Tag: blizzard
Blizzard reveals a new era of Overwatch 2: Bigger health bars, self-healing, and a reworked Competitive mode
The FTC isn’t too happy with Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard layoffs
And it’s still looking to reverse the already-completed deal
FTC accuses Microsoft of misrepresenting its Activision Blizzard plans after layoffs
One week after Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees in its gaming division, the Federal Trade Commission is accusing Microsoft of contradicting its pledge to allow Activision Blizzard to operate independently post-acquisition. The FTC filed a complaint in a federal appeals court on Wednesday, arguing that last week’s downsizing, which affected employees of Activision Blizzard, “contradicts Microsoft’s representations in this proceeding.” The FTC is asking for a temporary pause of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard as it further investigates potential antitrust issues.
In its arguments to the FTC over the past two years, Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn’t need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies. On January 30, Microsoft announced it was cutting 1,900 jobs across Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and Xbox after identifying “areas of overlap” specifically between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. This discrepancy is the core of the FTC’s complaint.
“Microsoft’s recently-reported plan to eliminate 1,900 jobs in its video game division, including in its newly-acquired Activision unit, contradicts the foregoing representations it made to this Court,” the FTC’s complaint said. “Specifically, Microsoft reportedly has stated that the layoffs were part of an ‘execution plan’ that would reduce ‘areas of overlap’ between Microsoft and Activision, which is inconsistent with Microsoft’s suggestion to this Court that the two companies will operate independently post-merger.”
Though the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority approved Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, the FTC hasn’t seen satisfaction regarding its own antitrust concerns. The FTC is still challenging the acquisition, which means there’s a possibility that Microsoft will be forced to divest all or part of Activision Blizzard.
In Wednesday’s complaint, the FTC argued that the recent layoffs also undermine its own ability to order relief for employees who were negatively affected in the acquisition.
Microsoft’s layoffs join an avalanche of mass firings in the video game industry, specifically in the past few months. An estimated 10,500 people in video games lost their jobs in 2023 — and already in 2024, 6,000 workers have been laid off.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html?src=rss
Blizzard confirms BlizzCon will return as an in-person event in November 2023
More info on tickets will come next month
Blizzard is “really confident” Diablo IV can do the impossible by avoiding launch-day server overload
Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora and Art Director John Mueller told Eurogamer that the three Diablo IV public betas weren’t just for marketing purposes despite the wolf pup cosmetic giveaway attached with them. He said they carefully observed issues with the server loads to avoid bottlenecking on day one.
Blizzard cancels Overwatch 2’s main co-op mode in new roadmap
Blizzard is scrapping Overwatch 2 hero missions and progression: ‘It’s clear that we can’t deliver on the original vision for PvE’
Overwatch 2’s PvE Hero Mode Is Being Scrapped, Blizzard Explains What Happened and Why
Overwatch is a game that rose from the ashes of Titan, an ambitious MMO that Blizzard pulled the plug on. In the wake of this decision, developers at the studio reworked ideas they had for Titan into what would become Overwatch, a hero-based multiplayer shooter that was critically acclaimed and hugely successful. Blizzard’s Team 4 is no stranger to picking up the pieces of a shattered project, but this process has been kept behind closed doors. The Blizzard way was to keep games out of public view until they were ready to be seen and to release them only when they were as close to the ideal vision as they could possibly be. That isn’t the way anymore–not for Overwatch 2 anyway.
When the sequel to Overwatch was announced at BlizzCon 2019–where the game was also playable–it was with the promise of a PvE Hero component that would allow players to gather their squads and play through a narrative-driven multiplayer experience. On top of that, each of the heroes that they’d come to know and love would be reworked for PvE and given progression systems that would allow players to unlock new talents. It was an ambitious new mode that, in many ways, was used to justify the “2” at the end of the title.
Now, however, Blizzard has confirmed that the promised PvE Hero component will not be released at all. In a video, game director Aaron Keller and executive producer Jared Neuss said that the team had made the decision to take the PvE elements of Overwatch 2 in a different direction and detailed a roadmap for upcoming seasons that reveal a new hero, maps, rebalances, and a number of story-focused additions.