I’m back in black baby! Which is to say, I’m reporting on recent statements from Overwatch 2 staff regarding how Bobby Kotick contributed to slowing down development.

In the immortal words of Shaun Andjen, “I may not know much about fine art, but I do know how to kick a man when he’s down“.

Tracy Kennedy (Professional Rhyming Name-Haver), a producer on Overwatch 1&2, opened up recently regarding issues developers were facing, largely caused by Bobby Kotick (Professional Trash-Mammal). So, let’s unpack this, shall we?

Monsieur Kotique would reportedly repeatedly ‘shove “random projects for OW1″‘ for the devs working on Overwatch 2. This contributed to resources being spread thinner than marmite on unbuttered rivita.

Kennedy also alleged the team had to work overtime to keep up with Kocktick’s demands, resulting in various projects getting scraped in service of keeping the content train running for Overwatch 1.

Tracy Kennedy brought up these claims in response to a recent Bobby Kotick interview, wherein he claimed the Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 delays were major reasons for his leave… I don’t think Bobby’s lying here, maybe he magically realized that his lack of business skills are only matched by his lack of basic human decency.

Feel free to have a butcher’s at Tracy’s tweet if you’re in the mood for putting another anti-Kotick zinger on the spit.

Tracy Kennedy’s statements (as far as I’m aware) haven’t been backed up or denied by other Activision Blizzard staff (ex or otherwise). But let’s not mince words, if bossman says what the bossman wants, then bossman’s wants what’s driving the bossman’s business down, see?

I’ll stop doing that when it stops being funny to read those sections in a 1920s-style radio commentator voice! And on a vaguely-related note, I was today years old when I found out Jimmy Stewart took part in a celebrity roast of Dean Martin! Guess I know what I’ll be up to on my off-hours. Some have studied The Blade. I studied The Roast!

Product Poems:

Yakuza collect debt repaid by Lannister. Honorborne.

Party? Study? Rebel? On my own time, my final fantasy.

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The post Overwatch 2 Producer Blames Delays on Kotick! first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Oh, Bobby Kotick. Bobbert Kotique. Boobie Kocktick. Soon-to-be former Blizzard CEO! It seems our whirlwind parasocial romance of venomous mockery is coming to a close. Now that Microsoft has bought out Activision Blizzard (click here for our breakdown on that chestnut), I probably won’t be able to keep taking the mick out of you unless you decided to build up a new company from the ground-up… But, as much as I hate to admit it, the desire to reduce your chances of harassing others in the gaming industry somewhat outweigh my desire to monetize the act of reading your soul to filth!

So, for possibly the last time ever: I offer onto you, dear reader, that one “Bobbert Kotique” meme I made in an attempt to make that running gag a thing outside of my blogs!

That’s enough heart-bleeding for one day, back to the news: The Wallstreet Journal has confirmed that Bobby Kotick WILL be stepping down from Activision Blizzard once the acquisition deal with Microsoft has neared it’s completion.

Phil Spencer of Microsoft has also stated Activision Blizzard and Microsoft will ‘continue to operate independently’, until the deal has been completed, then he’ll become the new chief.

All parties involved were unanimous on Bobby Kotick  leaving (took em long enough), but all agreed he should also get a payout of $300 million. GameBizUK over on Twitter shared a post confirming that Kotique’s entitlement to a payout specifically under the circumstances of change of company control had been planed for via prior employee agreement document. It may be more than the man deserves, but at least he’ll definitely be getting the boot!

A Brief Summary: Because on the offhand you made it this far in the blog WITHOUT knowing the Bobby Kotick drama, then you’re probably thinking “why is this angry and surprisingly articulate journalistic black belt so hard on this Bobby fellow? Some of my best friends are bobbies“. To cut a long story short: Activision Blizzard is a famous gaming company and Kotick owned a huge share. A billion sexual harassment lawsuits revealed the horrific treatment of women and people of colour at the company, as well as the Blizzard board’s attempts to cover things up. For more on that, have a butcher’s hook at our past articles.

Bobby Kotick claimed the sexual harassment lawsuits and allegations had ‘nothing to do’ with selling Blizzard to Microsoft… You know, in the same way that the FBI encouraging Martin Luther King’s suicide had “nothing to do” with anything.

In summary: It’s good that we’re seeing major changes here, but remember that even once Activision Blizzard has been bought, this won’t be the end. I encourage you, dear reader, to be as critical and vigilant for harassment and discrimination as I am with regards to Kotick and other major industry figures.

Product Poems (click the links, see what I’m selling):

Bioshock? Collection. Chemstunned? Erection!

