Update Patch | July 2021
July has passed us by with a few cool surprises happening in the gaming sphere, thanks to indies being the flavour of the month for many. Death’s Door, Last Stop, Boomerang X and The Forgotten City being a hit for many, the latest instalment in the F1 series (and the first under EA’s stewardship) released with an impact as large as Max Verstappen at the British Grand Prix while the Olympics kicked off with athletes from 200+ nations serenaded by music from Soul Calibur and Final Fantasy amongst others at the opening ceremony. Plenty has happened that we need to cover in this month’s Update Patch, beginning with the biggest and most alarming news this year.
1. Activision Blizzard Lawsuit: The Filing and Fallout
In the biggest story of the year so far, Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit from California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The suit was filed on July 20th and alleges pay inequality against women and details numerous cases of a ‘pervasive “frat boy” workplace culture’ that has then led to widespread sexual harassment and a culture in which HR was not trusted to solve complaints. The suit also details discrimination against women of colour, male employees joking about rape which was “encouraged” by supervisors, and pay discrimination against women at the company. The lawsuit can be read in full here.
In the lawsuit, only two individuals are named. One is current Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack, who was allegedly aware of numerous incidents, and former World of Warcraft Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi. Afrasiabi is described as being involved in inappropriate behaviour “in plain view of other male employees… who had to intervene and pull him off female employees.” In a statement, Blizzard said that his firing in 2020 was after an “internal investigation”. His behaviour extended to the “Cosby Suite”, a hotel room at Blizzcon 2013 with a framed photo of Bill Cosby in which employees, including some identified as HR representatives, would join Afrasiabi.
Literally minutes before we posted this Activision Blizzard announced at its earning call that J. Allen Brack is leaving Blizzard to "to pursue new opportunities" and Mike Ybarra and Jen Oneal are taking over as Co-Leaders of Blizzard.
Following the lawsuit, Brack wrote a memo describing the allegations as “extremely troubling”. In the memo, he said, “A company is more than a legal construct… The people make it what it is, through their actions and creations.”. On the same day, Frances Townsend, the Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs, emailed staff claiming the lawsuit was a “distorted and untrue picture of our company” and that “the Activision companies that I know, are great companies with good values.” Townsend joined the company in March of this year, having infamously been the Homeland Security Advisor to George W. Bush during the Iraq war. Her response was said to have left employees “fuming”, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.
I for one am shocked to find out that Townsend might be a terrible person…
This led to an open letter signed by 2000+ current and former employees calling the response by the company “abhorrent and insulting”, criticised Townsend’s statement and called for “new and meaningful efforts that ensure employees - as well as our community - have a safe place to speak out and come forward.". This letter quickly led to an employee strike on Wednesday 28th, in the form of a walkout. On that day, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, released a response to staff describing the company’s initial response as “tone deaf” and laying out his plan going forward, including “personnel changes” and other familiar ideas we’ve heard wheeled out after similar scandals like listening sessions held by third parties within the company’s walls. Law firm WilmerHale has been brought in to review policy. The company previously aided Amazon in preventing employees unionising at that company.
We will continue at startmenu to publish updates in this column & we stand in support of any victims of sexual harassment in the industry. Organisers of the walkout encouraged those who wish to stand with them to consider donating to these charities:
Black Girls Code - https://www.blackgirlscode.com
Futures Without Violence - https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org
Girls Who Code - https://girlswhocode.com
RAINN - https://www.rainn.org
Women In Animation - https://womeninanimation.org
Women in Games International - https://www.getwigi.com
Lot of fleeing of sinking ships as of late, huh?
2. Ubisoft Singapore in Crisis & Ubisoft Internal Turmoil Update
Ubisoft’s constant delays to its pirate adventure Skull & Bones has been a source of concern since its announcement in 2017. An investigation by Kotaku liaising with current & former developers has revealed the lead developer, Ubisoft Singapore, has been plagued by issues of mismanagement, salary gaps between local employees and international employees, sexual harassment and an ineffective HR department.
