Misc Blizzard nonsense

Good news for the 5 people still buying Blizzard games. A bunch of goo-goo-ga-ga cry babies got owned. Couldn't even form a gang properly. Too WoKe. No doubt.

Notice crying about themselves but not the industry exploiting consumers. Goo. Goo.

Blizzard studio cans plans to unionise due to "confrontational tactics"

Workers reportedly "demoralised and disempowered" by CEO.

Staff at Activision Blizzard studio Proletariat have dropped plans to form a union following alleged "confrontational tactics" by its CEO.

The Boston-based Proletariat officially became part of Activision Blizzard in July last year, with its staff put to work on veteran MMO World of Warcraft.

Last month, a group of 57 staff members announced plans to form the Proletariat Workers Alliance, a union seeking flexible time off, remote work as a permanent option, better communication over pay and assurances overtime would never be mandatory.

The move followed pushes from QA staff at two other Activision Blizzard studios looking to unionise, including Call of Duty outfit Raven Software and Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, which now works on Diablo.

Both of those studios faced struggles achieving unionisation. But with Proletariat, studio management has reportedly nipped plans in the bud.

"Unfortunately, Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak chose to follow Activision Blizzard's lead and responded to the workers' desire to form a union with confrontational tactics," the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union said in a statement (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz). "Like many founders, he took the workers' concerns as a personal attack and held a series of meetings that demoralised and disempowered the group, making a free and fair election impossible."

Not all video game worker unionisation efforts are hitting issues. Indeed, the CWA has an agreement with Microsoft that it will support the latter's Activision Blizzard buyout if it guarantees not to interfere in unionisation plans.

This recently resulted in Microsoft voluntarily recognising a 300-person union of ZeniMax Studios testers, whose staff are housed across Dishonored developer Arkane, Skyrim maker Bethesda and Doom dev id Software, and who are currently working on 2023 Xbox exclusives Redfall and Starfield.

"As we have seen at Microsoft's Zenimax studio, there is another path forward, one that empowers workers through a free and fair process, without intimidation or manipulation by the employer," the CWA concluded. "We will continue to advocate alongside workers in the video game industry for better working conditions, higher standards and a union voice."

I don't even want to mention Blizzard, that is how much I hate the company. Made two of the worst and greediest examples of gaming in 2022. They should be given awards for how shitty they've become.

For fans...

lol :P

@R4gn4r0k: And yet MS is buying them 😂 for 69 billion dollars...🤣

lol, I skipped out on COD MW 2 because it was 70 dollars :p

MS must've done the yearly cleanup and found some money to spare.

@uninspiredcup: unions are the worst. They used to be awesome back in the day when we had real problems, but nowadays not so much. On the other hand, corporations also get far too much protections with things like IP, patents and trademarks, such things have no place in a real free market because ideas aren't property and never will be, they're actually free speech. So those protections are a scam that go against our very basic laws, only to enrich the few. Funny enough, I support ghosts and his pirating ways. We need more people like him.

So if corporations get these protections, I don't see why workers shouldn't. End of the day though, unions do make things worse for the consumer, many of their demands are ridiculous.

@blaznwiipspman1: I’m reminded the scene in Billy Madison after reading your response here.

Well done, and may God have mercy on your soul.

For real? $70....Yikes. Luckily, I am not a COD fan and have never been.

@blaznwiipspman1: It's like caring about the janitor on the Death Star.

Support evil, why should I give a ****? Hope Luke and the dead space wizard in his brain blow you up.

Blizzard absolutely lost me last year. I overlooked too much about them in recent years, but the phone controversy for OW2 was the final straw. When your company alienates players to curb inevitable fake accounts, you're doing more harm than good. They're never recovering from that for me.

It certainly helps that OW2 was apparently pretty lackluster, and a shoddy sequel to a hit game.

Diablo 4 will likely push for more microtransactions and additional content that probably could have just been part of the game.

@rewgle: OverWatch 2 is the worst sequel that has ever been released by a triple A company. And that is mainly because it's just OverWatch 1.

Young Jennifer Connelly was basically irl Tifa.

It's actually worse gameplay wise than OW1. And they removed the game I payed 60 bucks for, and forced me to their F2P Overwatch instead in an attempt to make me buy their season passes.

I will make it a personal goal that whatever happens with Blizzard, and whatever game or product they might create in the future, they will not receive any form of money from me ever again. Wish I could sue them to get my money back, but they've probably made me agree somewhere to them removing my games I paid for whenever they feel like it.

And people (probably racists) call these corporations on getting woke/following the leftist agenda/brain washing the kids o hate themselves/lizard people to force communism etc etc. When in reality these corporations are as all corporations by definition are as right wing/conservative as they can be.

Please release me the next Warcraft

@mesome713: The next World Of Warcraft will be microtransaction hell with a price hike across the board lol

They will try to ride folk like the biggest donkeys in existence.