Activision Blizzard: Last News

Activision Blizzard King has reported a loss of 11million monthly active users (MAUs) since March of this year.These player loss numbers come from the publisher’s quarterly financial results (published on August 1), with the Activision and King branches of the company seeing the biggest losses in monthly users.March of this year saw 372million players, whilst June saw 361million. Within the company, Activision’s monthly playerbase dropped from 100 to 94million, while Blizzard‘s went up from 22 to 27million and King fell from 250 to 240million.This decline follows an overall decline in average player counts over the last 12 months.

Call Of Duty: Warzone have been removed by Activision Blizzard after an artist alleged that the skin was plagiarising their work.Since the accusation, Activision Blizzard has pulled images of the dog skin from its website (via Eurogamer).Artist Sail Lin, who uploaded an image of a similar looking human-dog hybrid to ArtStation in 2019, took to Twitter on July 29 to claim that the skin was plagiarised. “Even though I am also a COD player, I am very disappointed to see my work being plagiarised by a big company like Activision in this way,” they wrote.“I have reached out to Activision for an explanation and/or compensation, and hopefully the situation will be settled soon.”According to Sail Lin they’ve now been contacted by Activision, as they wrote: “Activision has contacted me, and I hope to have a result as soon as possible.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beta next week as part of the franchise’s Call Of Duty League.Viewers of the Call Of Duty League Championship Weekend in early August will be in with a chance of winning free beta codes. Those that tune into the Sunday event (August 7) on the competition’s YouTube channel will be eligible to receive a free code as a drop.There’s still not confirmed window for the beta, but it’s likely to be in September, before the full Modern Warfare 2 release in October.

Activision Blizzard, with the company’s Albany branch (formerly Vicarious Visions) making the bid.This makes the Albany QA branch the second potential union at the company, after the same department at Raven Software won its union election bid back in May. Called Game Workers Alliance (GWA) Albany, the new union issued a statement last night (July 19) via Twitter:“QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries.

World Of Warcraft exploit bug which buffed warlock players’ Felguard minion is being used in high-end Mythic+ runs.Last week, it was reported that a player accidentally discovered a bug in Shadowlands‘ replayable, roguelike instance Torghast. The bug made it so when a warlock’s summonable Felguard minion received buffs within the instance, it still retained them outside once completed.

World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight will be removing gendered language from its character creation menu, according to the newly released alpha.The Dragonflight alpha went live yesterday (July 15) and gave players the first glimpse at what to expect from the new expansion. This included the revamped character creation screen which will now exclude the use of gender-specific terminology.In the existing game, when creating a character players are presented with either ‘male’ or ‘female’.

Microsoft’s record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The report comes from business news publication CNBC, which notes that this is one of the first probes of the acquisition by a major antitrust enforcer. It’s stated the investigation will “consider whether the deal could harm competition and lead to worse outcomes for consumers – for example, through higher prices, lower quality, or reduced choice.”The Competition And Markets Authority has a September 1 deadline set for its initial decision, with a consultation lasting until July 20, 2022 while it takes feedback from third parties.The deal was announced back in January of this year for £58billion ($69billion), and is currently by far the most expensive acquisition in industry history.

Overwatch 2 has started with a bunch of hero changes, but those that play the healer Mercy are feeling particularly hard done by.After Blizzard announced some hero changes alongside the arrival of the new beta, players have voiced their discontent at the adjustments made to flying healer Mercy.Her main ability, Guardian Angel, previously allowed Mercy to fly an extended distance, over 30 metres, to a nearby hero for support purposes, and players could be launched upwards for a big vertical boost if they cancelled this using the crouch feature. This can no longer be used by players, but will automatically launch you upwards if you reach the end of Guardian Angel.Angelic Descent, another of her abilities, has also been altered so that holding down a move input will slow down her ascent speed, meaning that “This means you can dampen vertical knockbacks (such as Junkrat’s Concussive Mine) but also reduce the amount of height that the GA vert boost gives you,” explained the developer.With these alterations, fans have taken to social media to discuss the changes with the predominant activity taking place on the Mercy Mains subreddit.

Shareholders of video game giant Activision Blizzard have voted in favor of a plan for an annual report on the company’s efforts to curb workplace abuse and harassment.

