35 Burst results for "Activision Blizzard"
Blockchain Consultants
MicrosoftActivision political good will offers no shelter from antitrust scrutiny
"6 p.m. Friday, December 9th, 2022. Microsoft Activision political good will offers no shelter from antitrust scrutiny. Microsoft has spent years building a good guy reputation with policymakers and regulators. The software giant has thus dodged the backlash tech rivals such as Amazon, Google, and meta have endured. But the sheer size of its 68.7 billion enterprise value acquisition of video game developer Activision Blizzard one of the biggest ever in the tech. The post Microsoft Activision political good will offer no shelter from antitrust scrutiny first appeared on blockchain consultants.
AP News Radio
Microsoft strikes 10-year deal with Nintendo on Call of Duty
"Microsoft says it has struck a deal to make the video game bestseller Call of Duty available on Nintendo. Don't let anyone tell you video games are just for kids. Activision Blizzard says their latest iteration of Call of Duty Modern Warfare two, which retails for about $70, has earned more than $1 billion in sales since it was launched in late October. Now Xbox maker Microsoft, which is working on acquiring Activision, has promised to make the hit series available for Nintendo and a ten year deal. The merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard is facing close scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission and global regulators. The Nintendo offers an apparent attempt to fend off objections from Sony, which makes the competing PlayStation console Sony has raised concerns about losing access to what it describes as a must have game title. Microsoft president Brad Smith said the agreement would bring Call of Duty to more gamers and tweeted we'll be happy to hammer out a deal for PlayStation as well. I'm Jennifer King.
Opening Arguments
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Opening Arguments
"And that is Activision Blizzard. Remove from the personnel files of each eligible claimant any references to the eligible claimants allegations of sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination or related retaliation or determined by the EEOC to be related to such allegations. Defendants must maintain a record of any information removed from an eligible claimant's personnel file pursuant to the subsection separately from the eligible claimants personnel files consistent with the record keeping provisions contained in section ten J, or otherwise required by law. But there is no ten J the problem is is that that's just a typo. And there's a 12 J and 12 J record keeping, says, so let's deal with that first part. Ten a says, we agree to the settlement and then Activision gets to go back and redact its personnel files. And it gets to remove references to claims of sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, right? Exactly. Because part of the settlement is not admitting the wrongdoing. Is to say, yep, we are going to settle, we are going to provide a certain amount of money. We are giving up our right to litigate those claims. And we want to maintain the position that we have, which is we are not conceding that any particular conduct towards any particular person was tortious or in violation of section 7. The reason to do that is, again, for subsequent litigation. If you concede liability, then it's trivially easy for every subsequent claim to come by and go, yeah, well, you've conceded an open court that this violated title 7. You did the same thing to me, therefore I want the same amount of damages. So do we, is it a proactive position? It is. If the settlement amounts were accurate, it's the kind of thing that you would want to have in place in order to get, you would say, all right, well, we will trade that public acknowledgment of guilt for getting some form of adequate compensation to all of the victims. Coupled with an inadequate settlement number or a number that certainly appears to be inadequate. It feels pretty hollow. So yeah, Activision gets to go back and redact its personnel files and say, and remove those references. But in connection with other litigation section 12 J says, documents generated in connection with any complaint of sexual harassment pregnancy discrimination or related retaliation, including documents related to all investigations or resolutions of any complaints and the identities of witnesses identified by the complaint or through defendant's investigation, shall be kept defendants will review with the EEO consultant. Remember, they bring in an outside third party lawyer. Their record keeping procedure that provides for the centralized tracking of complaints, including those of sexual harassment pregnancy discrimination and related retaliation complaints and the ongoing evaluation of such complaints to prevent retaliation. The EEO consultant will confirm that the records to be maintained include that category that I just described. And it's longer than that. So I think the problem with the default argument is it is not clear to me that the order requires or permits Activision to destroy evidence because they are redacting their files, but they're keeping that information in a separate segregated system, subject to outside third party review. And again, I think this settlement is inadequate. I want to be very, very clear about that. But I think that overreach on the argument wound up hurting deepest credibility, which we're going to get to in a second. I need to say, I would have made my argument, I would have made two arguments. If I were DeFi would have said, one, settlement amount is not nearly enough, we know there are way more claimants than initially thought. And lots of other settlements in similar ways include much higher reserved funds to pay claims. That would have been an argument a, an argument B would have been in order to participate. And this is exhibit C to the proposed amended consent decree, right, to the settlement. You have to sign an omnibus waiver of all claims against all parties. I'm going to read to you from that attachment C because it is a complete release. It says, I am releasing any claims for sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, which by the way, pregnancy discrimination was the part that was carved out for the defa state litigation. The eeoc is not raising those claims. Or related retaliation, that is covered by EEOC. Whether currently known or unknown to me, that were asserted or could have been asserted against Activision Blizzard in the EEOC action in the fair employment and housing act or under any applicable federal state or local law that exists at the time I signed the release. This includes sexual harassment pregnancy discrimination or related monetary claims for relief or damages that have been or may be asserted by me or any other person or entity, including any government agency on my behalf in any action, including but not limited to a representative class or collective action. If that is not clear enough on the very next page in bold print, it says, well, first it says, I further understand that the California department of fair employment and housing has filed suit against Activision Blizzard. I understand that in the default lawsuit the default brought claims on behalf of female workers of Activision Blizzard Activision publishing and blizzard in California, and then this is the part that's in bold. By signing this release, I wave any right I may have to recover any monetary damages or other relief. The difa may recover in the default lawsuit for sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination or related retaliation. So I had to dig that up and put that together. Difa should have made that their one or two argument. They should have said, look, this will effectively prevent us from litigating our case, because you're going to announce a settlement. Women are going to sign on to the settlement, and they are not going to realize until they file their claim form and go and are about to get paid that they have to sign attachment C, which contains the language that I just read to you. And that language explicitly says we're compromising all of your claims, you're settling known unknown, right? In perpetuity throughout the universe against Activision Blizzard. That stated succinctly, I think would have been a powerful argument. That didn't happen. What did happen was on March 4th, an Activision employee named Jessica Gonzalez moved to intervene and asserted piggybacked onto the default arguments, right? Said settlement value isn't enough. And you're going to require us to destroy documents. The court summarily denied that motion to intervene on March 22nd. You know, one line that just said for the reasons stated in the oppositions filed by the EEOC and Activision, we do not think she should join the complaint. And then the same day issued an order regarding the hearing on the consent decree. So this was.
Opening Arguments
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Opening Arguments
"Zip recruiter, the smartest way to hire. Down, breaking down, and now there's an update in Activision Blizzard. There's a settlement that's going to get entered. Oh yeah. So let me kind of redraw the timeline here. This is obviously something we've talked about. Previously on opening arguments. Yeah, near the end of last year, we talked about the dust up between the federal equal employment opportunity commission, which had brought suit against Activision Blizzard, reached a potential settlement, and then all of a sudden the California department of fair employment and housing moved to intervene and said, wait a minute, this settlement is woefully inadequate. Because when we first looked at the settlement, we were like, well, you know, on the basis assuming good faith by the EEOC, here's the structure, this seems like it is a reasonable settlement provided that the numbers of current and former Activision employees are not so huge as to dwarf the $18 million that was part of the set aside. And a defa came in and basically said exactly that. And said, look, we've been jointly investigating Activision for years. EEOC knows that these claims are numerous and that $18 million isn't nearly enough. We want to be able to intervene in this action. There were spats back and forth about former lawyers and conflicts and privilege and we mentioned that it was not a great look for either governmental agency. And then we haven't talked much about Activision Blizzard since then. So let me update you on where we are. On December 20th of 2021, the court denied divas motion to intervene. The court said that you were trying to intervene to introduce evidence that the consent decree, the proposed settlement is inadequate. We don't think that you meet the requirements for mandatory joinder, so we are not going to allow you to intervene in this case. And in terms of permissive joinder, that is, are you going to help the litigation? The court said in that order, quote, while the court finds that formal intervention is not appropriate, difa has enough of a general public interest in the subject matter of this lawsuit and its resolution that the court will allow it to present its position to the proposed settlement revised consent decree, via an amicus brief. Will not have the rights as a formal party, it's concerns can be expressed succinctly through this mechanism and will be considered by the court. So, defa, you can file your objections to any revised proposed consent decree within 15 days after that gets filed. That was right before Christmas. Then on January 4th, the party's filed the proposed amended consent decree. That is the settlement that we talked about. It is substantially the same, right? It is an $18 million set aside plus everything that we described in the show. And so with the additional evidence that came out, that felt pretty inadequate. And so difa then within two weeks filed its objections on January 18th. And again, all these documents we've uploaded them to our website. I've downloaded them from pacer and they are a part of the public record. And divas objections to the consent decree in a concise format said really we're worried about. There's a bunch of different things. The money is inadequate. There are way more claimants than $18 million is going to cover. That was, although they made it the C point I would have made it the a point. Yeah. It says, although the EEOC's complaint is devoid of factual allegations, the public record is not, and then it links to all of the coverage, it doesn't link to all of the coverage, but it links to multiple news stories covering the litigation that says, yeah, there are lots of potential victims that are out here. The proposed consent decree provides an inadequate compensation for these widespread title 7 claims because by comparison, defa recently submitted for court approval, a consent decree settling sexual harassment and discrimination claims against one of Activision's main competitors for a $100 million. On behalf of 2365 potential female participants, here the EEOC agreed to less than a 5th of that amount for a much larger group. And in fact, when we talked about that settlement, we said this feels like this is going to be grounds for increasing the dollar amount in the settlement. It did not. Okay, so that was the first argument. The second argument has kind of an a and a B component to it. And it is that settling the EEOC claims requires that in order to receive compensation that any settling party release all claims against Activision, which would include the state law claims that the subject of defa's parallel lawsuit. And so in other words, that would force potential women to choose between a guaranteed settlement in the EEOC federal litigation, which if they take, they have to release Activision as to all claims, including their state law claims for which they would then receive zero compensation because those were severed out. Or continuing to go ahead and litigate the state law claims, but giving up on their right to be a part of this settlement. That seems like a very, very strong argument to me, and we will continue to go through this, but the B point, I think, is where difa sort of dropped the ball on this. Their B point is, and also the settlement requires the destruction of evidence that is potentially relevant to our state law claims. And therefore, it has to be invalidated on that basis. I have to unpack this a little bit because I think difa is overreaching on this claim. But I need to explain kind of textually where that comes from. So it comes from section ten a of the proposed settlement. So section ten a says within 30 days of the date that the EEOC notifies defendants of the names on the distribution lists. Defendants agree to.
