THE struggle to get Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard on the line don’t just play government watchdogs and in the public eye, but also in courtrooms. And in one of those battlegrounds, Microsoft is asking rival Sony that it believes the latter constitutes “obvious harassment.”

Via The Axios newslettera series of court documents have been filed over the past two weeks detailing some of the legal skirmishes currently taking place between Microsoft, which is keen to complete the blockbuster deal, and Sony, which is one of many companies and organizations that are absolutely don’t want that to happen.

These particular filings relate to Sony’s attempts to fight the proposed sale, and that as part of their defense, Microsoft has the right to “Discovery,” which is basically letting them get their hands on a bunch of documents and emails from some Sony executives. The two companies have been negotiating for ages over how many executives this will include and the scope of the discovery, but things took a turn earlier this month when Microsoft accused Sony of stalling firstwithout providing all the information they might need:

Sony Interactive Entertainment (“SIE”) – whose gaming business eclipsed that of Xbox for 20 years – is no ordinary third party in this action. At great expense and over an extended period, SIE deployed executive delegations, large teams of outside lawyers, and top economists to persuade regulators here and around the world to block Microsoft Corp.

(“Microsoft”) has proposed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. SIE’s efforts are paying off: The FTC’s complaint in this action is replete with allegations about the effects the agreement will have on SIE’s business. This case concerns SIE as much as Xbox and Activision. Rapid discovery of the EIS is therefore critical to Microsoft’s defense.

Although SIE’s motion for an extension of time complains about the magnitude of the subpoena and the length of the extensions already granted to respond to that subpoena, Microsoft has already told SIE that it will consent to a fourth extension of time. to negotiate issues related to the scope of subpoena requests. But Microsoft believes court intervention is now needed on one issue: whether SIE will collect and produce documents from certain custodians.

In response, Sony said they hadn’t provided all of the information requested by Microsoft because they were asked too much, including things like access to internal benchmarks, something Sony says “is obvious harassment”, and that “even in labor courts require a specific demonstration of relevance before requiring the production of personal records.

This is all only moderately interesting, I know, but I’m bringing this up mainly so we can just tie the two together. Microsoft And sony motions, which are full of incredible self-properties, like Microsoft saying that PlayStation’s success “trumped Xbox’s for 20 years,” as well as very funny words in Sony’s filing, like how they say that Microsoft’s subpoena was, like, “really massive”.

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Update 5:22am ET, February 10: Removed mention of the “MOTION TO LIMIT OR QUASH SUBPOENA” as the matter is still ongoing.

In 1979 husband-and-wife team Ken & Roberta Williams founded a small company that would later become known as Sierra, and which would play an enormous role in the development of some of the most beloved video games series of all time.

With Ken overseeing business operations Roberta spent the 1980s helping create adventure game classics like King’s Quest, and by the early 90’s Sierra had become a PC gaming powerhouse on the back of hits like Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest. But by the late 90’s—with their company sold under controversial circumstances—the pair walked away from games development, and aside from a few side projects have spent the next 20+ years away from the industry they’d played such a crucial role in establishing.

Until now. Earlier this year, it was announced that the pair—working together once more at a studio called Cygnus Entertainment, where Ken is Managing Partner and Roberta serves as Lead Creative Director (the couple are also co-owners)—were developing a modern remake of Colossal Cave Adventure.

That game, one of the most important ever made (it’s in the Hall of Fame!), was first released in 1976, and would go on to not just be a huge success in its own right, but would help inspire other titles like Zork and Adventure, as well as Sierra’s own Mystery House, which in 1980 became the world’s first ever graphical adventure game. It’s not a stretch, then, to say that Colossal Cave Adventure helped lay the groundwork for…the entire fields of narrative and adventuring video games as we know them.

Ken and Roberta’s take on the game leaves text input behind, however, opting to rebuild Colossal Cave Adventure in a 3D world, which can be played either on a regular PC or via a VR headset. You can see a trailer for the game below, which helpfully includes a little history lesson on the pair (and Colossal Cave Adventure) for anyone who needs to get up to speed:

Colossal Cave 3d Adventure – Reimagined by Roberta Williams

With the game due later this year—it’s currently on schedule for a Fall release on PC, Mac and Quest 2 for VR—I got the chance recently to chat with both Roberta and Ken, not just about Colossal Cave Adventure but on their past in video games, and their thoughts on how the medium has changed in the 40 years since they first started working together.

Luke Plunkett (Kotaku): As someone who grew up playing Quest For Glory and Police Quest it’s wild I’m getting to talk to you about a new video game in 2022, how long has it been exactly since you both worked on a game together?

Ken Williams: That’s a complicated question! Depending on how you look at it, Roberta and I haven’t worked on a game together since 1979! I ran the company while she shipped all of her hits, but other than occasionally being involved in decisions that affected her products, I didn’t really work directly with her.

We’ve been working together now on the Colossal Cave project for around a year and eight months. It has been a bit of a challenge for us to work so closely together. We’re each accustomed to being the final decision maker on everything we touch. We’ve mapped out territories where I make the decisions (implementation, finance, marketing) and where she makes the decisions (game design, art). Those seem like disconnected domains, but there has been plenty of overlap and strong discussion. We’re both highly opinionated people; each convinced we are never wrong.

Roberta Williams: Well, we didn’t even start working on Mystery House until the beginning of 1980. I know it was after Christmas of ‘79, so it would have been in January, at the earliest, of 1980. Mystery House shipped in May of 1980. In fact, we always said it was May 5th, and that was our anniversary. For years we had a big wonderful company party on May 5th, for eight years at least, to commemorate the anniversary of Sierra starting as a company, with the launch date of Mystery House.

