Image: Activision Blizzard / Kotaku A new lawsuit against Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard by a current employee raises fresh allegations of sexual harassment at the publisher, this time focused on leaders in Blizzard’s IT department. According to the lawsuit, the current employee was repeatedly subjected to unwanted advances, touching, and inappropriate remarks. She …
Photo: Hunter Martin (Getty Images) In less than seven weeks, in May, the fifth season of Activision Blizzard’s official Overwatch League starts, kicking off with a large live event in Texas. However, this close to the start, the league still lacks any sponsors. Officials claim there are “ongoing discussions” happening with various partners, but following …
So the DICE Awards, the video game industry’s Oscar equivalent, was held last night. A bunch of games took home trophies, including Hazelight Studios’ It Takes Two, which won its second Game of the Year award–but arguably, that wasn’t the night’s biggest news. No, what folks were waiting for was to find out what kind …
Photo: Kevin Dietsch (Getty Images) The Wall Street Journal is reporting that, following the company’s recent sale to Microsoft, efforts to pursue Activision Blizzard—and its embattled CEO Bobby Kotick—have escalated at both the state and federal level. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, whose initial investigation kicked off this entire thing last year, …
Twitch streamer Alexandra “Alliestrasza” Macpherson, a prominent Hearthstone player and a member of esports organization Fade 2 Karma, was arrested on February 9. But it wasn’t her fault. She was swatted while playing the collectible card game live on stream, with police showing up fully strapped and ready to take down whatever threat was lurking …
Image: Activision Quality assurance testers at Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software gave management until today, January 25, to voluntarily recognize their newly formed union, Game Workers Alliance. Instead, embattled publisher Activision Blizzard announced tonight it would be forcing a vote with the National Labor Review Board, and called on that vote to include …
Image: Blizzard Blizzard’s 2021 was a year marked by lowlights, with the company beset by allegations of a toxic workplace and rocked by the departures (and firings) of several key personnel. Now, with a new year and likely new ownership as well, president Mike Ybarra has outlined Blizzard’s plan to “rebuild your trust”. In a …
Photo: SOPA Images (Getty Images) As part of Microsoft’s proposed $70 billion purchase, an official FAQ of sorts has been sent to all Activision Blizzard employees. Sadly not many questions are actually answered, with responses looking more like huge black holes in the shape of things that could be answers. One day. Maybe. The FAQ—sent …
Image: Activision Blizzard / Kotaku / Yevgenij_D (Shutterstock) The Wall Street Journal is reporting that not only has Activision Blizzard fired dozens of staff in the last few months, but that CEO Bobby Kotick has been hiding that information from the public. Because it might look bad… Bobby Kotick, who if he had even the …
Honestly, things are only getting worse for ActiBlizz…Image: Activision Blizzard Geoff Fraizer, a former early Blizzard employee who was responsible for much of the company’s web content over the past 23 years, has been posting bigoted and hateful messages in a Discord server going back to May 2021. ABetterABK founder and organizer Jessica Gonzalez tweeted …