Items tagged with Activision-Blizzard
As popular as it is, the practice of "remastering" old games is still a contentious topic. Some folks are positively gleeful seeing old favorites get a new coat of polish and quality-of-life features. Others are directly dismissive of old game remakes, citing new always-online requirements and the viability of the original release, maintained through the ages by faithful fans. Yet another faction is simply puzzled at the choice to spend time on rehashed releases (rather than all-new adventures). Whatever your take on the issue, Diablo II Resurrected has been a popular re-release largely owing to fans' deep affection for the original game. Unfortunately, more than two weeks on from release, some...
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Though we may be on an upswing, the COVID-19 pandemic will have rippling effects across many industries in the coming months, and even years. One such effect is the loss of in-person events and shifts en masse to online interactions. It appears that Activision-Blizzard, however, sees this as the way forward rather than a stop-gap measure. As such, the company has laid off an estimated 190 employees, with 50 of them charged with handling live eSports events. While those employees get their severance, CEO Bobby Kotick is set to receive a $200 million payout. A company spokesperson explained the layoffs yesterday, stating, "Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally...
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Many argue that there is no such thing as completely original art, but there is certainly a difference between similar inspiration and outright plagiarism. Activision, Infinity Ward, and Major League Gaming Corp. are currently facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over this issue. The lawsuit argues that the character of “Mara” in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is an exact copy of another existing character. The lawsuit has been filed Clayton Haugen of North Carolina. He hired cosplayer and Twitch streamer Alex Zedra in 2017 to portray his character “Cade Janus” in several of photographs. Cade Janus is an important character in Haugen’s work November Renaissance...
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Most gamers would likely agree that massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) are no fun when cheaters abound. Thankfully, Blizzard recently took steps to keep cheaters in check by banning over 74,000 World of Warcraft accounts. The “banwave” involved accounts based in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe. The vast majority of the accounts were using various tools to farm resources or kill enemies more quickly than the typical player. “Botting” can greatly impact a legitimate player’s experience as well as a company’s bottom line. Many of these accounts that take advantage of exploits are sold on the black market once they reach a certain power level. Botting...
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We think it’s fair to say that Activision has a winner on its hands with Call of Duty: Warzone. The standalone battle royale game launched two weeks ago to much fanfare and has been well received by gamers (and the gaming press). With popular, free-to-play mechanics and good worth-of-mouth buzz, Activision-Blizzard is now claiming that Warzone has hit 30 million active players in less than two weeks. To put that figure into perspective, when Apex Legends launched back in 2019, it racked up 25 million players in a week. However, Warzone has one big thing going for it when it comes to its stellar player numbers: COVID-19 (coronavirus). Over 30 million of you have dropped...
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This will come as little consolation to early GeForce NOW adopters, but that whole messy situation with Activision-Blizzard abruptly pulling its titles from the game streaming service right after its public launch? Well aw shucks, folks, it was just a simple "misunderstanding." In short, NVIDIA thought the agreement it had with Activision during the GeForce NOW beta period extended into the public launch. NVIDIA was wrong. So, what does this mean for gamers? Nothing has really changed—GeForce NOW is still devoid of Activision games, and there is absolutely no clarity on when or even if they will return to the service at a later date. "Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during...
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It's only been a short while since the reboot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare launched. Unfortunately for Activision and Infinity Ward, many have have stopped playing the game. Infinity Ward wants to know exactly why the players stopped playing, and has sent out a survey to try and figure out how to lure them back. Gamers have complained vocally about a myriad of issues with Modern Warfare since its launch. Among the complaints that fans of the game have are bugs and exploits, map design, skill-based matchmaking issues, weapon balance, and more. The devs say that they have been working to resolve those issues since day one. Infinity Ward did release a patch on December 6 that addressed some of...
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You might already yell at your TV on occasion, like when the referees miss a blatant pass interference call against your football team. Amazon has something a little different in mind, though. Its new Fire TV Blaster encourages talking to your home entertainment devices, though not out of anger for frustration—it adds Alexa voice control to your various gadgets. The Fire TV Blaster is basically an infrared blaster. Provided you already own a Fire TV device and Echo smart speaker, the Fire TV Blaster levels up your home entertainment by bringing Alexa voice control into the fold. As such, this is a companion device and does not work on its own. It requires a Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice...
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Gamers who played a lot of the original Diablo game back in the day, we know what you will be doing this weekend. Blizzard has announced that it has re-launched the original Diablo I game in its entirety and that the game can be purchased and downloaded right now on GOG. The game sells for $9.99, making it quite affordable. It is almost exactly as it was launched in 1996, with some extra thrown in along with the original game. The extra is a second version of the game with Windows 10 compatibility and bug fixes. That original version of the game even has matchmaking via a classic version of Battle.net. The return of Diablo I will be bigger news for most Blizzard fans than the announcement of...