“Yer a wizard, Harry“. I’m a what? “Deaf too, I suppose”. You wot?

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The post Blizzard “Woes”: Bobby Kotick’s $300 Million Payout Leave first appeared on Get2Gaming.

🎵It’s a horrible day in the gamerhood, a horrible game for a gamer, would you be mine, could you be mine🎵

To briefly recap for any readers new to the saga of Activision Blizzard (trigger warning for brief discussion of sexual assault): It was revealed many of the higher-ups there regularly harassed and assaulted women and people of color, California took Activision to court over the allegations and worker misconduct, other concerns have been raised (to put it mildy) and investigations are ongoing. Also heard a particularly attractive and galaxy-mega-brained gamer boi wrote on why firing CEO Bobby Kotick would go a long way to undoing much of the issues with Activision. I mean, if the folks at Sony can fire someone a day after finding out they’re an alleged nonce, then this should be a piece of pudding!

Back to the news: One Activision employee known as Christine (her real/full name is hidden due to privacy concerns) discussed her work history at Activision Blizzard, describing her experiences of sexual harassment at the company to her attorney Lisa Bloom. Spotted by Dexerto, Christine’s discussion occurred at the Activision main offices.

Among her claims, Christine stated her dream was to work for the company and confirm she still continues to. She also discussed not wanting to come forward with her experiences at Blizzard, while recognizing that open conversation about the issues at hand is an important part of trying to change things for the better.

In Christine’s four years of work at Activision Blizzard, she has experienced:

• Unwanted sexual advancements and suggestions of casual sex from peers and superiors.
• Groping.
• Verbal abuse regarding her body.
• Forced to come on the company’s “cube crawls”.
• On reporting the harassment to other supervisors, being met with claims they were “just joking” and “just trying to be friends”.
• After the initial reports to her superiors, Christine was demoted and denied full profit-sharing and shares in the company.

I represent a Blizzard employee who alleges she's a victim of sexual harassment. Our press release for our press conference tomorrow at the Irvine headquarters where we will demand accountability for the victims who have been subjected to harassment at the video game company: pic.twitter.com/0PisZ1Zomr

— Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) December 7, 2021

After a press conference on December 8th, Lisa Bloom made three demands on behalf of harassed Activision employees.

1: Activision’s current piddly little legal fund of $18 million is chump change compared to the hundreds the higher-ups make! Raise the fund “in excess of $100 million”.

2: Victim advocates should “participate in setting the rules”, you know, because the same harassers being in charge of an anti-harassment workplace committee works better as a dark joke than a real solution!

3: Bring on a better apology to your harassed employees, none of that namby-pamby “what a mistaker-to-maker” bullhockey.

Not long after, an Activision spokesperson gave a statement praising Christine’s bravery and apologizing for the workplace culture that lead to the commonness of these harassment experiences at Activision. 

Bloom also suggested getting “a neutral third party” to gauge the career damages to Activision employees.

Key sources include Dexerto and Lisa Bloom’s official Instagram coverage of the press conference, which I recommend viewing. Follow the socials for A Better ABK and make your voice heard.

Happy Goneday folks!

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The post Activision Blizzard Employee Demoted For Harassment Report first appeared on Get2Gaming.

In the name of transparency, game developers and companies have recently committed to sharing their salaries. Alongside the rampant worker abuse allegations and anti-union sentiment of big companies like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft, there have also been massive company-wide lay-offs from large companies, but I’ve got a feeling we’ll be covering more on that another day! Possibly today, we’ll see.

In addition to the salary reveals promoting transparency, they in my opinion, also highlight the vast wealth inequality between designers and CEOs. Essentially calling for reevaluation and discussion of why certain roles should or shouldn’t pay more than others.

The hashtag #GameDevPaidMe is currently trending on Twitter, mostly covering the pay developers and designers make per year of work. Below, you’ll find some from Christopher Giroir, a software engineer for Airbnb with 7 years of past experience at Activision Blizzard.

#GameDevPaidMe
Pre-Games
2007 – 65k First job
2012 – 95k

Blizzard
2012 – 65k Associate
2014 – 90k Mid
2015 – 115k Senior
2018 – 150k Senior II
+ Profit Sharing

Improbable
2019 – 170k Senior
2021 – 196k Principal
No bonuses

Post-Games
2021 – 250k Staff + Bonuses + RSUs

— Christopher Giroir (@kelsin5) December 5, 2021

From what I’ve seen so far in the hashtag section, most salaries in the late 2000s and early 2010s average around $25k to $45k a year. That’s around £18,850 to £33,930 for us limeys. It’s good that more recent salaries have been heading up to the hundreds of thousands, but most of the salaries are PEANUTS compared to the literal millions (and hundreds of millions in the case of Bobby Kotick) made by many CEOs who don’t always necessarily put in the same level of effort into a product.