The Business of Esports
"activision blizzard" Discussed on The Business of Esports
"Jeff, go ahead. I have one. Disney finally buys Nintendo. That's good. That's the second part is one tweet. And then Apple buys them both. And then Apple watch them both. Just saying. Lindsay did you have thoughts or did Jeff steal it? He stole it. I was the one who said Nintendo's the next to get bought. I literally tweeted that last night, come on. Everyone has to get involved, 'cause it's all about content. Do you have to choose when I sent that message? Wait, I said that message yesterday. What are you talking about? I sent a yesterday morning. Anyways, I didn't immediately think about Microsoft trying to find Nintendo and that deal failing in about Nintendo laughing them out of the room. And thought, oh, I wonder if Nintendo's gonna be laughing anyone else out of the room or falling into getting bought. Sometimes soon. Jimmy. I mean, if anyone wants to buy Atari, I bet the price is right there. So I would call that a major acquisition at this point. Greg says agree with Jeff Tencent wouldn't pass U.S. or Chinese regulators. Apple buys EA for movement to sports. That's an interesting one. I'm going to say Facebook by ZA because I also think Facebook has ambition in sports world or an Amazon buying EA because Amazon already has significant investments in the sports world. But I definitely think EA is probably next on the target list. And I think the Greg's point, it's definitely for the sports content would be would be my guess would be my prophecy, I guess. Guys, any other thoughts on this before that I didn't touch on or any other questions from you guys that we didn't touch on before we move on here. Do you buy the idea that this was all sort of to make the bad news around the company go away? I mean, that was the most disappointing part for me was that Xbox and Phil Spencer had come out and said, we disavow what's happening, and Activision Blizzard is that long ago. And then they bought them. And Bobby staying on and it's, you know, these things happen and nobody loses except for the people that get hurt. The people in charge never lose. But Lindsey, can I put my can I put my very cynical tinfoil hat on? If I'm Phil Spencer, right? And I see, and I know that I want to buy Activision Blizzard. Well, when you go to buy a car, you don't go and tell the car salesman. Oh my God, I love this car. I'll pay whatever you want, right? You go, you know, I don't know. There's a little scratch here. Like, what is this? Congratulating Bobby on the high price. So they in fact did go to the car and say, wow, it's so great, even though we hate you. But maybe. I imagine most of the people who work at Activision have a lot of have a decent amount of stock. So this is a win for them. And I think that working at Microsoft seems like a really good place and Phil Spencer seems like he's building a pretty strong culture. So it seems like a step in the right direction. Regardless, if you're an Activision employee, albeit now, you're a much smaller fish in a gigantic pond. So there's always.
What's Good Games
"activision blizzard" Discussed on What's Good Games
"We're going to continue our conversation about this Microsoft upcoming acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We had to react to questions equation. Back to questions. Yes. Of course. I was the one who said that that doesn't make any sense. No, it does, oh my gosh, you guys, I'm sorry. I just had a brain Bart. Okay. And I was so okay, we're done. I'm sorry, continue. Go home, Jack, don't seriously. I'm drinking water folks. I got no. Well, maybe you should get drunk. Maybe I'll maybe it'll level you out. That was one of those moments where I'm like, I should have just stopped talking to let you guys keep going. I don't know why I was saying everything I was thinking out loud. So I apologize for that. Anyway, we live for these small time. What's good games? But continuing the conversation that Microsoft also announced this week or I should say Xbox announced that Xbox game pass now has over 25 million subscribers. And that number has grown substantially since the last time they announced it. So that is no small feat to get that many active subs every month. And I think it's a testament to the offering that Xbox is really put together with game pass. And they did confirm in the announcement. I didn't read it when we were talking about it earlier. But they said that the acquisition bolsters Microsoft's game passport portfolio with plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into game pass, which has reached its new milestone with Activision blizzards nearly 400 million monthly active players and a 190 trees and $3 billion franchises. This acquisition will make game pass, one of the most compelling and diverse lineups in gaming content in the industry. So that's clearly talking about putting the dick on the table is them further putting in their dick on the table being like, oh, did you think that Xbox game pass was good before? Well, let me show you something else. You wonk. Yeah. And I had tweeted that it was a little mind-blowing to think that Diablo four could launch day one in Xbox game pass. Wow. Yeah. Wow, yeah. Now we have some fun Patreon questions here if we're ready to hop into them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All right, I like this one from John leeing. Where were we all when you first saw heard the news in what was your immediate reaction? I was fucking sleeping. Oh. I was sleeping and my husband like literally shook me awake. And was like, oh my God, you have to see this. And I was like, what? I was like, the baby still sleeping. Why are you waking me up? Oh, no. It has to be a big fucking deal if the basics. Yeah, that is like you're really, I mean, it was a big news, but still. I need my precious sleep. Exactly. At a baby for 8 months. Like a rare moment where the baby is sleeping past 6 a.m. and he woke me up, but it was worth it because this is probably the biggest news of the last ten years. So that's huge, huge news. What about you, Jackie? You know what's funny? I actually think I was on Twitter and I saw Greg Miller's tweet. Like this is like E three, and then I was like, what the fuck is going on? And then I was like, oh, oh. Did I just like, I liked it? I'm like, oh, okay, y'all know how Twitter is, right? It's like whatever's the news of the day is like so big and everyone's so dramatic about it. So I was like, okay, what's going down, right? And then I was like, oh, you know what I mean? I was just like, this is kind of big. And I was just floored. I was basically just watching Twitter and social media go off the rest of the day. So what about Uber? I kind of pulled a John. So our baby is in our bedroom with us. And I woke up just kind of like half asleep. And everyone in my house was so sleep in the dog, the husband, the child, and I'm like grog looking through my email, and I get this headline in this Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard to bring the joy in community of gaming to everyone. And my half asleep super, I was like, huh? And then he opened it and I go, what? And I sat up, the baby started crying. Poor reps scared the shit out of them. Jason sleeps through everything. So he just stayed asleep. I woke Jason up. I was like, oh my God. He was like, that's cool, babe, and then he fell back asleep. Oh my gosh, so you guys were reversed. That's too bad. He indulged me briefly, but that was. I played volleyball that morning, so I was just like, chilling, you know what I mean? And then I got on Twitter and just opened the shit storm that was Twitter that day. So early were you playing volleyball? I mean, not that early, probably had like 8, but I wake up and go right to volleyball. Okay, check my feet on. You have to wake up and do the phone in bed thing. No, I'm not. I was like, what do you think? Yeah. Good for you. Well, and then you get home after volleyball and then the world explodes. You know what I mean? And you're like, you know, but anyway, but yeah, so I was just like, wow, of all the days. And to be honest, I was surprised I missed it, like you said, because it was such big news that the headlines were popping on phone headlines, you know what I mean? And I just think I like swipe by, 'cause I was just like trying to get to volleyball quickly or something. And then when I got on Twitter, that was when I was like, oh my God, this is all going down. And our next question comes from Galen writer, which Activision Blizzard legacy IP would you like to see make a comeback?.
What's Good Games
"activision blizzard" Discussed on What's Good Games
"Page. All right. Let's talk about money. Microsoft will be acquiring Activision Blizzard for $95 a share. And that number is important because it's the number is the number that Activision Blizzard was valued at pre acquisition, or the news about this. And maybe it was pre lawsuit. I would have to double check exactly what their share price was. In an all cash because don't forget we've talked before about how much money Microsoft has, and they're really flexing their wallet right now. In all cash transaction valued at 68.7 billion, the now new biggest gaming acquisition of all time, Brittany, if it was just weeks ago, we were talking about take twos acquisition of Zynga at 12.7 billion being the biggest gaming acquisition of all time. And I tweeted Microsoft saying, hold my beer. Oh my gosh. I make a bigger, a bigger one. I think you know, it's just hard to fathom that much money. Like my brain can not compute it. If you start seeing smoke coming out of my ears because it's just like worrying and gigging in there. It's like, what the fuck does that even look like? It's just absolutely mine. Mind boggling to quote when drinking both of you. I don't even know if you're like the CFO of Microsoft. How do you calculate what those companies are going to be worth, you know? I can't imagine the teams of nerds with calculators are like, okay, let's figure out how much each of these studios, each of these franchises is gonna be worth because the acquisition will include king, the makers of candy crush, one of the most successful and most revenue generating mobile games of all time. Blizzard, of course, the most successful PC game of all time Diablo and wow. And then, of course, Activision with the most successful video game on console of all time, which is also on mobile and PC. Call of Duty. So it's just bonkers and not to mention throw in major league gaming in there. And a bunch of other studios and companies that are all underneath that umbrella. The thing that I think that got everybody talking this week and not really super happy about, of course, is the news that Bobby Kodak will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard. And once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard, business will report to fill Spencer who is the new CEO of Microsoft gaming formerly the head of Xbox. He was an EVP before, so he's now a CEO, so congrats Phil. Got a promotion. And they are now clearly saying gaming is going to be a huge part of Microsoft's focus going forward. You don't make this kind of an investment without it being there. And it's kind of a change of pace because not that long ago, Microsoft wasn't really that jazzed about. Gaming Xbox was kind of just existing. You know, I think it's a testament to the leadership that Phil has really brought to that team. And they really wanted to emphasize his leadership because they put out an org chart photo on Phil blog posted either of you see this. This photo? So I want to see it. Let me bring it up. I think they're 12 people underneath Phil. And I want to say 6 of them are women. Which is great. That is great. It's probably not as diverse as it could be, but I think compared to what these orchards typically look like and when they have looked like in the past, you know, it's a right step forward. Yes. Obviously, always more work to be done. But at least it's not all the usual suspects. I'm going to stop. Go back a little bit to Andrea's stand up Bobby kotick. My understanding is after the deal closes, he will be stepping away as CEO. The Wall Street Journal, and I think another other news place. I saw him and I had him pretty sure. Yeah, so this is the this is the org chart. And as you can see, it is a much more diverse or chart of leadership than we've seen in video games recently. I'm really happy that a company as big as Microsoft is really putting an emphasis on getting more voices at the top of their work chart. I think it's super important. And I'm happy about it. And so I think it's going to be interesting to see how they proceed. The thing that I rolled at was all of these people bringing their pitchforks to Twitter being like, I can't believe you're keeping Bobby in. And it's like, listen here, dumb dumbs. They have to keep him in, that's the way the deal works. They're two separate companies until the deal closes, which isn't going to happen for quite some time. An acquisition of this scale has to go through a lot of checks and balances and things to say. Maybe the United States government might not even let it go through. A 100%. There's a lot of talk about antitrust and is this too big of a deal is this too many studios underneath one banner? Is this kind of consolidation of power and voices good for the industry? Is it good for the development teams? And there's a lot of salient points being thrown around, but obviously they're going to have to deal with the baggage that Kodak is bringing along with this deal, but if I had my theories about this, I would guess that this deal was underway before that lawsuit was made public, and then I'm sure everyone at Microsoft was like, God, fucking damn it. Yeah. We were working on this thing. And now I have to deal with this bullshit. This shit storm is dropping exactly. Yes. This happened in July, the first lawsuit. It was around June July..
