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Activision Blizzard Recognizes QA Workers' Union
10.6.2022
Bobby Kotick announced today that Activision Blizzard will recognize Raven Software’s union of quality assurance testers. He promised that “we will engage in good faith negotiations to enter into a collective bargaining agreement” with Communications Workers of America.Read more
Let's All Exploit The Exploitative Games
10.6.2022
There is, and should be, a huge amount of discussion and debate regarding the exploitative nature of so many practices in modern video games. From gacha and lootboxes to in-app purchases and meaningless cosmetics, right up to the recent idiocy regarding NFTs, both game players and the gaming press...
Yep, The Callisto Protocol Still Looks Like It’ll Give Us Nightmares
9.6.2022
After a brief showing at State of Play last week, upcoming sci-fi shooter The Callisto Protocol got a full-on gameplay demo during today’s Summer Game Fest kick-off show.Read more
The Decade-Long Struggle To Fund Oakland’s Scrappy Video Game Museum
9.6.2022
Back in September 2021, The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland, California, better known as The MADE, began tweeting about how impossibly difficult it seemed to fund a video game museum.Read more
Call of Duty Returns To Steam At The Premium Price Of $70
8.6.2022
After five years away, Call of Duty will be coming back to digital storefront Steam with the upcoming release of Modern Warfare 2, the latest in the super-popular shooter franchise. However, be prepared to spend a bit more this year, as MW2 on PC will now cost $70. Read more
Dragon Age QA Workers Votes Unanimously To Form Labor Union
6.6.2022
This morning, quality assurance testers on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf unanimously voted to form Canada’s first video game labor union. They filed the motion on April 20, and the election concluded 16-0 in favor of unionizing. This came after the devs mounted an organized campaign focused on bad pay...
Microsoft Promises To Play Nice With Future Unions Too
2.6.2022
Microsoft is trying to strike a more conciliatory tone with organized labor as it looks to get its $69 billion mega video game merger with Activision Blizzard OK’d by the Federal Trade Commission. Vice chairman and president Brad Smith wrote that the company is “committed to creative...
Game Devs Tell Elon Musk He's Wrong About What It Takes To Make Something Good
2.6.2022
The Ls are stacking up for Elon Musk. Tesla’s shitposter-in-chief got ratio’d over the weekend for trying to dunk on a satirical gaming site and is now taking heat for an incredibly aggro company email about how remote work is for lazy frauds. A lot of people in the tech world aren’t having...
Diablo Immortal Won’t Launch In Some Countries Due To Loot Box Laws
31.5.2022
Well, here’s some bad news for people who live in Belgium or the Netherlands and are excited to play Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s upcoming free-to-play dungeon crawler out June 2 on PC and mobile devices. It turns out, due to local loot box laws, that Blizzard’s next action RPG won’t be released...
Xbox Boss Says He Will Recognize Raven Software's Union After Acquisition Closes
26.5.2022
In today’s internal all-hands meeting with Xbox Game Studios employees, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said that he would recognize Raven Software’s union. This came after the QA testers at Raven voted to form the first labor union at a major studio.Read more
Activision Blizzard Devs Demand Breastfeeding Protections And Other Reforms
25.5.2022
10 months after a California lawsuit alleged widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard, employees at the company don’t feel like it’s made the necessary changes and have created a worker committee to demand further reforms. Chief among them...
Reggie Fils-Aime: Companies Need To ‘Embrace’ Unions If That’s What Employees Want
24.5.2022
In an interview yesterday, former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime was asked about his thoughts on unions, which currently barely exist in the video game industry. Fils-Aime’s answer was not a ringing endorsement of unions, with the former exec saying they aren’t good or bad, just...
Gaming Gets Its First Union At A Major U.S. Studio
23.5.2022
Despite months of negative talking points by Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard, quality assurance staff at its Raven Software studio voted to unionize Monday, becoming the first union at a big studio in the U.S. The successful vote comes with talk of labor organizing picking up across...
Spider-Man Could Have Been An Xbox Exclusive
23.5.2022
It’s wild to think about a world in which Insomniac didn’t make one of PlayStation’s fastest-selling games of all time, and yet it very nearly happened. After cutting a decade-long partnership with Activision, Marvel Games had been shopping the Spider-Man IP to other major publishers. Taking on...
Report: EA Looking To Sell Or Merge
21.5.2022
The video game market is consolidating like never before, and Electronic Arts is scrambling like everyone else. The Battlefield and FIFA maker recently pursued a merger with NBCUniversal, and also held potential acquisition talks with Disney, Apple, and other companies, according to a new report...
Lawsuit: Blizzard Lets Minors ‘Gamble’ On ‘Worthless’ Hearthstone Card Packs
19.5.2022
Blizzard is facing a proposed class-action lawsuit over card packs sold to minors in Hearthstone, its popular World of Warcraft-themed trading card game. A parent in Arizona claims his child purchased hundreds of dollars worth of the cards without realizing how rare it is to get good cards out...
Xbox’s Rep Takes A Hit Following Major Delays
18.5.2022
Riding the bus of video game fandom should come with a seatbelt warning. To wit: Last month, it seemed like everyone was losing their minds over Microsoft gobbling up half the industry. Now, in the wake of some major delays, it’s all “Dead console!!!” this and “Xbox has no exclusives!!!” that. Hope...
Saudi Arabia Now Owns 5% Of Nintendo
18.5.2022
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a near-bottomless pit of cash tasked with diversifying the nation’s economy (and whitewashing their human rights record), has acquired a 5.01% stake in Nintendo.Read more
Activision Blizzard’s Diversity Tool Has A Long, Even More Embarrassing History
17.5.2022
Activision Blizzard touted its Diversity Space Tool in a blog post on May 12, in which it claimed that both the Call of Duty: Vanguard and Overwatch 2 development teams beta tested the tool with much enthusiasm, then quickly walked this statement back on May 13 and said the tool “is not being used...
Activision Blizzard's New Diversity Game Tool Comes Across Terribly
14.5.2022
Today Activision Blizzard fulfilled its daily oopsie quota by blogging about how the publisher’s subsidiaries have apparently been using a special tool to help develop more “diverse” characters. It apparently thinks it can accomplish this without, I don’t know, actually talking to or hiring...