While most companies are quite closed-off regarding publicizing employment salaries, Nintendo has been open with an annual report of it’s worker salaries that released last year, so gold star to comrade Nintendo for that!

In other news, SEGA has reportedly asked over 600 employees to retire, also cutting their salary recently, so in that sense, I guess SEGA really does what Nintendon’t!

I made a spreadsheet because I think there is important info other than Pay and Position. #gamedevpaidme

Fun Fact: 4 of these companies no longer exist. pic.twitter.com/eW3EeSqvce

— Tom Cassera (@Hildogen) July 29, 2021

Product Poems:

Pre-orders, land’s borders, badge mugs and more! We’ve Star Wars and game boards, just game-lord’s galore!

The Simsons. Schitt’s Greak. Casuno Royale. Salt n Peppa Pig. Hoink.

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The post Game Devs Share Salaries: A Positive Change first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Activision. Honey. Baby. Dearest booty call for easy views… You’re dethpicable.

Jessica Gonzales (whom you may recognize from my article on wanting to fire one Bobbert Kotique) has recently resigned from her role as data analyst for Blizzard Entertainment. In her resignation, she states the company’s hostile work environment, lack of effort and deliberate inaction towards the toxic culture at Activision Blizzard as her main reasons for leaving.

Gonzales also calls out Bobby Kotick explicitly in this tweet and screenshot of her resignation letter, so I was like “damn gurl, get his ass”.

She has also announced that with leaving Activision, she is also going away from game development entirely. It’s sad that her experiences at Activision likely lead to this, but she has been accepted into a senior quality engineering role at a financial tech company, which is good to hear.

She praises the good workers still at Activision Blizzard and hope that they can improve the conditions there. Click here to find a link to the official petition started by Activision Blizzard employees.

Referring to Bobby Kotick: ‘Your inaction and refusal to take accountability is driving our great talent and the products will suffer until you are removed from your position as CEO. This may seem harsh, but you have had years to fix the culture and look at where the company currently stands’ – Comrade Gonzales!

I jest a little, you don’t have to be a card-carrying commie to agree that something must be done against systematic oppression (in the gaming world or otherwise). That said, unionization is the way to go, let the workers decide amongst themselves how they want to run the business. You know, SUPER CAPITALISM!

Jessica Gonzales’s last work day at Activision will be December 10th, which I hearby declare an international holiday! Ladies, gentlemen and nonbinary folk, I wish you a Happy GoneDay, wherein we will celebrate the borderline orgasmic feeling of telling bigoted corporate fat-cats to code their own games if they’re so clever!

Product Poems:

Stay human, light is not dying. This too shall pass, but not for long.

Punching the dragon‘s balls. Take that, Goro. Here’s Johnny Cage, yo.

It takes two to tango. One to floss. Three assassins, fractured whole.

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The post Senior Test Analyst Leaves Activision! Happy GoneDay first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Well… Concerns have been raised!

After the game’s latest playlist update, the Champion Hill mode of Call of Duty Vanguard has been currently removed on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 console versions due to a crash issues.

‘We’ve removed Champion Hill on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S while we investigate crash issues in this mode’ – Sledgehammer Games in a public statement.

Vanguard released on November 5th with a selection of noticeable malfunctions, to use parliamentary language. There’s been reports of visibility issues on maps, an FOV glitch and code redemption issues for PS5 owners. Vanguard also has the oddly specific title of Worst Performance Of A Call Of Duty Game in The UK In 14 Years! But that’s rich coming from us, considering our film industry isn’t even big enough to be consistently self-sustaining for crying out loud!

Call of Duty Vanguard also closed its ‘Secrets of the Pacific’ event hours into it’s launch due to similar crashing issues. Now, I’m not saying this was due to crunch work issues… No, really, I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is I’m not saying that!

After reports of low sales, in an inconspicuous act of corporate nepotism, publisher Activision held a free Call Of Duty: Vanguard Multiplayer Trial Extravaganza a couple weeks after the game’s release.

Call of Duty Vanguard will have launch its first official season December 8th along with a new map.

