Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick pledges change as law firm investigates harassment claims

Sledgehammer Games has just dropped the first official look at Call of Duty: Vanguard.The 100-second video compiles previously “leaked” clips of various deserted World War 2 battlegrounds alongside new footage with some bonus, eerie images of faces thrown in for good measure.Fans online have already started piecing together the clues from the clips and it looks like various characters will be based on real life soldiers who fought in World War 2.The video comes with the tagline “see them rise”

Activision Blizzard over alleged sexual harassment, a new report claims that the company has been deadnaming transgender quality assurance (QA) staff.The report, from Kotaku, states that the company will “almost always default to legal names,” a QA tester at a contract QA studio claimed.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be receiving a weapon rebalancing update, according to Treyarch.The company confirmed that several weapons will be altered in the patch, including SMGs, assault rifles, and dual wield pistols. The EM2 rifle and TEC-9 SMG will both be available as new weapons during Season Five.In the full release notes, each weapon change is detailed, providing a rationale for the selection and technical adjustments to be made to each one.

Blizzard Entertainment employees – two key Diablo IV figures and a World Of Warcraft designer – are no longer with the company.Diablo IV game director Luis Barriga and its lead level designer Jesse McCree, as well as World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft, have left the video game company, reports Kotaku.

Blizzard Entertainment‘s games has fallen from 46million players to 26million.As reported in GameRant, the drastic decline of players of Blizzard’s games – which include World Of Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone – was revealed during Activision Blizzard‘s latest earnings call, with a chart shared on Reddit.The studio hits its peak in Q2 2021 with 46million monthly active users, a year following the launch of both Overwatch and WoW‘s Legion expansion.This figure has however continued falling

Activision Blizzard investment group spoke out against the company’s response to the lawsuit over alleged sexual harassment.In an exclusive letter from SOC executive director Dieter Waizenegger to Axios, the Activision Blizzard shareholder says that recent promises don’t go “nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management.”“No changes have been announced with respect to executive pay,” the letter adds.“Either with respect to

Overwatch League may be about to lose more sponsorships in the wake of a lawsuit alleging abuse and sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard.As reported in The Washington Post, Coca-Cola and State Farm are reassessing their partnerships with the Overwatch League.

Diablo Immortal has had its release date pushed back to 2022, following player feedback from a recent closed alpha test of the game.In a blog post, developer Blizzard Entertainment says “the game is now planned for release in the first half of 2022, which will allow us to add substantial improvements to the whole game”.Blizzard added that it “has been tuning core and endgame features”, with an emphasis on iterating and improving PvP content “to make it more accessible”, as well as fine-tuning

Blizzard Entertainment following the ongoing lawsuit and allegations on abuse and sexual harassment that has rocked the company in recent weeks.As reported in Bloomberg, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson has confirmed that Jesse Meschuk, formerly Blizzard’s senior vice president of HR, is “no longer with the company”.Meschuk was the most senior figure in Blizzard’s HR, which allegedly worked to cover up abuses.

Activision Blizzard is being sued by an investor for allegedly hiding the severity of an investigation into sexual harassment, which led to a lawsuit from the state of California.An Activision Blizzard investor has filed a federal securities fraud claim against the company, stating shareholders were “economically damaged” after Activision Blizzard reportedly downplayed and buried California’s investigation into sexual harassment from investors.The suit, noted by Bloomberg Law, alleges that

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick addressed the company’s ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit and action surrounding further allegations.Speaking to investors during a second-quarter 2021 financial results call yesterday (August 3), Kotick has stated “people will be held accountable for their actions” regarding allegations of sexual harassment and a “frat boy culture” at Activision Blizzard.Regarding recent commitments to change, Kotick said:“That commitment means that we will not just

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has stated that diversity and inclusion are “paramount” to everyone that works at the games company.The comments were made by Zelnick during the firm’s earnings call on August 2 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 (via PC Gamer), where the Rockstar Games parent addressed the issues that have been plaguing the games industry.Namely, the Activision Blizzard lawsuit that has surfaced in recent weeks, which accuses the workplace of harbouring a “frat

Activision Blizzard appears to have lost a major sponsor for Call of Duty esports league, with T-Mobile vanishing from recent competitive events.READ MORE: The unstoppable rise of the UK’s favourite homegrown ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ player, JukeyzReferences to T-Mobile, which was the company’s largest non-gaming sponsor, seemed to have disappeared during the recent Stage 5 Majors competition (as spotted by Dexerto).The T-Mobile logo appears to have been obscured on competing players’ uniforms,

Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack is stepping down from his role, following a lawsuit served to the company alleging widespread sexual harassment.The announcement comes from Blizzard itself, saying in a statement that Brack will be “stepping down” to be replaced by a leadership team of Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra.“To all members of the Blizzard Community,” the statement read.

Activision Blizzard faces a lawsuit after accusations from employees that they’ve faced “constant sexual harassment, including groping, comments, and advances” in the workplace, a former senior employee has written an open letter calling for industry-wide unionization.Shared via IGN, Jeff Strain’s ‘It’s Time’ letter starts with Strain saying how “the Activision Blizzard disclosures this week have left me disgusted and repulsed — but not at all surprised.”Having joined Blizzard Entertainment in

Activision Blizzard has confirmed that former World Of Warcraft creative director Alex Afrasiabi was fired for misconduct in 2020.After a report by Kotaku which detailed the alleged sexual harassment and misconduct surrounding the ‘Cosby Suite’, Activision Blizzard has confirmed that Alex Afrasiabi – the former creative director for World Of Warcraft who was named prominently in that report – was fired for misconduct in 2020.

Riot Games is being sued by the state of California for gender discrimination, sexual harassment and pay decisions, according to a recently discovered document. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) litigation notice was spotted by a Reddit user (thanks, PC Gamer), and the class case is “not subject to arbitration.

Activision Blizzard has since cancelled all future meetings.An initial all-hands meeting was chaired on July 26, but due to a scheduling error, was only attended by around 500 employees.Another all-hands meeting was scheduled for today but has since been cancelled.According to Uppercut, Activision Blizzard is offering “discussion sessions” limited to 30 participants each for employees to raise issues and grievances surrounding the State of California lawsuit.“Any future all hands style meetings

Activision Blizzard has hired the renowned union-busting legal firm, WilmerHale, to review the company’s policies after a lawsuit accused the firm of subjecting employees to “constant sexual harassment, including groping, comments, and advances” in the workplace.Previously best known for its work with Amazon when it came to handling workers demanding better pay and working conditions, WilmerHale is generally considered to be an anti-union legal firm.

Ubisoft employees have released an open letter showing support for the Activision Blizzard walkout, and asking for their employers to do more.The letter comes shortly after Activision Blizzard employees announced a walkout to protest the company’s response to allegations laid out in a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.