California sues Activision Blizzard over alleged harassment

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by metagamer, Jul 22, 2021.

  1. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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  2. Valken

    Valken Ancient Guru

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    That is some bigtime fail for a state to sue a company for on going harassment. They must have a near solid case to even try it. Sad...
     
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  3. Neo Cyrus

    Neo Cyrus Ancient Guru

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    One of the most woke companies out there turns out to be a bunch of sick pervs... oh gee, what a surprise /s.

    As a rule of thumb, the more woke someone or a company is, the more of a sick frack they are.
     
  4. Agonist

    Agonist Ancient Guru

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    Disney is the number one woke company right now too.
     

  5. BlindBison

    BlindBison Ancient Guru

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    Regardless of what's going on lawsuit-wise, it's disappointing to me how Blizzard doesn't seem to make great games like they used to.

    WoW at this point has just turned into a FOMO title that tries to farm money out of you like there's no tomorrow (why are basic functionalities locked behind a cash shop in a game where you have to buy the expacs and pay a sub fee? Yuck). Don't even get me started on the lore/story these days, you need people that are actual fans that care about internal consistency working on these things.

    Diablo 3 was a disappointment -- from a story/lore/atmosphere perspective it's awful compared to D1 and D2 flat out (and I didn't play either of those games until after I'd played 3, I don't think it's nostalgia talking in my case). Beyond that on both my current desktop and prior laptop though performance is typically high, for some reason I get a lot of noticeable asset streaming stutters. I did not observe this issue on console versions of the title. It's clear the focus for them was on the loot grind and keeping players "engaged" forever. Obviously their whole "real money item shop" thing didn't pan out in D3 aside from all that.

    Hearthstone has shifted so hard into money raking that a game I enjoyed in its early days has gone full blown pay to win. The problem that TCGs have always had is that they place the incentive on the devs to power creep content to bolster short term sales. After awhile of this any semblance of balance is thrown out the window and cards that were once genuinely good become useless (remember Chillwind Yeti anyone?). Whoever pays more in the short term so that they can build the latest and greatest meta deck wins, it's a farce. Even if you disagree with me on all of that, the game has almost never added features that they couldn't monetize. One of the best things about physical TCGs is playing them with your friends, in Uni we'd always play these 3 or 4 player games even as the rulesets are quite easy to tweak to that end. HS could've added custom games for the users and they promised a tournament mode for a long time that never came. It took them ages and ages just to add more deck slots to the game, it's a joke. Basically they're so focused on "monetization" at every turn that they don't seem to care about making the game better.

    Overwatch was fun when it came out, but I'd argue the game's not in a great state balance-wise at the moment. I'm mostly basing that off of community sourced stat tracking sites which follow pick and win rates for various heroes across competitive tiers for example. OW has no ban phase for ... some reason. Beyond this and even if you like the current state of the game balance-wise, the content release cycle just hasn't been good for the title -- they tried for like a year then once the various holiday event modes were established they haven't done crap but release skins. I'm not a Fortnite guy myself, but by golly that's how you support a live service game. Here's hoping OW2 is actually good, but Jeff Kaplan leaving has me nervous.

    HotS I can't really say since I don't really play MOBAs personally much, but killing the pro scene and largely pulling development from it seemed to nuke the game from orbit. I knew some hardcore folk from work who loved HotS, but they all quit and moved to other MOBAs once that happened.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2021
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  6. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    My favorite game company when i started gaming with some of the best games ever made. Its really shame seeing them like this. Greedy, lazzy, woke. I blame the activision.
     
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  7. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Buy the dip. :D
     
  8. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Blizzard has been going downhill since the merger with Activision.

    Exactly what part of WoW is trying to farm money out of people? Last I checked, it was simply a monthly subscription fee and the cost of expansions. Nothing else in the game actually costs money that I'm aware of.
     
  9. BlindBison

    BlindBison Ancient Guru

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    Tons of features that definitely should be included with your sub fee are relegated to the cash shop. This isn't a F2P MMO, paying customers should get some reasonable amount of these sorts of services built in given what you're already paying. Paying for each Xpac + the monthly sub is not cheap, certainly not relevant to most other games.

    You have to pay for a character transfer, you have to pay for a name change, you have to pay to alter certain aspects of char appearance, etc. They know people want and use these types of services so they charge you for them -- this would be fine if they gave you, say, 1x use each per time increment as part of your sub, but they don't because they know people will pay.

    Notice how on BattleNet they do the whole "charge for name change" nonesense too when everyone knows it's just a query they run on their backend, no effort at all yet they charge for a service like that. Meanwhile other services which are actually reasonable do not like Steam. That's just an example of what's a broader anti-consumer problem. I expect those types of cash shops for quality of life stuff in F2P titles, not in WoW as they've been implemented.

    The other problem I perceive with WoW beyond business model choices is that they've shifted their model over time to be more like Destiny 2/Pokemon GO (etc) where they're doing more FOMO style expac structure and I hate that personally. Then there's what's happened in overarching story -- if you don't care about those types of things, good for you, to each their own.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
  10. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Blizzard is only around still cause of WoW imo, they have not made game that worth damn in long time, no Diablo is not one them imo either. Activision is another story or really just 1 story which is CoD
     

  11. Zooke

    Zooke Master Guru

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    No-one condones criminal behaviour, but a lot of the article seems sensationalist.
    Also, when a report states "Its top leadership is also exclusively male and white.", you know that there is some PC thuggery going on here.
    I guess it's my age, but once those kind of statements are used to bolster other claims, I start to question things.
     