After Mystery House, there was Wizard and The Princess second, and I think the last one we did together was Mission Asteroid. So that would have been 1981/1982, the last time we worked together on a game without other people.

My memory is better.

Luke: So much about game development has changed over the years, what has been the biggest surprise—and challenge—you’ve run into so far making a new game for modern hardware?

Ken: The competition is much more challenging. There are tens of thousands of great game developers. The market is larger, but building a competitive product is not easy. That said, overall, game development is infinitely easier. There are amazing game engines that give a huge head start in development and a multitude of assets that can be purchased inexpensively for a game.

The biggest surprise is how we’ve managed to assemble a large team that works closely together, all day, every day, and yet we are scattered all over the world.

Roberta: I’m not the designer, and this is not an original game. I call myself the transmuter. I am taking an old historical adventure game, arguably the first adventure computer game in existence, and bringing it into the modern era. Colossal Cave was not originally designed for VR or modern platforms. As the transmuter I have decided to think about how it will play and feel for today’s platforms. I worked to keep the original game’s feeling and design and bring it to the modern world. In honoring the original game, I tried to retain the feeling of wonder I had when I first played it. It wouldn’t have felt right to take this beautiful historic game and mess with it too much.

It’s a great game with an elegant design. If someone likes a challenge, wants to be challenged, and enjoys something different, I think they will love our game if they are willing to try it.

Luke: Many of your previous games had a very “hands-on” feel to them, making the player methodically complete tasks, or follow strict orders. What’s it like developing a game that almost literally allows the player to go hands-on (via VR) instead?

Ken: The truth about VR is that it wasn’t initially in the plan. Marcus, who started the project with me, and handled the art, convinced me to target VR. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in VR; I just thought it was a bigger challenge than we could handle. Colossal Cave is Roberta’s and my first project in a very long time. Many projects fall apart or are never finished because they bit off more than they could chew. The bar is high for any game that Roberta and I do because our old fans have high expectations, and we do not want to disappoint. We also need to deliver amazing quality, or the game will not be worth playing. That’s a lot of pressure. I worried that VR would be a step too far, and we couldn’t do it. But, to the team’s credit, we’ve not only done it but also done some very cool innovations that I think will surprise and delight players.

We are remaking a game designed nearly 50 years ago and are trying to respect the original design. The Colossal Cave adventure game created a genre that has survived to this day, and the game is still recognized because it was an awesome design. There are design elements in it that make me wish I could go back in time and insist that every game designer at Sierra study this game. Our challenge has been keeping the original game’s soul but translating it to modern technology. It’s like adapting a book to a movie, but not completely. Movies tend to be abridged versions of books. We are capturing 100% of the original text game but completely reinventing it and expanding on it without changing it. That will make a lot more sense when you play the game.

Luke: While you’ve been away from the industry, how closely did you follow it, if at all? Do you see any appreciation or legacy for your own works in the games of today, or hear from developers about your influence on their works?

Ken: I have followed the industry over the years. However, we managed to get a second 15 minutes of fame as world cruisers, which required our full attention. We compare ourselves to Rip Van Winkle. It’s like we awakened nearly 30 years later to a very different world. That said, besides the industry being bigger, less has changed than one might imagine, and we’re excited to be back.

Roberta: I have been following the industry to a certain extent. I see the appreciation for my games all the time and have for years. It has amazed me how much appreciation there is. In fact, I’m surprised how it has continued. I noticed even more so in the last 4 to 5 years, especially with the pandemic. As the pandemic and lockdowns started, the attention that Ken and I were getting about our old games increased. Part of it could be driven by Ken’s release of his book. I’m sure that had something to do with it, but I have always received a lot of calls and requests for interviews. I’ve been known for my reputation of turning them down. That is related to when Ken and I sold the company. Ken’s book explains my hesitancy about doing interviews and being hard to get. You know, a little coy. I have been coming around more in the last 4 or 5 years to being eager to do interviews again. I’m not exactly sure why, but there has been a new interest. I do want to say that I have been appreciative, humbled, honored, and kind of sorry that I haven’t been as responsive for too long.

Luke: Has returning to games development rekindled any of your old passion for the field? Would you consider working on more games after this? Perhaps even sequels or conversions of your classics?

Ken: We’re waiting to see how people like this game before deciding what comes next. We’re also paying attention to what happens with the Activision-Microsoft merger. If that deal comes together, it is possible that Microsoft will feel differently about the old Sierra series than Activision did. If Roberta could do King’s Quest 9 or another Laura Bow game, that could be very interesting. Personally, I was always in love with multiplayer games. Remember The Sierra Network? But like I said, we’re deliberately not thinking that far ahead. We have a game to ship, and it HAS to be a winner. We’re working HARD on this game.

Roberta: For some reason, in the last couple of years, I have been showing more interest in Sierra On-Line and my old games, and I’ve been curious about why the interest in our games is ongoing. Whatever kept me from wanting to be a part of the industry had changed. After Ken wrote his book, he needed a new project. It was January/February of 2021, and we were sitting out on our terrace in the desert of California having coffee. He mentioned that he needed a new project. I remember thinking about that for some time. I went to bed later that night, and suddenly I was lying there in bed, and that conversation popped into my head. I kept thinking about it, and for some reason, my mind returned to Colossal Cave. I thought to myself that it would be an interesting project for Ken. I knew he had been looking at Unity and programming for the past month. He was looking at creating a game as a project, and then I thought of Colossal Cave. I said, “Have you thought about maybe doing Colossal Cave and bringing that to graphics?” “I know you’re studying Unity, and it can be 3D and an adventure game.” I saw his eyes flash with interest. A few hours later, Ken talked to Don Woods, and we got his blessing.