Kinda Funny Games Daily
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Kinda Funny Games Daily
"Meals and three free Andy's story number four is kind of exiting the Activision Blizzard talk a little bit. It's kind of a soft exit because you're still gonna talk a little bit about Activision Blizzard in this one. But it's a new story that's not focused on actors. We're the exit lane plus. We're in the exit lane out the window 'cause my blinker is broken. I need to get a yeah. Give me your best Google Maps impression when they're telling you to take an exit. Shit. I don't know. I could do this by. I'll be on this box. I was trying to think of it and I was almost gonna do like a Michael Caine. You wanted to exit on the right. I was gonna like, I don't know. I was good though. You know, I know it was great. I know. Let's hop into story number four. Call of Duty Vanguard and black ops Cold War were number one and number two were the number one and number two bestselling games of 2021 in the U.S.. This is Eddie at GameSpot. And this is more so just a new story about the NPD report that we got for 2021 because then the reports are up. We can now take a full look at the year and talk about what games sold well and what games sole surprisingly, let's hop into this Eddie article. Amid news that Activision and the Call of Duty series are being acquired by Microsoft. I love that every single article so far has started with that sentence. The MPD group has released its sales report for December 2021 and the full year revealing that Call of Duty, Vanguard, and black ops Cold War where the two were the top two bestselling games of the year, Vanguard was December's bestselling game of December and the full year in the series has now been the bestselling game franchise for dollar sales for 13 years in a row. Hey low infinite was right. 13 fucking years. That's so crazy that Vanguard becomes a number one selling game of the year and it was released in December over November. Yeah. At a month and a half to do that wild. Halo infinite was December's second bestselling game overall, and the top seller on Xbox, which is also an interesting one. Because again, that was on Xbox game pass. So that speaks to the power of even though appears on game pass. Stuff still sells. Regardless, Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining pearl was number three overall for December and number one on Nintendo platforms for December and the full year. The Pokémon series had a banner year in 2021 with physical software reaching the highest annual total since the year 2000. Here's how the ranking shook out in 2021 by dollar sales. Let's start with just December. I'm gonna give you the top ten Andy for December 2021. Number ten, you have animal crossing new horizons. And I should note that for a lot of these games, digital sales are included. I believe Nintendo games do not have digital sales included specifically. So yeah, animal crossing new horizons was a number ten there. And number 9, NBA two K 22. And number 8, Mario party, superstars. And number 7, Spider-Man miles Morales, and number 6 Mario kart 8. And number 5, battlefield 2042, and number four, Madden NFL 22 at number three, Pokémon brilliant diamond and shining purl. And number two, halo infinite, and then a number one for December 2021, Call of Duty Vanguard. That's just Morales a year later. Yeah. Getting that no way home bump. Exactly. Yeah, that's what we talked about a little bit ago on PSL view, and we look through the PlayStation PSN store specific sales and miles Morales was at one point. I think above even Call of Duty. And it was like, dude, that is the power of one Spider-Man. That is the power of this is the power of the Spider-Man: No Way Home bump specifically, but also the power of the IP. It's also power of insomnia. It is a power of fucking how good that fucking game is, because I went back to play it, or how could those games are I should say, because I'm back to play the DLC for Spider-Man remastered. And I just got done finishing Spider-Man miles Morales. Again, last night. And man, those games are fucking good, Andy. And so they'd be putting crack in that. They're pretty damn good at what they do. I think my focus immediately gets brought to at number 17 for December, was guarding to the galaxy, shout out guardians, a game that just didn't make our top ten a lot of people were mad about that, but it's still a very, really good game. I think it was actually number 11 or 12 on our list. And number 18 goes to sushi, which was a game that I finally beat this past year and it beat Super Mario 3D world, which is really cool. And it's something I wasn't necessarily expecting for a game that had come out last year or was it last year? A year and a half ago. 2020. Yeah, ghost is who should be on this top 20 list for December of this past year is pretty impressive for me. Now, to hop for 2021 overall bestselling games, they had 20 games here. I'm gonna go with the full 20 because when we're talking about the whole year, you gotta get a broad look at how these things land. And so starting at number 20, we got Forza horizon 5, 19, Mortal Kombat 11, 18 back for blood, 17 Super Smash brothers ultimate, right? Number 16 Assassin's Creed Valhalla, 15 NBA two K 22, 14 animal crossing new horizons, 13 Minecraft 12 FIFA 22, 11, far cry 6..
Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood
"Microsoft announced plans this week to buy game developer and publisher Activision Blizzard, known for games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch for an all cash deal worth almost $69 billion. Both companies are big players in the gaming market, Microsoft makes the Xbox, meaning the massive deal is likely to attract scrutiny from antitrust regulators, even as Activision Blizzard continues to face allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. I spoke with Dina bass, Seattle bureau chief and technology reporter for Bloomberg news to get a sense of Microsoft strategy. The transaction, if it can get regulatory approval, would catapult Microsoft to the position of world's number three global gaming company behind Tencent and Sony, which is Microsoft's key video game console rival. So that's one very important reason. Another one is mobile gaming. Activision Blizzard owns king, which makes candy crush. You know, one of the most popular mobile games of all time. Microsoft, on the other hand, despite being in gaming for about three decades, has next to no presence in mobile gaming. And I spoke to Phil Spencer who ends up Microsoft's Xbox division and was promoted to be CEO of Microsoft gaming, and he said to me, quote, we all know that the number one gaming device on the planet today is mobile phones. Microsoft owns Xbox. So does this acquisition change whether Sony PlayStation users might be able to start playing blizzard games? Yet, to be determined, I heard today from a source that Microsoft is going to want to continue having content in games for Sony PlayStation. But that they will, of course, look at some exclusives for Xbox in order to have this sort of deal advantage their platform. However, if we can take a past as potential precedent, Microsoft has already acquired the storied video game company Bethesda and its parent companies at a max media. They're publisher of games like The Elder Scrolls doom and fallout. That was done because Bethesda had those deals with Sony beforehand. And Microsoft has said they will continue supporting some Bethesda games on Sony, but they are also now starting to release Bethesda games, which will be Xbox exclusives. The challenge for Microsoft is they're paying a lot of money for this deal. If they don't continue to put very popular games like Call of Duty, for example, out for Sony PlayStation, automatically, you slash a significant amount of the value of the deal, because a decent chunk of Activision's revenue comes from Sony PlayStation game. So that's a balance that they will have to strike. How do they privilege Xbox, bring people to Xbox who maybe hadn't been Xbox gamers before? By having these exclusive games. But at the same time, continue to make a lot of money selling Sony PlayStation games. How closely do you think antitrust regulators are going to be scrutinizing this potential deal specifically given that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard sort of sit in these unique spaces in the gaming industry? Look, any deal of this size is going to get a significant look. What is this going to mean for competition? Is it going to disadvantage any one is going to disadvantage players? Another interesting regulatory battle that comes to play is the issue of the iOS App Store. Microsoft has been very vocally unhappy with Apple and to some extent also with Google. Because of the tax that they take on games that are sold through the App Store. And Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella mentioned that one of his motivations for this deal is to get his gaming empire to be big enough that gamers will come to it directly, bypassing Apple. Activision Blizzard has had so many stories coming out about sexual harassment and hostile work environment. What does this deal mean for any potential reforms happening there? You have to bear in mind the deal is not going to close until 2023. So Microsoft can not exert significant influence. They can not run Activision they can not do anything until that point. Nadella told investors, quote, we recognize that after the close, we will have significant work to do in order to continue to build a culture where everyone can do their best work. So they know that this is a challenge, even though they're encouraged by what Activision is doing already. They know that that's an issue. Now, one issue since some of these allegations deal directly with Activision CEO Bobby Kodak is what happens to Kodak. Microsoft said today in their press release that he will continue to serve as CEO. However, it was made clear to me by a source that what Microsoft means by that is he will continue to serve as Activision CEO only until the deal closes. And he's expected to step down after that. And these issues to be clear are very likely what made Activision a target. This is everything that's gone on has potentially been the thing that put them in play because it was going to be harder given all of that for codec to continue for the company to continue to grow in the way that it wanted. Dina bass.
