Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business news.
Discord: Investors love dumping money into Discord, and they’re continuing the trend, as the chat company gamers know best raised another $500M in its latest funding round. That apparently puts the company at a value of $15B, significantly more than the reported $10B Microsoft wanted to pay during negotiations earlier this year.
Bungie: Remember years ago when former Destiny composer Martin O’Donnell sued Bungie over Bungie’s attempt to illegally strip O’Donnell of his shares in the company and deny him his rights as a shareholder when firing him from the studio? O’Donnell won, and then resurfaced in our news years later with plenty to say about the relationship between Bungie and Activision-Blizzard. Now he’s back in the headlines thanks to a contempt of court ruling; apparently, the terms of the original lawsuit forbade him from sharing and performing music and materials relating to the game, but in 2019, O’Donnell did just that, leading to the finding – and an order that he pay Bungie “reasonable costs” for the suit. Bungie’s demanded $100,000. We’ll see how that goes.
Harassment: The annual harassment in gaming report from the Anti-Defamation League and Newzoo was published this week, and it appears to show yet another spike in harassment reports against women and BIPOC, particularly Black and Asian gamers. “For the third consecutive year, ADL’s survey found that harassment experienced by adult gamers increased and remains at alarmingly high levels, while the new research on the experience of teens also raises significant concerns,” the ADL writes. (via GIbiz)
