The Activision Blizzard Situation ¿Any Thoughts?

15 hours ago, Vorpal said:

 

I have zero love for Blizzard, but the key phrase here is "according to court documents". Of course they are going to be hyperbolic in favor of their client, so your bullshit detector should be active, the reality is you'll never know why someone killed themselves. Blizzard absolutely should be boycotted, it sucks that this is the reason (a private matter between individuals, a tragedy which the legal discovery will probably damage the family further in myriad ways). Any company over 100 employees has or will soon deal with suicide and criminal issues like sexual harassment, I'm not going to investigate the legal background of every product I buy, and this matter between individuals doesn't factor in for me. Blizzard makes shit products, ergo they are a shit company - even their fans have hated the golden goose WoW since ~2008 even if (especially if?) they are still subscribers. Stop paying for garbage

man, just...stop. you're embarrassing yourself.

holy shit this is the third statement they put out seens like this time its from a female executive that joined in march talking about this as if she was with the company the entire time and as if she wasnt in a higher rank in the company

so we have 3 statements from them:

first: this is all bullshit

second: were sorry for this

third: this never happened

they cant even decide what narrative to stick to

SHAME ON YOU, ACTIVISON BLIZZARD.

This is NOT cool and NOT how you run a company.

1 hour ago, omalefico32x said:

holy shit this is the third statement they put out seens like this time its from a female executive that joined in march talking about this as if she was with the company the entire time and as if she wasnt in a higher rank in the company

 

so we have 3 statements from them:

 

first: this is all bullshit

second: were sorry for this

third: this never happened

 

they cant even decide what narrative to stick to

Say hi to Fran Towsend, Bush Era torture apologist. Her wiki article didn't even reflect she was at Activision until late last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend

Funny turns of events with this whole thing as the lawsuit seems to be just about exclusively focused on Blizzard itself and problems that are rooted long before the Activision acquisition (though I'm sure there's no shortage of dirty laundry for them either), and rather than even try to pretend being sensible and mature about it, AB's knee jerk reaction is to hire a bunch of authoritarian bootlickers for a denial and gaslighting campaign, and meanwhile there is a major schism forming within the development arm of Blizzard over the manner leadership is dealing with the fallout.

https://www.polygon.com/22594765/activision-blizzard-open-letter-harassment-lawsuit

9 hours ago, lazygecko said:

Funny turns of events with this whole thing as the lawsuit seems to be just about exclusively focused on Blizzard itself and problems that are rooted long before the Activision acquisition (though I'm sure there's no shortage of dirty laundry for them either), and rather than even try to pretend being sensible and mature about it, AB's knee jerk reaction is to hire a bunch of authoritarian bootlickers for a denial and gaslighting campaign, and meanwhile there is a major schism forming within the development arm of Blizzard over the manner leadership is dealing with the fallout.

 

https://www.polygon.com/22594765/activision-blizzard-open-letter-harassment-lawsuit

Greatest thing on that page. You gotta have humour in your life, even in serious times.

4 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

You gotta have humour in your life, even in serious times.

Not that type of humor please, it stinks of redditors

Yeah what the fuck? That's just immature "everything is a pop culture reference" humor. 

Meh, I find it funny, after all the villainous fictional characters are terrible people, so comparing someone to them is not going to be flattering.

^{/me not going to change my avatar.} EDIT: Though I might consider...

2 hours ago, printz said:

Meh, I find it funny, after all the villainous fictional characters are terrible people, so comparing someone to them is not going to be flattering.

 

^{/me not going to change my avatar.} EDIT: Though I might consider...

Yes, Upgrade your avatar to the superior battle cruiser guy.

On-Topic : The barrage of "apology" emails is hilariously mismanaged, Whatever HR team works for Blizzard are paying back hardcore for all the cover up they've done before. All deserved. Employees are even refusing to work and tweeting it online. Not a good look for a paid subscription game when employees say they won't work after people waited for ages for an update.

Activision has become the very thing that they swore to destroy. They were founded all the way back in 1979 (they were the first independent publisher of video games ever) by ex-Atari employees who hated the company's standards. Particularly, they hated that the programmers were not given credit for the games they helped create, so they left and founded Activision so that they can have fairer standards.

2 minutes ago, RileyXY1 said:

Activision has become the very thing that they swore to destroy. They were founded all the way back in 1979 (they were the first independent publisher of video games ever) by ex-Atari employees who hated the company's standards. Particularly, they hated that the programmers were not given credit for the games they helped create, so they left and founded Activision so that they can have fairer standards.

all incarnations of atari treated their workers like trash but especially during the jaguar era

ea kinda did the same thing they were one of the first companies to credit the developers with their full names when they released something (even during the nes era people were still being credit by using nick names) at one point eletronic arts really belived that games were...well eletronic arts but now they will run your studio to the ground and lay everyone off when you dont meet their stupidely high demands for sale numbers

i bet that they will close bioware before 2025

On 7/26/2021 at 11:11 AM, HavoX said:

SHAME ON YOU, ACTIVISON BLIZZARD.