WSJ Tech News Briefing
"activision blizzard" Discussed on WSJ Tech News Briefing
"CEO. What does this deal mean for him? Well, according to Wall Street Journal sources, mister Kodak is expected to leave after the deal closes. We don't know when that will be. And what that means essentially is that a lot of these investigations into Activision's culture are centered around mister Kodak's leadership. Since he's been at the top of this company for us entire lifetime, and also because as the journal reported, mister Kodak did not inform Activision Blizzard's board of many instances and he has also himself been at the center of investigations for misconduct in the workplace. Activision said, in response to the general's reporting that the journal give them misleading view of the company and mister clinic, now with mister Kodak expected to leave the company when the deal closes, that will relieve Microsoft of at least one major headache. This would mean Activision Blizzard would need a new CEO to run things over there. All right, that's our reporter, Sarah needleman, Sarah. Thanks so much for joining us. It's been my pleasure. And that's it for today's tech news briefing. If you want more tech stories, check out our website, WSJ dot com. And if you like our show, please rate and review it. You can do that wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening. We've all felt left out. And for people who move to this country, that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that. Learn how it belonging begins with us dot org. Brought to you by the ad council..
Techmeme Ride Home
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Techmeme Ride Home
"Right home for Tuesday, January 18th, 2022, I'm Brian McCulloch today, Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard and the biggest gaming acquisition of all time. Partially, this is a metaverse play, but meanwhile, meta is quietly locking down all of the metaverse patents. Crypto dot com helps withdrawals on its platform, but insist it hasn't been hacked, and why are countries encouraging their athletes to use burner phones when they attend the upcoming Olympics? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Just an absolute blockbuster today, Microsoft this morning announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard. For $68.7 billion in cash or $95 a share with the deal slated to close in the fiscal year 2023, apparently Activision Blizzard will be run independently until then. Bobby Kate will remain as the CEO, but will report directly to Xbox head Phil Spencer. Now, when I say this is a blockbuster, listen to these superlatives. It is Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever and by quite a margin the previous record for Microsoft was the $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn, it's also the largest acquisition in the gaming industry, full stop of all time. It's nearly ten times the size of the Bethesda acquisition. It makes Microsoft the third largest gaming company in the world by revenue. After Tencent and Sony, what does Microsoft get for all of this? Oh, you know, they've just acquired candy crush. Overwatch, StarCraft, skylanders and the two crown jewels World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Quoting CNBC. Activision, which is known for popular games such as Call of Duty and Tony Hawk's pro skater has been mired in controversy for the last several months following reports of sexual misconduct and harassment among the company's executives. On Monday, Activision said it fired dozens of executives after an investigation under the deal Activision CEO Bobby cot who has faced calls to resign over the cultural problems within his company will remain CEO and report to Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer. Microsoft has gotten more aggressive with gaming over the past several years. It bought Minecraft maker mojang for two and a half $1 billion in 2014 and last year Microsoft completed a 7 and a half $1 billion acquisition of game maker Bethesda. The deal also plays into a long-term vision for Microsoft as it competes with meta, formerly Facebook, to build technologies to create a virtual world called the metaverse. In fact, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, who was the first big tech CEO to publicly acknowledge the value of the metaverse, months before meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Today, virtual worlds are dominated by gaming, but the hope is they expand to cater to other demographics and replace a lot of traditional social networking activity online. So let's unpack all of that. A metaverse play. Clearly, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, especially would be strong foundations for a metaverse. But most immediately, apparently, Activision games will be coming to Xbox game pass to suite. Quoting pure Xbox. This, of course, is massive news for Xbox game pass, going forward. We're hopeful many Activision Blizzard games will launch on the service, given Microsoft's commitment to first party titles arriving day one. Oh, and we should see some of the back catalog arrive to, quote, upon close of the acquisition we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within the Xbox game pass and PC game pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard's incredible catalog. We also announced today that game pass now has more than 25 million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add more value and more great games to game pass. That was quoting from a Microsoft press release, but I'm continuing again. This is particularly big news, especially as Activision games don't usually end up in game pass. The publisher has worked closely with Sony in recent years, preventing much of anything from them coming to the service. So this is clearly an aggressive move against competitors. Now, on behalf of Microsoft, PS, that 25 million number from game pass is up from 18 million game past subscribers just a year ago. And it's also clearly an aggressive move to the metaverse now is sure later, both things tie into this analysis from Nicholas de Leon on Twitter quote. Microsoft has been 100% all in on services since nadella took over. They don't care what you use, device wise, as long as you use Microsoft services on it, IE game pass. Look at the lengths they were reportedly willing to go to to get on the iOS App Store. Put another way, why bother building xboxes, which is hard and expensive? When you can just have a game pass app on your TV. Microsoft has been building toward this. I don't really see this clarity of direction from Sony, Nintendo is a different matter, probably. End quote. Yes, and the metaverse will largely not be about hardware. Either, in theory, right? So, but also yes, as we've discussed, Activision has been the site of turmoil involving tons of labor, harassment, discrimination, and other issues. So that's probably why the deal is happening. The turmoil depressed Activision stock, which made it attractive to Microsoft, but as Laura Kate Dale tweeted, quote, if Microsoft is making this purchase knowing the state of the company RE ongoing lawsuits and incredibly low consumer and worker trust, I hope that means they have a plan to institute actual change, but I'm not holding my breath for that. Microsoft basically just purchased a company mired in stories of abuse. If their first move is not to make serious change, a lot of that bad sentiment might start sticking to Microsoft two. Katic remaining as CEO post purchase is a bad sign for meaningful change. Additionally, this is also a huge move further toward Microsoft's monopolization of the video game industry. This makes huge games like Call of Duty Microsoft exclusives now, one would assume. That's not healthy for the overall industry and quote. So yes, one more thing. Do you think this deal might raise some antitrust eyebrows? Microsoft owns the platform and increasingly they own the biggest game developers as the great Peter Kafka tweeted, quote, Microsoft buying Activision makes a lot of sense. Microsoft has been buying game devs and this is the biggest prize with a leadership team, submerged in self inflicted scandal. Also, it earns Microsoft to seat at the big tech antitrust table which they have avoided until.
Kinda Funny Games Daily
Activision Blizzard Shareholders Are Angry
"Investment group s. o. c. says that activision blizzard's recent promises to improve. His culture. Do not go nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity inclusion and human capital management. End quote that the company is facing of. If you never read a axios meghan. Stephen are doing great work over there. And i love the way they break stuff down so this is just reading straight from their site. Y'all go check it out. But what i like. Is they go why it matters in to being an activision blizzard shareholder soc advocates for ethical business practices and is outspoken on topics like pay gaps between executives and workers a letter from associate executive director. I ways. Egger shared exclusively with axios reads. No changes have been announced or proposed that would in any way alter the current process for filing for feeling vaccine vacancies either To the board of directors or senior management. No changes have been announced with respect to executive pay either with respect to climb back compensation from executives who are found to have engaged in or enable abusive practices or to align executives with equity goals kotik articulated of course talking about Ceo bobby coda Still going on from the the letter here. From dealer the announced review by a wilmer hale was that thing. They're bringing in to do this. And they're also the law firm that's squashing unions on all issues Wilmer hale is deficient in a number of ways. This firm has a sterling reputation as a defender of the wealthy and connected but it has no track record of uncovering wrongdoing. The lead investigator does not have in-depth experience investigating workplace harassment and abuse in the scope of the investigation fails to address the full range of equity. Issues mr cody. Acknowledges quote
Zero Credit(s)
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Zero Credit(s)
"Activision blizzard employees stage a walkout unless demands on july twenty eighth. Their demands are as follows. They want number one and into mandatory arbitration clauses. In all employees contracts current and future arbitration clauses protect abusers limit the ability of victims to seek. Restitution i mean totally accurate. Arbitration clauses are one of the Most evil things almost every american corporation does okay number two. The adoption of recruiting interviewing hiring and promotion. Policies designed to improve representation among employees of all levels agreed upon by employees and a company wide diversity equity and inclusion organization. Current practices have led to women in particular women of color and transgender women non by mary people and other marginalized groups that are vulnerable to gender discrimination. Not being hired fairly fairly for new roles when compared to met. Okay wait just a backup real quick you know why arbitrations bad right. I don't please at edify me. Uh so do you know what arbitrary what legal arbitration is so. That is the stage of legal. I don't know what the word is it. It's under going to court. It is like yes it is. It is rather than taking on the court before a judge Arbitration is is basically a negotiation typically a sealed negotiation between two parties in private That can be Settled by judge or an arbitrator like arbitration judge. Whatever not do they're called in an.
