Activision Blizzard misconduct allegations allegedly led to Microsoft acquisition

A warning for snow has been issued or for the Falkirk area with motorists being told to prepare for potential travel disruption.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterEsports is the biggest opportunity in TV that nobody’s talking about — yet.That’s the view from video game industry veterans who see esports — or the exploding world of live video gaming competitions, complete with crowds of virtual fans cheering them on — as poised to explode in the coming years.Riot Games and Activision Blizzard are among the gaming giants making big investments to juice the burgeoning market for esports TV rights deals. A new round of consolidation and fresh capital coming into gaming, as evidenced by Microsoft’s pending $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, will raise the stakes, as esports content is a clear growth engine for gaming.“We don’t necessarily see obstacles in front of us — we see opportunity,” Brandon Snow, head of Activision Blizzard esports, tells Variety.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that he doesn’t believe its acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission.The deal, worth around £50billion, was announced on January 18 but earlier this week it was announced that the US Federal Trade Commission would be conducting an antitrust investigation after fears the acquisition would harm competition.Talking to the Financial Times, Nadella said that the deal would only place Microsoft as the third largest player in the video games industry behind Sony and Tencent. He also believes the fragmentation of the market would prevent it from ever gaining a monopoly.“At the end of the day, all the analysis here has to be done through a lens of what’s the category we’re talking about, and what about the market structure?” said Nadella.“Even post-this acquisition, we will be number three with a low teens (market) share, where even the highest player is also in the teens (for market) share.

Activision Blizzard that Infinity Ward is definitely working on Call Of Duty 2022.The rumours about the followup to Call Of Duty: Vanguard have been circulating since details about the project, codenamed Cortez, were datamined last September.It’s now been officially confirmed that the 2022 instalment of Call Of Duty will be developed by Infinity Ward, the studio behind Modern Warfare.​​“Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio,” the company said in a press release. “The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting.”Infinity Ward confirmed the news by taking to Twitter.

All Time Low have filed a libel lawsuit against the people who have claimed on social media that the group sexually harassed or assaulted teen fans.The band issued a statement last year denying all allegations, writing: “The allegations being brought against us are absolutely and unequivocally false.“When a TikTok video gained traction a few weeks ago alluding to inappropriate behaviour within our camp, we chose not to respond because of the glaring inconsistencies in the story and the apparent reluctance to mention us by name,” the statement continued.“We felt that a response would have elevated and escalated an outright lie and in doing so robbed actual victims of abuse of their very real and very important collective voice. We believe victims.

Activision Blizzard has announced more Warcraft and World Of Warcraft is coming, some of which in the form of mobile content.As part of the company’s fourth quarter earnings results, a handful of Warcraft announcements were made. This included news that “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World Of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.”There has been no other mention of what this content will be as of yet, but according to Activision Blizzard the franchise was going strong in 2021 thanks to the inclusion of both the modern and classic game.The company does also note that it “continued to increase our developer headcount in the fourth quarter and added hundreds of talented professionals in 2021,” despite the fact that major layoffs to the Raven Software quality assurance department took place at the end of last year.This led to a strike lasting over a month and the formation of a new union, the Game Workers Alliance, which Activision Blizzard appears to be actively attempting to quash at every turn.

Around 500 ex-Playboy employees and Playmates have shot to Hugh Hefner's defence following accusations of misconduct. The Playboy founder - who died in September 2017 aged 91 - has come under fire in A&E docuseries 'Secrets of Playboy', but now a number of people formerly associated with him, including his ex-wife Kimberly Hefner, and former girlfriends Brande Roderick and Sandy Kauffman Bentley, have come out in support of the late magazine publisher. An open letter reads: "We sign our names to support Hugh M.

A Boston police officer was killed after allegedly being run over by his girlfriend while he was buried in a snow drift, according to investigators in the Massachusetts city.

Microsoft is to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over their proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.News broke last month that Call of Duty and Overwatch developers Activision Blizzard were being acquired by Microsoft. But the deal isn’t actually set in stone yet, and now according to Bloomberg, the deal will see the FTC conduct an antitrust investigation over the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

There’s a lot going on in the world of Blizzard right now. Along with the announced acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for £50billion, Blizzard itself just announced a brand new survival game that takes place in a new universe is coming to PC and console.

