Federal Trade Commission will review Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Warzone developer Raven Software has announced that as part of the battle royale’s anti-cheat system, PC players who encounter hackers will be given a “Damage Shield” that prevents hackers from hitting them with critical damage.As detailed in a progress report for Ricochet anti-cheat, Raven Software has shared that it is looking to apply more “in-game mitigations” to prevent cheaters from ruining games while they’re in them.One of these mitigations involves a “Damage Shield”, which has finished testing and is now live on Warzone servers.As to what the Damage Shield entails, the developer explains that “when the server detects a cheater is tampering with the game in real-time, it disables the cheater’s ability to inflict damage on other players,” which essentially sounds like a God Mode.“This mitigation leaves the cheater vulnerable to real players and allows [Ricochet] to collect information about a cheater’s system,” adds the blog.The article also outlines that there is “no possibility” the game will accidentally apply a Damage Shield outside of a scenario involving a cheater, and says “we will never interfere in gunfights betweeen law-abiding community members.”Looking ahead, the Ricochet team has shared that there are further mitigations “live and in development,” and confirmed that Warzone has seen “a decline in cheat reporting” since launching some of them in the last few weeks.On some of the mitigations that have not yet been detailed, the blog teases that “you might start seeing clips of our new tricks soon, but we won’t ruin the surprise.”In other Warzone news, Season Two of Warzone launched last week and has brought NPC enemies and a Chemical Factory.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard regarding the recent acquisition occurred days after the report on CEO Bobby Kotick.An SEC filing was published on Friday (February 18) stating that Kotick and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer entered talks about the acquisition on November 19, just three days after a report alleged that Kotick had known about Activision Blizzard’s misconduct for years.In September of last year, it was announced that Activision Blizzard was cooperating with an SEC investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment at the company, which this filing refers to.Part of the SEC filing reads: “On November 19, 2021, in the course of a conversation on a different topic between Mr. Spencer and Mr.

Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, has donated over $600,000 (£450,000) to causes that promote the election of Republican candidates.A report conducted by CNBC has found two private companies with links to Kotick which have made a number of large donations to Republican causes, with the aim to elect those candidates into office. The first company is Norgate LLC which made donations of $500,000 (£370,000) to the Senate Leadership Fund in 2020. The fund was aimed at supporting Republican candidate Mitch McConnell.Norgate LLC is linked to Kotick by the addresses it is registered under in California.

Activision Blizzard, after the company tried to argue against it.On February 15, judge Timothy Patrick Dillon ruled that temporary workers could be included in the Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.The company had previously tried to have the suit dismissed – or its scope narrowed down – by saying that California had wrongly included this group of employees.“The Court finds that [Department of Fair Employment and Housing] did not expand the scope of this lawsuit by amending the complaint to add the phrase “contingent and temporary workers,” reads a court document shared by reporter Stephen Totilo.Activision scandal news: Yesterday, in a tentative ruling, a judge in California overruled Activision's argument that the state wrongly added temp workers to its big discrimination suit against the company.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced the release date for World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ next content update.The update, titled The Eternity’s End, will release on February 22 and will come out shortly after World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands Season 2 ends. With the season’s closing, it will no longer be possible to earn PvP seasonal rewards, titles, or Season 2 rankings, as revealed in a post by Blizzard.Blizzard recently revealed the details of a new raid coming with The Eternity’s End update: Sepulcher of the First Ones. The post provided a brief description of the new World Of Warcraft raid:“The Jailer has breached the Sepulcher, the mysterious heart of the Shadowlands.

Activision Blizzard has confirmed that a sequel to Modern Warfare will be this year’s Call Of Duty. A new Warzone is also coming.The news was leaked earlier in the week via well-known leaker, Tom Henderson, on Twitter.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has said that staff at Activision Blizzard will be “under scrutiny” following its acquisition of the publisher.Last month, Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in a deal worth around £50billion, with the US Federal Trade Commission currently conducting an antitrust investigation.The purchase comes after Activision was hit by a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and another by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission following multiple allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and workplace misconduct.In between that, its own staff also filed a complaint too, alleging that the company used intimidation and “coercive tactics” to stifle staff trying to improve working conditions.It’s also been alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of sexual misconduct claims within the company since 2018 but did not inform Activision’s board of directors. A report by the Wall Street Journal also suggested that Kotick played a first-hand part in the culture that has embroiled Activision in sexual harassment lawsuits and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission.Speaking CNBC (via VGC) about the accusations, Smith said: “We’re looking to the leadership team at Activision Blizzard today to make culture and workplace safety a top priority every single day, until the day when this deal hopefully closes.

Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard is causing concern for smaller game developersLast month it was announced that Microsoft was acquiring Activision Blizzard for around £50billion, followed by news at the end of January that Sony would buy Bungie for £2.6billion.Now multiple indie developers have spoken to the BBC about their concerns with the Microsoft acquisition, and what it could mean for them.Director at Kitfox Games Tanya Short – the developer of Boyfriend Dungeon – said: “This Activision acquisition strikes fear in us because it makes it so much more obvious – maybe they could dominate the rest of the year and then what do we do?”“Conceivably, indie games outside of these services might lose engagement as subscribers focus most of their attention on games they can access for free within the service,” adds Yura Zhdanovich, founder and director at Sad Cat Studios.The Federal Trade Commission is set to investigate the deal and whether or not it would harm the competition. FTC Chair Lina Khan is an advocate for a more assertive approach when handling deals.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS has given a pilot green light to Cal Fire, a drama from SEAL Team star Max Thieriot, Grey’s Anatomy alums Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, Jerry Bruckheimer Television and CBS Studios where the company is based. This is CBS’ second in-cycle drama pilot this season, joining a mother-and-son legal drama from Scott Prendergast and Dr. Phil McGraw.

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.

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.

A paedophile and rapist ex-DJ died in Strangeways prison following a battle with cancer, an inquest has heard.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has tested positive for COVID-19.

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.

William Earl Reservoir has acquired the publishing and recorded music catalog of Country singer and songwriter Travis Tritt. Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal encompasses all of Tritt’s work up to and including the 2021 album “Set In Stone.”Tritt’s sales tally is impressive, with seven albums certified platinum (signifying one million units sold) and more than 30 million sold over his career, which launched in 1989.

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.