Now, given the one-two comboner of Vanguard receiving poor reception and my having not played it, it would be extremely crass and disingenuous of me to say that I feel it is worth buying… But, in the spirit of paraphrasing the CinemaWins philosophy that “every game is somebody’s favourite”, feel free to have a butcher’s round our store if you want to give it or anything else we have a try. You also get a cheeky discount by signing up to our newsletter if you’re so inclined.

The State-Mandated Corruption-Reminding Power Hour (Trigger Warning – One mention of suicide and sexual assault in this paragraph): Just using this paragraph to say that regardless of the game’s quality, another aspect of a product worth noting is how it came about. If someone wants a company’s games to be ethically made and sourced the same way some ethically sourced venison farms work where the little Bambis die of old age first, then it is my (and others’) duty as reviewers and/or commentators to say “these are the facilities in which this product was made, take that how you will”. I bring this up in regards to Sledgehammer Games and Call of Duty Vanguard because, plot twist, their parent company is Activision, so this was secretly a “look at the horrible things Bobby let happen” piece all along! Specifically, around the early stages of Activision Blizzard’s California lawsuit, there was coverage of an often-assaulted and bullied woman who killed herself shortly after nude images of her were shared around the workplace. One of the main perpetrators in that story happened to be from Sledgehammer Games. This goes back to how firing Bobby Kotick isn’t going to fix the issues with a collection of board members that own multiple companies, as the systematic issues here are far beyond just one bloke.

Product Poems:

Light penetrates the Dark Soul, from the vanguard when back-blocked. Sun Tzu.

The horizon’s vanguard forbidden? Or are we behind it? Wow.

Collecting my iron harvest with a cold dark blade… Yass kween slayyy!

Finally, a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legend.

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The post Call Of Duty Vanguard Mode Disabled On PS5 and Xbox! first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Content Warning: This article contains frequent mention of sexual assault and suicide.

The “Tragic” Backstory: Activision Blizzard has recently landed in a whole lot of hot water due to Certain Allegations. Gosh-golly, this sure will put a dent in the development for future games.

The Actual Tragic Backstory: Only one of the known abusers at Activision went to the slammer as of yet and surprise surprise, Mr Kotick knew about internal reports of rape, racism and other sexist tomfoolery happening at the company all along! In addition to a past of sexual harassment reports directed at him (more recently, a poor-taste “joke” to a flight attendant of “I’d harass that”), Bobby Kotick was also discovered to be listed in a “Little Black Book”. A record of island visitors kept by…

🎵Now it’s time to pour the tea, born in 1953, Jeffrey,  JEFFREY EPSTEIN!🎵

Given the one-two combination of Bobby Kotick’s immense wealth and the quotes listed below, it seems the most likely scenario for Bobby Kotick getting fired would be out of how it affects the profits of Activision Blizzard. In addition to the company’s “fratboy culture” leading to a regularly-harassed employee’s suicide, a California lawsuit also highlighted the company’s mistreatment of women as “outsiders”.

“I’m seeing people leaving the company, and high-level women, women that are in senior positions are just leaving the company because they have no faith in Kotick” – Jessica Gonzalez, senior test analyst at Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net.

“The longer he stays, the more likely we’ll see very high turnover, if not higher turnover than what we’ve seen the past couple of years. And that’s going to make game development very difficult […] Collective development talent is the most important asset by a wide margin to a game company. Erosion of this talent is the biggest key risk to any creative business. This risk is currently playing out and accelerating” – Andrew Uerkwitz Analyst at Jeffereis.

“You have people who are disengaged in the work. They don’t trust leaders. They’re more likely to look elsewhere. So you’re going to lose talent, and the talent that you retain is probably not going to be performing at its true potential.” Colleen Ammerman, director of the Gender Initiative at Harvard Business School.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have also released public statements on the handling of Bobby Kotick and Activision Blizzard. We’ve also covered various aspects of those statements here and here. I’d be wary of Sony though, as they are also dealing with a sexual harassment lawsuit from a former CEO.

Before we hit the Product Poems, I’ll end this blog by saying although firing Bobby Kotick would be massively helpful, getting rid of one boss won’t stop similar occurrences happening in the future. Kicking up a storm online and going on protest marches is great, but what should be pushed for is making sure these things are addressed out of justice and stricter laws on this kind of conduct, not because of profit! Thanks for reading.

Blacksad the cat, detective in cool hat. Lone digger of truth.

Sojourn. Big like Thor and Björnson. Good game. Time to flex my knuckles.

Bubbling Bobby Bauble Friends. No relation. Bob‘s your uncle.