Reset
The Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Could Be a Watershed Moment for the Business World
"So so he. Can you tell us a little bit more about the lawsuit that led to all these employees speaking out. Yes so. The lawsuit is the culmination of a two year investigation from authorities in the california department of fair employment in housing who said that activision blizzard's compliance with the state's workplace protections is long overdue. Now if you look at the lawsuit one interesting thing is that it really starts out with these kind of standard allegations of discrimination in how the company pays permits women and retaliation women spoke up. But that's not really what caught the public's attention california also said the activision blizzard fostered a frat boy culture where women were subjected to constant sexual harassment groping at rape jokes and that one female employees took her own life on a business trip after allegedly having nude photos of our past around with a company holiday party and these are the allegations that we really saw lighting up twitter because they were so shocking and terrifying. And it's worth pointing out that. The lawsuit specifically said that the discrimination was worse for women of color particularly black women who are micromanage and discriminated against in the office do lawsuit also mentions that supervisors were unaware of this culture and at times encouraged it and even engaged in it themselves. Can you tell us more about the role that higher ups played in creating this toxic work environment. Yeah so the lawsuit says that blizzard president j. allen brock was aware of the allegations did not do enough to stop the behavior. Alex afrasiab a former senior creative director of world of warcraft. Also engaged in blatant sexual harassment. He jokingly called his bliss con hotel room the cosby sweet after alleged rapist bill cosby. I talked to employees last week and really ask them. Was this behavior. Modeled at the top. Was it relegated to certain teams and employees are a little hesitant to say that it was one specific area of the organization. They felt like it kind of permeated the entire culture but they won't go as far as to say everything manager knew about it or every executive wasn't
Opening Arguments
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Opening Arguments
"That's why you see you know when you have these kinds of consumer complaints. You will them see private lawsuits sort of piggyback on the back of right and and it's for precisely that reason because the common defenses that are otherwise available to you you'll be able to know they cannot. They cannot let you. Don't get two bites at the apple. A court already determined That you failed to take immediate corrective action to inappropriate sexual harassment in the workplace. So yes that's it's a big thing and a big deal. And as i think i mentioned this at the beginning but but it's worth emphasizing again. California has demanded a jury trial in this case Not a surprise. Yeah an and i made in the complaint. Which is what i should have known had it. I almost had it almost so well. My final question on this andrew. And i guess i'm glad we haven't talked about it yet. Depending is the big headline that you didn't mention so i don't know if this is part of the suit or not but there seems to be a big headline about you know inside. Blizzard developers infamous. Bill cosby sweet. Is that anything. That's in the complaint. Is this just a a headline. Is this a taco headline. So it's people are talking about it. Where does that come from so it is. It is rather unfortunately spelled the bill. Crosby sweet in this in the night. Oh in the complaint is gonna say the headline i'm looking at. It's not but okay and the no the And so this is. This is paragraph forty-seven so the reason that i didn't mention it. I i mean. I alluded to it. I said there are complaints about particular individuals because to me. This is a much less persuasive piece of evidence than the systematic discussion of the cube. Crawls the game playing the joking about rape. That i mean to me. That's sort of your classic hostile work environment. Paragraph forty-seven talks about the former senior creative director of world of warcraft at blizzard that the company put on a convention called blitz khan and that this person got drunk and hit on all the female employees crossed. The line attempted to kiss them putting his arms around them. In plain view of other male employees including supervisors who had to intervene and pull him off and then His his sweet was nicknamed and again. It's a typo so it says the crosby sweet but it says the crosby's we at at its twice in there so apparently the the lawyer who wrote this must have been like twenty four or something like you know after after alleged rapist. Bill crosby okay. So it's under that broad heading sounds gross to say the least it sure does. Yeah well it makes me happy. I was always a final fantasy. Eleven fan but i'm sure that square whatever studio that is probably as problems do okay. So what are keeping an eye on in terms of going forward. I assume they answer it or or we go into settlement mode like right away idiots possible that that activision will file a motion to dismiss. I mean again. That is typically. What you do as a big inc jessica and it is going to be really really hard on these facts specific complaints to garner dismissal. They will have to answer them. There are a couple of things out here that have not yet sort of penetrated into the you know kotoka who kind of gaming news and one of them that i find really interesting from the legal geeky standpoint is count ten which is a separate provisions of the labor code labor code four three two point six Which says a person shall not as a condition of employment continued employment or the receipt of any employment related benefit require any applicant or employee to waive any right forum or procedure under the california fair employment and housing act or this code so that suggests that there were people who were bullied into signing document that says they would not sue activision as a condition of continuing to work there now. That allegation is made right and again as we know. It's valid to do this in a complaint that allegation is made you know quote on information and belief so they're entitled to take discovery and they are entitled to prove it but it says that defendants required female employees to waive rights forums and procedures as a condition of continued employment. So i very very interested if that happened. Those documents will start to surface and and we will start to see the news of that and again. That's you know we've seen that happen in other litigation like as As things develop with with non compete clauses in the like and and So so i'm keeping my eye on that. And i'm also trying to figure out what the activision blizzard quota system was right. Yeah so those are. Those are the developments that i would look for kind of on the near horizon than at some point. Activision is going to have to file an answer and there will be discovery but activision 's lawyers will do everything in their power to make sure that this is not fought in the public. I suppose i should also say i've seen some things going around. Regarding the fact that activision has hired wilmer hale to defend it in this litigation and wilmer hale is just their their mega firm right. They're huge covington. Burlington coat factory there couple of you know inflammatory. Pieces that say you know. They're they're known for union busting or whatever and we'll warmer hale has done a lot of activision work over over the years and they have of their lawyers right. They have an employment employment law group. And so i certainly wouldn't read anything into mega firm defends fortune. Five hundred company like yeah. Of course they do that. Nephew went argue. That's one of the major reasons or perhaps the major reason our legal system is broken. As in i'm with you doing anything like specially sinister in hiring this firm it. There is no right. Like willow typical wealth rich company defending itself which obviously might be sinister. But but not like that any more so than you would expect for this company. Yeah all right. Well we will keep an eye on that and i'm sure our listeners will as well and Absolutely feel free to to always email us those questions and updates but we'll keep an eye on that Soup if you worked at activision blizzard let us know thank you. And now it's time to thank our hall of famers. Are all time greats. Patriot dot com slash law..
Budget Arcade: Free to play gaming
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Budget Arcade: Free to play gaming
"Come out and support the people in the in the workers the employees of activision blizzard is. Because it's it's typically it's typically not peer to peer misconduct and if that is happening then typically it's not hard to get rid of and i'm speaking in general senses because You know human resources departments here in america are held to certain standard. And you know if something's brought to light to human resources human resources by law has to investigate it and enduring that investigation if something has proven to be legitimate then they have to take action and that's typically a fireable action. You know who you know. If you're you know cat calling a an employee at work you know being a creep You know just just be in a not good dude dude. I'm using dude as a as a a very generalized term. Dude can be a female as well mean. We had all these other developers and publishers. People on social media Extend their support for for these people working at activision blizzard and then in the past week they also staged a walkout the the employees of activision blizzard states a walkout and You know i guess in a in a show an it was a show of. Hey we're not gonna take these this story lightly While some of them may have never been a part of the story Most from what. I've read most of the employees have have banned together Some have met met each other for the first time at this walkout activision. Blizzard is very big company They have hundreds of of employees that probably never interact at all They're just in different divisions one one sides and marketing the other sides in in game development. And then there's a third faction that have just made up of artists that are just drawing doing storyboards. And and then you have your your Your higher level administrators. And so from what i've read most of this Comes about from you. Know middle management and just treating people unfairly Because they don't happen to be men or you know women in video games has always had a head a very oppressive arc. That's the public. Hasn't quite got on board yet every time it seems like every time you see a female gamer on the internet. They're they're getting you know sexual comments in you. Know in the comment section there or if they got a twitch stream you know they got the twitch stream is because they're getting too much of You know negative and sexual feedback and just just because they happen.
Budget Arcade: Free to play gaming
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Budget Arcade: Free to play gaming
"We are the number one free to play guests in the world. You look it up. Google supports us. Encyclopedia brown supports us. Can't fact check us. Because what are you gonna fact. Check you just gotta trust that. We're the number one free to play podcast in the world So in these off weeks. I mark your host. Take you on a on. A journey of video game inside video. Game news game reviews. What i've been playing and spoiler alert. What i've been playing isn't anything good lately So we're going to just go ahead and skip right on past that but In this week room to focus on a bit of news and the news in the video game world in the past week week and a half hasn't been great games just hasn't been good You know what i'm talking about specifically is this activision. Blizzard lawsuit filed by the foul by the california's department of fair employment housing which accused activision activision blizzard. As you know unequal pay practices Sexual assault allegations there It even mentions a frat boy like culture quote unquote frat boy In in the in the company and so when those allegations came out about a week and a half ago one of active visions executives the The executive vice president of corporate affairs francis townsend Came out and she delivered a very dismissive statement. The statement has since come under fire the activision blizzard ceo. Bobby coretec Has since come out in kind of walked back the statement and has expressed in in this new statement. That's activision Would now be working to change the culture of their company. And this has this. These allegations of workplace misconduct and Just this very heavy. Misrepresentation of non male workforce. I guess and forgive me. If i seem like i'm choosing my words carefully as 'cause men the most part i am. I'm not trying to mis speak on anything here. A more or less talking. About what what. I know What what has been reported about this story and so If i seem a little discombobulated please bear with me on trying to get these thoughts out. I'm trying to keep this episode under a clean thirty minutes So i want to talk about what makes video game culture frat boy what. Why is it that anytime. Video games are in the news for the wrong reasons. You know video games are created for for the human population to have fun to to come together as a community and to live vicariously through characters on screen and so you have these companies and activision and blizzard. One company are very well known for making great games. You know your your your modern warfare. your your world of warcraft..
Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Marketplace Tech with Molly Wood
"On wednesday. Hundreds of employees walked out of video. Game company activision blizzard. The protest followed a lawsuit from california regulators accusing the maker of world of warcraft and call of duty of unfair pay in lack of advancement for women and a frat boy drinking culture at the company. The suit details. Cube crawls where employees would go from cubicle to cubicle. Drinking leading to unwanted advances and offensive treatment of women management eventually apologized for its initial dismissive response to the lawsuit and to investigate. It's a topic for quality assurance where we take a second look at big tech story. Sarah nadelmann covers video games and technology for the wall street journal. She says men have dominated the video game industry for years. Despite a roughly fifty fifty split among players at activision california alleges only twenty percent of workers are women most of the big game companies. Only have a handful of women. In high level executive positions and in most cases women are in areas like communications our human resources as opposed to you know the ceo spot or head of finance or even operations and today an estimated two hundred twenty seven million americans play video games thus according to the entertainment software association which is a trade group and they estimate about forty five percent are female and fifty five percent or mail so almost half the video game industry gets compared to hollywood a lot but unlike hollywood. There really aren't a lot of unions or collective actions in gaming why is that the case that's true actually even in other areas of tech. But we're starting to see more movement where unions are forming or or taking a stand and we know we saw that with google not too long ago and there has been discussions of the video images shrink forming unions for years. Now but they haven't really come to fruition and meaningful yet way. It is possible This particular lawsuit and the walkout will re ignite those kinds of conversations and get it going forward but it is pretty complicated to start a union and so there have been some efforts that have been industry-wide as opposed to on a company by company basis. But they just having gained traction. Why do you think it's taken this long for video gaming to have this kind of reckoning with these issues like we've seen in other industries before i think part of the problem and this was addressed in the lawsuit is that women have gone to the human resources department and that are complaints fell on deaf ears and so when the department doesn't have your back it makes it less likely that other women are going forward you know we've seen the vitriol hate that comes across even just on social media and also in gaming culture a lot of women. Just they turn off their microphones when they're playing online gaming. Because of the harassment they get from male players It's just so common that something that you see integrated in borstal culture within the people who play games as well as the companies that make them sir. How does what's happening at activision. Now compare to what previously happened at other companies like ubisoft and and the bearing that it might have on its effect on the industry. Sure i think one of the differences with ubisoft. We saw social media pressure inspire some executives to step down and and certainly the power of social media as is evident there but in the case of activision blizzard. What's interesting is that we have state regulators stepping in and charging the company with claims of harassment and abuse etc. and so. It's a lot different than when it's an individual person speaking up or even on social media where sometimes people are anonymous of us and you don't know who they are. It's different when a state government entity takes the reins and goes ahead and klux a lot of evidence that we're talking about a two year investigation here so it just ups the ante in terms of how serious charges are and very inspiring for women who have endured this kind of harassment to come forward now. Sarah nadelmann covers video games.
