Update Patch | May 2022
As with many months, May happened and brought with it the usual tribulations. Sue Gray compiled a report and everything’s been kicking off in the sports world, with the end of an awesome football season up and down the divisions, and in basketball, the best team in the NBA were demolished by the greatest Slovenian to ever exist. HalleLuka. In gaming, May had some wonderful indie surprises inb the form of Loot River and Citizen Sleeper while Bruce Campbell graced our screens both at the movies and in Evil Dead: The Game. Plenty happened, so we have our traditional Update Patch, which us proving more reliable at delivering regular content than Halo: Infinite.
1. Square Enix Sale Fire Sale
Square Enix have dominated news headlines this month not in least part because they began the month with the shock sale of all of its Western Studios and associated IPs to the Embracer Group for $300m, a low sum given that the studios involved are Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and SE’s Montreal studio.
IPs included in the deal range from banner franchises like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief to cult classics like Legacy of Kain to what we will politely call "other stuff" like Gex. Square Enix released a statement explaining the decision to sell the studios, explaining “The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources… the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud.” Peachy. However, now (in June) the company has stated that the money from the sale will not be invested in the Blockchain.
The Square CEO, Yosuke Matsuda, still did write that weird new years love letter to the blockchain so don’t go celebrating no NierFTs yet.
For those unaware, Embracer Group, a company that sounds like a sci-fi corporation in a YA novel, is a company that has been around since the 1980s in Europe as an investing firm however truly entered the games market when in the early 2010s when it bought the IP of several defunct studios, in 2013 it changed its game division name to THQ Nordic AB after buying many of the IP and naming rights right the recently shuttered publisher, before changing its name back to Embracer Group AB in 2019, while keeping the THQ Nordic name alive as one of its several publishing divisions. Described on its own website as “parent company of businesses led by entrepreneurs in PC, console, mobile and board games and other related media.” The company now claims to be home to more than 12,750 employees.
Look forward to a remake of the old Tomb Raider games… Hopefully with modern controls.
In a presentation, CEO & Co-Founder Lars Wingefors gave rationale for the purchase and goals for the acquisition as well as further details of the transaction. Most intriguing, part of the company’s reasoning is “Exciting pipeline of new instalments and original IPs”, indicating a potential desire to continue with some of those legacy franchises. Additionally, further information was displayed on transactions with “over 50 back-catalogue games” included and the transaction is “expected to close” between July and September this year.
Since, the group has also announced an archive for games preservation that is home to 50,000 games, consoles and accessories, based at the company’s Swedish headquarters. A team has been recruited for the project and the group plans to begin cataloguing this year and then find uses for the collection.
2. Activision Blizzard News
Here we are again. The usual update around Activision Blizzard. To start, the company has filed a request with a California court to have the initial lawsuit by the state’s department of fair employment & housing (DFEH) thrown out. In this, Activision Blizzard claims that “the agency violated its own rules, acted in bad faith, and undermined its authority to file this lawsuit.” Additionally, the DFEH are accused of going outside of the remit of their own lawsuit and investigation, which was supposed to focus on gender discrimination concerning pay. No decision has been made on this at the time of writing.
However, another lawsuit has been filed, this time by New York City Employees' Retirement System and pension funds. The suit was filed in late April and the group actually owns Activision stock. The main claim forming the basis for the suit is that CEO Bobby Kotick rushed into the company’s sale to escape consequences for the sexual harassment claims put forward in lawsuits against the company, stating “Kotick and his fellow directors a means to escape liability for their egregious breaches of fiduciary duty.” NYC has begun requesting information and data from Activision Blizzard that is related to the lawsuit.
The biggest news is the formation of Activision Blizzard’s first trade union as QA testers at Raven Software voted 19-3 in favour of forming a union on the 23rd May. According to the Washington Post, this result came despite Raven Software management attempting to persuade employees from voting in down, mainly through an April 26th town hall in which leaders put forward that doing so could “impede game development” and followed up with emails asking testers to vote no. In a statement, a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard said:
“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union. We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees.”
