Posts Tagged: Blizzard

Blizzard will raffle off a human-blood-infused PC if Diablo IV players donate 666 quarts

Blizzard hasn’t exactly been subtle in marketing Diablo IV, but its latest PR stunt is especially on the nose. To celebrate the release of the game’s new season, Season of Blood, and the high-payoff Blood Harvest events it introduced, Blizzard has launched a month-long blood drive in the US that’ll unlock in-game rewards as more people participate. Once donations reach 666 quarts altogether, players will be able to enter a sweepstakes for “a custom liquid-cooled PC infused with real human blood.”

The first tier of rewards, a batch of five weapons cosmetics, will unlock once donations hit 33 percent of the goal. At the 66 percent mark, players will also be granted access to the Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian armor cosmetic. When donations reach 100 percent of the goal — a total of 666 quarts of blood — the Vermilion Eye Piebald Mount will become available, and the sweepstakes for the custom PC will open.

Aside from the whole “human blood in the coolant” gimmick, the Seasons of Blood custom PC features NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090, an Intel Core i9 CPU, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, 3 TB SSD Storage, and the Quantum Vector GPU Waterblock for cooling. And, the sweepstakes won’t just be reserved for those who donated. Once the goal is met, any player in the US over 18 can enter. The blood drive is open from now through November 20, and you don’t need to go anywhere special to get in on it. Players 18+ can donate at their local blood centers, then submit proof on the Diablo Blood Harvest website.

A typical blood donation is 1 pint, so it’ll take a little over 1,300 donations to hit the final goal. Players can keep track of the blood drive’s progress by visiting the above website and its motivational fountain of gushing blood. At the time of writing, it’s already at 15 percent — or almost halfway to the first goal. 

Considering the Red Cross recently announced we’re in the middle of a blood shortage, it’s maybe not the worst idea. All of the rewards will be doled out a few days after the blood drive closes, on November 22. Happy harvest!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/blizzard-will-raffle-off-a-human-blood-infused-pc-if-diablo-iv-players-donate-666-quarts-192828807.html?src=rss

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Blizzard will let you try ‘Diablo IV’ once more ahead of its June launch

Blizzard is giving gamers another chance to try Diablo IV before its official arrival. The game’s Server Slam will give console and PC players 48 hours to explore the prologue and Act I as the publisher prepares its infrastructure for the dungeon crawler’s highly anticipated June 6th launch.

The Server Slam will take place from May 12th at 12 PM to May 14th at 12 PM PDT. It will be open to players on Windows PC, PS5 / 4, Xbox Series X / S or Xbox One. The event will support couch co-op, cross-play and cross-progression, and you can play as all five character classes, including Barbarian, Druid, Sorcerer, Rogue and Necromancer.

The two-day event will limit character progression to Level 20, after which you’ll no longer receive Ability Points (but you can still earn new gear). In addition, if you played during the game’s Early Access or Open Beta periods, your progress won’t carry over to Server Slam — nor will progress from the Server Slam transfer to the game’s launch.

Blizzard is giving Server Slam participants a challenging boss fight in Ashava, described as “one of the Burning Hells’ most fowl machinations.” The monster with “two razor-sharp arm blades, scales stronger than plate mail, and hell-bent on ripping through all who interrupt her quest to bathe Sanctuary in poisonous bile” should present a formidable challenge for Level 20 and under players. However, anyone taking her down will seize the Cry of Ashava Mount Trophy, which will roll over to the final launch. Additionally, you’ll get another chance to earn the trophies from the first two beta weekends, including the Initial Casualty Title (reach Kyovashad with one character), the Early Voyager Title and Beta Wolf Pack Cosmetic Item (both requiring reaching Level 20 on one character).

Blizzard is opening pre-downloads for Server Slam two days before the event, on May 10th at 12 PM PDT. You can read the full installation instructions here, and if you participated in the earlier betas (and didn’t uninstall it), you’ll see an update for Server Slam available to download.

Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic tried Diablo IV during a December preview and the more recent betas and was left cautiously optimistic. It revealed impressive attention to story and gameplay detail as the upcoming title slows its pace while still adhering to the franchise’s familiar roots. However, we’ll have to wait and see if Blizzard can “stick the landing,” given the publisher’s hit-or-miss record in recent years — and memories of the fiasco that was Diablo III’s 2012 launch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/blizzard-will-let-you-try-diablo-iv-once-more-ahead-of-its-june-launch-211509415.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Diablo co-creator Erich Schaefer is making an action RPG with a studio of Blizzard North veterans

With Diablo IV set to arrive later this year, 2023 will be a big year for action RPGs. But there’s more to look forward to beyond this year. On Thursday, Moon Beast Productions – an indie studio founded by Phil Shenk and Peter Hu, two former Blizzard North developers – announced the hiring of Diablo series co-creator Erich Schaefer. In an interview with GamesBeat, the studio said Schaefer will serve as lead creator director on a new action RPG. Details on the project are sparse, but what Moon Beast shared with Schaefer was reportedly enough to convince him to come out of retirement.