The Center Ring esports podcast
"activision blizzard" Discussed on The Center Ring esports podcast
"You to your stock prices. Tanking right now three. Your games are getting worse for like. There's a lot of things that are not going right for them in. This is just kind of icing on the cake at this point like there's just so much negative press out there towards activision blizzard. That man like. I'm i'm just really curious. What what the future of this company is gonna look like a few years from now because right now. They're this juggernaut. I just don't know how they hold his position of power with all that has gone wrong for them for so long. Yeah and it's there's so much damage control going on right now like even within some of these former employees saying it where you know personally for me looking at everything that's come out. It seems like everyone knew about it. Right like yeah. You've culture there. Yeah like this was straight up culture based and so look. I want to believe that there are good. People working blizzard right and and activision like there are some people who certainly their majority are good. You've let the bad ones get out of control. Saxon and i completely you know. Respect that if 'cause you know look everyone's life is different situations right and some people need jobs. Majority of us do so if if blizzard is your dream job and your game creator and you're working there and you know not necessarily turn a blind eye but also don't put on you know your superhero cape and try to fight the establishment. I completely understand that. And i see some people attacking other people for still playing. Wow or still playing blizzard games or attacking employees who haven't quit or walked out with today's protest. Look that is their situation. That is their life if they feel like look. I don't agree with sexual assault. I also don't agree with losing my job. I can understand that point of view right. I have a family to support or you know. You're single living in san francisco or wherever the blizzards offices in california. And wherever it is it's not cheap because let's be real like a walkout is good that i think that at least sends a message. But very rarely. Unless you're unionized. A walkout doesn't work in your favor. If you keep walking out like the company can and will win on that one from a close the door right from an employment standpoint so and regardless of what situation blizzard is in. I'm pretty sure they have a couple of resumes. Still sitting at their desks to To call out. So you know. I don't i it. It is a messed up situation from all angles. But i also don't want to get on like my soapbox and try to preach like you know what we as a we as a community news just have to change. We just have to Respect people and know people are people in love is love and because like i would like to think our listener base knows that. I don't have to come on here and tell you sexual assault is bad. I would think that most people reading these accusations going against blizzard knows that it's bad and and we don't have to like i don't think society is that far south that we we have to.
Esports Minute
Ubisoft Employees Say They've 'Had Enough' of 'Empty Promises,' Offer Solidarity to Activision Blizzard
"Employees of Activision Blizzard are in the back of their walk-outs in order to Garner more leverage to their cause another game development studio is seeing a similar situation. Arise almost five hundred employees from Ubisoft, signed a similar offer letter to show support for their fellows. In the industry out of Activision, Blizzard and tries to bridge the two groups of workers in order to stand together and in the future better address the issues of sexual harassment and misconduct Ubisoft has had their own series of sexual harassment, accusations stemming as late as last year in reports from Kotaku Ubisoft themselves. Admits The Talented employees are not as attracted to their company as they once were thanks to these kinds of movements.
Techmeme Ride Home
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Techmeme Ride Home
"Ride to learn more. That's oracle dot com slash goto slash. Ride all right. This is another one of those stories that i passed on doing several times in a row so now i need to catch you up on it exactly a week ago the california department of fair employment and housing sued video game giant activision blizzard for sexual harassment of and discrimination against its female staff last friday signs of shall we say turmoil inside the company surfaced. Win blizzards president called the sexual harassment lawsuit quote extremely troubling in an internal memo while a vp at the company said that the lawsuit presents a distorted and untrue unquote view of the company. Then on monday about one thousand current and former activision blizzard employees said in a letter to leadership that the company's response to its recent lawsuit was insulting. And now today apparently activision blizzard staff are staging a walkout demanding fair treatment for underrepresented staff and ending arbitration clauses in staff contracts quoting bloomberg activision blizzard. Chief executive officer. Bobby khattak responded to the threat of an employee walkout with an all staff. Email tuesday apologizing and calling the company's recent actions quote tone death and cortex message. The ceo said the company had hired law firm wilmer hale to conduct a review of its policies and promise quote swift action to ensure a safe environment and to stamp out harassment. Khattak also promised that the company would take steps including personnel changes encouraging diversity in hiring and removing inappropriate in game content. The controversy at activision blizzard started last week after california's department of fair employment and housing sued. The publisher behind games like call of duty and world of warcraft detailing disturbing incidents of sexual harassment and assault any culture in which women faced unequal pay and retaliation app division called the allegations false in distorted a statement last week and fran townsend executive vice president for corporate affairs. Sent a letter to staff echoing. That claim infuriated activision. Employees have spoken out on social media and more than two thousand staff signed an open letter calling the company's responses quote abhorrent and insulting. Now they're planning a strike. The walkout is being organized by a group of employees at the subsidiary blizzard entertainment where the majority of the lawsuits allegations were focused in a statement to bloomberg the workers said their goal was to quote improve conditions for employees at the company especially women and in particular women of color and transgender women non binary people and other marginalized groups and quote every now and then apple tends to crack down on the whole ecosystem of leaks.
Kinda Funny Games Daily
Activision Blizzard Employees Push Back Against Leadership's Lawsuit Response
"At activision blizzard. Inc are calling for a walk out on wednesday to protest companies responses to a recent sexual discrimination lawsuit in demanding more equitable treatment of underrepresented staff last week. California's department of fair employment and housing sued the publisher behind games. Like call of duty world of warcraft detailing disturbing incidents of sexual harassment and assault and a culture in which women faced unequal pay in retaliation. Active call the allegations false and distorted in a statement last week in france Executive vice president of corporate affairs sent a letter to staff echoing. The claim infuriated activists. Employees have spoken out on social media in more than two thousand staff. Signed an open letter calling for the company's response calling the company's responses abhorrent insulting. Now they're planning to strike. The walkout is being organized by a group of employees at the subsidiary blizzard entertainment where the majority of the lawsuits allegations were focused in a statement to bloomberg. The worker said the goal was quote are starting to go was to quote improve conditions for employees at the company especially women and in particular women of color in transgender women non binary people in other marginalized people. The strike will take place outside of blizzards campus. In irvine california on wednesday the employees are demanding that activision ditch mandatory arbitration clauses in all employment contracts current and future new practices for recruiting interviewing hiring and promotion that facilitate better representation agreed upon by employees in a company wide diversity equity and inclusion organization the publication of data on relevant compensation promotion rates and our promotion rates answer just four employees quote of all genders and ethnicities at the company. That diversity taskforce be allowed to hire a third party to audit the company's leadership hierarchy in hr department quote is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment and to propose new solutions to address these issues.