Microsoft President Brad Smith has been busy commenting on this and the acquisition itself, revealing in an interview with a Belgian publication L’Echo that the acquisition is progressing relatively fast and that it is not just U.S. regulators requesting details, stating “It’s moving fast, at least fast enough for an acquisition of this size… We have received requests for information on this subject here in Brussels, but also in London and Washington.”
With regards to the trade union, Smith released a blog on Microsoft’s website discussing the subject with a surprisingly positive tone. The blog tells us that Microsoft are committed to recognizing unions and in more practical terms, stated “We are committed to collaborative approaches that will make it simpler, rather than more difficult, for our employees to make informed decisions and to exercise their legal right to choose whether to form or join a union.”
Being a necromancer is cool and all, but what if you could by some loot boxes for hats for your skeleton army?
Blizzard also released two games (remember they technically still do make games occasionally) in the form of a PvP Beta for Overwatch 2, which is now over, and the long-awaited and divisive Diablo: Immortal on mobile on PC. Both games have been welcomed with extremely mixed receptions.
3. Starfield, Redfall and Bethesda's No Good, Very Bad Day
Xbox has been hit with some bad news with two of its major AAA releases both delayed to the first half of 2023 as the effects of the pandemic continue to be felt. In a post on Twitter, Bethesda announced the delays of Arkane’s coop shooter Redfall and RPG Starfield, with the company stating:
Now that Microsoft’s (not) E3 showcase has happened there is way more gameplay screenshots available but I wanted to give our robo-buddy-press-kit-guy one more outing.
“The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to ensure that you receive the best, most polished versions of them.”
This isn’t particularly surprising, given the former of those games was due for release this summer and has been mostly radio silent when it comes to gameplay trailers or further announcements. However, with two of the company’s flagship releases for the year delayed, players are frustrated with the lack of AAA output from Xbox. As such, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said on Twitter:
“These decisions are hard on teams making the games & our fans. While I fully support giving teams time to release these great games when they are ready, we hear the feedback. Delivering quality & consistency is expected, we will continue to work to better meet those expectations.”
Chilling with the gang, doing vampire-slaying stuff…
4. Xbox DRM Fiasco
The month has been full of tribulations for Microsoft, and the cherry on top of the dismal cake was when their controversial digital rights management (DRM) policy went faulty and saw Xbox gamers unable to play games, including games bought digitally and owned by players, for almost a week early in May.
To play devil’s advocate - Microsoft needs to make sure not one single person is pirating Blinx: The Time Sweeper.
Despite the company’s attempts to emphasise the preservation of games through their backwards compatibility program, their DRM policy has drawn the ire of many and in this case, saw players unable to play games because of a fault. Xbox was eventually able to figure out the gremlins plaguing their systems, though saw plenty of critique.
The group Does it play?, which are dedicated to testing games and their ability to launch offline, were especially critical stating, "This IS an Xbox issue… a majority portion of Xbox titles have DRM check-in. They absolutely do not have them on PlayStation… we’ve tested them”. Xbox haven’t made any statements at the time of writing as to whether they will change course on DRM.
5. Switch & Nintendo Games Sales Figures
Whilst other console manufacturers have had tricky times dealing with difficulties arising due to chip shortages and the pandemic, Nintendo has been busy crowing about a number of successes it has seen in the last 12 months. The Switch already became the company’s home console of all time and now, the console has hit 107.65m sales as it aims to surpass the 154.02m figure set by the Nintendo DS.
2.9m units sounds like more then enough to guarantee a sequel but it is worth remembering Luigi’s Mansion 3 sold 11.43m.
Additionally, Nintendo’s latest report has confirmed that the latest Samus adventure, Metroid Dread, has reached 2.9m sales and is now the best-selling game in the history of the franchise. Perhaps most interestingly, under 300k of these sales are in Japan, indicating the large appeal of western sales for the modern series.
In its report at the end of March, additional sales figures were revealed for some of the company’s 2022 releases. Kirby and the Forgotten Land has seen 2.1m copies shipped in its first two weeks and Pokemon Legends: Arceus sold 11.4m copies in 10 weeks.