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  12. BlindBison

    BlindBison Ancient Guru

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    I hear you mate, well put.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
  13. MonstroMart

    MonstroMart Maha Guru

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    I would agree with you if it was allegations by couple of people but that's literally California state taking them to court after a 2 years investigation. That's doesn't look like a she says, he says case. A 2 years investigation is serious. Also the reaction of Activision doesn't look good at all. They react like someone who is guilty. Instead of being collaborative they are accusing the DFEH of pretty much everything they can imagine. They react in a very aggressive manner and usually it's not a good sign. Also it's *** Activision we are talking about quite possibly the most exploitative gaming company out there. EA looks like bunch of milk drinkers in front of Actvision.
     
  14. Zooke

    Zooke Master Guru

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    I'm not standing up for anyone here, I was merely pointing out that when those kind of seemingly trendy statements are used for the sole purpose of influencing me in a case that cites harrassment and discrimination based on gender, the alarm bells start going off in my head.
    None of the allegations I read in that article had anything to do with race, hence my failure to see any relevance to whether the males are white, black or green with blue stripes.
     
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  15. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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  16. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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    It doesn't take a genius to work out what has been going on. Blizzard have been full Chad mode and it's not on. Heads will fall, J. Allen Brack already resigned. Many more will follow.

    Blizzard have completely lost touch with their player base some 10 years ago. It clearly shows when you look at the state of every WoW expansion since WotLK. D3 was a mess in many people's eyes, I'm not going to lie, it's still one of my most played games to this day. I have a soft spot for Diablo that started with Diablo demo I found on a PC mag CD back in the late 90s.

    Yet it's clear that D3 should have been better. Cataclysm was a meh expansion, MoP was mostly ok, with some grindy bits that some loved, but also some aesthetics that many hated.

    WoD was a disaster and was a red flag for things to come. Legion followed and other than TBC and WotLK, it was easily the best expansion Blizzard ever stumbled upon.

    BFA and Shadowlands have been dreadful. So, out of the 6 expansions that followed WotLK, only one can truly be considered as a good expansion, that was Legion. Throw in D3 which infuriated many people... I still play it and this season will be my last season ever, for obvious reasons.

    Throw in the W3 remaster, I never touched it as I never really rated W3, I thought W2 was a far superior game. Throw in the Diablo Immortal announcement. Shambles.

    I'll give Blizzard one thing though. Regardless of how much they've f*cked WoW over the years, the announcement of D4 and the way they're communicating with the player base is promising. It seems that at least the Diablo division of Blizzard is onto some great things over the last couple of years. Also, D2R is coming next month. D2R is the reason why D3 Season 24 will be my last one in D3, ever.
     
  17. Noisiv

    Noisiv Ancient Guru

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    Came back during Vanila relaunch. Sad thing is - you can revert to older game version, but you can't dial back time. So I played some, and then Blizzard charged me twice for a monthly subscription while giving me one month gameplay. I couldn't believe my eyes: I got robbed by one of the biggest gaming company.
    Sent them WTH email along with invoices. They said I should check with my bank. I said bye.
     
  18. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    What was finally released as D3, wasn't what D3 was supposed to be. Activision scrapped the original D3 claiming that it "didn't feel like a Diablo game".... There were a few screenshots from the original D3 posted online a few years ago, but I don't know if you can still find them. As much as I've enjoyed playing D3, I would have preferred it's original vision to have been released.

    As for WoW, Cata was pretty....meh.... I didn't play a whole lot during Cata due to the constant grinding or quests that did absolutely nothing to progress the story line. It was the same thing again in MoP. I took a lot of time off due to the constant, pointless daily quest grind that did nothing to progress the story line. WoD, I have a few hours in. Adding RTS elements into WoW just killed any enjoyment I could have potentially gotten from playing. I haven't touched the game in 6.5yrs now. Every time I consider giving it another go, Blizzard reminds me how stupid that would be. I tried to buy the current expansion....but Blizzard was nice enough to inform me that I'm now 4 expansions behind and then demanded that I buy the other 3 expansions before I can buy the current..... I already pre-ordered D2:R, and nearly pursued a refund for that over the BS of having to spend an excessive amount of money to get caught up on WoW expansions. Just shows how greedy Blizzard has become.

    As for D4.... I don't expect it for at least another 1-2 years. It's great that they're releasing quarterly updates on game development, but at this point, that should be nearly a requirement of any game dev after they've publicly announced that a game is in development. I'm expecting Blizzard to try to make D4 their new cash cow since WoW subs have dropped off so much. If they add anything to D4 that requires payment beyond the cost of purchasing the game, I'm not going to waste my time or money.
     
  19. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    I was still pondering to spend money on the Diablo 1 at GOG sales...
    No, thanks after reading all news.
    Sometimes, borrowing games from people with an eye patch and a wooden leg is not so controversial, or not as Blizzard today.
     
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  20. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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    I've seen those early D3 screenshots. The art style of D3 changed to it's current look way before Activision had anything to do with Blizzard.

    Regarding WoW expansions, if you buy SL now, you get all the previous expansion for free, baked into SL. Not that I would recommend anyone buying SL, it's a terrible expansion that is seeing many people leaving the game. Not that it's worse than BfA was but it's just been too long now since Blizzard completely lost touch with what the WoW player base wants.

    About D4, there will be micro transactions. That much is a guarantee. I have no issues with it, as long as they're cosmetic only. You can't expect a team of people working on a project after release, adding new content and the project not bringing in any money. That's business suicide.

    D2R is something I'm incredibly buzzed about. Pre-ordered and holiday booked. I'll be playing the hell out of that game until D4 comes out.
     

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