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The post Firing Bobby Kotick Would Be Genius! Here’s Why! first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Oh, Activision Blizzard, you sweet innocent totally not systematically corrupt baked bean! Needless to say, the company’s handling of vast sexual assault allegations has been handled with occasionally fleeting dignity at best and outright lies to protect alleged harassers at worst. From BlizzCon’s cancellation, to the Cosby Suite leak, employees and directors leaving, the legal battles, the settlement and more, we can’t afford to let cases like this go and continue in the background in the future. Not just with Blizzard, Ubisoft and any other companies that feature assault and discrimination between workers should not be tolerated or fade into the background after the Twitter backlash dies down, otherwise it’ll just keep happening more frequently and quietly.

After reports that Bobby Kotick (Activision Blizzard CEO) will “consider” leaving if he can’t unfudge the toxic workplace culture that he seemingly helped perpetuate, the Activision Blizzard company board announced information about a ‘Workplace Responsibility Committee’ in a press release.

“[The new committee will be] successfully implementing its new policies, procedures, and commitments to improve workplace culture and eliminate all forms of harassment and discrimination at the company” – Activision Blizzard Board

The 10-person committee currently only consists of two women, though Activision have claimed “a new, diverse director” will be added to the board. Tokenism and an extra girl-boss for PR reasons isn’t quite as ideal as sending more than one of the known perpetrators of discrimination to jail, but it’s a start I suppose.

The press release also states: “The chief executive officer, Bobby Kotick, along with the chief people officer and chief compliance officer will provide frequent progress reports to the committee”… You know, because nothing says “we are committed to stopping workplace harassment” like “you know what? Let’s get The Death Threat Guy in on the action”. And don’t even get me started on the Frances Townsend email debacle, which, shock horror, was written by one Bobbert Kotique all along! More on that from the recent Jimquisition episode on the topic.

“The committee is empowered to retain outside consultants or advisers, including independent legal counsel, to assist in its work.” – Activision Blizzard. Known anti-union company.

Time for a break from the state-mandated rage-typing to enjoy some Product Poems:

• Spyro, crash and smash. Hack and slash. Yakuza Zero, bash the fash.
• Happy mama, sad mama, mentally disturbed mama, super mama, drama mama, Big FAT Cooking Mama.

Side note, highly recommend Super Eyepatch Wolf’s video on Yakuza Zero if you really want to be sold on that!

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The post Activision Blizzard On ‘Workplace Responsibility Comittee’ first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Sony has recently gained a patent that allows allows them to make covers and skins for PS5 consoles. The patent was filed for in 2020 and confirmed under the title ‘Cover For Electronic Device’ this year, including diagrams of PS5 faceplates.

Considering the last time I got talking about patents in gaming, let’s just say there’s a couple potential concerns regarding the practice of patenting certain types of tech, to put it mildly. Mainly how it is arguably a slippery slope to restricting outlines of creative input from people who want to put a new spin on existing tech and game mechanics.

Luckily, the new PS5 patent describes itself as covering “the ornamental design for a cover for an electronic device”, so as long as no one copies that specific design, I doubt you’ll get in trouble for painting ahegao faces on yours and selling it for £69.69 (nice)… Well, that’s what I’d like to say.

The Canadian peripheral firm Dbrand has been in a lengthy legal battle with Sony over its creation of unique version of faceplates known as ‘Darkplates’. Darkplates recently sold out after a successful February discount sale. Unfortunately though, Dbrand has also announced that Darkplates are dead and Sony killed them, which is to say, Sony Interactive Entertainment filed a cease and desist letter that made Dbrand stop selling their product… The aristocrats!

BUT WAIT, there’s more! Not long after Dbrand announced the “death” of its Darkplates, they posted an update to their website. “Checkmate, lawyers” followed by a confirmation of Darkplates 2.0 for PS5 consoles… Yay capitalism!

“You can’t successfully sue someone over an alleged ‘design infringement’ without a registered design patent […] Sony did not have a registered design patent for the PS5’s side panels when we launched Darkplates (or for many, many months following the release). We didn’t think they’d ever get one. They did. Here we are.” – Dbrand.

“[Darkplates 2.0] successfully closes the loop on this dispute and neutralises any future infringement claims from Sony” – Dbrand.

“Happy to license this design to you, Sony, you’ll find that our rates are outrageous” – OOOOH! And the crowd goes wild!

Product Poems:

PS5 Controller. True boulder holder. Like Xbox X.

Bobby Kotick, small streaming stick. Purge from Blizzard like Morty, Rick.

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The post PS5 New Patent and Dbrand Battle: What to Know first appeared on Get2Gaming.