The serious business of making games

Another acquisition.

I believe that should read “Dead Island 2 delay to April '28”

Nicole Carpenter at Polygon made a primer for unionizing the video game industry:

Shout out to Nicole, who is a great reporter.

Oh, also: 300 QA workers at Zenimax (part of Microsoft) are voting to unionize, and Microsoft is not standing in their way.

Looks like FTC is pumping the brakes on MS buying activision/blizzard.

Why everything in USA is based on suing?

Isn’t the FTC a regulatory agency of the government? Why do they have to sue?

I’d think of it as having a way for the non-FTC party to be able to make their argument for why the merger should to a neutral 3rd party. The alternative is that the FTC says the merger can’t happen, then if Microsoft wants to argue their case they have to argue it to the government agency (or some part of it that may or may not appear to be impartial) that already said they couldn’t.

Because the government doesn’t have absolute power?

Isn’t this how it works in most countries with a rule of law?

Not really. Generally the government agency makes a decision and if the subject objects they challenge it, either in court or a dedicated tribunal.

Oh I gotcha, I see the distinction. Just about who is doing the suing.

Yep, same over here in Germany. Any major merger or acquisition of this kind would require the approval of the authorities. If the deal is not approved, the companies in question can appeal or make concessions (as Microsoft does by offering a 10-year offer for CoD to remain on other platforms), but not receiving approval is not akin to getting sued. The deal simply can’t happen.

Looks like FTC bagged itself an Epic catch:

I was surprised to see this make my local news and had to Google Epic’s projected revenue this year. $6.27 BILLION?!? Guess they can afford that tax.

In all seriousness, I’ve got a couple young kids who are just starting to need online accounts and parental controls, and Epic’s were pretty solid (as of maybe six months ago when I set them up.) Everything goes through the parent’s email and 2 factor authentication, and a PIN is configurable to be required for purchases, logins, enabling chat, and more. Other services have felt way more predatory or just opaque.

I’m all for regulatory backpressure against Epic wildly profiting from child-driven financial decisionmaking, but I’m more worried about other services.

UK developer Archer Maclean has passed.

As crazy as it seems now to say it, Jimmy White’s Snooker was a god damn revelation at the time.

The staff at Proletariat Games, recently acquired by Activision to support WoW development, are moving to unionize. What’s unique about this is that it covers all the departments at the studio, not an individual one like QA.

(Emphasis mine)
Clearly there was no way to foresee this stunning eventuality. :)

Best of luck to them!

Haha, yeah, I was about to reply “Name checks out.”

Five unannounced D&D games cancelled.

That’s too bad; Baldur’s Gate co-op on PS2 was such a great experience. Yet another one my brother and I played for way too many hours.