Them
5.11.2021
Game developers associated with the ABetterUbisoft group are petitioning the Assassin’s Creed publisher for a seat at the table, and a “meaningful say in how Ubisoft as a company moves forward.” The move to enlist the support of fans and other developers in its push for change comes just months...
Bobby Kotick Takes Another Pay Cut, Waives Arbitration In Letter To Staff
28.10.2021
In the wake of all that’s been happening at Activision Blizzard, CEO Bobby Kotick is taking to meet his commitment to inclusiveness. Among them, waiving arbitration and having his salary cut once again.Read more
Starfield’s Massive Script Equals Massive Amounts Of Work, Say Devs
1.10.2021
At the Tokyo Game Show yesterday, Bethesda’s creative director Todd Howard told an audience that upcoming space-faring RPG Starfield will have more than 150,000 lines of dialogue. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. In response to the announcement, some developers at other AAA studios...
Everyone Who Worked On A Game Should Be In The Credits
14.9.2021
Deathloop is out, and by all accounts it’s pretty good! It’s a shame, then, that it’s also the reason we’re revisiting the topic of “video games people being weirdly shitty about who makes it into the credits and who doesn’t”.Read more
Shout Out To The Developers Trying More Humane Working Conditions
10.9.2021
Because most major news stories about the culture and environment at video game developers tend to be negative, I thought tonight it would be nice to look at two recent examples of studios who are trying something different.Read more
Dev Reveals Exploitative Nature of Most Game Contracts
17.8.2021
Receiving a publishing deal from an indie publisher can be a turning point for an independent developer. But when one-man team Jakefriend was approached with an offer to invest half a million Canadian dollars into his hand-drawn action-adventure game Scrabdackle, he discovered the contract’s terms...
Activision Blizzard’s QA Department Seems Like A Hellhole
12.8.2021
Long hours. Low pay. Tremendous instability. Working in quality assurance (QA) for a video game studio is notoriously difficult and painstaking enough as it is without factors like these complicating matters. Yet for QA testers at Activision Blizzard, a company that has come under fire in recent...
Report: Blizzard Once Slapped With 'Misogyny Tax'
30.7.2021
A cybersecurity company whose security researcher had once been harassed by Blizzard employees at a hacking conference charged the game developer a 50 percent “misogyny tax” when it sought a quote for security services, according to a new report from Waypoint.Read more
Adventure Game Last Stop Doesn’t Pull Punches When Criticizing Crunch
21.7.2021
Last Stop, a narratively riveting if mechanically unengaging adventure game, comes out tomorrow for pretty much all of the platforms (and Game Pass). If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll get a kick out of Last Stop, full stop. Getting into the weeds for a sec, I found myself impressed by...