“We have ideas for changing the genre with a different approach to progression and trying to solve some of the problems that are beholden to PvE games, especially games, like the Diablo franchise has dealt with,” Shenk told GamesBeat. All three men worked on Diablo II. Notably, Shenk is credited as the game’s lead character artist, and was responsible for designing the appearance of a few of the game’s character classes, including the necromancer and assassin. Lord of Destruction, Diablo II’s excellent 2001 expansion, features a tribute to Shenk in the form of a monster you must slay to complete one of Act V’s quests.

Schaefer told GamesBeat Moon Beast currently employs about 12 people, making it smaller than many of the other studios working in the ARPG genre. The good news is Schaefer has plenty of experience leading small teams. At Runic Games, he made Torchlight with a team of about 25 people. "I want to work on projects that are fun and genuinely try to do something different," Schaefer said. "It’s impressive what the Moon Beast team has built in such a short time. It fired up my imagination with possibilities, and that's a huge part of why I wanted to come aboard."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/diablo-co-creator-erich-schaefer-is-making-an-action-rpg-with-a-studio-of-blizzard-north-veterans-232322721.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Workers at Blizzard support studio Proletariat aim to unionize

On Tuesday, workers at Proletariat, the Boston-based studio Blizzard bought earlier this year to support World of Warcraft development, announced they recently filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Proletariat is the third Activision Blizzard studio to announce a union drive in 2022, but where past campaigns at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany involved the quality assurance workers at those studios, the effort at Proletariat includes all non-management workers. The 57 workers who want to form the Proletariat Workers Alliance include animators, game designers and software engineers. The group seeks representation from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union that helped QA staff at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany organize.

“Everyone in the video game industry knows Activision Blizzard’s reputation for creating a hostile work environment, so earlier this year, when we heard that Blizzard was planning to acquire Proletariat, we started to discuss how we could protect the great culture we have created here,” said Dustin Yost, a software engineer at Proletariat. “By forming a union and negotiating a contract, we can make sure that we are able to continue doing our best work and create innovative experiences at the frontier of game development.”

The Proletariat Workers Alliance asked Activision Blizzard to recognize their union voluntarily. According to the group, the company has yet to respond to the request. Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

The workers at Proletariat say they aim to preserve the studio’s “progressive, human-first” benefits, including its flexible paid time off policy and robust healthcare options. Additionally, they want to protect the studio from crunch, the practice of forcing compulsory overtime during the development of a game. They’re asking management to commit to a no-mandatory overtime policy and implement better pay and health protections for workers who agree to voluntary overtime. The Proletariat Workers Alliance says their colleagues also shouldn’t be penalized during performance reviews for not taking on extra work.

In June, Microsoft announced it would respect all unionization efforts at Activision Blizzard following the close of its $ 68.7 billion deal to buy the publisher. Earlier this month, the FTC sued the tech giant to block the merger.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

FTC sues to block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard merger

The Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust complaint in a bid to block Microsoft's planned $ 68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The FTC started looking into the deal and its potential impact on the video game market soon after it was announced in January. Evidently, the agency was concerned enough to try and pump the brakes on the buyout. The FTC said that, were the deal to go through, it "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business."

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a press release. “Today, we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

The FTC's commissioners voted in favor of the lawsuit along party lines, with the three Democratic members approving it. The lone Republican Commissioner Christine S. Wilson voted against the suit in a closed-door meeting.

"The FTC pointed to Microsoft’s record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles, including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (a well-known game developer)," the agency said in a press release. "Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda's titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles."

While the lawsuit doesn't necessarily kill the deal, it's unlikely to be resolved by July, as Politico, which had reported that an FTC bid to block the merger was likely, recently noted. That was the deadline Microsoft and Activision set for closing the deal. If the acquisition hasn't closed by then, the companies will have to renegotiate the agreement or even walk away from the merger. Regulators in other jurisdictions have been taking a close look at the deal, including in the UK and the European Union (which should complete its investigation by late March). 

Sony is the merger's most prominent opponent. It has expressed concern that Microsoft would make games such as Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox platforms, which could cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars a year. However, Microsoft has said it wants to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and it claims to have offered Sony a 10-year agreement to that effect.

Just ahead of the FTC's vote, Microsoft said it struck a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty games to the company's systems if the merger closes. Call of Duty will also remain on Steam as part of a separate pact with Valve.

