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From what I've seen, Kotick is sticking around until everything clears and then he's bailing (with a large some of money in tow no doubt ). So that's a start. We'll see how everything else goes. The main thing I'm worried about is how this will affect the the strikes and the movement to unionize that was starting to get some traction. Time will tell. Chances are this whole thing won't be settled until next year anyway.

After this acquisition they'll still only be the 3rd largest publisher behind Tencent and Sony I believe I had read. Sony acquired 6 or 7 different devs this past year alone vs Microsoft who has only picked up three things video game related since 2019. Two of those just happen to be publishers instead of individual studios so the impact feels bigger and more immediate. I don't mean to diminish the impact this will have though because Activision-Blizzard themselves IS the 3rd biggest at the moment I believe so it's a pretty big deal even if it isn't as all encompassing as it seems.

So it seems that by "reevaluate how we deal with Activision", what Microsoft actually meant was "We'll see how they act after we just buy them." O_o https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

I played it a little over a week ago. Was definitely super impressive. Everything was practically photorealistic other than the people. The rendering speed was amazing too considering all the individual, AI controlled moving objects in it. Saw some stats on it after I played it. There are 35,000 people and 45,073 cars. Map stats were also given. There is apparently 160 miles of road w/ 1248 intersections. The destruction detail on the cars was pretty good too. I spent most of my time flying around and even zipping through the city at max speed, there was very little frame rate drop, and it had no real issues rendering everything. You can definitely see where they cut some corners to make everything run smooth (the water at the coast looks like shit, no weather, and the skybox was static with no animation to it outside of intentionally adjusting the position of the sun, etc. ), but it still bodes well for games going forward. Would really like to see it on PC to see how it runs there too.

Oh, hey Sony. Great timing. https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-executive-fired-after-pedophilia-allegations https://www.polygon.com/22798781/playstation-sony-gender-discrimination-lawsuit

Firing Kotick would still only be a face value thing anyway. They need to remove him and at least half the people on the board of directors as well considering they're close friends of his who have also known about and allowed this shit and full out backed him up even after the stuff about him came out. As nice as most of this stuff is at face value, it's a bit meh overall when you really look at it. None of these have been "announcements" and none of them have committed to pulling support for the company. They've all been "leaked" internal memos and e-mails and shit that let them not actually be accountable for anything that is said. It's just like the Geoff Keighley with the Game Awards shit "What they're doing is wrong and they won't have any participation in the show this year... except their games still have nominations and can win awards... " and one of their executives is still part of the advisory board for the show. We'll see if the ones "evaluating" their business relationships with the company actually ever go anywhere.

Looks like it's Nintendo's turn.

Sony did the same thing the other day from what I saw. Hopefully there will be more that jump on board with this kind of thing. Assuming they ACTUALLY "revaluate" their business relationships with them and aren't just doing PR damage control.

Yeah, that will be the real thing that will get something to happen at this point, so hopefully it keeps tanking.

Actually, this is both better and worse than expected from what I've read. These particular shareholders are an activist shareholder group that have been criticizing Kotick for a long time already (which speaks well of them), however their "4.8 million shares" between them only account for 0.6% of the company so unless some other major shareholders jump on board it's not likely to lead anywhere. 😕

Of course they are. Jesus, what a fucking joke.

Yeah, there's an upgrade to slow the heat increase, as well as a "quick reload" one where when it overheats you hit the button at the right time and it instantly refreshes (and does a good chunk of damage I believe). I'm enjoying it so far. The story is really fun, and the interactions between characters are exactly what I was hoping for. The combat DOES feel a little clunky, but isn't awful and with some of the upgrades and other abilities it may smoothen out a bit.

What in the actual fuck did I just watch?

He was one of the last good ones still there. At least as far as the "out in front" types go. Gonna miss his dev update. Kind of wonder what happened as his public notice about it had that super vague, PR spin quality to it. Usually if they leave on good terms they're a little more specific about why so I wonder if Activision started pushing too hard on something and he said 'fuck you, I'm out."

I don't think I've seen such a solid presentation of immediate joy followed by crushing disappointment from people as I have when they announced this. This was the Square-Enix tweet. The way it was written. They knew what they were doing. XD

They've already announced that they're overhauling their game engine. Thank god. I'm sure this was in the works well before sale talks started, but the timing couldn't be more amusing. They've been needing to give that thing a full blown overhaul for years.

That seemed pretty fair overall. Pretty much what I expected it to be too. IE: Mostly enjoyable until the campaign is over and the grind starts unless you REALLY like that kind of thing.