Esports Minute
Activision Blizzard Staff Sign Petition Supporting Discrimination Lawsuit
"Continues from the Activision, Blizzard lawsuit brought forth by the state of California. Now, news comes out of nearly 1,000 current and former employees. With the company, have all signed a joint letter saying openly that the words and actions of their leadership do not accurately reflect their values as employees. The letter is directly, addressed the high-level management and Executives and is a strong sign of the growing Rift between the higher-ups. The company hands off employees California's Department of Fair Employment, and housing is seeking compensatory and punitive damages with attorneys fees and whatever General Relief, the courts happen to decide on so far. Activision Blizzard has not. Responded will keep you updated on this story as it develops,
Wall Street Breakfast
E3 2021 Is Around The Corner And Here’s Everything You Need to Know
"Annual electronic entertainment. Expo is taking place in a virtual format this year. Nintendo microsoft's xbox ubisoft entertainment and capcom are all at this year's e three while sony and activision blizzard are skipping it xbox game studios halo infinite bethesda software star field ubisoft rainbow six quarantine as well as new games for the nintendo switch. We'll be some of the more closely watched. Titles a wild card to watch is whether ubisoft will tease out. Information about its open world star wars game
The Business of Esports
Call of Duty League and Overwatch League Loosen Sponsorship Restrictions
"Call of duty league and the overwatch league recently announced. They are loosening restrictions on the types of sponsorship deals. That franchises can make with outside companies. This means that both leagues will allow individual teams to obtain obtain sponsorship deals from previously excluded sectors such as gambling and liquor businesses. We continue to see signs of desperation from activision blizzard's franchised leagues. They had previously towed a very lofty family friendly line now that the leagues are struggling to generate revenue grow or attract an audience. It makes sense that previous ideals would be sacrificed for profit. It's unlikely that either league will lose much in the way of viewership as a consequence of this change and it should open up new revenue opportunities. But it's still stinks of
The Business of Esports
Call of Duty League and Overwatch League Will Allow Liquor Sponsors
"Of duty. League and overwatch. league loosened sponsorship restrictions will allow betting and liquor sponsors now. I don't remember if the article mentions this but activision blizzard especially has been very careful about the sponsors. They bring into both franchise leagues up until now they had rejected anything. That was even remotely like twenty one plus and so This is a big course change for them. And i'm curious what you guys think in terms of the why and what do you think the implications might be here. Okay so i actually I had you guys a different uncle this week. And i'm not sure if you've got a chance to read it. But essentially the article was about how sponsors were pulling back over the sponsorships and looking at streamers instead So let me look up the actual article. But i thought that and i knew you guys working. Read it because it's called gaming influencers future. These aren't there was actual stories in here Houston outlaws player. Who actually quit. Went to tweeden like needlework. Money that of the united talent agency said streaming the way for companies to make money off of e sports athletes There is a looking now How are you tying this back to different. Yeah no i'm saying that like you're seeing streamers and other people's specifically leaving overwatch lee to go seek other making opportunities so adding in sponsorships or things like liquor and betting that might actually be attractive to younger audience or way to engaging gradients seems like owning these sponsors will bring a younger audience to their franchise. Yup yeah
Esports Minute
DIG Releases a Valorant Roster
"Has released its men's game roster the organization announced today. The news was initially reported by georgetti's for daily e Sports and up, and was later confirmed by dignitas cap and Rory deaf Jackson dead set on Twitter that dignitas plans took out of Ballard for the time being dignitas. Then made the official announcement just minutes after death post. The orc said it's working to find new homes for the players, but it's still committed backing into women's volleyball roster, which also competes in Counter-Strike. The men's roster has struggled to produce any meaningful results besides a semi-final finish and pop flash this past August and a grand finals appearance at a Pittsburgh night's event near Christmastime the team had failed to make any kind of a deep run across any other event and disappointingly didn't qualify for any of the challengers events as part of the ballot Champions Tour first stage the now-former dignitas players plan to compete together as a bug Squad at the next stage of the game. The open qualifiers begin
Esports Minute
Activision Blizzard Hires Controversial Former Trump Admin
"Blizzard is hired former Trump Administration officer and controversial former member of the State Department Brian bulatao to oversee the Call of Duty endowment program at the company according to an internal email obtained by Kotaku bullets out is the name under Secretary of State for management at the US Department of State for former President Donald Trump before his role with the Trump Administration. He was a leading official in the CIA controversial Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby kotick announced via email that pull a towel was leading the state Department's Talent diversity and inclusion efforts Business Insider reported that bullet L. Held a key role in deflection of an independent probe into misuse of government resources, according to an Activision Blizzard. Spokesperson. Brian will have management responsibility for Consumer products group as well as other logistics wage. This area's cocuk described bulatao as an unparalleled combination of business military and government experience and Activision Blizzard supposed person has confirmed the higher and offered, it will tell will not be involved with the leadership of any Esports initiatives at the company
Esports Minute
"activision blizzard" Discussed on Esports Minute
"Throughout the 400. Episodes of this podcast. I've spotlighted quite a few smart brand sponsorships for Esports. That's because without other revenue streams you off brand Integrations are crucial to e-sports continued growth sponsors deliver insane value in traditional Sports and they can feasibly deliver that same value to e-sports with continued increases in viewership wage. According to research published by Activision Blizzard. Today e Sports sponsorships are actually more valuable than traditional Sports sponsorships in a few key areas first up. Here's how the research was conducted considering a is clearly a bit biased in the Pro e Sports side of things they brought in market research firm alter agents as well as Neuroscience experts from immersion. The research was conducted in late 2020 and features. Surveys of Esports and traditional Sports viewers from 16 to 40 years old. They also held interviews with participants and the neuroscientists utilized immersions platform to study emotional response to the ads so clearly some big third parties involved in this so it's not just Activision Blizzard being like a sports sponsorships are great, which we all expect them to say data indicated three major findings, but they didn't say if these were the only things they were looking for as they're all positive on the Esports side. It wouldn't be that hard to have a negative Esports finding and just not published that one so I think that context is a little bit important. But with that being said, here's what they did find. The first finding e Sports is better keeping viewer attention during sponsorship ads resulting in higher performance on critical brand metronome. The second finding e Sports viewers are more accepting of advertisements than traditional sports fans showing a higher emergent score, which is defined as attention plus emotional response dead. And the third finding brand favorability and brand perception are higher for Esports experiences compared to traditional Sports and those findings have been backed by anecdotal experiences for myself and my name of the guests on the E Sports Network podcast, but having a true survey is cool to see in general Esports has two big things going for it one. There isn't nearly as much crowding for sponsorship spaces. If you look at the the traditional Sports stadium and you'll see 30 brands or more Esports usually has a handful of more ingrained partners and two brand Partnerships are seen as crucial to allowing Esports to exist at all sports could totally still exist without braids in Esports. Probably not they make up a much larger slice of the revenue pie. That means viewers are more receptive to ads because their favorite player or orange Billy to exist might depend on that a door that bred integration given e Sports ability to reach a tough, but sought-after demographic and it's no wonder brands are flocking to e-sports opportunity wage.
Esports Minute
Activision Blizzard's New Research Highlights Value of Esports Sponsorships
"Throughout the 400. Episodes of this podcast. I've spotlighted quite a few smart brand sponsorships for Esports. That's because without other revenue streams you off brand Integrations are crucial to e-sports continued growth sponsors deliver insane value in traditional Sports and they can feasibly deliver that same value to e-sports with continued increases in viewership wage. According to research published by Activision Blizzard. Today e Sports sponsorships are actually more valuable than traditional Sports sponsorships in a few key areas first up. Here's how the research was conducted considering a is clearly a bit biased in the Pro e Sports side of things they brought in market research firm alter agents as well as Neuroscience experts from immersion. The research was conducted in late 2020 and features. Surveys of Esports and traditional Sports viewers from 16 to 40 years old. They also held interviews with participants and the neuroscientists utilized immersions platform to study emotional response to the ads so clearly some big third parties involved in this so it's not just Activision Blizzard being like a sports sponsorships are great, which we all expect them to say data indicated three major findings, but they didn't say if these were the only things they were looking for as they're all positive on the Esports side. It wouldn't be that hard to have a negative Esports finding and just not published that one so I think that context is a little bit important. But with that being said, here's what they did find. The first finding e Sports is better keeping viewer attention during sponsorship ads resulting in higher performance on critical brand metronome. The second finding e Sports viewers are more accepting of advertisements than traditional sports fans showing a higher emergent score, which is defined as attention plus emotional response dead. And the third finding brand favorability and brand perception are higher for Esports experiences compared to traditional Sports and those findings have been backed by anecdotal experiences for myself and my name of the guests on the E Sports Network podcast, but having a true survey is cool to see in general Esports has two big things going for it one. There isn't nearly as much crowding for sponsorship spaces. If you look at the the traditional Sports stadium and you'll see 30 brands or more Esports usually has a handful of more ingrained partners and two brand Partnerships are seen as crucial to allowing Esports to exist at all sports could totally still exist without braids in Esports. Probably not they make up a much larger slice of the revenue pie. That means viewers are more receptive to ads because their favorite player or orange Billy to exist might depend on that a door that bred integration given e Sports ability to reach a tough, but sought-after demographic and it's no wonder brands are flocking to e-sports opportunity wage.
Esports Network Podcast
Where Esports is Going with Nick D'Orazio, Inven Global's Director of Corporate Strategy
"So that's a really what type of content I'm trying to push in the future for Esports. I want it to be more of that and less of the same. I love that. I love that Esports is dead. So unique and and you bring up Sports and how Sports is takes on a level of everything that goes around. It is very interested and that's going to be very obvious this weekend with the Superbowl happens in American football a hundred million. People are going to watch that maybe ten million really care about football twenty and the rest are watching for commercials. They're they're watching to eat snack also day. They're watching for the halftime show. Whatever that looks like. That's where Sports exists and it's also where e Sports is definitely going and with more focus on the dispatch. Tags that come around with culture the see the awesome sneakers that are that are made that come out with like like OverWatch characters or overwatch's eyes or e-sports designs. Even that's the kind of stuff. That is so cool to me and I think we're good to see if we are seeing more and more of it and Esports and places like invent culture have really done a great job of highlighting it. Well. Yeah, and you know, it's off the expression of these fandoms, right? It's it's more than just like individual a posturing right like yes in my home right now as I look around I'm surrounded by video game art and video game fan aren't and all my favorite games, right? There's one aspect of it is that I like to be I'm around the things that I enjoy in the art that I like, but the other act and y m e Sports and gaming is certainly headed towards being expressed through the culture of fashion the culture of Art and music and I do think eventually Decor. We're already seeing that with God B&R slash Battle Stations and the aesthetic gaming a movements right? You you see that there is how do you put this? There's an underlying set of core. Hm. This is how I can experience this esport, right? This is how I can experience this game. And if I meet someone who has that shared. Oh, I also like to experience this game in this way. I also like to experience this fandom in this way that builds friendship that builds me like a meaningful. I'm communities and then these communities are the people that go towards your conventions that go to your tournaments, right? It's the same way in which every good football a culture shock and your your city usually has a bar like associated with it or like an after-game bars or like big, you know, a downtown hubs. It's because it's more than just the game and Esports is constantly, you know, keep talking a little bit before we hit on record e Sports is always worried about its Revenue stream, right? Where are we going to get this revenue from and you know, the answer is simple get more people interested in this page. Parts and find more ways to maximize the Esports a user experience. We've already learned from Starbucks that people will be fine with paying $4 more for coffee because it feels like an experience and it feels worth it. And it's nice thing people will be fine paying more for Esports. If we find out how to make it a premium experience how to make it something that lets them experience more things than just, you know, like to throw shade the same talking head style analyst people hurriedly a commenting over, you know, like any sports match and that being it that's the height of how long an experience your love for this game and and the players and this goes for you know, any major use for it. I think at all Rings true. I definitely agree and it was actually something that I don't know if he would have seen this played out in the way. I was hoping to with the Activision Blizzard franchise leagues and the way they went from City to City and now that really never took off because of covid-19. Both leagues have their own. Set core issues. But what I was really excited for was to see how all these different teams and all these different cities started running events and and the different things that popped up around those events. Like you mentioned the the bar that people Gather in. What is the lasting impact of being able to go City to city and start really putting roots of fandom down that was something I was really excited to see we never really got to see it. Well, I'll tell you this now the OverWatch League was a fairly it was an eye-opening experience for me. I thought it was like a crystal ball being a journalist and covering that it allowed me to see into the future of Esports cuz I covered every day of season one. I was there in person at the house at the arena didn't miss imagine. I interviewed so many of the players the fans. I was just there most importantly I was there and what I learned, is that the atmosphere Is very fun when you're waiting in line. It's very fun. When you're shuffling in and you're in the gift store and it's fun when you sit down and the and the team's walk in but after that it becomes like a strictly worse twitch viewing experience for then if you were just your house and you know, it's like I've seen this by faith. Like I I know this this isn't an opinion. This is a fact and it was exhausting showing up there. Even for the super fans and I saw them dwindle slowly and slowly but to your point about the Resurgence were made it all worth it is when the local gamer bar or a college, you know or student union or whatever realized. Hey, let's do an afterlife event thing or let's do a pre-event thing or let's start having these team homesteads, right? Like the problem is because they were ran by small teams. And you know who didn't really there was a lot of concerns about Thursday. Safety and things like that cuz you know, it's a blizzard. They are a big Corporation and they need to have it really spic and span cuz it's like a game for teens and all that. They were way to a closed-off right if more people knew that these Regional fan meet ups and things were happening more people would come but they didn't quite know how to Market it. So, you know, I will say that I am agree covid-19 put a stop on a lot of that right? It's hard to even continue with that but I'll also say that, you know, it's too little too late when it comes to something like the over in the mass of investment. That was you know, it's sad when you think about how many millions of dollars they put into that Arena and the teams and each of those orgs and all those invest, you know, paying what twenty million dollars per lead spot but like players salaries all of that. It's sad to think that at the end of the day the thing that had the most in in my opinion potential and scale and was dead. Most Community good was what resembled grassroot Esports what resembled if they had never done the league at all. And if they just made OverWatch a very friendly, you know public API game in which people would love to build a custom a tailor-made esport that the community accepts but we didn't get that. We instead we got a league and it you know, it didn't
Esports Minute
Where in the World is the Overwatch League Headed in 2021?
