Tag: New world

Blizzard’ Entertainment CLO resigns.
Claire Hart the Chief Legal Officer of Activision Blizzard’s Entertainment announced her resignation this week posting on her LinkedIn saying “After more than three years at Blizzard Entertainment, I have decided to move on to my next adventure. The past three years have been full of unexpected twists and turns, but I feel honored to have worked with and met so many great people at Blizzard and across the Activision Blizzard businesses.” Claire Hart doesn’t make any comment about whether her resignation is anything to do with the very public and ongoing harassment lawsuit with Activision Blizzard.
An update on that lawsuit the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly launched a wide–reaching investigation into Activision Blizzard, they will be looking into how the publisher dealt with the multiple allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, and toxic behaviour. California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed this lawsuit back in July. They also subpoenaed several of Blizzard’s higher executives including the CEO Bobby Kotick. It would appear that the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) have started asking Blizzard to hand over various documents. These include personal files of those higher ups. A spokes person from Activision confirmed that there is indeed an ongoing investigation and that the company is cooperating with the SEC.

Gaming deals!
If you are looking for awesome deals on games now is the time with sales
rolling out before the Christmas period. Amazon have a bunch of good prices for PS4/PS5 such as;

• Deathloop – now $79 (down from $99.95)
• Death Stranding: Director’s Cut – $69 (down for $79.95)
• F1 2021 – now $56 (down from $99.95)
• Far Cry 6 – $72.90 (down from $99.95)
• Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut – $99.95 (down from $124.95)

There is also a bunch of deals going for Xbox console games such as;

• Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate – now $44.98 (down for $89.95)
• NBA 2K22 – now $80.90 (down from $109.95)
• Star Wars Squadrons – now $14.98 (down from $59.95)
• Watch Dogs Legion – now $30 (down from $99.95)
  

September 23

• Diablo 2 Resurrected [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Embr [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Flewfie’s Adventure [PC]
• Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries [PS5, PS4]
• Medieval Dynasty [PC]
• Sable [PC, XSX, XBO]
• Sea of Thieves Season 4 [PC, XSX, XBO]

September 24

• Death Stranding Director’s Cut [PS5]
• Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot [Switch]
• Lost Judgment [PS5, XSX, PS4]

September 28

• Chernobylite [PS4, XBO]
• Ghostrunner [PS5, XSX]
• In Sound Mind [PC, PS5, XSX]
• Lemnis Gate [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO]
• New World [PC]
• Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC [PC, PS4, XBO]

September 29

• Guardians of Hyelore [PC]
• Insurgency Sandstorm [PS4, XBO]

Activision Blizzard Served
On July 20^th the State of California filed a lawsuit with the Superior Court against Activision Blizzard after an investigation beginning in 2018 into the company’s “frat boy” culture. The lawsuit alleges many sexist workplace issues, as well as several itemised accounts of serious allegations of sexism and harassment against women and people of colour.
In response Activision Blizzard released a statement calling the lawsuit “irresponsible behaviour from unaccountable State bureaucrats…” this was mirrored by Blizzard’s Chief Compliance Officer Fran Townsend’s internal email calling the lawsuit “distorted and untrue… factually incorrect, old and out of context…” However, since the release of the lawsuit Activision Blizzard employees have come out corroborating with the events described in the lawsuit.
The fallout of which has resulted in a petition signed by over 3200 current and former Activision Blizzard employees calling for recognition of the seriousness of the allegations, repercussions to those who dismissed them, and a safe space for people to speak out. Current employees are also staging a walkout to demand changes in the current leadership.
In response Activision CEO Bobby Kotick issued a public statement apologising for their behaviour and hiring an external law firm for confidential reporting and to review their workplace policies.

Amazon’s New World Bumps Through Beta
After delaying the release for over a year, this week Amazon opened its new game New World for the closed beta testing to those that either pre-ordered the game or were invited through a sign-up. Amazon celebrated with New World’s real-time combat MMORPG managing to accumulate over two hundred thousand concurrent players during weekend play and fairly positive feedback, but was hampered by some severe teething issues.
The most major of these was the reported bricking of EVGA RTX 3090 graphics cards. The bricking was theorised to be caused by frame rate spikes in menus and the resultant voltage spikes that fried the card. While Amazon stated that “We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s…” they did release a patch to cap the frame rate of menus within 24 hours of the first reported issue. EVGA has also confirmed it will be replacing affected cards, with return forms reportedly already containing a specific “New World” category.
The beta of New World is scheduled to end August 2^nd with the release date set for August 31^st 2021.

Aussie Takes Independent Games Festival Grand Prize
The IGF took place on the 21^st of July to celebrate the achievements and innovations of independent game developers. This year there were over 500 entries for the 8 major awards with over 60 games shortlisted for the awards and more than half of those nominated for one or more of the eight award categories. This year’s winners were:

• Arrog, the hand-drawn enigmatic adventure puzzle game from Hermanos Magia and Leap Game Studios, won the Audience Award.
• Vessels, the space narrative adventure from Local Space Survey Corps, LLC., won Best Student Game.
• Teardown, the destructible voxel world game from Tuxedo Labs was awarded for its Excellence in Design.
• Blaseball, an online absurdist-horror fantasy baseball league game from The Game Band, took the Nuovo Award.
• Genesis Noir, an explorative adventure game, was developed by Feral Cat Den, with sound design by Skillbard, took out the awards for both Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Visual Art.
• And finally, Umurangi Generation, created by Lismore developer Origame Digital, is a first-person photography game and took both the award for Excellence in Narrative and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Now for some upcoming game releases.
Scare yourself silly with Draft of Darkness, a roguelike horror deck builder, or reflect with No Longer Home, an indie game about letting go and saying goodbye, both coming to PC on July 30^th.
On August 3^rd, grab some friends for Rocket Rumble, a space racing brawler, coming to PC. Or try your hand at the 25 second time looping FPS Lemnis Gate, also being released on the 3^rd and coming to PC, PS4 & 5 and Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Lastly Starmancer, the interstellar construction and management sim from Chucklefish, is coming to PC on August 5^th.