I really can't get into those games. Really don't know why. I really enjoy the humor in them, but it took me like 5 attempts and 2 years to finally finish the story in BL2. Think I'm halfway through the first DLC otherwise. XD

I'd like to play something together that lasts more than 3 matches before someone rage quits. XD

I'll probably still get it eventually because I liked the story levels in the beta a lot. I just didn't care for literally anything else they seem to be putting into the game so i want to give it a bit to see what kind of shenanigans they get up to with monetizing it before I put money down on it. Would be fun to play something with you again though. >_>

I did cancel it. It was before I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still don't feel comfortable paying even $50 for it. The "challenge card" is not a traditional battle pass style of thing. You don't pay for the cards for the base characters, and there's no time limit on getting all the stuff. They're permanent and not a "seasonal" thing. The track on the card gives you some of the premium currency, and the cost of the card for any new character that comes out is 1000 credits ($10) and you get all of those credits back via completing the card. So if you complete the base ones then you don't actually have to pay anything to get the ones for new characters but yeah, I'm sure it's a mega grind fest to complete those. They still have the premium currency store using the credits too though that has skins not on the challenge cards so it's still a pretty shitty setup overall. I'm going to wait for a price drop and/or wait to see how they handle future content. All characters, quests, story, areas, etc. added will all be completely free so I get the need to make money from something but if they make additional cards for existing heroes that also have to be bought and it's not a "one time" fee per new character as a whole, I'm probably not going to touch it anytime soon. Paying for skins and emotes and other cosmetic shit up front is one thing (nevermind that it's still pretty lame after something like Spider-man as web said), but if they're going to effectively start double dipping, then I don't want anything to do with it.

Square has also long ago established that they will take money from anywhere they can get it and advertise literally anything in a game no matter how fucking weird it is (ie: the entire "Cup Noodle" questline, etc. in FFXV) and have already shown that they're doing it with this. A set of exclusive skins has already been shown that is only available to specific cell service carriers (Verizon in the US and Virgin in the UK I believe) and another set is rumored to be a promotional tie-in with Intel (possibly for one of their processors). All of which boggles the mind. This kind of thing is normally thrown at consumable shit like energy drinks or whatever. Almost nobody is going to change cell carriers or buy a new computer processor for a set of game skins. Sony is also getting a bunch of other exclusive or timed exclusive content including non-cosmetic content so there was clearly a bag of money involved in this whole thing somewhere. To reiterate, this is the same company, through which, you effectively had to pay $50 to get this:

Yes and no. It's designed to be played with others it seems like, but you can turn off matchmaking and it gives you AI companions instead and as awful as that might sound, they actually DON'T suck. At least at the level of content I tried. That might not stick as well at endgame potentially but I've read that "99%" of the content can be done that way with no issues. Also, it seems like you can use matchmaking for everything though once again, may not apply to some endgame stuff. Haven't read one way or the other. Played a few things like that though because the matchmaking is broken as fuck right now. Hoping they get that sorted by tomorrow so I can try playing with people. One of the interesting gameplay things I found out about: Iron Man's ultimate ability is calling down the hulk buster suit and get in it. You then have the option of getting out of it and letting a teammate use it. Also, yes console. They made Spider-man a playstation exclusive character. :x Doesn't sound like a timed thing either. People are pissed. The reasoning behind it is absolute garbage bs too. https://www.ign.com/articles/marvels-avengers-how-spider-man-became-a-playstation-exclusive-character Honestly this reason is stupid enough and people are pissed enough I could see them backpedaling to a timed exclusivity though.

Got a code for the closed beta for Avengers since I had it pre-ordered on Amazon (popped up at a $50 price tag at some point and wanted to reserve the price) so have been playing that for a couple hours. It plays a LOT better than it looked during the original gameplay reveal which was a pleasant surprised. There are some small things that bother me about it (switching tabs in the menu taking longer than it feels like it should being one of the main ones), but it was pretty enjoyable. In the broader scope of game mechanics, it feels like it will be a super nice looking, AAA version of that Marvel Heroes Omega game that shut down a while back. Which is to say, looter style game where your constantly pushing for new gear. Combat felt really solid though and was a good variety of combos and some interesting looking skill upgrades and the little bit I played of the available characters made each one feel sufficiently different. Looks like there will be cosmetic microtransations for different outfits and nameplates and things like that, but they also have a pretty good variety you can earn in the game itself. Not optimal, but at least it's not all in on that shit. May actually consider keeping the pre-order at this point. So far it looks like there might be some decent depth to the game, but it's hard to say from the little bit you have access to. Interested in seeing more though. Before I was relatively sure I wouldn't get it, but this has convinced me to reconsider.

Yeah, I don't know in what world anyone thought they could get by with that shit.