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Hearthstone Is Randomly Awarding Some Players A Ton Of Free Packs
8.7.2022
It’s been a hot minute since I traded rungs in the middle of the Hearthstone seasonal ranked ladder. But some players who recently returned to Blizzard’s take on Magic: The Gathering were greeted with a generous surprise: dozens of free card packs. Before you go getting your hopes up, however,...
Blizzard Boss Defends Diablo Immortal, Feels ‘Really Good’ About Its Launch
8.7.2022
Blizzard’s controversial Diablo Immortal launched to big numbers and high revenue. It also set off an ongoing debate about in-game purchases, digital gambling, free-to-play mobile games, and addiction. The massive publisher has mostly remained silent amid the negative headlines and criticism....
Despite Backlash, Diablo Immortal Is Making A Million Dollars A Day
6.7.2022
In its first month of release Blizzard’s controversial new mobile game, Diablo Immortal, has racked up nearly $50 million in reported revenue across 10 million downloads. Even as debates and criticism swirled around the free-to-play RPG, data shows that the game has made at least $1 million a...
Fantasy Battle Royale Spellbreak Shutting Down, Studio Absorbed By Blizzard
29.6.2022
Spellbreak, the magic-based battle royale, is spellbroken, shutting down early next year, developer Proletariat announced in a blog post. Also, the whole studio is getting absorbed by Blizzard, the result of a recent acquisition intended to beef up development on World of Warcraft.Read more
Bobby Kotick Is Staying On Activision Blizzard's Board, Ew
22.6.2022
Just yesterday, Activision Blizzard shareholders voted to approve a report looking into the company’s anti-harassment efforts. While the company itself is “carefully considering” that, stockholders also gave the green light to the Board of Directors nominees, which included shitty CEO Bobby Kotick....
Activision Stockholders Vote To Release Annual Harassment Reports, Company Will 'Consider' It
21.6.2022
Today, Activision Blizzard shareholders voted to approve a proposed annual report that would document the company’s ongoing efforts to stop workplace abuse and harassment as well as catalog the company’s total number of sexual harassment settlements and pending complaints. Read more
Tony Hawk Says A Pro Skater 3+4 Remake Was Killed By Activision's Moves
21.6.2022
From 1991 until 2021, Vicarious Visions was the name of a studio that made a ton of pretty cool licensed games, but which had also contributed to the beloved Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Then Activision stepped in and made some changes.Read more
Diablo Immortal's China Release Delayed Following Social Media Silencing
20.6.2022
Diablo Immortal has been one of the more hotly contested releases of 2022, receiving the lowest ever user score on Metacritic, while simultaneously receiving eight million downloads and making over $24,000,000 in its first two weeks. However, according to a report by Reuters, the announcement of...
Activision Blizzard Clears Itself Of Any Wrongdoing
16.6.2022
Nearly year after an explosive lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing kicked off a firestorm of sexual harassment and discrimination allegations at Activision Blizzard, a Board of Directors working group investigating the company has released its findings. Led by...
What Diablo Immortal Means For The Future Of Gaming
14.6.2022
Diablo Immortal has been setting the internet alight with controversy. Every gaming website under the sun has a take about how the microtransactions ruin the gameplay and how Blizzard was ruining fans’ beloved childhood memories of Diablo. The game currently holds the lowest user score...
Diablo Immortal Slammed On Metacritic, Now Holds Lowest User Score Ever
13.6.2022
Review aggregation sites are hardly the arbiter of a game’s quality, particularly when it comes to user reviews, and particularly in the era of review-bombing. Still, some data points are unignorable: As noted by VGC, Blizzard’s recent Diablo Immortal now holds claim to the lowest user score...
Diablo IV Won’t Be Anything Like Diablo Immortal, Blizzard Promises
13.6.2022
With Diablo IV back in the news and the largely-maligned Diablo Immortal still a topic of conversation, developer Blizzard wants everyone to know that the two games are alike in name only.Read more
Diablo IV Revives The Necromancer For A 2023 Launch
12.6.2022
Diablo IV is still set for a 2023 release, Blizzard announced today. And while that 365-day launch window may not be super exciting, it was also revealed that the fan favorite Necromancer will be the game’s fifth and final playable class (at least for now). Put on your finest bone armor, folks...
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...
Diablo Immortal Is Far Too Good To Be Free
8.6.2022
Last week Blizzard launched Diablo Immortal, the next entry in its long-running, loot-driven action-RPG franchise. However, unlike previous games, this one is free-to-play, and was built from the ground up to be a mobile game first. While it did also come out on PC last week, the reality is this...
World Of Warcraft Streamer Allegedly Harassed Off Of Twitch By Ex-Cop
26.5.2022
A 29-year-old former airport cop, Evan Baltierra, was arrested this week and charged in federal court with allegedly harassing a World of Warcraft streamer off of Twitch. The two met in person at BlizzCon 2019, according to an accompanying affidavit, but when the streamer declined to be...
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...
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...
New Marvel Card Game From Ex-Hearthstone Devs Plays Fast As Hell
19.5.2022
Announced today, Marvel Snap looks like a chaotic but fun digital trading card game (TCG) featuring popular Marvel heroes and villains. It’s also the next game from some of the key folks behind Blizzard’s popular digital card game Hearthstone, who left to form their own studio a few years back....