The game began life as a multiplayer expansion for the fan-favourite, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, before being expanded in scope and planned as a stand-alone release. Since then the game has reportedly been in development hell, being rebooted and losing several creative leads. The game is apparently only still in development as it has become, “too big to fail, just like the banks in the U.S.” and due to “a deal with the Singapore government requires [Skull & Bones’ completion].
All this comes shortly after the company faced allegations of a toxic workplace culture published by French newspaper Libération which led to the departure of numerous senior employees. However, a French union, Solidaires Informatique, has officially filed a collective lawsuit this month against the company. The suit specifically targeted former CCO Serge Hascoët, former HR head Cécile Cornet, editorial department member Tommy François and current CEO Yves Guillemot.
In the wake of the aforementioned Activision Blizzard scandal, Ubisoft employees posted an open letter in solidarity, supporting their colleagues’ walkout. In the letter, employees described the allegations as “heinous acts” and that “It is clear, from the frequency of the reports, that there is a widespread and deeply ingrained culture of abusive behaviour within the industry.”
Guillemot responded to the letter saying, “We have made important progress”, and cited “listening sessions” as well as “new anonymous reporting tools, revamped… HR processes” as well as stating, “there is more work to be done.”
I’m going to shoot straight with you Yves. I don’t think the quirky-but-loveable-multi-millionaire-CEO-shtick is going to go down very well at the next in-person E3.
3. Netflix, it is Like the Netflix of Games...
Netflix has announced its intention to move further into the games industry to investors this month. Until now the only game released by the company was Stranger Things 3: The Game, however, it has dabbled with other kinds of video game-esque content with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (which is basically an FMV choose-your-own-adventure) and a streamable version of TellTale’s Minecraft: Story Mode as well as releasing numerous series based off video game IP like Castlevania, The Witcher & Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness. The company has also announced plans for a live-action Resi TV series, a Cyberpunk 2077 anime in collaboration with Studio Trigger and live-action Pokémon series.
“The live-action Resident Evil TV is about the Wesker children.”
”I’M OUT!”
“Lance Reddick plays Wesker.”
”ONE TICKET PLEASE!”
The company views gaming as a “new content category”, according to a letter sent to shareholders, indicating a desire to make games a part of the company’s service. The company has also appointed Mike Verdu as VP of game development. Verdu has a generally positive reputation among developers and has previously worked as head of EA Mobile and as VP of Facebook’s VR & AR content.
Verdu’s mobile experience makes sense given the company has detailed that they will initially start with mobile games and these will be included in Netflix subscriptions. Talking to investors, CEO Reed Hastings said of the project, “The reason we're doing them is to help the subscription service grow and be more important in people's lives”.
No timeframe is currently available as to when Netflix will begin releasing more games on the service.
4. Japan Studio Goes Gently Into That Good Night
Early in the month, Sony officially removed Japan Studio from its portfolio of studios, confirming the shutdown of the famed developer after it shut up shop earlier this year. The studio has been replaced on Sony’s list studios with the developers of the PS5’s pack-in, Astro’s Playroom, Team Asobi who were originally a subdivision of Japan Studio.
Everything is upside-down right now.
It brings an end to one of the games industry’s longest-running modern studios, with the company beginning life in November 1993. Under the stewardship of many future faces of the industry, including former SIE President Shuhei Yoshida, the studio would go on to form many different teams that would produce and help develop numerous hits. Mimicking Sony’s musical division in a way, this led to a number of hits through the years, from Ape Escape, PaRappa The Rappa, Vib-Ribbon, Everybody’s Golf, Arc the Lad, LocoRoco, Patapon, Tokyo Jungle, Knack, Gravity Rush, Bloodborne and both version of Demon’s Souls (on the PS3 and the remake on the PS5).
I guess Japan Studio just gained too much Insight.
Perhaps the most famous breakaway team was Team Ico, who would release the cult classic Ico in 2001 and the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Shadow of the Colossus in 2005. Later many of the key personnel would form GenDesign and finish Team Ico’s long in development The Last Guardian in 2016.
