Today's News:
* Add Knockout City and CrossfireX to the growing list of free-to-play games shutting down this year with servers for Knockout City shutting down on June 6th and for Crossfire X shutting down on May 18th. Both games shutting down due to unofficial reasons of not generating enough money to continue support. In regards to Crossfire X, only its multiplayer mode was FTP but since its an "always online" type game, the single player mode will become unplayable as a result.
Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/knockout...all-this-june/ ,
https://www.destructoid.com/crossfir...single-player/
* Microsoft announced that a recent message posting on the Xbox Marketplace stating that their entire Xbox 360 store would be shutting down this May was done in error and they do not have any plans of actually doing so this year.
Link:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/2/23...g-closing-down
* The Coalition reportedly is currently rumored to have recently cancelled development on two unannounced projects in favor of working on a new game in the Gears of War series, Gears 6, according to GiantBomb's Jeff Grubb. Part of the reason was due to the studio had been working on multiple projects at the same time along with other duties and the other part was the studio being affected by Microsoft's recent mass layoffs.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
Speaking on the Game Mess Mornings show, Giant Bomb writer and frequent spoiler Jeff Grubb suggests that the studio had been working on multiple projects, including the aforementioned two new titles, additional support for Halo Infinite, while also helping Epic Games with its Unreal 5 tech demo The Matrix Awakens. Grubb suggests that the team may have been pulled from all of the above projects to start working on Gears 6 — a continuation of the popular and hugely successful Xbox series.
“This was all reflected in the layoffs that happened at Microsoft, which did hit The Coalition a little bit. The studio is now going to move on fully to Gears 6. I say now, it has likely moved on to Gears 6 in full over the course of the last year, but definitely, that will be their next game.”
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Link:
https://clips.twitch.tv/SpotlessBloo...Lmut94jN34KbHa ,
https://www.destructoid.com/rumor-th...rk-on-gears-6/
* Activision Blizzard recently paid $35 million as a settlement payment to the SEC over its investigation into toxic workplace allegations and violating an SEC whistleblower protection rule.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay $35 million to settle charges from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These charges included allegations that it failed to maintain proper workplace disclosure procedures, and violated an SEC whistleblower protection rule.
The SEC investigated into Activision Blizzard, charging that it did not have proper procedures for documenting workplace misconduct complaints. Because of this, it would not be able to adequately disclose whether misconduct problems merited disclosure to shareholders. Additionally, the SEC charged that Activision Blizzard was found in violation of a whistleblower protection rule.
Activision Blizzard agreed to a cease-and-desist order and a $35 million penalty, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings.
“The SEC’s order finds that Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors,” said the SEC’s Denver regional office director Jason Burt in a statement. “Moreover, taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal.”
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Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/activisi...-charges-news/