"Opportunities across digital media podcasting and video programs. Please reach out to e-sports and Eric Segal marked in using the email off of the show. Hey, the sooner we're going to sponsor the sooner. I want to lead every single episode with that read. So hit up Mark, please today. We're talking the OverWatch the end of all these Sports o w l had the hardest thing twenty already entering the year of plenty of questions. The year saw reigning MVP Sinatra jumped to Valour in the Vancouver Titans, the defending runner-ups dropped their entire roster do to covet and owners to report may ask for bargains on their massive by ends. Yeah. It wasn't good 20 21 might be better but the League's questions surrounding it only got larger this week blizzard announced the 2021 Ram. Schedule even though the Call of Duty League the o w l sister league in many rights is starting in mid-February the o w l won't kick off until April in that time three Western teams the New York Excelsior the Philadelphia Fusion and the LA Valiant all announced they'll be moving operations to Asia for the season due to covet thy that brings the division of to a split of 12 teams in the west and 8 in the East and speaking of the LA Valiant report from Aaron Halo speak in o w l Insider find that the LA Valiant have actually been sold to a company or owner in China. His report said that that new owner was a fully Chinese roster leading team will release of the entire team and coaching staff. The LA Valiant have denied that report for now. We don't know the truth, but Halo is broken plenty of stories in the past. Even if he shoots from the hip a little bit when it comes to some reports in many cases the massive binds that owners paid to get in the league are forcing them to cut costs on player salaries that's creating a really weird ecosystem or contracts are going down as Activision Blizzard game. Of an insane amount of cash the Paris a turtle are one such example as an expansion team Following season 1 the estimated price of the spot. They bought was absolutely more than twenty million volts SPN estimating that those parts are going between Thirty and sixty million each with Paris being a main International Hub. There's was probably on the upper end of that estimate range if ESPN's correct there back in November, the org released its entire roster. It's not like the Eternal were bad or anything last season. They finished first in the North Division and fourth overall. They did have a poor showing in the play-offs but this is clearly a cost-cutting measure from the management team in Paris quite similar to what happened with the Vancouver Titans during the season. So where does the league go from here the viewership breakdown points in a clear direction to me. The 2020 season had pretty bad viewership Esports chart said the average was about 46,000 viewers a decline of 60% from last season now part of that might be the move from twitch over. YouTube but still a 60% decline doesn't just happen out of nowhere The crucial thing about e-sports towards data though is that it doesn't include Chinese you worship and that's where things get a little bit interesting facts into the Nielsen am a data which does implement Chinese viewership d o w l finals the only event we have am a data for was watched by 1.55 million people. That's a 38% increase over the 2019 finals. So hey, that sounds like pretty good news. It's not League of Legends numbers, but it's still pretty good. If you can bind that little bit of knowledge with the three Western teams competing out of Asia and the one already reportedly having been sold to a Chinese owner and we see a potential exit strategy emerging or owners unhappy with their o w l investment prior to the season. The breakdown was fifteen Western teams and 5 Eastern teams that becomes 6 if the Valiant sale holds and then there are already those two are or there's already competing over there for twenty Twenty-One. Although neither am boxer Comcast have indicated. They have any plan to sell their mostly just moving over to Asia because it's a little bit easier. Logistically, I believe but going on as more owners are unhappy and more Chinese owners are actually willing to pay for these teams. I think we could see those scales tipped towards an equal split between divisions. If not favoring China eventually. There's certainly no shortage of cash for Esports in China these days. If you look at the type of Investments, they're
Esports Minute
Riot Games Reports League of Legends Worlds Viewership for 2020
"No secret that League of Legends world's is the most watch E sports event every year but the absolute massive gap between worlds and other events is all staggering to see this morning right games reported an average minute audience or AMA of twenty-three million as an increase of about 1.2 million / 2019. They also reported a peek concurrent viewership of forty six million viewers and over 1 billion total hours watch over the entire course of the tournament e Sports viewership can be confusing to track given the difference between a streaming platforms track viewers and how TV networks do so. So Riot and Activision Blizzard brought in Nielsen to provide the average minute audience or am a stack the stat is directly comparable to other he's dead. Events who use AMA and to traditional sports events and their TV ratings any sports Activision Blizzard's announced AMA for the OverWatch League finals was 2.9 Million globally. That's just a little bit over 10% of what world's received. It's no wonder o w l team owners are in conversations to get partial refunds from a Beyond those lofty team by ends, but worlds was also higher than most traditional sports events as well. The 2020 MLB World Series saw an average of about ten million viewers per game. So about half of League of Legends world. The NBA finals were even worse averaging about 7 and 1/2 hours per game. It should be said that the World Series was in line with previous historical averages while the 2020 NBA Finals was an anomaly only seeing about half of the viewership. We saw over the five finals before it off other events of League of Legends world's beat included the NHL finals, which was at two million viewers and gulps the Masters at about six million viewers. There are only a small handful of sporting events drawing more viewers than League of Legends at home. Point Wimbledon Tennis is about 28 million viewers the Superbowl sits around a hundred million viewers every year and then the Champions League finals which neared five hundred million viewers back in 2019. I believe a bunch of other soccer events are probably over that number as well, but I didn't go through all the regional leagues. This does not include events that happen every four years like the Olympics the soccer World Cup or the Cricket World Cup, which are all well overly of Legends as well. Still you can see why league is attracted so much attention and brought in so many Brands. It's in really lofty company with numbers like this. It's all first episode of the Esports minute. If you want more Esports content, we publish a new episode of the game or hour or Chris pocket interviews former NFL running back Arian Foster. A lot of fantasy football fans will remember when Arian Foster broke onto the scene with a couple record-setting years back in the early part of this decade.
Esports Minute
Activision Blizzard Reportedly in Talks with Team Owners to Reduce Franchise Buy-Ins
"Blizzard's franchise leagues buy-ins raised a ton of eyebrows around Esports. It's the o w l kicked it off with franchise fees to the original 12 teams at twenty million dollars each. The aid expansion teams that came after the first season paid even more according to various reports about some reports said that those binds might get up to sixty million dollars. The Call of Duty League was similar all the start of branches paid 25 million bucks for a spot and they haven't had any expansion teams yet. Well that investment has not been recouped and is in danger of crippling franchises the pandemic cause massive turmoil, of course, but the declining popularity of OverWatch is also a key concern according to this report. Western Road, Tony Petty the former Dem will be Deputy Commissioner hired by a be over the summer has been in talks to teens about how to make their organization successful long-term. Nothing has been decided yet. But cutting down those lofty Pines would go a long way and removing the heartfelt by the team's very few e Sports organizations are profitable even the ones with the massive content machines quite a few of the organizations that compete in one foul or both of the CDL and o w l only compete in the CDL or owo. Those are the ones most in danger of folding without an Roi soon. Now, nothing has been decided hear. These are just box but these are talks that have happened for a while and they're incredibly important conversations. The fact that team owners are now less bullish on these leagues, especially the o w l than they were a few years ago is pretty telling if not entirely surprising the main selling point for the o w l was the Geo localized nature of the league and while that hasn't been entirely the fault of a b it hasn't been able to take off. There are no guarantees that even when cope with this model will be song. Either it had never been tried before guess we'll have to wait and see but if anybody wants to keep these leagues around especially the o w l they should be offering discounts on those by ends.
Esports Minute
Riot Games Reportedly Shopping English Media Rights for LoL Esports
"Games has confirmed their shopping the granddaddy of all media rights deals on the trains and said the Esports minute from a sports network. The Esports minute is presented by technology game-changers. Check them out at TGC play linked below media rights deals or one of the key ways traditional sports teams and leagues earn money, but in use Sports, they are nearly as valuable accepts me for this one Riot games is reportedly shopping the English media rights deal for League of Legends Esports. Ryan has already sold the Chinese specific media rights to Billy Billy for $113 according Port now that deal was only for the worldwide events. Not for the regional leagues. I think it's fair to assume. The English media rights deals are in the same ballpark, but it's hard to tell without knowing the individual leagues that were applied to the deal if right is selling the rights to broadcast the LCS the LEC and international events in English. It will undoubtedly be the biggest media rights deal in Esports History Month. The two key players vying for the rights will be YouTube and twitch YouTube swooped the Activision Blizzard media rights from twitch before this previous season becoming the whole of the OverWatch and Call of Duty leagues. But League of Legends Esports are on another level entirely international events are the most watched streams on Twitch every single year without fail. They are also broadcast on YouTube though. It seems like ahead of the next year. It's going to be one of the other this was first reported by Travis Gafford, but confirmed by the sports Business Journal a few days ago. Now how riots used divvy up. These meteorites will shape the E Sports landscape for years to come and whoever brings most cash to the table will set themselves up with the biggest Esports product in the world bar.