TGO Daily | Friday July 23, 2021 | Activision Sued by California
In the news: Activision Blizzard making headlines for all the wrong reasons, IGF & GDC Award winners announced, and Dead Space is finally getting its remake.
TGO Daily | Friday July 23, 2021
✏️ From the Author
My weekend officially starts tomorrow! Nothing too crazy planned for me this time around. Play some Pokémon United because you KNOW I’m going to! May go see a movie as well.
The real goal for the weekend is sleep! Beautiful, wonderful, glorious sleep. Sometimes you’ve got to appreciate the small things in life.
Until next time,
Brandon
California Sues Activision Blizzard
Bloomberg reports that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed complaint with Activision Blizzard Inc. on cause of: Employment discrimination because of sex; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; unequal pay.
The DFEH has been investigating Blizzard for two years and reports that female employees are subjected to a “pervasive frat boy workplace culture”. Specifically they cite “cube crawls” as an example, which involves male employees drinking alcohol and making their way across the office into various cubicles and engaging in inappropriate behavior. The DFEH is seeking an injunction that would force compliance with workplace protections, as well as unpaid wages, pay adjustments, back pay, and lost wages and benefits for female employees.
Blizzard released a statement regarding the complaint:
“The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today.”
Brandon’s Thoughts: Another big company with another load of grossness in accusations. The DFEH has worked on this for 2 years, so to file the complaint now means they’re confident enough with what they have. Blizzard’s statement is pretty expected, although seems rather antagonistic? I found that a bit odd. We’ll continue to follow the story as it develops and keep you posted!
IGF & GDC Award Winners
We have the announced winners of the various awards from the Independent Games Festival & Game Developers Choice Awards. Be sure to click on any games that seem interesting to you for more info on them!
Umurangi Generation - Winner of Seumas McNally Grand Prize & the Narrative Prize at IGF. A photography game with a really interesting look to it.
Hades - Winner of the Game of the Year, Best Audio, and Best Design at GDC. An action roguelike from Supergiant (Bastion, Transistor). A really great game from a really great developer.
Genesis Noir - Winner of Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Visual Art. A noir point-and-click exploration title.
Teardown - Winner of Excellence in Design. You teardown things and complete heist objectives. It seems odd on description, but the execution is pretty brilliant.
Blaseball - Winner of the Nuovo Award (awarded to games that make us ‘think differently about games as a medium’). The game plays out like a simulated fantasy baseball league.
Vessels - Winner of Best Student Game. A Narrative exploration game with some solo player Among Us vibes.
Arrog - Winner of the Audience Award. A hand-drawn puzzle adventure.
Phasmophobia - Winner of Best Debut. A ghost-hunting game that can get intense quick, especially with friends.
Genshin Impact – Winner of Best Mobile Game. An action RPG with a sort of Breath of the Wild look to it.
Microsoft Flight Simulator - Winner of Best Technology. The title speaks for itself - it’s a flight sim game!
Half-Life: Alyx - Winner of Best VR/AR Game. The latest addition to Half-Life, with a VR spin to it.
Dreams - Winner of Innovation Award. A game where you make your own games. Gameception.
The Last of Us Part II - Winner of Best Narrative. Surely this needs no introduction. Fantastic game and series in general.
Ghost of Tsushima - Winner of Best Visual Art and Audience Award. A really fun action game where you play as a ninja/samurai.
There’s quite a few games here and all won awards for good reasons. I recommend you check some of them out and see if you can find something that captures you!
Dead Space Remake Officially Announced
EA has finally confirmed a remake of the original Dead Space is being worked on by its Motive studio (Star Wars: Squadrons). With no hint at a release date from EA, coupled with little footage in the teaser, we can imagine it’ll be some time before we get an official date.
The popular horror title from 2008 will utilize the Frostbite engine and EA says the game is being built “completely from the ground up.” It will release on the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
For those of you who loved the first game or never got to experience it but wanted to, the teaser gives us some familiar set pieces that look great:
🕹 Free Games
Epic Games Store has announced their latest free titles. Take a look and see if any interest you!
Epic Games Store
Mothergunship - July 29 - Aug 5
Train Sim World 2 - July 29 - Aug 5
💡 Read More
Playdate handheld pre-orders start next week and will ‘not sell out’. It will cost $179 USD.
Multiple Borderlands 3 developers depart Gearbox for indier pastures.
Battlefield 2042’s open beta will launch in September. EA Play members and customers who pre-order any version of the game will receive early access to the open beta.
👋 Say Hello!
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Thanks for the read <3