‘Warcraft’ mobile content announced by Blizzard

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeSAG Awards executive producer Kathy Connell, who helped launch the awards show 28 years ago and has been with the show ever since, has confirmed that this weekend’s ceremony will be her last.“I am retiring,” she tells Variety. “It’s been 28 wonderful years. Well, last year was sort of interesting, but 27 wonderful years.

President Joe Biden is making an announcement about the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

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.

Kanye West is clearly having a hard time right now, but we can imagine how Kim Kardashian is probably having a harder time!

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.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian director Roberta Torre, known for campy Mafia musical “Tano to Die For” and other anarchic pics, is making “Le Favolose,” about a group of transgender women who reunite after 20 years to commemorate a dead friend and do right by her after her identity has been violated.“Le Favolose,” which translates as “The Fabulous Ones,” is being produced by Donatella Palermo, who is at the Berlinale with auteur Paolo Taviani’s competition entry “Leonora Addio.”Palermo, who has a longstanding rapport with Torre, is the Italian producer behind two Berlin Golden Bear winners: the Taviani brothers’ “Caesar Must Die” and Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea.” “When a person decides to face the [gender] transition from man to woman it can be a very painful process in several different ways: social, physical, etc.,” said Palermo, who notes that “when a trans dies, most of the time their body is returned to their families.” Torre’s new pic is based on a real-life story of Antonia, one of the “Fabulous Ones,” who is buried by her family dressed as a man under her original name, Giampaolo, amid the indifference of most.

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.

An Edinburgh woman says she is "fed up and miserable" after an accident in a Currys store destroyed her mobility scooter and left her housebound.

Queen Elizabeth has made a big announcement about Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

As the cost of living increases in 2022 with the most recent announcement that gas prices will rise by as much as 50 per cent, households will also likely see a rise in their phone and internet bills this year.

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.

Dave Foley is the newest star of Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile ads.

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.