World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight expansion will be released later this year, with pre-orders now live.The expansion was first confirmed back in April and today (June 22) Activision Blizzard has announced three digital versions of Dragonflight (Base, Heroic, and Epic, costing £40, £55, and £75 respectively) alongside a £130 physical release.Each digital release comes with its own perks, while the physical edition includes a hardcover art book and selection of pins. It’s also confirmed that the expansion will launch “on or before December 31, 2022”."World of Warcraft: Dragonflight will be available on or before December 31, 2022." pic.twitter.com/VY9keH5BZz— GG WoW (@GGWoW) June 21, 2022Dragonflight will add dragonriding to the MMO, which is an “all-new skill-based method of aerial movement that allows players to take to the skies on the back of their personal Dragon Isles Drake.

Raven Software has announced that players will no longer be able to edit their loadouts in Call Of Duty: Warzone under certain circumstances. The developer made the announcement on Twitter yesterday (June 20), where it told player’s that they will no longer be able to change their loadouts when matchmaking or in a party.“Due to an unforeseen situation, we’ve disabled the ability to edit loadouts when joining to or matchmaking with another player’s party,” wrote Raven Software.❗️ Due to an unforeseen situation, we've disabled the ability to edit Loadouts when joining to or matchmaking with another Player's party.— Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) June 20, 2022The ability to edit loadouts in pre-game lobbies was a highly requested feature for some time, with it being introduced to Warzone at the start of Season 4 last year.This was removed at the time as Raven Software quickly realised that players could use it to get infinite Dead Silence – a field upgrade that completely silences a players movement and running – during matches.Last week the Mercenaries Of Fortune roadmap for Warzone and Vanguard was also revealed, which you can check out in full here.

Call Of Duty Ricochet Anti-Cheat has updated how it works, with cheaters now having their guns (and fists) taken from them.In a blog post from earlier this week (June 16), the Ricochet team laid out the progress in the system, with the “ebb and flow” of cheaters still to be expected in each of the games (via Eurogamer).“Today we’re sharing another mitigation technique from our toolbox: Disarm.” said the Anti-Cheat team. “Like the name implies, when cheaters are detected, we simply take their weapons away from them (including their fists).“We don’t expect many clips of this to find their way online, but we have seen it in action and the reactions from cheaters are always priceless.”The blog post also endeavours to answer community questions around cheating, as well as the news that Ricochet will be active in both Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2 the day each game releases.“Will you encounter cheaters? Sadly, perhaps yes, but we are working endlessly to be faster and better to get them out of the game (by force or by annoyance) and let you focus on fun,” adds the post.Warzone and Vanguard’s upcoming fourth season is also set to launch on June 22, with the roadmap highlighting what players can expect when it releases.

Diablo Immortal that the game neglects to ever tell you about.Diablo Immortal officially launched on June 2, and the consensus seems to be that while the game can be engaging and fun, the built-in paid elements are too egregious to ignore.This has caused the interesting dichotomy of the game being Blizzard’s biggest ever launch while simultaneously holding its lowest ever rating on Metacritic. In fact, Diablo Immortal now holds the dubious honour of having the lowest Metacritic user score ever.The concerns of players are chiefly with the microtransaction elements of the game, and rightfully so.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorGame giant Activision Blizzard said Friday it will commence talks with Communications Workers of America union representatives to negotiate a contract on behalf of 27 quality-assurance employees at Raven Software.On May 23, the QA team at Wisconsin-based development studio Raven Software successfully formed a CWA-affiliated union called the Game Workers Alliance. The union said at the time, “We look forward to working with management to positively shape our working conditions and the future of Activision Blizzard through a strong union contract.”On Friday, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in a memo to U.S.

Diablo Immortal has become Blizzard Entertainment‘s worst-reviewed game on Metacritic with a user score of 0.5 out of ten.According to the current user reviews on Metacritic of the free-to-play game, it has the label of “overwhelming dislike” and has over 3,120 negative reviews. This is based on 3,265 total user reviews as of writing (via, VGC).Diablo Immortal isn’t the only Blizzard game with a low user rating.

Activision Blizzard has released a “launch roadmap” for Diablo: Immortal in order to ensure a smooth launch for players.The mobile version will begin to appear on the Apple App Store and Play Store on the morning of June 1 ahead of the official launch on June 2. According to Blizzard, this is due to the “nature of how mobile games launch” and to ensure a “smooth full launch”.The MMORPG will be launching at 6pm on June 2 in the United Kingdom.