 

This is NOT cool and NOT how you run a company.

unfortunately thats exactly how you run one of the biggest gaming companies in the world theres a reason why we see abuse like this coming from every gaming companie under the sun

we see from konami, ea, ubsoft, cd projekt red, naughty dog, etc

all these companies have a lot of reports of abusing their workers be it by extensive crunch culture, treating game testers as inferior or even rape on some cases and just so you can feel even better about this if you are american actvison does such a good job on tax evasion that the goverment has to pay them! yes your hard earned money is still going to them even if you dont buy their products ad people ask me why i am not a fan of most AAA companies (like seriously the game industry doesnt need new laws it needs a revolution a mortal kombat dev even got ptsd because they made him look at gory stuff all day like what the fuck is wrong with people?)

6 minutes ago, omalefico32x said:

a mortal kombat dev even got ptsd because they made him look at gory stuff all day like what the fuck is wrong with people?

That's kind of what you're going to be looking at when you're developing a Mortal Kombat game.

6 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

That's kind of what you're going to be looking at when you're developing a Mortal Kombat game.

i disagree because while mortal kombat is violent it is not realistic hell that was never the point off it in the classics you exploded a character and a thousand leg bones would appear from it

on the new ones you have the x rays showing their bones breaking and stuff yet they just get up recover and get back to fighting

so knowing all this what does mortal kombat gain from real gory stuff? it is still a game where a giant 4 armed woman will rip your arms and clap with them so i dont understand why they would want their devs looking into real gore if in the end they will just go for fantasy violence like doom

Just now, omalefico32x said:

i disagree because while mortal kombat is violent it is not realistic hell that was never the point off it in the classics you exploded a character and a thousand leg bones would appear from it

 

on the new ones you have the x rays showing their bones breaking and stuff yet they just get up recover and get back to fighting

 

so knowing all this what does mortal kombat gain from real gory stuff? it is still a game where a giant 4 armed woman will rip your arms and clap with them so i dont understand why they would want their devs looking into real gore if in the end they will just go for fantasy violence like doom

I didn't realize you were talking about actual images of real gore. If they've been using that as a reference point, I think they've failed miserably. The new MK games have some seriously cheap and phoney gore effects, about on par with watching plastic figures filled with ketchup ripping each other apart. If developers want to use real gore as a reference point, I have no problem with that, but I agree that you shouldn't force someone to do that job if they didn't sign up for it though.

6 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I didn't realize you were talking about actual images of real gore. If they've been using that as a reference point, I think they've failed miserably. The new MK games have some seriously cheap and phoney gore effects, about on par with watching plastic figures filled with ketchup ripping each other apart. If developers want to use real gore as a reference point, I have no problem with that, but I agree that you shouldn't force someone to do that job if they didn't sign up for it though.

here it is if you wanna read https://kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691 of course when joining the company he knew it would involve some of it but not to the proportion it was

41 minutes ago, omalefico32x said:

i disagree because while mortal kombat is violent it is not realistic hell that was never the point off it in the classics you exploded a character and a thousand leg bones would appear from it

I feel like the gore in the two most recent games is kind of needless. I know someone who would totally say gore is the only point of Mortal Kombat. I think they have got to the point where there's no returns on it though. 

It felt like forbidden fruit in the original games, something cool and ballsy. Nowadays it feels like its there because its expected to be there, and the general audience are too desensitised to get much out of it now. I sure know I am. 

In discussions like these I feel say the new Doom games aren't very relevant because there's not much violence against humans that you actually see. 

12 minutes ago, hybridial said:

 

I feel like the gore in the two most recent games is kind of needless. I know someone who would totally say gore is the only point of Mortal Kombat. I think they have got to the point where there's no returns on it though. 

 

It felt like forbidden fruit in the original games, something cool and ballsy. Nowadays it feels like its there because its expected to be there, and the general audience are too desensitised to get much out of it now. I sure know I am. 

 

In discussions like these I feel say the new Doom games aren't very relevant because there's not much violence against humans that you actually see. 

i grew up playing the mortal kombat games and while seeing sub zero froze someone and remove their had was what made me play it i stayed for the cool b action movie involving ninjas, samurais, common police man, cyborgs and monsters few games have the same combination of things that mortal kombat has and the gameplay was fun for the most part while violence in it is also something that i like i dont play mortal kombat because of it but because of everything else and i feel that nether realm is having a hard time understanding that people dont play mortal kombat only because of the violence

1 minute ago, omalefico32x said:

i dont play mortal kombat because of it but because of everything else and i feel that nether realm is having a hard time understanding that people dont play mortal kombat only because of the violence

I agree with you but I also know of people who do value the gore that much. I don't understand it really. 