The closure of the studio further demonstrates Sony’s move to support more of its in-house Western studios and a general move towards more Western-centric cinematic Triple-A games from companies such as Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch and Insomniac.
5. PES? Never Heard of Him!
Whilst many people will be familiar with the FIFA franchise, EA’s cornerstone football franchise and key money maker, some may be less familiar with Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer which has been a yearly competitor and immensely successful in its own right. This year, Konami has announced a new approach for the franchise including going free-to-play and changing its name.
Konami would like you to call this a “roadmap”. A lot of other people would prefer to call it “releasing a game in Early Access for full price".
Starting this Autumn, Konami will release eFootball, the latest iteration in their football franchise which will be completely free-to-play and available on all platforms including mobile. The new entry has already received a roadmap that shows a plan for cross-gen matches at launch, online leagues available just after launch and cross-platform matches available in the winter.
Most interestingly is the news that eFootball will feature a new custom engine based in Unreal Engine 4, a shift from Konami’s FOX Engine which has been in use since Pro Evolution Soccer 2014. Furthermore, the winter season will see the introduction of esports Tournaments.
6. SUMMER GAMES DONE QUICK ROUNDED-UP QUICK
In some rare “video games acting as a positive force in the world” news, SGDQ Online 2021 ran at the start of the month and once again saw speedrunners racing through numerous titles for charity. Once again, the event was run online as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and yet it still managed to raise $2.9m through donations. The money is going to Médecins Sans Frontières AKA Doctors Without Borders, whose work has never been more important than during the pandemic.
DO NOT TRY TO PUT YOUR LAUNDRY IN THIS MACHINE!
The organisers have a playlist for all the speedruns for those interested. There was a lot of talk about the Paper Mario run by JCog that for the first 20 minutes was run in Majora’s Mask (it is seriously wild what they did), the 70 star run of Mario 64 by Buzia while he was blindfolded and the exhausting just to look at run of the “Sega dishwasher arcade machine”, MaiMai Finale, by Starrodkirby86. However, some of the highlights you may have missed include Callmeliam running through underlooked classic 007: Nightfire in under an hour, Lemuura completing Dragon Age: Inquisition before the 40-minute mark, and mobius running through Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus in 21 minutes.
There was also a speedrun of GeoGuessr by havrd… Because apparently, humans can do that now.
For those interested in the next event, GDQ are running the FlameFatales event starting on Sunday, August 15th, with the event already having a number of games scheduled including Celeste, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Final Fantasy, Ninja Gaiden and more.
I really appreciate that we still don’t really know what Ghostwire is.
Patch Notes:
EA confirmed & revealed that a remake of classic 2008 horror Dead Space is in the works from Motive Studios. The game will be available on next-gen consoles and will not include any microtransactions. Yay.
District 9 director Neil Blomkamp has joined the studio Gunzilla Games to work on a AAA multiplayer shooter. He will take the role of Chief Visionary Officer (Yes, really) in what he describes as an “egalitarian version of being a film director”.
Netflix has confirmed that Season 2 of their adaptation of the Polish fantasy series The Witcher will be available in its entirety on 17th December 2021 alongside the release of the first full trailer for the next season.
Former GM of BioWare Casey Hudson has returned to the games industry with a new studio in Humanoid Studios based in Canada.
This month marks the 20th Anniversary of the Max Payne series, with the first game coming out on July 23rd 2001. Oh and the second game, The Fall of Max Payne, also had a brilliant run at SGDQ by Mattmatt.
It’s been a month of delays, with GhostWire: Tokyo, Resident Evil: Re:Verse & Warhammer 40k: Darktide all being pushed back into 2022, alongside an as yet to be confirmed report by Jason Schreier that the highly anticipated Horizon Forbidden West has been pushed to next year too.
Football Manager developers Sports Interactive have announced a “multi-year project” to incorporate women’s football into the game, however, there is no confirmed release date for their inclusion as of yet.
