It’s Friday and the week is almost over. That means we have to report what’s been going on on the business side of video gaming. This week has had some ups, but definitely some downs as well. There’s been some negativity going on amongst people who work in the industry and for a good reason.
Activision Blizzard and Riot Close Offices?
Riot is closing its Sydney arm. The Australian office was tasked with running the League of Legends Oceanic Pro League, which reportedly didn’t meet expectations and is going the way of the dodo as well.
According to Bloomberg who has reportedly collected testimonials by affected employees, Activision Blizzard is to close its office in Versailles, France. This division of the mother ship is responsible for marketing, localization, and consumer support in Europe. Reportedly, the office had some 400 employees in 2019, but 134 left earlier this year. It’s rumored that half of the operation will be moved in London, but this is not an easy feat given the combination of Brexit and COVID-19.
Speaking of France, Ubisoft has been working with an external research firm to survey surveys close to 14,000 employees worldwide regarding the culture of the workspace. They found that around 20% of the people working there don’t feel safe at work and have endured or witnessed misconduct in the last couple of years. Ubisoft has shown that these things are taken seriously and a new reporting system has been implemented to better the conditions inside the many offices. Good!
The Industry Keeps Doing Well
Let’s switch gears to positive news. For starters, Call of Duty Mobile has been doing insanely well, making Activision $480 million in its first year across 270 million downloads. Other impressive mobile game numbers include $239 million for Fortnite and $274 million for PUBG Mobile.
Ghost of Tsushima is expected to have a huge update featuring co-op play and new content on October 16, while Star Wars Squadrons has “no plans” for DLC’s, which, coming from EA, is kind of good news if we assume the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality.
PS5 is expecting to sell more than 7m units by April 2021, outperforming the PS4. This is all well and good, but let’s hope they have the things in the first place, given the many delays and difficulties with manufacture and transport due to the virus.
Free Is A Great Price
Let’s finish off with two great news. First, EarlyGame has a new series, highlighting deals on free games! If you pay attention, you’ll be able to stack up your game library with some cool games at no charge!Second, the Steam Games Festival is currently live! If you go to the dedicated page, you’ll be able to play some cool indie games before their release and chat with the devs! Last time, the number of new games was almost overwhelming, but there were some true gems in there!
For more industry news and video game information, keep reading EarlyGame!