We don’t have the rights to any of the sequels or old Sierra On-Line products. When we sold our company, we sold the rights to our games. Right now, Activision owns all of the rights. That doesn’t mean that Ken and I couldn’t go to Activision to say that I would like to work on a new Kings Quest or Laura Bow mystery. We probably could make a deal with them and do that, but I think of my previous games. Most games I have worked on have been of my design, and I’ve been able to do it the way I wanted and to make the decisions myself. I was able to keep the game very much in my vision. I like it that way. I like having the freedom and the authorization to be able to do that. The couple of times I had created a game for somebody else was for Disney and The Jim Henson Company. The games, The Black Cauldron and The Dark Crystal, were great, and they turned out fine, but I felt a little constrained. If I had to go to Activision to make another game, it would feel similar to those experiences. As to creating a new original game of my design, my answer is it depends on how well Colossal Cave sells.

Luke: What’s the thing that impresses you most about modern video games? And conversely is there anything about modern games you find frustrating?

Ken: I’m not a game designer, so I tend to focus on the technology, the marketing, and the economic side of things with gaming. I am highly impressed by the capabilities of VR in modern games and how it truly feels fully immersive once you put on a headset.

Another thing I find interesting on the business side is the evolution of subscription-based business models. Sierra pioneered the idea of a subscription-based online games network. So it is impressive to see each major company’s interpretation of a subscription-based service model (GamePass, PS Plus Premium, Nintendo Switch Online).

Roberta: I think the graphics are the biggest thing going for games today. The graphics have just gotten leaps and bounds better, of course. That is very impressive to me, as well as the music, sound effects, the speed of the systems, and being able to run them. So all that, all the wiz-bang and all the beauty are wonderful.

As to what I don’t like, it just seems to me that I don’t see a lot of originality anymore. It seems that there are a lot of the same games. They just make the same kind of game but bigger and more complex. I don’t see as much originality, but I could be wrong. I don’t watch walkthroughs or Twitch streams. So my answer could be completely off base. I played Colossal Cave way back at the beginning, which got me started in this business. I loved it, and I gravitated to adventure games. That’s been my go-to ever since. I’ll look at other games and go, “Oh, that looks nice, that looks great,” and I understand a good game when I see one. Ken and I, basically together, decided which games we wanted to publish. Even though something may not be my game, I knew it was good.

Luke: Have you spoken with the game’s original creator William Crowther about your project?

Ken: Nope. I would love to. I tried to reach him but couldn’t. I did speak with Don Woods. Don was polite and encouraging but also seemed kind of burnt out on people talking to him about the game. I think that when we spoke, he didn’t really think I’d deliver on building a product. I do hope that he and Will Crowther will play this game someday. Roberta and I owe our success to them, and a large reason for doing this game is to honor them. We are treating the game with the utmost respect and want our version of the game to bring another fifty years of life to their creation.

Roberta: No, Ken nor I have talked to Will Crowther. Ken spoke to Don Woods. I asked Ken, “Did Don Woods even know who you were or who I was?” He said, “You know he didn’t seem like he knew or even cared.” Ken got the impression that he had gone on to other things and probably didn’t even know why we had such an interest in Colossal Cave. I could be wrong on that. I think it would be fun if somebody in the media could try to get a hold of them. Ask them why your game has had such endurance and longevity and has maintained such an interest among people after all these years. There are 180 iterations of Colossal Cave that different people have done in different ways. I still think that having somebody talk to them and ask them about their game, what they think of it now, and what they think of us doing what we’re doing with it would be interesting.

Luke: You could argue that VR is still a bit niche in terms of the overall PC gaming market; have you designed CCA with the ability to also play it on a regular PC, or do you hope this spurs some folks to adopt a headset?

Ken: We’re building the game for both PC and VR, as well as for other platforms that we aren’t ready to talk about yet. It depends on the day you ask me which version of the game I think is better. When I’m working on the PC version, I love it, but then when I put on the headset and enter the cave, I am totally blown away. It’s tough to go back to the PC version for a day, and then I love the PC version again. Both are turning out far better than I ever would have expected.

Roberta: Well, both! We did not start designing it specifically for Quest 2 or virtual reality with a headset. Ken started on this game before me. I gave him the idea, but at the beginning, I didn’t want to be too much of a part of it. I would say, “Oh, I’ll look over your shoulder and make a few suggestions.” However, I changed my mind, jumped in, and joined the project.

It was initially going to be developed for the PC audience as a 3D game, but not with the headset. Now we’re working to put it on as many platforms as possible. It’s going to be out there, we hope, in many ways, on many platforms.

On July 5, Zachtronics will release Last Call BBS, a collection of stylish little puzzle games wrapped in a retro PC gaming vibe. After 11 years in business (and even more outside of commercial releases), a period that has seen the studio develop a cult following almost unmatched in indie gaming, this will be the last new game Zachtronics will ever release.