Blizzard that Diablo Immortal will not be released in the Netherlands or Belgium – two countries with strict rules about loot boxes.According to Tweakers, the communication manager of Activision Blizzard Benelux has confirmed that Diablo Immortal will be unavailable due to “the current operating conditions in these countries.”The game will not be available in these countries through the app stores, nor will it be available for PC through Battle.net.Activision Blizzard Benelux declined to expand on which operating conditions it was referring to specifically but both Netherlands and Belgium have made it difficult for developers to include loot boxes in games.Belgium banned loot boxes completely in 2018 following uproar around their presence in Star Wars Battlefront 2, while in 2020 a Netherlands court ruled that the FIFA Ultimate Team loot boxes were a form of gambling and EA was fined £8.8million, though that decision was overturned earlier this year.A support ticket from what looks like Blizzard’s team of gamemasters seems to confirm the news as well.“Unfortunately players in the Netherlands and Belgium will not be able to install Diablo Immortal due to the countries’ gambling restrictions. The lootboxes in the game are against the law in your country,” reads the reply.

Blizzard over the sale of Hearthstone card packs to minors.According to Polygon, lawyers filed a complaint in the Superior Court Of Orange County on behalf of Nathan Harris’ daughter and other minors who have bought Hearthstone’s randomised card packs earlier this week. Harris has claimed Hearthstone tricks players into non-refundable purchases without knowing the odds of rare cards.Harris’ suit alleges that his daughter used his credit and debit cards to spend over £240 ($300) on card packs between 2019 and 2021 and “almost never received any valuable cards”The suit argues that Blizzard’s lack of refund policy and parental controls is in breach of “disaffirmation law”, a ruling through the California Family Code that allows a contract to be broken if it’s undertaken by a minor.However, Blizzard has since filed its own complaint, arguing that the company “does not know, and would have no way of accurately knowing, which Hearthstone in-game transactions were initiated by minors using parental credit or debit cards, as (Harris’ daughter) claims to have done.

Activision Blizzard King have created a tool to quantify how diverse game characters are based on several attributes, in hopes of better representing women and minority groups in its games.As reported by Fanbyte, the tool breaks down character attributes and rates them on how diverse they are.In a blog post, Eric Alt explains that King’s intention is to “inspire game teams…throughout the Activision Blizzard King network, to think outside the box and challenge preconceived notions around how characters should look and act.”The end result, King hopes, is for characters to “better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”The tool uses a set of character traits, including culture, race, age, cognitive ability, physical ability, body type, facial features/beauty, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, to determine how diverse the character is.Once it establishes a baseline for typical character traits, which is set by the creative team working in consultation with diversity and inclusion experts, the tool can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity.The tool was tested by development teams working on Call of Duty: Vanguard and also the developers at Blizzard working on Overwatch 2.The plan is to release the tool internally across Activision Blizzard King from the summer and into Q3 of this financial year, with the ultimate aim of making it widely available to use across the industry. In other news, Square Enix has outlined plans to establish new studios, after recently revealing it will sell off three of its western developers.The announcement was made during the publisher’s quarterly financial briefing.

Activision has acknowledged that the studio’s “own execution” caused a disappointing reception to Call Of Duty: Vanguard, and admitted the title “didn’t deliver as much innovation” as it would have liked.Shortly after Vanguard launched, it was reported that launch sales were down 40 per cent compared to the last Call Of Duty title, Black Ops Cold War.In Activision’s 2021 annual report, the company has now reflected on what it thinks went wrong for Vanguard.“[Vanguard] didn’t meet our expectations, we believe primarily due to our own execution,” said Activision.

Raven Software quality assurance (QA) staff at Activision Blizzard are eligible for a union election.As reported by The Washington Post, a decision on Friday (April 22) from the NLRB means the Game Workers Alliance (GWA) union can now vote on its formation.This follows Activision Blizzard’s decision to not recognise the union, and Microsoft’s – who recently acquired Activision Blizzard – choice to honour whatever the outcome, meaning it shouldn’t stand in the way of the GWA when the acquisition goes through next year.We are so proud to announce that the NLRB ruled that our unit is eligible for election! Thank you to everyone supporting our campaign since our initial strike up until this very moment! Time for democracy!