Game News 2.0

pixelburp

Oh yeah. I was expecting the "... But seriously, to answer your question" moment but it never came. Just continued laughing. Like they couldn't even process maybe, maybe dialling back from T&A mutants for the female design. It was all like something from a Hollywood movie about the glass ceiling, the patriarchy chortling at our hero, mocking her for having the temerity to ask a question. All it needed was cigars and wingback chairs for setting. Sigh. Fúcking game industry.

Retr0gamer

But didn't the Activision-Blizzard statement say there's not a fratboy culture at Blizzard?

CastorTroy

Would've been better if the girl behind her asked a follow up. But yeah it was a serious question she was trying to ask in a lighthearted way. I'm curious if others got serious answers to their questions.

Penn

Almost 1000 ActivisionBlizzard staff signed a letter condemning the statements put out last week and calling on full co-operation and admission with the investigation, saying they don't trust the management to protect them.

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1419744101302509570?s=19

"To the Leaders of Activision Blizzard,

We, the undersigned, agree that the statements from Activision Blizzard, Inc. and their legal counsel regarding the DFEH lawsuit, as well as the subsequent internal statement from Frances Townsend, are abhorrent and insulting to all that we believe our company should stand for. To put it clearly and unequivocally, our values as employees are not accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leadership.

We believe these statements have damaged our ongoing quest for equality inside and outside of our industry. Categorizing the claims that have been made as “distorted, and in many cases false” creates a company atmosphere that disbelieves victims. It also casts doubt on our organizations’ ability to hold abusers accountable for their actions and foster a safe environment for victims to come forward in the future. These statements make it clear that our leadership is not putting our values first. Immediate corrections are needed from the highest level of our organization.

Our company executives have claimed that actions will be taken to protect us, but in the face of legal action -- and the troubling official responses that followed -- we no longer trust that our leaders will place employee safety above their own interests. To claim this is a “truly meritless and irresponsible lawsuit,” while seeing so many current and former employees speak out about their own experiences regarding harassment and abuse, is simply unacceptable.

We call for official statements that recognize the seriousness of these allegations and demonstrate compassion for victims of harassment and assault. We call on Frances Townsend to stand by her word to step down as Executive Sponsor of the ABK Employee Women’s Network as a result of the damaging nature of her statement. We call on the executive leadership team to work with us on new and meaningful efforts that ensure employees -- as well as our community -- have a safe place to speak out and come forward.

We stand with all our friends, teammates, and colleagues, as well as the members of our dedicated community, who have experienced mistreatment or harassment of any kind. We will not be silenced, we will not stand aside, and we will not give up until the company we love is a workplace we can all feel proud to be a part of again. We will be the change."

Varik

No more buying high end PCs for California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, or Washington.

"This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states,"

"Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled."

This is the message you get when trying to order any high end pre built pcs aio gaming laptops off dell.

It applies to more than dell obviously, and all the others are bound by it now. Bunch of new regulations came into effect this month with more coming in December for

"computers with high-speed networking capability, multi-screen notebooks, notebooks with cyclical behavior, and monitors with high refresh rates"

Maybe Vice can put out another gaming pc build tutorial.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117667759#Comment_117667759

Is that to stop Crypto mining?

How does a business who actually need high end graphics cards to function get the parts they need so?

Varik

Varik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117667826#Comment_117667826

Energy usage in general.

Seeing reports now it applies to discrete GPUs too, US reddit users getting stopped from buying GPUs off Newegg for California at least.

Mr Crispy

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1420066453789855747?s=20

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1420066841108652035?s=20

Penn

Bobby Kotick released a letter to employees/investors saying the usual sh*te about how they're going to make everything better etc etc (link directly isn't working as it's a pdf and showing up as gibberish when I try post)

https://investor.activision.com/node/34326/pdf

Of course, every letter of acknowledging what has happened and promising changes always goes better when followed by a big disclaimer at the bottom saying they're not to blame if any of their promised changes don't happen and are projections only. It's the nice personal touch that will surely satisfy all employees

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We may, in some cases, use terms such as “predicts,” “believes,” “potential,” “proposed,” “continue,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “could,” “might,” “will,” “should” or other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to numerous important factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from the Company’s current expectations. These and other risks are described in the Company’s periodic reports, including the annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K, filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statements that the Company makes in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this press release.