Named after founder Zach Barth, Zachtronics has spent most of those 11 years specializing in puzzle games (or variations on the theme). And just about every one of them has been great (or at least interesting). Browse our own archives for Zachtronics games and you will find:

Despite this repeated excellence and a deeply loyal fan base, Zachtronics never became what we would even call in this passionate space a household name. Which is fine, and even by design. Barth, Matthew Burns and their small team (usually about five people in total, depending on the size of the project), were just very good at doing what they loved, no matter how popular it was, and so continued i do.

The result was a succession of games that may not have been to everyone’s taste, but for those who resonated with it, it was their shit. It’s not hard to see why: most of Zachtronics’ games involved challenging puzzles, but also a deeply cool and interesting presentation that surrounded them, whether it’s the grimy hacker aesthetics of Exapunks or Mobius Front 83 type Advance Wars. differences, it can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes a game a Zachtronics joint so clear, but like love and art, when you see it, you know it.

So it’s sad, but also awesome in its own way, that 2022 will see the end of Zachtronics. Not because their publisher shut them down, or because their VC funding ran out, or because Activision got them to work on Call of Duty, or for any other number of reasons (bankruptcy! scandal!) game developers usually shut down.

No, Zachtronics is closing because… they want to.

“We’re wrapping things up!” Barth tells me, with much more enthusiasm than you’d normally expect under the circumstances. “Zachtronics will release Last Call BBS next month. We’re also working on a long-awaited collection of solitaires that we hope to release by the end of the year. After that, the team will split up. We all have different ideas, interests, risk tolerances, etc., so we’re still figuring out what we want to do next.

I ask him how it feels to be in such a privileged position, where they can make that decision on their own terms, and Barth says “It feels good, to be honest!”. Pointing out that knowing when to quit is its own kind of skill, something the team already has some experience with, he tells me, “We actually shut down Zachtronics once before, in 2015, when I went to work at Valve for what ended up being 10 months. It gave us the opportunity to cash in some of our capital, re-engage with the rest of the gaming industry, and rebuild from the ground up.

“I’m not saying the same thing is going to happen here, because we’re really closing Zachtronics, but when you deliberately make those decisions for yourself, instead of letting circumstances dictate them, it’s easier to get the results you want in the long run.”

But why? Why now, why like this? “We felt it was time for a change. It may sound weird, but even though we’ve become very good at making “Zachtronics games” over the past twelve years, it’s been hard for us to do anything else. We were lucky enough to carve out a special niche for ourselves, and I’m grateful that we were able to occupy it and survive it, but it also allowed us to do something that we didn’t want to do forever. .

The studio’s latest game, the aptly titled Last Call BBS, was recently announced, but if you had scanned the reaction to its first trailer online, you would have seen that in addition to the usual excitement, there was also a lot of sadness, something the team was in the rare position of being able to acknowledge before it closed.

“Since we announced Last Call BBS as our final game, I’ve received countless emails from fans thanking us for the games we’ve made,” Barth says. “A lot of them cite games as one of the reasons they became professional programmers or engineers. It’s hard to say anything in return other than ‘thank you’, but that’s really it. what I mean. A game without someone to play it isn’t really a game, and it’s only because of our players that our games have a meaning and a life of their own. We all enjoy really that!

With the decision made and announced, so what comes next? For Barth, he hopes to work on something else, while other members of the team are also looking to try their hand at new challenges. “My original plan was to wrap things up at Zachtronics and then find a new job teaching high school computer science, but the timing just wasn’t right,” he says. “I just finished my first year of teaching and Last Call BBS hasn’t even come out yet! I was hoping that I would really like to teach and stick with it for a few years, but I’ve learned that’s definitely not the case and I find it hard to imagine anything other than games in my future, under a form or another. ”

“What we do next as individuals or collaborators is something we’re discussing very actively at the moment. I’m particularly interested in freelancing and weird side projects, while other team members are drawn by the idea of ​​a steady job with more growth potential than a small indie studio making what is essentially the same game every year.

Last Call BBS will be released on July 5 on Steam, and will be the studio’s latest new game. You can check out its very cool trailer below. Their official final version, however, will be a bundle bringing together their different Solitaire games in a single packand as mentioned above, it will be released later this year.

Last Call BBS, by Zachtronics

Image: Activision Blizzard

Today, Activision Blizzard fulfilled its daily oopsie quota by blogging about how the publisher’s affiliates apparently used a special tool to help develop more “diverse” characters. He apparently thinks he can accomplish this without, I don’t know, talking or hiring marginalized developers. Why rely on pesky, fallible humans when we have powerful data to tell us we’ve reached enough diversity points to start a new video game culture war? The numbers don’t lie. I mean, look at this. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The well-designed graphic says it all, clearly and calmly.

Damn, I’m glad that technology allows us to solve racism, sexism, ableism and all the other problems facing video games. Who knew it was so easy? When former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan said he “would hate for diversity to ever feel flattering, like we just had this spreadsheet with a bunch of checkboxes,” Activision Blizzard really took that to heart. Alright, not really.

I’m being sarcastic, but in many ways it’s hard to contain how maddening it is. It’s not just that anyone thought such a complex problem could be solved with a glorified Dungeons & Dragons character sheet that makes no sense. And it’s not just that Blizzard is in the midst of a slew of ostensible “diversity” disasters right now, including allegations of sexual harassmentinability to recruit or retain marginalized talentand persistent union tensions.

But a number of people probably not only built this thing, but also wrote the blog, got interviewed for it, and then signed it off to share it with everyone. The reaction on the internet to the post and the tool it describes has been utter disbelief, and rightly so. Consider the fact that no one there saw this coming, amidst all the other complete PR disasters. What does this say about Activision’s real ability to address the endemic issues that have come under public scrutiny over the past year and that the publisher has repeatedly pledged to to resolve ? Right now, it looks like no one in charge is really capable of that, if that’s what they’re offering.

