Important to MMO players primarily for its relationship to Blizzard aka Blizzard Entertainment.
activision
Activision gets dinged for using gen AI in Black Ops 6
Whether it's here to stay or a passing game development fad, generative AI is proving to be a highly controversial element in the field...
The Daily Grind: What would you say is the most exciting game studio made up of ex-Blizzard devs?
Sometimes it feels like not a month goes by without us reporting that former Blizzard developers and execs started up a new game studio...
MMO Business Roundup: ESA’s tariff statement, the LA wildfires, and EA’s Battlefield Labs
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business.
LA wildfires: If you followed the LA wildfires closely last month,...
World of Warcraft has likely made millions from its $90 pay-to-win dino mount
Last October, World of Warcraft elected to celebrate its 20th anniversary by selling a $90 mount with mail and auction house features baked in....
Vague Patch Notes: Bad MMOs happen – but not because nobody cares
When I first started working at Massively-that-was, I got a bit of a wake-up call pretty early on when I made a joke about...
Microsoft dispels World of Warcraft Game Pass rumors sparked by its own marketing email snafu
When Microsoft spent billions to buy out Activision-Blizzard (and then carved that cost out of the hide of its workforce), many gamers were salivating...
Ubisoft is laying off another 185 game devs in Europe
The bad news for Ubisoft just keeps rolling this week as the company has admitted it's laying off another 185 people and closing down...
Blizzard donated one million dollars to a relief charity supporting California wildfire victims
The response to the devastating Los Angeles wildfires this past month has been particularly strong from the gaming industry, owing to the fact that...
Activision releases charitable cosmetic bundles in Call of Duty games to benefit LA fire relief
The fires that are continuing to threaten Los Angeles are still a focal point for game developers in the California area, as Activision has...
Lawful Neutral: All the big MMO-related law stories from 2024, from Palworld to Blizzard
2024 was another quiet year on the gaming legal front. I think various AI dramas and associated legislative hand-wringing sucked all the air out...
Multiple game studios and even the Fallout TV show are impacted by the devastating California wildfires
If you're paying any attention to the current US news, you know that large parts of dense Los Angeles, California, are under siege by...
The Daily Grind: Which game or studio made the biggest contribution to killing the MMORPG genre in 2024?
So here's another fun annual Daily Grind that always gets people good and angry. And believe it or not, I'm not going to nominate...
Blizzard’s 2024 infographic is light on useful info, but gamers did play 8.34B hours in Blizz games this year
Blizzard president Johanna Faries penned a dev blog to the Blizzard community last night, with kind words for players and developers alongside one of...
Working As Intended: The hits and misses of our 2024 MMO predictions
Later this week, we're going to be offering up our traditional predictions for the MMO genre in 2025, but before we do that, we...
Happy holidays: 461 Elder Scrolls Online studio developers just unionized
Bethsoft has one union, yes. What about *second* union? In fact, this is more like third union, and we're not sorry to see it.
Readers...
MMO Business Roundup: Lockboxes, SAG-AFTRA, child safety, and another ABK union rally
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news! It's a bit of good news and bad news this time around, so...
SAG-AFTRA union agrees to resume negotiations with game companies, but strikes and picketing continue
Video game voice over artists who are members of the SAG-AFTRA union have been on strike against game companies since July as game studios...
Massively OP Podcast Episode 487: Give me Throne and Liberty
Justin and Bree discuss Throne & Liberty's launch, the new book on Blizzard, ArcheAge 2's morph into ArcheAge Chronicles, and New World Aeternum's impending release, with adventures in LOTRO, WoW, and Guild Wars 2, plus a mailbag topic on MMO history and games preservation.
Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred live action trailer features Camila Cabello covering The Who
Remember the excerpt from Jason Schreier's new book on Blizzard that mentions the Activision-installed executives who allegedly questioned the wisdom of keeping around "nondevelopment...
Microsoft’s latest game division layoffs affect nearly 400 Activision-Blizzard employees
The second week of September brought more bad news for game workers in Microsoft, as the company confirmed another 650 layoffs were coming that...
