The US holds one of the biggest markets in gaming when it comes to revenue, sales, market cap and all manner of statistics. Within the US, the biggest gaming company has historically been Activision, with franchises such as Call of Duty pushing the publisher to new heights. Surprisingly, Activision Blizzard …
Read More »Call of Duty Zombies won’t be fully ready until after launch of Vanguard
Call of Duty's Zombies mode has become a staple for the franchise, especially from developers Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Despite nearly every single Activision studio working on COD, the upcoming Call of Duty Vanguard will not be feature complete at launch – with the zombies mode being cut down significantly …
Read More »Vicarious Visions to be fully absorbed by Blizzard, losing their identity
Vicarious Visions is best known for bringing back Crash Bandicoot via the N. Sane Trilogy – in many ways jumpstarting the current trend of remaking older games from the ground up. Unfortunately, the team was merged with Blizzard earlier this year, and now they are set to lose their identity …
Read More »BlizzCon cancelled as Blizzard looks to ‘reimagine’ its event
Blizzard was planning on holding another BlizzCon in a few months time, but as you've surely heard, the studio is going through some rough times at the moment. Employee protests, lawsuits, leadership changes and harassment issues have dominated the Blizzard news cycle over the summer, so the team will be …
Read More »Call of Duty will get ‘Ricochet’ anti-cheat this year with kernel-level driver
Last year when Riot Games launched Valorant, the game launched with its own kernel-level anti-cheat system called Vanguard. Now, Activision is pulling a similar move with a new anti-cheat system for Call of Duty, known as ‘Ricochet'. Activision has been talking up its plans for anti-cheat over the course of …
Read More »New Call of Duty anti-cheat system to be announced this week
Since launching Call of Duty: Warzone, Raven Software has been in a nonstop battle against cheaters, banning tens of thousands of accounts on a regular basis. With Call of Duty: Vanguard coming soon, new anti-cheat technology will be implemented. Back in August, Raven Software teased this move, stating that it …
Read More »Diablo 4 now has a new game director
Back in August, shortly after legal issues arose with accusations of employee mistreatment and harassment at Activision Blizzard, the company announced some key changes. Notably, Diablo 4 lost its director, but now after a couple of months, a replacement has been found. Diablo 4 is now being directed by Joe …
Read More »Call of Duty: Warzone makes $5 million every day
While the Call of Duty remains one of the biggest franchises in gaming, the annual series has been in decline somewhat for the past few years. It seems that Activision struck gold however with its free-to-play Warzone Battle Royale mode. According to a recent study, Warzone makes over $5 million …
Read More »Overwatch to Change McCree’s name following sexual harassment case
The Activision Blizzard sexual harassment lawsuit has brought with it many different knock on effects. Starting with Activision’s name not being featured in the Call of Duty: Vanguard trailer, the name of the popular Overwatch character Jesse McCree is being changed, as they were originally named after a Blizzard employee. …
Read More »Call of Duty: Vanguard makes no reference to Activision, following lawsuit
Call of Duty: Vanguard was recently announced, showcasing the latest that the first-person shooter franchise has to offer. Interestingly however, the trailer made no reference to its publisher Activision, instead saying “Call of Duty Presents”. While some have speculated this to be due to the recent controversy and lawsuit against …
Read More »Every core Activision studio is working on Call of Duty
Despite releasing a new game every single year for 15 years, the Call of Duty franchise remains bigger than ever, with multiple titles now running concurrently as well as the franchise going all in on live services. With so much Call of Duty, the franchise’s 3 main development studios simply …
Read More »Call of Duty: Vanguard announced, full reveal coming this week
Just last week, rumours began circulating that this year's Call of Duty, known as Call of Duty: Vanguard, would be revealed as part of a Warzone event. Now, this has been confirmed and Activision has also released the first teaser trailer for the game. This year's entry to the franchise …
Read More »Diablo 4 director and level designer and WoW designer no longer at Blizzard
Activision Blizzard is going through a number of internal changes at the moment in the wake of a lawsuit regarding workplace harassment at the company. We've already seen Blizzard's president and head of HR leave the company, and now, a number of high profile developers have been let go, including …
Read More »Overwatch 2 may not launch until 2023
While Overwatch represented one of the first and biggest live-service titles of the modern era, the 2015 hero shooter was announced to be getting a full sequel back in 2019, with a release year expected to be 2022. Since then however, very little news has come out regarding the game, …
Read More »Investors to sue Activision Blizzard over recent allegations
Recently, Activision Blizzard has found itself in controversy once again, following a lawsuit from California's Department of Fair Employment (DFEH), which contained a number of serious allegations. As you would expect, some investors are not pleased with how things are playing out, with some brewing a second lawsuit against the …