And make no mistake, this is a public relations disaster. I’m not just saying this because I disagree with the basic premise that you can, as the blog post states, use a handy, practical tool to magically “dissect their own assumptions” and quickly, avoiding “token characters” and achieving “true representation” by identifying “more diverse character narratives” that go beyond “mere appearance”. Humans struggle with these things not because we We’re mere mortals who can’t understand the primitive logic of 1s and 0s, but because getting to a better world is a painful process. You can’t speed it up. The moment you try to take a shortcut is the when you are no longer engaging with the real problem.

While addressing these issues may involve tools, Activision Blizzard has proven time and time again that it’s at the stage where it needs more education, guidance, and mentorship from real people with skills. non-technical to help establish a basic understanding of what diversity means before you can even think. on creating a tool like this. When a company like this it takes years to introduce a black woman in a video gameI cannot believe in good faith that he has the ability to “measure” what diversity is or means, let alone implement it well.

But even if we take the thing in itself, it makes no sense. Can you look at any of the visualizations shared in the blog post and tell me what they might mean?

Screenshot: Activision Blizzard

I guess there’s some logic to this, maybe logic that’s only explained and known to people who regularly use the tool, but even suggesting that you can list something like “capacity” is completely silly. What is ability 0? What does it mean when the image in the blog post says someone has “sexual orientation: 0.357”?

How can you put that in front of someone and not feel weird about what you did or what you say?

While hardly significant, the use case examples cited in the blog post will not be compelling to the average person. There’s Call of Duty Vanguard, a game that Activision not only tried to distance himself from, but the one that friends actively hate because it has diversity. Then his other example is Overwatch 2, a game that almost everyone asks, “Why does this exist?“Are these just reasons to set something aside? No, certainly not. But they add to the top of an already crappy pile. Nobody’s gonna say “Ooo, they used that to the Call of Duty that disappointed everyoneAgain, the levels of marketing failure here are unfathomable.

So yeah, it’s not the most compelling way to package what’s already a tough sell for people who want change but don’t think it can be achieved through representation alone. Nor for those other people who think just putting a woman in a video game is inherently too political.

But maybe it was inevitable. Technology is in many ways the most extreme manifestation of whiteness and capitalism, structures that actively invest in defining, codifying and ranking markers of identity in order to maintain power and profit. The marginalized are seen only when useful, and then only in the most degrading terms, for shitty ends. Identity is key to achieving these goals. After all, if you can develop a system for, say, defining things like gender or race, you can use that information to “inform” broader choices, like making sure your character designs are diverse from more complex way.

In reality, more often than not, such data is used to monitor, imprison and monitor identities that are put under the microscope, often by people outside their own communities. In this case, whether the entities collecting the data realize it or not, its most direct effect will be to better equip them to deflect criticism from the very parties they claim to want to hold accountable. It’s funny how it works.

Why hire more people of color when you have software that already tells you what to consider, or worse, that might make you think you already know what is what? Do you really have to think about your biases if the character you created spits out a 3, 4, and 5 on the computer’s diversity scale? Those are some pretty good numbers, man! Now that we’ve sorted that out, it’s time to spend some quality time develop realistic horse balls. Polish is king.

“The traits and metrics are applicable to broader entertainment verticals, including TV, film and literature,” the blog post read. “The only change required if used in these verticals would be the base traits, which would need to be calibrated to be relevant to the genre and universe in which each character exists.”

Activision Blizzard’s blog post ends by saying that ultimately it’s just a tool, and ultimately it’s always up to the people behind the wheel to make the choices. But not before betraying a more grandiose vision of a world that lives under the influence of its tool, and therefore of its master logic.

Yesterday, the world has a new jackass movie. After two years of covid-19, I admit that I’m happy to see the old gang again, wild and stupid as always. It feels like a little piece of normalcy, one that I’m glad to have in 2022. But in 2007, after the release of the second film and five years after the series ended, someone decided to make a Jackass video game. By all accounts, those involved really tried to do it. Unfortunately, they were doomed because it’s impossible to translate Jackass into a video game.

Jackass: the video game was released for the PSP and PS2 in 2007, with a DS port released the following year. Today I’m mainly talking about the PSP and PS2 versions of the game because those are the ones I’ve played. These versions were developed by Interactive Sidhe and published by Red Mile Entertainment.

What is a Jackass video game? How do you translate the dangerous, silly and disgusting stunts and bits from the show and movies into a video game? If your answer was: a collection of mini-games and multiplayer activities featuring the cast of the series, you had the same idea as the developers.

On paper, this seems like a solid way to recreate the fun, frenetic energy of movies and shows. But even if the minigames were good (which it isn’t) and even if the game had 200 of them (which it isn’t), it still wouldn’t have worked. Even with all of that, you still wouldn’t have gotten an accurate recreation of Jackass in digital video game form.

No one is watching Jackass because we actually care if Steve-O walks the tightrope hanging over the alligator pit. No one cares how cool or stylish someone looks while skateboarding through a glove of swinging bags. I don’t care if Johnny Knoxville lands a few good shots in his match against Butterbean.

When asked if Knoxville will “Catch the ball?” Ryan Dunn says, in the clip below, “Who gives a fuck?” And he’s right. That’s not why we’re here.

