This week’s news recap features another series of reports on the alleged abuse current and former employees faced during their time at Activision Blizzard. New updates reveal that Blizzard had long fostered a toxic work culture that became exacerbated by Activision, and following the state of California's DFEH lawsuit, Overwatch sponsors have begun to withdraw their support from the game.
For July 30 through August 6, we've once again rounded up these accounts, along with other top stories from the gaming industry. Some of these stories include Niantic's poor response to pandemic-related features in Pokemon Go, Epic's budget for acquiring exclusives, and the state of Nintendo's stock prices.
Blizzard's Management Long Fostered Culture Of Sexism, Alcohol Abuse
After the state of California's DFEH lawsuit was filed late last month, both current and former employees from Activision Blizzard continue to share their horrific accounts of alleged workplace harassment and discrimination. A new report from Bloomberg featured several interviews with Blizzard staff, revealing that the company has long fostered an environment where sexual harassment, alcohol abuse, and overwhelming toxicity were allowed to thrive. Written by industry pundit Jason Schreier, the report reveals that the botched release of Warcraft 3: Reforged was mostly the result of Activision overstepping its bounds and pushing Blizzard devs to hit unrealistic deadlines.
Employees reported that the looming threat of Activision had managers opting to stay silent instead of reporting possible issues to HR out of fear of retaliation. The report also says that bosses dissolved the parts of Blizzard that employees had actually enjoyed. All of this contradicts the picture painted by chief compliance officer Frances F. Townsend, who referred to the accounts from the Blizzard lawsuit as "factually inaccurate, old, and out of context stories." While accounts from Blizzard do date back over a decade, the Bloomberg story illustrates a timeline that grew even worse with the acquisition.
Some Of Pokemon Go's Biggest Community Voices Are Demanding Niantic Listen With #HearUsNiantic
Last week, Pokemon Go developer Niantic revealed that it would be reverting the distance requirements for interacting with PokeStops and Gyms to their pre-pandemic values in an upcoming update. Dissatisfied with the news, community members took to Twitter using the #HearUsNiantic hashtag to voice their concerns.
The chief points brought up in an open letter on Reddit were that the increased distances to use PokeStops had prevented players from crossing dangerous roads and trespassing on private property. Not only that, but not requiring players to be so close helped out disabled players by letting them interact from a safer distance. It certainly changed the way players engaged with the app and helped bring new community members in. Reverting the changes feels like a step backward, especially considering the pandemic continues to rage on around the world.
Epic Games Store Lost $130 Million In First Wave Exclusives
The court battle between Epic Games and Apple is far from over, and as such, we're still learning details about how Epic operates the Epic Games Store through court documents. The latest discovery (posted to Twitter by GameDiscoverCo's Simon Carless) revealed that in 2019, Epic lost approximately $131 million in acquiring exclusive games for its platform.
While the specific game names were blacked out, the dates were completely disclosed, and a Reddit user filled in the blanks to reveal the biggest winners and losers here. Both Dauntless and Satisfactory brought in positive returns while Metro Exodus and The Division 2 took the lead in losses. It's interesting to note that three of those games would go on to do better on Steam while Ubisoft is sticking to its guns by not releasing anything on Valve’s digital storefront.
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GTA Online Players Are Walking In Circles While AFK To Grind RP
When it comes to finding workarounds for actually playing a game, players engaged with live-service titles seem to always opt for the least involved method. Such is the case with the recently released "Los Santos Tuners" update for Grand Theft Auto Online. The grind to level up in GTA Online has always been kind of daunting, but the new car-focused DLC lets players earn RP (reputation points) by either finishing tuner races, testing out new cars, or walking around in tuner meet lobbies. Guess which one players are deciding on?
In the race (hah) to reach level 1000, players are setting up their in-game characters to walk around endlessly while they go do something else. It's creating an atmosphere that is disruptive for players looking to actually participate in the new events as lobbies are often filled with people going AFK. Rockstar has yet to comment on the issue, but you can likely expect a patch to remove this exploit very soon.
PS Plus Lost One Million Subscribers, According To Latest Fiscal Report
In our last big story for the week, it seems Sony's paid subscription service PlayStation Plus is starting to dwindle in users. According to the latest fiscal report from the company, Sony lost around one million active PlayStation Plus users between Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. That's a significant fall for such a short period (roughly three months).
Not only did Sony lose a lot of paying customers, but the basic PlayStation Network lost about five million active users, bringing the total to roughly 104 million. That’s still a fairly substantial player base, but it doesn’t speak well for the future of Sony’s network. Sony isn't completely worried but is also not going to turn a blind eye. In its report, Sony wrote, "Compared to FY19 there is an increase, so we will monitor the situation carefully [...] and make efforts to enhance and upgrade the platform to support this business."