Microsoft and Activision have been downplaying the significance of the deal in an attempt to appease regulators and push it through. For one thing, Microsoft has claimed that Sony has more exclusive games, "many of which are better quality," in a filing with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It also said Activision Blizzard doesn't have any "must-have" games, despite having some of the most popular titles in the world (including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft) under its umbrella.

The FTC refuted those suggestions in its complaint. The agency claimed that Activision is "one of only a very small number of top video game developers in the world that create and publish high-quality video games for multiple devices." It noted that between franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, Activision has more than 154 million monthly active users.

Microsoft has suggested that the acquisition the deal is more about gaining a foothold in the mobile gaming market, where Activision's King division is a major player. For instance, Candy Crush Saga has had more than 3 billion downloads.

Ultimately, the FTC believes that the merger would likely harm competition in the video game market. "With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers," the agency said.

Noting that the FTC is suing to block the merger, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in a note to employees that "This sounds alarming, so I want to reinforce my confidence that this deal will close. The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn't align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge." 

Kotick added that "a combined Microsoft-[Activision Blizzard King] will be good for players, good for employees, good for competition and good for the industry. Our players want choice, and this gives them exactly that."

"We continue to believe that our deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers," Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote on Twitter. "We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC. While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court."

Update 12/8 2:58PM ET: Added comments from Bobby Kotick and Brad Smith.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Blizzard will stop selling ‘Overwatch’ loot boxes on August 30th

Blizzard will stop selling Overwatch loot boxes on August 30th, the studio announced in a blog post published on Tuesday. The date coincides with the end of the game’s recently launched Anniversary Remix Vol. 3 event. Blizzard notes players will still have the chance to earn free loot boxes after the 30th. Additionally, the game will automatically open any loot boxes in a player’s inventory before the launch of Overwatch 2 on October 4th. With the new game set to replace Overwatch at that point, that will ensure players don’t lose any skins and other cosmetics before the switch.

In June, Blizzard announced Overwatch 2would abandon loot boxes in favor of a seasonal battle pass and a “consistently updated” in-game store. The move came after the studio said it would not release Diablo Immortal in Belgium and the Netherlands due to laws in those countries against that kind of monetization.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Blizzard gives sneak peek of new mobile game ‘Warcraft Arclight Rumble’

Warcraft fans can look forward to a new mobile game in 2022. Blizzard today released the trailer for Warcraft Arclight Rumble, a free-to-play, single-player strategy game that is due later this year. The game features collectible Warcraft Minis that players will be able to control in order to defeat evil leaders in the Warcraft universe.

The game’s Google Play store description states that players will have the choice of building armies with five playable families: Alliance, Horde, Beast, Undead and Blackrock. Players can opt for single-player mode or going head-to-head in PvP battles. Arclight Rumble will feature multiple modes, including Conquest, Dungeons, Raids and Co-Op. The game features over 60 Warcraft Minis and characters in total, with the ability to unlock new skills and upgrade the characters as you level up. The game’s website features even more details on the upcoming title, including the option to pre-register for more details (including the release date, which hasn’t been announced yet).

With Activision’s ongoing workplace sexual harassment lawsuits aside, it’s been a mixed couple of years for the Warcraft universe. As PC Gamer notes, the Shadowlands expansion had problems that left some devoted WoW fans in a tizzy. Last month’s trailer on the Dragonlandsexpansion let down some fans too. But a new mobile game offers up a fresh opportunity for fans to get excited about Warcraft again with relatively low stakes. You can watch the trailer for Arclight Rumble below:

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Ten years later, Blizzard is done making content for ‘StarCraft II’

A few months after StarCraft II’s 10th year anniversary, Blizzard has announced that it’s moving away from creating new content for the title and focusing on “what’s next.” Blizzard VP Robert Bridenbecker said the developer won’t be producing for-pur…
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Blizzard will open its next eSports stadium in LA

Back in March, gaming titan Blizzard opened its first eSports arena — in Taipei. Sure, they probably chose Taiwan as a hub teams playing in Overwatch's far-ranging Pacific championship, but the question remained: Where was the arena on Blizzard's ho…
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Blizzard isn’t ditching the Battle.net name after all

Some fans got sad when they heard that Blizzard plans to ditch the Battle.net name after two decades online. Others shrugged it off: it's new name doesn't matter anyway. It's always going to be called B.net. After hearing its fans' thoughts, the vide…
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Google and Blizzard invite you to train AI with ‘StarCraft II’

Google, apparently tired of trouncing human players at Go with its DeepMind AI, set its computer intelligence up with Blizzard's video game Starcraft II last fall. It seems that was more than a stunt: Today, Google announced it has built a whole rese…
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