Read More »Diablo Immortal delayed to 2022
Last night following the Activision Blizzard earnings call, it was announced that Blizzard's controversial mobile game, Diablo Immortal, will no longer be releasing this year. Diablo Immortal was announced at Blizzcon 2018. At the time, many fans expected to hear about Diablo 4, not a new mobile-only spin-off and as …
Read More »Blizzard President J. Allen Brack steps down following lawsuit
We're just a few hours away from Activision's first quarterly earnings call since the state of California sued the company on allegations of widespread misconduct. Many of these allegations have centred around Blizzard, so some changes were expected – the first of these changes was just announced, with J. Allen …
Read More »Nearly 1000 Activision Blizzard employees call publisher’s response to lawsuit “abhorrent”
Activision Blizzard recently found themselves at the receiving end of a lawsuit due to the company’s workplace environment, the cultivation of which has been steeped with sexism, harassment, and even led to the suicide of a female employee. Following this, the company reacted to the lawsuit – the response to …
Read More »Blizzard head responds to “extremely troubling” allegations
Earlier this week, the California Department of Fair Employment revealed that it would be suing Activision Blizzard over workplace misconduct, harassment and other issues. There has already been an ‘official' response from Activision Blizzard lawyers, which dismisses the allegations, however, an internal memo sent from Blizzard head, J. Allen Brack, …
Read More »Activision Blizzard sued for workplace ‘frat boy culture’
As time goes on, it seems as though nearly every major video game publisher has suffered from toxic workplace cultures, filled with harassment and more. Following on from allegations levied against Ubisoft, Quantic Dream and more, it seems Activision Blizzard has suffered from equally bad, if not even worse issues …
Read More »AI-assisted Call of Duty cheat for PC and console targeted by Activision
Activision is no stranger to cheaters in its games, with Call of Duty being a target of cheat makers each year due to its popularity. Recently, a new kind of cheat was discovered, using machine learning and automatic input commands to allow aimbot on consoles. As you would expect, Activision …
Read More »Call of Duty: Vanguard to skip E3, big Warzone refresh incoming
According to reports this week, Activision won't be bringing Call of Duty to E3 this year. Instead, the team is working on a new map for Warzone, as well as various teasers for the next mainline game through Warzone. According to VGC's sources, rather than revealing this year's Call of …
Read More »Call of Duty: Mobile surpasses half a billion players
While Call of Duty: Warzone has been receiving all of the attention, with the PC and console battle royale game seeing over 100 million players, its mobile counterpart has been quietly dwarfing that figure, with Activision now confirming that Call of Duty: Mobile has surpassed 500 million players. Making the …
Read More »Activision is tripling the size of its Call of Duty studios
Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises in all of video games, with over 400 million copies sold. This doesn't even include Warzone and COD mobile, each of which have over 100 million players. In order to keep up with its size and scope, Activison will be tripling …
Read More »Activision confirms Sledgehammer as lead studio for Call of Duty 2021
Activision is finally opening up about its plans for Call of Duty in 2021. During a financial call that took place last night, the publisher confirmed that Sledgehammer Games is leading development for this year's game. Speaking on this year's plans, Activision Blizzard COO, Daniel Alegre, stated: “Development is being …
Read More »Crash Bandicoot 4 dev reduced to COD support studio
Call of Duty is bigger than ever, with more and more developers working on the games each year. While good for the franchise, it has led to some studios being reduced to supporting these massive titles. Such is the case with Toys for Bob, who are now working on Call …
Read More »Call of Duty 2021 is apparently in trouble, ‘recovery roadmap’ already planned
This year's Call of Duty game could be in some trouble. According to a notable leaker, the game has been encountering development issues for sometime now and as a result, Activision has reportedly lowered its expectations for the release and already has a ‘recovery roadmap' planned months ahead of time. …
Read More »The Call of Duty franchise has sold over 400 million copies
Though Call of Duty may not have as much of a positive reception as it did during the height of its popularity, the franchise continues to be one of the best selling every single year. In the years since the first game launched all the way back in 2003, the …
Read More »Activision forces popular Call of Duty stat tracking site to shut down
When it comes to competitive shooters, there are often a lot of ‘hidden' stats that are tracked but not presented in-game. To make up for that, those really looking to improve often head to fan sites to see more detailed performance metrics. These type of stat trackers exist for Counter-Strike, …
Read More »Crash Bandicoot: On the Run downloaded over 8 million times at launch
March has been a big month for Crash Bandicoot, not only have we seen Crash Bandicoot 4 launch for next-gen consoles, Nintendo Switch and PC, but a mobile spin-off has also come out, which garnered over 8 million downloads on its first day. Crash Bandicoot: On the Run launched on …
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