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It's been rough for Activision Blizzard in recent months. The company's stock price tumbled in late 2018 as it announced a mobile game called Diablo Immortal that few fans of the company were excited about. Bungie then announced that it was parting ways with Activision Blizzard and that it would keep the rights to the Destiny franchise. Ultimately the company decided to fire its CFO after such a rocky year. One of the biggest launches for Activision Blizzard in 2018 was the latest Call of Duty game, which for the first time lacked a single player campaign mode and added in a battle royale component instead. Many fans of the franchise, which has always had a single player campaign, were unhappy...
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The Overwatch community has been shaken by a controversial “social experiment”. “Ellie”, the first female North American Overwatch Contenders player, was actually an imposter. Both Blizzard and Overwatch Contenders team Second Wind have confirmed the sad truth. Overwatch Contenders is a tournament for potential pro players. Twelve teams in each of the seven Contender regions battle it out multiple times a year, and the winners have a chance of joining the Overwatch League. Overwatch Contenders team Second Wind signed on a player only known as Ellie at the last minute. Every other player has listed their full name and gaming handle, but Ellie reportedly did not want...
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Some new years begin with champagne and fireworks, others begin with termination of employment. Activision Blizzard announced that they plan to fire their Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann for undisclosed reasons. The announcement comes on the heels of a rather rocky financial year for Blizzard. Neumann has been placed on paid leave and will receive the opportunity to argue against his termination. Starting today, Chief Corporate Officer (CCO) Dennis Durkin will assume Neumann’s responsibilities and will fully take over the position once Neumann is fired. Blizzard claims that Neumann’s termination is “unrelated to the company's financial reporting or disclosure controls...
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Activision Blizzard held its annual BlizzCon conference over the weekend, and many gamers hoped that the next major entry in the Diablo franchise would be part of the event. That hope was despite the fact that Blizzard had put out a statement ahead of BlizzCon saying that no major Diablo announcements would be made during the conference. What Blizzard did announce at the show was a new mobile game called Diablo Immortal; fans weren't happy and booed the Diablo team during the announcement. The fan backlash against the game was strong enough that Activision Blizzard's stock price was impacted. Post BlizzCon backlash, shares of Activision Blizzard dropped 7% on Monday closing at $64.34, down from...
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The old is replaced with the new; this is the way of the world in just about everything. PUBG was knocked over by Fortnite, and now it's shaping up to look like a newcomers is looking to put Fortnite on notice as the top battle royale shooter. The beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII's highly anticipated Blackout battle royale mode has kicked off, and the feedback from gamers who participated in the beta of the mode is so good that at least one analytics firm is predicting that Fortnite might have hit its popularity peak. Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey wrote in a research note published this week that the PS4 beta for Blackout launched "greatly exceeding our expectations." Hickey also pointed...
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If you somehow have missed out on all of the immense hype and commotion surrounding Overwatch, you are about to receive yet another opportunity to get your feet wet -- free of charge. Overwatch typically costs $40, but Blizzard will have a free weekend event starting on Friday, which will last through Monday (February 16-19). During the Overwatch Free Weekend, gamers will have access to all 36 heroes along with 17 maps to enjoy. A number of game modes will be available including Quick Play, Custom Games, and the Arcade. In a rather smart play by Blizzard, "newbs" to the Overwatch community will be able to carryover their accumulated loot boxes and customizable items if they purchase the full...
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Gamers, for the most part, aren’t big fans of microtransactions in games. However, modern games are festooned with microtransaction for things you can buy in the game to upgrade characters and weapons all to make the game easier to defeat and to make progression faster. Whatever your feelings about microtransactions, they are here to stay because they are huge money makers for game developers. Activision Blizzard made a killing off microtransactions last year to the tune of $4 billion in revenue. That number came from a recently published earnings report that shows money made from "in-game net bookings" (including DLC sales, loot boxes, and in-app purchases for mobile games) reached...
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Perhaps in an attempt to reinvigorate its slowly dwindling World of Warcraft user base, Activision Blizzard is considering adding in-game purchases to the online game. In a post on the Battle.net forums, Zarhym (aka Jonathan Brown, WoW Senior Community Rep) said: “We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses.” The comment pertained to the discovery of an in-game spell called the Enduring Elixir of Wisdom that would give the user a 100% increase...
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Activision Blizzard has been raking in the dough from its hugely successful subscription-based MMORPG game World of Warcraft for many years, but it appears as though the game is a just past it peak. According to the company’s Q1 2013 earnings report, the game lost 1.3 million subscribers in the last three months alone, dropping the game’s subscription numbers to 8.3 million subscribers. This follows the loss of about 1 million subscribers last summer. The current losses primarily came from the East, meaning that the West is still very much in love with the game, but Activision Blizzard CEO Robert A. Kotick seems to accept the fact that it’s only a matter of time until WoW fizzles...
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