pixelburp

That's impressive legalese. How much change can the CEO enact, realistically? Seems like the direct responsibility would fall on the shoulders of the office management itself for the abuses, or at least blame for the culture - even if institutional, by definition, implies a top to bottom rot. And by no means does this brazen leftie attempt to wash someone like Kotick of responsibility either (always irritates me he cameos in a favourite movie [Moneyball]). Wonder if that strike will go ahead, unionisation still being a sticky subject.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117671744#Comment_117671744

From what I understand Activision-Blizzard shares started dropping in the last few days, and Kotick has been mentioned in many of the articles about what's happened, so he had to come out with a statement regardless. It's very much a statement to try placate the investors, as well as trying to put the brakes on calls for unionisation or further employee actions.

I think unlike Yves Guillemot at Ubisoft, where most of the worst offenders of the same behaviour were good friends of his, I'd say Bobby Kotick hardly knows anyone in the company more than a step or two below him, and even then I'd say he'd happily throw any or all of them under the bus to protect himself. F*cker's only friend is money.

Grumpypants

They have to include that as they are a public traded company and someone might take that as an investment forward looking statements and it has to be called out, rather than they intend not to do any of the reforms.

Kiith

Bobby Kotick has zero interest in seeing anything change at Activision. All accounts point to him being a horrible person, interested in making money at the expense of everything else.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117671789#Comment_117671789

Ah yeah, I get that. Just makes everything he says sound more disingenuous than I already would have assumed it was anyway, and that his first port of call was trying to placate and speak to investors. Surely he could have put out a personal statement first (obviously carefully and legally worded).

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117671776#Comment_117671776

Exactly, pretty much my feelings too. As you say Ubisoft has built what amounts to a Boys Club's, lead from the top, while Kotick "only" presents as the gaming CEO most likely to be sociopathic. Like you, I'd not presume he either knows nor cares about any abuse going on in his offices. Unless it effected his bottom line.

CastorTroy

I'm sure there might be some token firings of people near retirement age getting a nice big golden handshake.

Zero-Cool

Jesus, the Cosby Suite... Screenshots of facebook chats with devs talking about rounding up girls to bring them back to "The Coz".

Edit: just read that a member of HR is in that pic, yikes.

https://twitter.com/Kotaku/status/1420451554478460929?s=19

Retr0gamer

It's like everyday some more Blizzard bullshit comes out to top the day before.

Penn

Ubisoft employees released a statement calling on industry-wide action and saying that the few firings that happened at Ubisoft were largely for show, as there are still many more people who complaints were made about who were simply moved around or in some cases even promoted.

https://www.destructoid.com/ubisoft-letter-call-for-change-news/amp/?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ubisoft-letter-call-for-change-news&__twitter_impression=true

Mr Crispy

Please let all this be some kind of watershed moment.

EoinMcLovin

https://twitter.com/emberlab/status/1420489786641444866?s=20

Kena Bridge of Spirits pushed back to September 21st

Retr0gamer

This looks kind of incredible

https://youtu.be/CbjXMMH0JzI

pixelburp

What is it with these things that love the idea of Child Soldiers?

That reminds me, was shared in the Nintendo forum already but Baldo - a game heavily inspired by Studio Ghibli - is due out in a month. Looks like a gorgeous Zelda clone full 'o charm...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxcZ8J-cDtE

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117676805#Comment_117676805

Bus Simulator 21, yo.

johnny_ultimate

It was a slow start to the year, but things are picking up steam recently for sure. Lots of cool and interesting games out at the moment, with 12 Minutes and Psychonauts 2 top of my list for August.

Hopefully the Annapurna showcase this evening will have a few nice surprises too - Outer Wilds DLC possible 👀

Retr0gamer

This week is a bit of a dump of very exciting double A and indie games. You have TWEWY Neo, Fuga, Blaster Master 3, the first 3 pixel remaster FF games and lots more great stuff this week.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117677148#Comment_117677148

Completely forgot about Outer Wilds DLC, surely will be shown at the event. Just finished Subnautica Before Zero and ready for another game that of that rewards exploration. So many devs could learn so much from outer wilds and Subnautica.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117676958#Comment_117676958

First two reviews in. Extremely positive in both cases:

Noisy Pixel: 9/10

RPG site: 9/10

Will be interesting to see more although I expect most of the big sites will ignore the game.