Overbuff Recall – January 21, 2022 – Overbuff

Surprising everyone this week, Microsoft said it’s working out a deal to buy Activision Blizzard for almost $69 billion USD. Nice? Depends on who you ask.

The deal hasn’t been finalized while it waits for regulatory approval. Assuming it’s allowed, it won’t be complete until June 2023. At that point Microsoft will own Overwatch, Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Candy Crush, and so much more. Microsoft also said in their announcement that they going to put as many of the games they can onto Game Pass, but no details on that plan were revealed.

It’s unclear if CEO of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick will stay with the company once the buyout is complete. News outlets have been all over the place confirming that either he will stay and others confirming he will go. I think he’ll go, happily abandoned ship in his almost $400 million golden parachute thanks to owning about 4 million shares of Activision Blizzard.

Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, also put a little CEO jab at Kotick, saying in his announcement: “As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players…We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard.”

Apparently Microsoft has put the idea to purchase Activision Blizzard before and was always declined, but Bobby saw the writing on the wall and decided now was finally the time to accept their offer. (source)

My Two Cents

When a friend asked me the other day what I thought of this deal, I said, “I think it’s great for Activision [and Microsoft], not so much for everyone else.” I have no doubt that we’re going to see some great changes ahead, and Microsoft seems interested in reviving other franchises that Activision Blizzard has completely ignored, games like Guitar Hero among countless others.

But what does it mean for employees? Will they all get to keep their jobs?

Microsoft seems to take inclusion very seriously, so if anyone is going to be the one to buy the company, they are probably one of the best choices, but that still consolidates even more developer studios under one proverbial roof–something I’m typically against.

Interviewed by GamesBeat, part of VentureBeat, Bobby Kotick was asked why he’s selling the company and if the investigations were a factor in the stock price drop. He replied saying the drop was because Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 weren’t out yet, not because of the investigations of his companies and the discrimination lawsuit.

While their delay certainly are a factor, that he attempted to skirt the other issues at the company and pin everything on his developers is terrible. Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy couldn’t provide details, but in response to his statement we got a clearer picture on the real reasons for the Overwatch and Overwatch 2 delays:

Bobby, tell everyone about the random projects for OW1 you all would shove on us, the team would do [overtime] for, only them to get cancelled and for months of OW2 dev to have been lost. Or how almost entire teams are turning over and citing you as the reason. Don’t be shy. (Tracy Kennedy, Twitter)

So yeah, one of the reasons Overwatch 2 keeps getting delayed? A CEO with no developer or game experience keeps putting his hands on the project. A 2010 quote from Kotick: “And I think the goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought in to Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.” (Gamespot)

Bobby Hiding Information Again

Kotaku said this week, thanks to a Wall Street Journal report, that Bobby was again trying to hide the firing of more staff over the past few months, with “more than three dozen” fired, with another 40 disciplined.

Bobby Wanted to Buy Gaming Press to Put His Poor Leadership in a Better Light

Polygon also said that the Wall Street Journal report indicated Bobby Kotick wanted to buy sites such as Kotaku and PC Gamer to change the public narrative about Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard disputes the report but gave no further details.

QA workers from Raven Software, one of the many studios owned by Activision Blizzard, have announced their unionization, calling themselves the Game Workers Alliance. (In December on this blog I outlined the process of how unions begin.) 78% of the required 50% employees needed for approval voted in favor.

Now it’s up for Activision Blizzard to recognize the union, they have 5 days, but up until now they’ve been working toward trying to bust the unionization attempts. Some members of Raven Software’s QA team have been on strike since December, but Activision Blizzard even as recently as Wednesday, denied this in a filing with the SEC.

With news of the unionization, Activision Blizzard released a statement with typical corporate BS, but do claim to be reviewing the request for voluntary recognition. (Polygon)

Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees. While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union.

Across Activision Blizzard, we remain focused on listening closely to our employees and providing the improved pay, benefits and professional opportunities needed to attract and retain the world’s best talent. Over the past couple of years, this has included raising minimum compensation for Raven QA employees by 41%, extending paid time off, expanding access to medical benefits for employees and significant others, and transitioning more than 60% of temporary Raven QA staff into full-time employees.

With no release date other than “soon,” OWL coach, player, and caster Jake Lyons revealed this week a new experimental card is coming out and he’s in charge of some DPS changes. As of this writing we also know streamer mL7 is behind the support changes.

During a stream he said that these were his on changes, but that does mean they will make it to the experimental card. Thank you to Liz from Dot Esports for collating the suggested changes. (Google Docs)

Genji

• Dash has 2 charges; eliminations refund 1 dash charge each, casting ult refunds 1 charge.

• Dash damage reduced to 30

• Dragonblade duration reduced by 50%

• Dragonblade applies a 40% attack speed buff upon ending that lasts for 6 seconds (i.e., buff starts after you sheathe the sword). You can begin charging the next ultimate as normal during this buff.

Doomfist

• New passive: Cooldowns (uppercut, slam, punch) which deal no damage to enemy entities (including shields, buildables, and players) reduce the OTHER two ability cooldowns by 1 second

• Seismic Slam can be canceled (after a small delay) by pressing E again

Echo

• Passive (falling) glide speed increased by 15%

• New passive “Assimilation”: Final blows instantly heal echo for 30% of Echo’s current missing HP (still works during Copy)

• These self-heals should charge ult just like any other healing effect

Mei

• Ice wall boosts players (and Mei herself) far into the air when cast under them (looking for this to feel roughly similar to a max charge Baptiste crouch jump) — affects both allies and enemies

• Cryo-Freeze collision size increased by 50%

• Melee attacks on fully frozen targets deal 100% increased damage

Pharah

• Direct hits from Rocket Launcher apply a 25% movement slow for .5 seconds. Knockback also increased by 100% for direct hits.
• Concussive Blast now has two charges.
• Players “booped” by a Concussive Blast cannot be “booped” again for 1.5 seconds. This applies to both Pharah and other players.

Junkrat

Sombra

• Weapon spread reduced by 20%
• Rate of fire increased by 20%
• Hack cooldown (for interrupted hacks) increased from 2 to 3 seconds
• Enemy hack status effect reduced from 5 to 3.5 seconds (affects EMP as well)
• Invis now has an 8 second timer, but makes no audio cue to enemies upon passive decloak from the ability ending. Active decloak, from a Sombra canceling the ability, is unchanged.

Bastion

• Configuration: Sentry disabled

• Configuration: Recon clip size increased to 100

• Configuration: Recon max spread reduced by 20%

• Model size reduced by 15%

• Self-repair no longer canceled by primary fire (can be used simultaneously)

• QOL option to use normal crosshair during Configuration: Tank

Hanzo

• Dragonstrike: The dragon is spawned immediately if the arrow hits a wall before the normal .6 seconds has elapsed

• Storm arrow: removed

• New E ability: 6 second status buff with a cooldown of 14 seconds (cooldown should start on cast, so 8s downtime) Status buff activates ALL of the following:

Lunge cooldown reduced to 1s (for the duration); Storm Bow charging movement penalty removed (30% -> 0%); Storm Bow charge speed increased (time to max charge .75 -> .45)

Torbjorn

• Primary fire applies a stacking effect to enemies (including shields) which increases the damage of subsequent primary fires by 5.
• Stacks decay individually and last 5 seconds; No stack limit (other than what is possible with max fire rate/hitting every shot)