The company still appears to have a stacked line up for the rest of the year too with the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Splatoon 3, Bayonetta 3, Advanced Wars 1+2 and whatever it has to announce over the (not) E3 time frame all slated for this year.
6. EA/FIFA Breakup
After a number of rumours, EA have announced that their partnership with FIFA is coming to an end and that FIFA 23 will be the last branded title before the company introduces what will be known as EA SPORTS FC in July 2023.
Ok, but everyone is still just going to call it Fifa still, right?
In a statement on their website, EA announced this and gave details about what would be in the new game, which has very little known so far. “Everything you love about our games will be part of EA SPORTS FC – the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there. Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football will all be there.” Additionally, the licences that EA has held over the years for teams, players and leagues will remain in place going forward.
Most interestingly, FIFA themselves are looking at their own game to compete with the serious. In statements, they have said that discussions are being held with “leading game publishers, media companies and investors”, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, “I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans.” Nice to know FIFA have their priorities in order.
This news isn’t particularly surprising given the statements provided to VGC in which CEO Andrew Wilson earlier this year that he felt the FIFA licence was “an impediment” to EA.
7. Jim Ryan’s Email About His Dog
The U.S has been through a rough month politically, and one of the biggest decisions was the leak that the U.S. Supreme Court is looking to overturn the Roe v Wade decision which gave women the right to abortion up to 24-28 weeks from conception.
People across the U.S. have reacted to the news and game developers have not been an exception. However, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan drew criticism for a bizarre response that angered PlayStation staff.
In a report by Jason Schreier who obtained a copy of Jim Ryan's latest in his regular series of personal newsletters to staff, he urged staff to “respect differences of opinion” and “Respect does not equal agreement. But it is fundamental to who we are as a company and as a valued global brand.” After that, Ryan then wrote a number of paragraphs about the birthdays of his pair of cats, their behaviour and his wish to get a dog. Helpful.
Most surprisingly the email itself has not been leaked in full but apparently is the latest in a line of newsletters where Ryan muses to his staff about his personal and business life, including recommendations of restaurants to visit if in France.
Since, Spider-Man developers Insomniac sent a 60 page dossier to PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst asking for leadership to “do better by employees”. Insomniac is donating $50,000 to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project and Sony will match that donation, according to the Washington Post.
8. EA Looking To Sell
Finally, the news of video game acquisitions continues to dominate the year’s trend, a report has emerged from Puck that EA has been discussing the possibility of merging with other large companies outside of the gaming industry.
According to the report by Dylan Beyers, the company has held talks with “a number of… suitors, including Disney, Apple and Amazon”. Perhaps the strangest news is that the furthest a deal has reached reportedly was with NBCUniversal, until the deal fell through in April.
It would be the most EA thing if right as a new Dead Space releases they are merged with a bigger company that once again decides there is no money in singleplayer games
EA has responded in a statement to Kotaku, with spokesperson John Reseburg saying “We don’t comment on rumours and speculation relating to M&A [mergers and acquisitions], we are proud to be operating from a position of strength and growth, with a portfolio of amazing games, built around powerful IP, made by incredibly talented teams, and a network of more than half a billion players.”
Of course, the industry is in a period of consolidation with acquisitions aplenty, given the currently planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard and Sony’s acquisition of Bungie.
Patch Notes:
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a business venture set up by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has bought a 5% stake in Nintendo, adding to the fund’s various stakes in large gaming companies.
Netflix has shown off the first footage of the animated show Sonic Prime in a trailer advertising upcoming animated projects.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into Sony’s planned $3.6bn acquisition of Bungie.
All Elite Wrestling, the second-largest wrestling organisation in America, has announced the title of its upcoming wrestling game developed by former WWE 2k developers Yuke’s, AEW Fight Forever.
Dashiell Wood - pictured here - a clown.
Ubisoft has announced their paid subscription service of games, Ubisoft+, will be coming to Playstation platforms and a smaller Classics version will be added to the Playstation Plus service.
Finally, Gamers everywhere were shocked to learn that Platinum Games’ live-service title Babylon’s Fall was down to one active player. Less surprising is that the player was a friend of the site and purveyor of nonsense and wondrous things, Dashiell Wood.
