Senator Elizabeth Warren has urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to "unwind" Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard after layoffs.
Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.
Developer Slavic Magic and publisher Hooded Horse announce that their city building sim Manor Lords has sold over two million copies since launch.
Still waiting for its first patch which is worrying. I know it’s been a single man developer but there’s really no excuse for no updates being released since launch. I’ve been part of many single developer releases that are updated daily, sometimes hourly. This’s hasn’t had a single one yet….
Rockstar Games founder Dan Houser's new studio, Absurd Ventures, is currently working on a AAA open world action adventure game.
I'm really curious to see what he's going to do. It seems like a GTA-style game, but I wonder how it'll differentiate itself.
A new studio making a AAA game. Yea, that'll go well. I still think new studios should only make small games for a few years to build up teamwork and trust within.
Oh look, the thing that we knew was going to happen is happing. Yes MS is the giant pile of **** we knew it was and now you've handed a huge part of the industry to them workers are paying the price.
Gamers got screwed with the sale of these publishers and now the workers are too, but hey a handful of very, very, very, rich people got stacks more cash from this deal and shareholders will get a nice boost and that's the only thing that matters to MS. Isn't industry consolidation great!
"Senator Warren took to Twitter to criticize the downsizing, reminding followers of her previous warnings against the merger. “I warned that this deal would hurt workers,” she wrote. “These layoffs are a stark reminder that corporate mergers are bad for workers. The FTC should keep up the fight to unwind this merger.”
Activision Blizzard employees have described the layoffs as a “bloodbath” on social media. Reports have emerged that Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games has lost more than a quarter of its employees. CharlieINTEL puts the percentage of Sledgehammer layoffs at 25% whereas Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming has heard it’s somewhat close to 30%."
Like I said this wasn't really good imo because things haven't truly changed there yet but we'll wait.
Gamers: "What the hell are the FTC and CMA doing? They need to let this whole thing go and just approve it, how sad are they to get involved for this long, they just don't quit"
*deal goes through, people lose their jobs, the rich get richer*
Also Gamers: "Why did agencies like the FTC and CMA not do something about this? It's the whole point of their existence, that's what they are there for and they couldn't even do their jobs correctly. This shouldn't have happened"
Before acquisition, FTC must block this deal because it's bad for CONSUMERS.
After mass layoffs in the majority of the industry
We were told several times that this deal was bad for WORKERS.
Perhaps having consistency would help the credibility of FTC.
Undoing the merger will just cause ABK and Microsoft to cut more positions. Undoing the merger at this point will financially damage both companies. A more sensible thing would be to push MS and other game companies to have employee unions and increased job protections.