I’m here, like everyone else, to watch a group of friends fuck for a few hours. Passing, failing, doing it right, or hitting a combo is not the goal. Still, nearly all minigames in Jackass: The Game are designed to complete Tony Hawk-like objectives, win challenges, or score points.

And while that’s often the point of games, it’s completely antithetical to what Jackass is: a series about buds who get hurt, challenge each other to do stupid shit, and have fun, while often failing the whole time. Trying to turn this into a game was always going to be basically impossible.

To the game’s credit, it cleverly includes much of what makes Jackass work, including music and cast interactions. All of the main cast – aside from Bam Margera for contractual reasons with Activision – appear in the game and also provide their voices. It is important. Having those idiots fighting or what have you only works if they do it as a fun bunch of lovable thugs. All of this pleasure is essential for us to feel less guilty when we laugh at all their pain and suffering. “It’s good”, we say to each other between bursts of laughter, “Everyone is laughing and hugging each other. So it’s just a moment of pleasure!”

Jackass wouldn’t work if, at the end of every crazy stunt, the camera lingered on the victim’s squirming body in complete silence, alone and covered in blood or shit or whatever. He needs laughter, friendship and all that good music. And the game has it all. The problem is that the other important part of Jackass is the stakes.

If the Jackass cast gets it wrong, they can seriously hurt themselves or end up eating or licking something really terrible. Some stunts went wrong, resulting in terrible injuries. And while it sucks, it’s part of the necessary formula. Real humans, risking everything for a few laughs and giggles. Removing that part of the equation, which of course the video game does, kind of kills the whole experience.

Why should I care if Digital Pontius in-game falls off a building or gets his ass kicked? Because I score fewer points? This might work in a good collection of minigames, but here it only leads to a boring experience with no stakes. This game may look like Jackass, but it’s never quite as enjoyable as the real thing. Although it is for sure safer, which some parents might have appreciated at the time.

Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN (Getty Images)

Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard was new capital today, both in terms of the magnitude of the case and its shock value. But we shouldn’t be too surprised. It was inevitable. A handful of companies have always wanted to own it all, and nothing will stop them.

The proposed sale – the technicalities dictate that I must remind you that it has yet to be approved – involves some shocking numbers. $70 billion is counterfeit money, a fictitious sum normally reserved for national budgets and defense agreements. The union of these two companies, with all these properties and all these games, alongside a home console and a massively popular subscription service, instantly changed the entire shape of the video game industry.

But a deal like this was always going to happen sooner or later, and if it wasn’t Microsoft and Activision, it would have been Sony and EA, or Tencent and Ubisoft, or someone else buying something else. Because that’s how it works. Video games are trapped in the same hellish systems as everything else on this planet, and are subject to the same cruelly unfair, almost dystopian rules.

It’s all about money. All. It’s all about steady growth, rising stock prices and dividends, while everything for us as people who love to play games gets worse, from exploitative microtransactions to shoddy launches in going through the looming threat of NFTs.

It’s like Microsoft just can’t help it, despite the fact that they’re already literally the second richest company on the planet, a company that already makes video game consoles, was already a publisher of games, already owned game studios and had already made some of the biggest games on the planet. They couldn’t help it because there is no rest for the rich. Corporate inertia means that there is no satisfaction in being big enough, or powerful enough, or rich enough, when there is always the possibility – and shareholder demand – of having more.

It’s almost comical that Microsoft spent $70 billion on a company called Activision Blizzard King, the result of mergers between three previously independent (and hugely successful in their own right!) companies coming together just to make money for some investors. , only for this company. eventually redeemed. There is always a bigger fish!

Remember that this is not a normal purchase. There is simply no precedent for a sale of this magnitude in the video game industry. Biggest previous acquisition before this one was the $12 billion paid by Take-Two for Zynga… earlier this month. The biggest before that was the $8 billion Tencent paid for Supercell. Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard is in a whole different stratosphere.

To put it into perspective, both financially and culturally, it’s a “Disney buys Pixar and Star Wars and Marvel” storyline. Disney’s monolithic domination of popular culture over the past decade has been absolute, and it sucks. He was there for all to see for all these years, screwed up everything from the rest of the film industry to the theaters and that’s the kind of large-scale deal that’s now happening for games as well video, like this grim reaper meme going door to door.

Look at the ongoing consolidation in other industries. Amazon is devouring every store in America and crushing entire cities under its feet. Google and Apple know everything about you, sell all the ads on the planet, and kill the media along the way. Almost anything you buy at a grocery store owned by only ten companies.

It’s boring and it’s dangerous (monopolies are ironically terrible for a free and open market), but even gloomier than the economic realities is the fact that in a system where only the pursuit of profit matters, there is no there is no room for justice. Bobby Kotick deserved to be kicked out of Activision with nothing. Instead, he’s going to leave at sunset with more money than we could ever hope to spend – for on top of the obscene sums he’s already made– and will not suffer any repercussions for his role in promoting and protecting a company-wide culture of harassment that lasted for decades.

What really pissed me off today, however, wasn’t this deal itself – as I said, it was happening, regardless of who was involved – but what it means. It’s not a shock one-time purchase, where every other company involved in video games just sits back and thinks, wow, that’s bad news for us, but we’re just going to carry on as if nothing happened and hope for the best. No, because this system is sick and deranged and the only impetus left for competition is to do the same, consider this:

It’s the future. There’s no way boardrooms everywhere from EA to Ubisoft to Sony won’t be full this week with panicked executives talking about their options for something similar, because their only instinct will be to match that. To keep up, make the stock price go up, until there are only 2 or 3 companies left at the top of the food chain, and things get a little worse for the rest of them. ‘between us. Because they don’t know anything else.