1 minute ago, hybridial said:

 

I agree with you but I also know of people who do value the gore that much. I don't understand it really. 

neither do i but i knew people who only played realistic games because they had "the best graphics" so i guess they exist i dont understand either

i guess we should move on from this before the topic gets closed for we going offtopic for too long

Does not at all surprise me, a company that cares this little about the fans and some of their actual games (warcraft 3, diablo immortal) and the amount of greed it's no wonder these allegations came out. At least we can easily distinguish the bad companies from the gaming companies that actually care and put the work in.

44 minutes ago, hybridial said:

I feel like the gore in the two most recent games is kind of needless. I know someone who would totally say gore is the only point of Mortal Kombat. I think they have got to the point where there's no returns on it though. 

Not only needless, but irritating. Seeing the same x-ray moves a hundred times an hour kills any shock value, and the gore itself is textured poorly and does nothing to add any depth or style to the game.

Gore in Resident Evil gave the games in that series a tactile response element, and made it satisfying when you landed a "critical" headshot. MK is the same over-the-top-but-still-lame animations over and over for no real reason.

On 7/23/2021 at 5:21 PM, Endless said:

And to think that Blizzard used to be my favorite gaming company before all this shit. There was a time when they did quality products, their devs were legends among gamers and they were a lore-nerd dream come true. Proudly playing Diablo 2 and Starcraft Broodwar, decade-old games that were still being updated and played by many.

Blizzard North seems like it was alright. Shame what happened to it

I just wanted to give a thought about the "Don't play their games" form of "protest".

I understand the hate and frustration, and people can do whatever they want with the product they bought! but i personally think that people spreading the message of "Don't play (insert company name) games because they did something bad" is kinda stupid, paying for games? of course, you could say stuff like "I won't buy the diablo 2 remaster because i don't like blizzard", that's cool.

But some youtubers and other people of influence are straight up telling you not to play a product that you paid for, it's like the rockstar games situation, yeah, they deleted mods, other people's work, that's evil, but that doesn't mean i can't play grand theft auto vice city for the 200th time!

So yeah, be logical.

17 minutes ago, Kurogachii said:

I just wanted to give a thought about the "Don't play their games" form of "protest".

 

In my understanding, protesting with newer games/online games have a impact.

Many of this game are what keeps generating Blizzard money, and if suddenly nobody it's playing it or social media thinks it is bad and "pressure" you to not play it,  may work.

It's not like "never play it again" at least for the majority of people, but if there a suden switch of players and less income, many of the protests may need to be addressed. Optimistically, they may change something how they work. Pessimistic way, they just try to make online changes that may be "good to try". Like a reward to playing WaW that never happened before, to undermine that protest and make people play again...without changing they way of work.

Quote

But some youtubers and other people of influence are straight up telling you not to play a product that you paid for, it's like the rockstar games situation, yeah, they deleted mods, other people's work, that's evil, but that doesn't mean i can't play grand theft auto vice city for the 200th time!

I agree, that kinda of stuff don't work for old games (also they surely outplayed the cost of their game like years ago, so if nobody buy it now Vice City, it's not like a big deal. But if GTA Online sudenly lost they 80% playerbase...

33 minutes ago, Kurogachii said:

I just wanted to give a thought about the "Don't play their games" form of "protest".

 

I understand the hate and frustration, and people can do whatever they want with the product they bought! but i personally think that people spreading the message of "Don't play (insert company name) games because they did something bad" is kinda stupid, paying for games? of course, you could say stuff like "I won't buy the diablo 2 remaster because i don't like blizzard", that's cool.

 

But some youtubers and other people of influence are straight up telling you not to play a product that you paid for, it's like the rockstar games situation, yeah, they deleted mods, other people's work, that's evil, but that doesn't mean i can't play grand theft auto vice city for the 200th time!

 

So yeah, be logical.

I would probably say don't give their games a public platform. I saw someone make a video on Activision's wrongs, then use Valorant gameplay footage for their background (made by Riot, who also has their own gender discrimination lawsuits going on). Just... don't further spread the games around, I guess is my thing.

1 hour ago, Kurogachii said:

I just wanted to give a thought about the "Don't play their games" form of "protest".

 

I understand the hate and frustration, and people can do whatever they want with the product they bought! but i personally think that people spreading the message of "Don't play (insert company name) games because they did something bad" is kinda stupid, paying for games? of course, you could say stuff like "I won't buy the diablo 2 remaster because i don't like blizzard", that's cool.

 

But some youtubers and other people of influence are straight up telling you not to play a product that you paid for, it's like the rockstar games situation, yeah, they deleted mods, other people's work, that's evil, but that doesn't mean i can't play grand theft auto vice city for the 200th time!

 

So yeah, be logical.

i don't think anybody's saying to not play games that you paid for beforehand; at most, people are saying to stop playing something like wow where's it's a subscription service and to not buy anything from them in the future (or, as arlene mentioned, not give their games a public platform). if anyone is saying to stop doing that, especially in regards to offline games, then, well...ignore them.

This whole thing had me thinking about public apologies and what we really want from them. Have a thing I wrote.

the joke is writing itself...