Important to MMO players primarily for its relationship to Blizzard aka Blizzard Entertainment.
activision
Blizzard’s Proletariat ends bid to unionize after unionbusting tactics succeed
Activision-Blizzard's latest efforts to head off worker unions were apparently successful: Union group Communication Workers of America has ended its bid to launch a...
WoW Classic just lost its team lead Brian Birmingham over Blizzard’s toxic evaluation system
Blizzard has apparently opted to pick yet another pointless fight that makes it look absolutely terrible, this time with well-liked World of Warcraft Classic...
Diablo Immortal maps out new class, narrative quests, fishing, and new competitive mode for 2023
If you're invested (hopefully not too monetarily) in Diablo Immortal enough that you're looking forward to more content to the mobile ARPG, then you'll...
Class action law firm probes Diablo Immortal over false advertising claims
This is a story about a gem in Diablo Immortal known as the Blessing of the Worthy, an item that could only be found...
Halo Infinite and Elder Scrolls Online teams were hit by Microsoft’s 10,000-person layoff
Yesterday's Microsoft layoffs were just as bad as anticipated - 10,000 jobs slashed in one day - and it gets worse for gamers, as...
NetEase slams Blizzard China’s last-minute WoW proposal as ‘brash, unseemly and commercially illogical’
Earlier this week, Blizzard China took to social media to suggest to Chinese World of Warcraft players that NetEase is to blame for the...
Microsoft buyout faces pushback from the UK as Google and Nvidia express concerns about the deal to the FTC
The billion-dollar buyout of Activision-Blizzard from Microsoft was likely never going to be a smooth transaction, but we suspect all parties involved weren't expecting...
Blizzard claims NetEase rejected a license extension to keep Chinese games (including WoW) up another six months
When Blizzard and NetEase announced the dissolution of their long-running publishing partnership in China - and the sunset of almost all of Blizzard's games...
Diablo Immortal launches a Lunar New Year event and adds a slew of new legendary items
The latest patch for Diablo Immortal is something of a tale of two foci. On the one hand, the update is marking the Lunar...
NetEase lays off staffers who were working on Blizzard games in China
Lest we forget, the falling out between NetEase and Blizzard has a toll greater than either company's bottom line; it also saw a human...
Workers at Blizzard-owned Proletariat say management refused its union and is ‘forcing’ them to go through NLRB voting
At the tail end of December, we reported that Blizzard-owned studio Proletariat was forming a union known as the Proletariat Workers Alliance. The announcement...
Microsoft buys a fluffy ad that talks up CWA unions and tries to smooth things over with the FTC
You could assume that Microsoft's PR department is working extra hard after the company raged in legalese at the Federal Trade Commission when you...
WoW Dragonflight PTR datamining pinpoints account-saving features for Chinese players
Last month we reported on potential next steps for Chinese World of Warcraft players who were being left in the lurch as a result...
Microsoft walks back constitutional rights complaints in re-filed response to FTC antitrust lawsuit
Microsoft caused plenty of eye rolling and head shaking when it filed its response to the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit, claiming among other...
Massively Overthinking: Hopes and fears for MMOs in 2023
As 2022 drew to a close, we spent our Massively Overthinking roundtables discussing our predictions for 2023 as well as our goals. Now, we're...
FTC and Microsoft confirm a lack of ‘substantive’ settlement talks as UK regulatory body extends its investigation
There have been a couple of small but no less important steps in the continuing story of Microsoft's buyout of Activision-Blizzard. We begin with...
Overwatch 2’s limited-time Battle for Olympus game mode brings a clash of the gods in FFA deathmatch
The characters of Overwatch 2 are already regular humans with some god-like power and strength, but the Battle for Olympus game mode arriving on...
Microsoft’s ZeniMax QA just formed the largest games industry union in the country
Just before the holiday break, workers at Microsoft's ZeniMax Media - including Elder Scrolls Online's ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda itself - announced their...
FTC lawsuit against Microsoft enters pre-trial hearings today while the merger is approved in Chile
The antitrust lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission against Microsoft is taking its first plodding steps forward. A judge confirmed last week that...
Documents outline a multi-million dollar US Army recruitment campaign using influencers and Call of Duty
Apparently, the United States Army is eager to find any number of "creative" ways to get younger people to enlist. Documents obtained by Vice...