Photo: Kevork Djansezian (Getty Images)

In November, Xbox director Phil Spencer told staff he was “evaluating all aspects” of Microsoft’s gaming division’s relationship with Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard following a The Wall Street Journal’s explosive report workplace misconduct and cover-ups at the big publisher. Pressed to explain exactly what that meant in a new interview today with The New York Times, Spencer said he was not interested in another company’s “shame virtue”.

Spencer wrote in November email to Xbox teams that he was “disturbed and deeply disturbed by the horrific events and actions” recently highlighted in the Wall Street Journal report, a sentiment he reiterated today in an interview with tech reporter Kara Swisher on his Sway podcast.

“I always feel the people who work in any team, my own teams, other teams,” Spencer said when asked about Activision Blizzard’s ongoing calculation. with reports of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination. “I think people should feel safe and included in whatever workplace they are in. I’ve been in this industry long enough to perhaps feel more responsible for what’s going on in the video game space. And I am saddened and sickened when I hear of work environments that cause so much distress and destruction to individuals and teams.

When Swisher asked in a follow-up how reports on Activision Blizzard had changed Microsoft’s long-standing partnership with the giant video game publisher, Spencer said he couldn’t speak publicly about it.

“We’ve changed the way we do certain things with them, and they realize that,” he said. “But me too, for us as Xbox it’s not about shaming other companies. Xbox’s history is not without blemish.

As an example of Xbox’s problematic past, Spencer referred to a now infamous GDC 2016 party Microsoft has hosted women in schoolgirl outfits dancing on platforms. Spencer apologized for it at the time, and did it again in an interview with Axios. last november. Of them former senior Xbox employees were mentioned in last year’s reports of malpractice at Activision Blizzard, but Microsoft has so far declined to comment.

Spencer has been asked several times by Swisher about ways Xbox would “punish” Activision Blizzard for past incidents at the company, but he remained vague:

Swisher: I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s wrong with punishing them for that? Like, we don’t want to do business with you unless you’ve cleaned up. Now, again, these issues were also back several years ago, but under the same leadership, Bobby Kotick, who is the longtime CEO of Activision.

Spencer: I think in terms of interactions with other companies, the things we choose to do with our brand and our platform, in coordination or not with other companies, is the avenue we need to have. an impact. I would say that when it comes to people in leadership positions in other companies, obviously it’s not up to us to judge who the CEOs are. Like, CEOs are chosen by shareholders and boards of directors. At Xbox, I know who I’m responsible for here in terms of business and operations. These are my teams here, my management chain. And that’s the thing we keep focusing on is trying to grow taller. And whether it’s about sharing, once again, the experiences we have with other partners, if we can help them on their own journey or on things that are happening in our own teams.

Following the Wall Street Journal investigation last November, thousands of Activision Blizzard employees called for the resignation of CEO Bobby Kotick. A group of workers called the ABK Workers Alliance announced soon after that it was distribute union cards members, while a small group of developers officially went on strike following the announcement of layoffs at Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software.

Brian Bulatao attending a House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on September 16, 2020 Photo: Pool (Getty Images)

With Activision Blizzard employees more organized than ever in the wake of society several prosecutions for sexual harassment and layoffs in quality assurance, a senior executive apparently felt the time had come to send an alarmist email warning workers of the vague “consequences” of unionization.

The author of the email, Brian Bulatao, is a buddy of Donald Trump Activision Blizzard has been appointed COO. earlier this year. During his time in politics, Bulatao is said to have acted at one point as the “attack dog” of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Intimidation” of former Inspector General Steve Linick as Linick investigated the Trump administration’s 2019 $ 8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

Here’s what Bulatao had to tell Activision Blizzard employees in a company-wide email this morning (emphasis added), Courtesy of Organizer and Senior Test Analyst Jessica Gonzalez:

Everyone,

At Activision Blizzard, we work hard to create a more inclusive, supportive and rewarding environment, and thanks to your contribution, we are making progress.

Over the past few months, we have announced that we are converting nearly 500 temporary workers to full-time employees at Activision Publishing studios, and we have increased wages for a large portion of temporary workers and added benefits for paid time off. . We have introduced a zero tolerance policy on harassment and have waived the arbitration required for complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination. We have made significant commitments to increase gender diversity and are dedicating $ 250 million to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent in the industry. We have more to do and we believe that direct dialogue between management and employees is essential to the success of Activision Blizzard.

As you may have seen yesterday, there was a communication supported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) that required employees to sign and submit union authorization cards. Let me be clear on this: the management of Activision Blizzard supports your right, under the [sic] National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to make your own decision about whether or not to join a union.

As you make this decision for your future, we only ask that you take the time to consider the consequences of your signing on the binding legal document presented to you by CWA. Once you have signed this document, you will have ceded to CWA the exclusive right to “represent [you] for the purposes of collective bargaining regarding all conditions of employment. This means that your ability to negotiate all of your own working conditions will be entrusted to CWA, as the document says.

Achieving our cultural aspirations in the workplace will best require an active and transparent dialogue between managers and employees on which we can act quickly. This is the best solution than simply signing an electronic form offered to you by CWA or waiting for the outcome of a legally mandated and regulated negotiation process in the future.

