It's a Saturday and that means it's a WRUP day. Good morning or afternoon or WTF ever everyone, it's me, Scrooloose and today is a beautiful day here. Certainly not feeling like the winter we had last year. I'll be taking the opportunity to get some paid projects done and thank goodness because money has been tight the last few weeks. But who cares about my boring ass life? Let's go look at this WRUP. Be forewarned this isn't a happy one and I'm opinionated about it.
The merger between Microsoft and Activision-Blizzzard has taken place and as usual that means hurting the lives of people who work for both companies in the name of profits. Blizzards main executive, Mike Ybarra, announced his departure. Phil Spencer of XBox said they plan to lay off some 1,900 staff across multiple studios saying it was a "...painful decision...". He also said that those affected by layoffs will receive severance benefits with "...full support...". I'm going to editorialize as usual, I already have been I suppose, and just go ahead and call bullshit. First off, mergers like this always cause this sort of chaos because it costs tons of money and stock values tank, investors pull away etc. so big layoffs happen in order for these companies to pursue stock buy-backs and make themselves look more profitable while the transition happens. Secondly, giving those affected "full support" is nonsense. Full support would be those people keeping their jobs. Yes, stock values may drop a few percentage points for a month or two while things get settled in but they would inevitably come back up and things would be fine. Thirdly, this is a merger that never should have taken place to being with. The mention of it perked the ears of anti-trust lawyers but of course anti-trust laws basically don't matter any more so it was allowed to take place regardless. Anyway, here's a much less opinionated article from BBC news.
A survival game in development for six years at Blizzard has been canceled by Microsoft. I've heard this project called "Odyssey" but maybe I'm not entirely correct here. In any case this is a direct effect of the recent merger with Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard. There isn't a lot of information about the game itself but it was widely received internally as being pretty incredible. Something like Blizzard has never done before and according to PC Gamer was something akin to Narnia, where kids are brought into a new world by fantasy creatures. Too bad it'll never see the light of day. At least not as a whole. The link above will take you to PC Gamer and you can read some more official details there.
And that's it from me this weekend. Dour news indeed. We're wishing everyone well and hoping you affected will land on your feet. See you next time.
What are we playing?
Greywolfe: i've been slowly making my way through saints row 2022. just either picking up missions or doing some of the open world stuff. the more i play it, the more i think it was just not going to suffice for anyone in either saints row camp: it's not weird and ridiculous enough for me - and i really liked sr3 and 4. [i don't like how they dealt with women in general and there's one or two things that are a miss for me now, but largely, the off-the-walls-craziness suited me fine.] and my understanding is that it's not gritty and grounded enough for folks who liked sr1 and 2. so it's just a game that's very middle of the road and aimed at no one in particular. i can sorta see why it mostly flew under the radar. the other thing i've been playing is voice of cards; the isle dragon roars and that - also - is a rather middle of the road jrpg. it hits all the tropes [including one or two that have made me eyeroll] and isn't too difficult, so it's like a little gaming holiday in a sense. just, you know, those tropes are awful and i wish they weren't there. i also wish it went further with regards to it's "everything is a card" theme. but it's a game made on a shoestring budget where the name recognition comes from having yoko taro at the helm. i'm not sure square enix could do much more with it than they did.
Aj: Armored Core VI and Wargroove 2
Scrooloose: Hopefully some work for me, but also SnowRunner and Prey 2017.