Blizzard studio head, Mike Ybarra, has told fans to “stay tuned” for more news on Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo.The news came via Twitter. When a Twitter user suggested that Blizzard should dedicate more of its time on existing products, Ybarra revealed more.In a tweet, Ybarra explained that “Blizzard is a big studio [with] talented and growing teams”. He continued by adding that “you’ll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch“.

Call Of Duty: Warzone is in development, with the title apparently coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC.According to a Bloomberg report about the future of Activision Blizzard following their acquisition by Microsoft, the next three Call Of Duty titles won’t be Xbox exclusives because of deals made before the purchase.Speaking to four people with “knowledge” of the deal, those titles include the next two instalments of Modern Warfare (with the first expected this year). “The deal also includes a planned new iteration of Call Of Duty Warzone.”The claim was backed up by “credible Call Of Duty leaker” Tom Henderson, who believes Warzone 2 will be released in 2023 alongside the second new iteration of Modern Warfare (currently being developed by Treyarch).Warzone 2 is literally that… Warzone 2.Current gen and PC only… No past weapon integrations etc.

report was published in The Guardian which saw 20 women accuse Clarke of sexual harassment and misconduct.The actor, who denied the claims, was suspended by BAFTA following the allegations. The organisation, however, faced scrutiny after the original report claimed BAFTA had been aware of the allegations before it handed Clarke the award.The awards body stated it had received “anonymous emails and reports of allegations via intermediaries”, but said “no evidence was provided” that would enable an investigation to take place.After launching a review into the processes governing the awards last year, involving “extensive industry consultations”, BAFTA announced there’ll be no special recognition awards at the film and game awards in 2022 to allow enough time to implement changes on how recipients are chosen.

James Snyder will not be appearing in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway anymore.

James Snyder, who has played the title character of Broadway’s recently retooled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child since the show returned from the pandemic shutdown, has been fired by producers following a complaint by co-star Diane Davis about Snyder’s conduct.

Activision Blizzard have formed a union.Composed of Raven Software quality assurance (QA) staff who staged a walkout in December of last year after more than a third of the QA team were laid off, the Game Workers Alliance (GWA) is a new union that has been launched with the help of the ABK Workers Alliance, which helped organise the ongoing strike and set up a GoFundMe for the staff.The Game Workers Alliance has been formed in conjunction with the Communications Workers of America, which organises unions in industries from communications to technology. The GWA is requesting formal recognition from Activision Blizzard, for which a spokesperson told Bloomberg:“While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union.”A mission statement on the GWA website adds that the union focuses “on improving the conditions of workers in the video game industry by making it a more sustainable, equitable place where transparency is paramount.

While it's come as a bit of a shock to the industry that Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard for over $60 billion, one of the main concerns is how the company's library of games will be affected.

Sony has made some of its first comments regarding Microsoft‘s £50billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, saying it expects the games to remain on PlayStation.As spotted by Bloomberg, a Sony spokesperson speaking to the Wall Street Journal today (January 20) has said that it expects Activision to honour its contractual agreements despite being bought out by its competitor Microsoft.“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform.”Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming has said that Microsoft does not intend to pull communities away from PlayStation by taking games away from the platform. Analysts also suggest that due to the large number of players of Activision’s biggest franchise Call Of Duty, regulators would prevent Microsoft from making it an exclusive title over fears of monopolisation.However, Spencer made similar remarks during the acquisition of Zenimax.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSony shares staged a recovery on Thursday in Japan after previously plunging on news of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of games giant Activision Blizzard.At the Thursday lunchtime trading halt in Tokyo, Sony Group Corp. shares were priced at JPY12,860 apiece, up 3.6% from their Wednesday close of JPY12,410. On Wednesday, the shares had fallen by nearly 13% from JPY14230 as the deal appeared to herald a growing battle between Sony’s PlayStation console and Microsoft’s Xbox.Microsoft said that its $68 billion deal, which may take more than a year to close, would make it the world’s third largest games company by revenue, after China’s Tencent, and Japan’s Sony.The move would bring game titles including “World of Warcraft” and “Call of Duty” under Microsoft’s control.