If we fail to meet the goals we set for ourselves in the workplace, if we fail to do the things we are committed to doing, then of course you will still have the right to commit and to vote for CWA. But we are confident that we will make the progress we previously pledged to make and work with you to create a workplace we can all be proud of.

As always, we welcome communication with concerns or ideas to help make improvements, and there are multiple channels of internal dialogue, both direct and anonymous.

Brian

Bulatao’s email smacks of desperation, yet another attempt by Activision Blizzard management, who had previously hired an anti-union law firm, to subdue the company’s besieged workforce before employees realize the power they hold. The memo’s message is explicitly inspired by decades of rhetoric launched by predatory bosses terrified of collective action. The only thing missing is a reference to Activision Blizzard as a family, although it is clear that management would prefer the organization’s many issues to be addressed internally, away from public scrutiny when their decisions inevitably harm workers and benefit managers.

Since yesterday, the defense group ABK Workers Alliance raised over $ 235,000 in the strike funds of employees of Raven Software, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, who entered this morning in the fifth day of their walkout in response to recent layoffs in the quality assurance department. While organizing has been underway at Activision Blizzard for months, a worker told Kotaku that the situation at Raven Software provided a “spark” to move forward openly with organizational efforts.

“There is still a long way to go,” said Valentine Powell, World of Warcraft organizer and senior user interface engineer. recently explained via Twitter, “But we want to support our colleagues through [Activision Blizzard King] to finally have a real voice in the management of our companies, because in recent months and years, we have seen our leadership continue to ignore the needs of its employees. Thousands of ABK employees have put their careers and safety on the line for years trying to make our businesses better and safer places to work. We exhausted as many avenues as we could before we turned to organizing. “

Read more: Inside the revolt that led to the historic push to organize workers at Activision Blizzard

In the United States, with workers openly expressing their displeasure at the country’s largely obnoxious labor practices – in part thanks to the covid-19 pandemic exacerbating existing problems – it was only a matter of time before the labor organization does not take root in the video game industry. And now that that momentum is building up, it’s hard to see it ending any time soon, whether bosses like it or not.

Image: The rewards of the game

Like Geoff Keighley’s annual Prize giving of the game entering his eighth year, the creator and animator told the Washington Post today that he’s still considering how to “navigate” Activision Blizzard’s involvement in the ceremony following the latest reports of sexual misconduct at the publisher.

“We want to support employees and developers,” Keighley said in an interview on what to expect at the 2021 Game Awards, which takes place on December 9.[Keighley] He added that he supported the people presenting their stories, but also didn’t want to diminish the opportunities for developers to showcase their games, ”The Washington Post reported.

“We have to think very carefully about how to do this here,” he said in the interview. Despite being one of the most prominent figures in the video game industry, Keighley has so far refrained from speaking out against years of reported abuse at one of the world’s largest game companies. .

Keighley and The Game Awards did not respond to a request for comment.

Activision Blizzard, which faces a lawsuit by California regulators alleging years of widespread sex discrimination, harassment and other forms of abuse, is one of the few companies on the Game Awards advisory board. In addition to Activision Chairman Rob Kostich, the board also includes executives from Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and many other gaming industry giants.

Image: The rewards of the game

The executives of these console makers in particular were some of the few voices that have spoken recently, albeit internally rather than publicly, in the wake of an explosive Wall Street Journal investigation about misconduct at Activision Blizzard that involved its CEO, Bobby Kotick.

While thousands of publisher employees called on Kotick to resign, Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, and Xbox Chief Phil Spencer, each emailed their respective staff to express their disgust and concern over the allegations, although none have announced specific changes in their business relationship with Activision Blizzard.

In addition to recognizing the hard work and artistic achievements of game developers, the Game Awards are also a giant marketing platform for game companies to advertise their upcoming games. Last year, Activision took advantage of the event to show the first season Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War post-launch Warzone content.

Read more: Games created under difficult conditions do not deserve the “best direction” awards

In the Last episode From Inside the Game Awards, a podcast series promoting the show, Keighley confirmed that the new game announcements and trailers are by far the most popular part of the event and the main reason for which most viewers connect to. He also spoke at length about the work and collaboration with video game companies who organize the selection of trailers each year. Keighley confirmed to the Washington Post that the 2021 show will not include anything about Blizzard’s recently delayed Diablo IV and Overwatch 2, but did not mention if any other Activision Blizzard games may appear.

However, accusations of misconduct and abuse are not unique to Activision Blizzard. In addition to the growing mountain of crunch reporting in many studios often nominated for Game Awards, other members of its advisory board have also been criticized. Sony’s PlayStation division was recently sued by a former employee allegation of discrimination on the basis of sex. Microsoft has faced a number of accusations of discrimination more the years. Reports a culture of sexism at Riot Games ultimately resulted in a giant settlement. And Ubisoft, which faced its own massive #MeToo account last year, continues to be accused by current and former employees of not having take complaints of misconduct seriously.

Update: 12/04/21, 8:21 am ET: Keighley explained Activision Blizzard’s involvement in this year’s Game Awards in a Twitter feed posted late last night. The host confirmed that the publisher does not appear outside of the categories for which its games are nominated (nominations and winners are voted on by the media), and added that “there is no room. for abuse, harassment or predatory practices in any business or community. . “

Keighley continued:

I also realize that we have a great platform that can accelerate and inspire change. We are committed to it, but we must all work together to create a better and more inclusive environment so that everyone feels safe to create the best games in the world.

We are all responsible for this standard. Amazing games – and the talented developers who create them – are the ones we want to celebrate. We will see each other Thursday.