activision-blizzard posts

Breaking: Chinese government rejects World of Warcraft, again

by Seraphina Brennan Nov 2nd 2009 at 6:15PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Culture, MMO industry, News items

In a crackdown against online gaming, China has put World of Warcraft under review again today, asking Chinese operator NetEase to stop collecting fees and suspend new account registration as the game is in violation of regulation agreements.

A regulator from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said today in an online statement that the game was in "gross violation" of Chinese regulations and they have returned the company's application to operate "The Burning Crusade" (Yep, that's right, they said The Burning Crusade and not Wrath of the Lich King) in China. NetEase has responded that they have not received official word from the governing body of their intent. As of this posting, Battle.net China is still accepting registrations for World of Warcraft.

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, breaking, china, gapp, general-administration-of-press-and-publication, netease, news-items, regulations, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-china

One Shots: Outland skies

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 20th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Screenshots, One Shots

With Patch 3.3 bringing in lots of goodies, the holiday event coming up, and Cataclysm looming on the horizon, Outland may not be the place a lot of people are spending time these days. Nonetheless, the skies over this strange other-world remain a beautiful place to stop and enjoy a moment of quiet. This great World of Warcraft One Shots comes to us from Tristalus of the Crimson Alliance - a guild that he says has been together for 12 years this December! He writes in: Many of us have moved on from Outlands for some time now. One day while I was flying through gathering some materials, I looked up. Everything came together in the sky for a beautiful screenshot! You can almost picture flying through that can't you?

When your server goes down for maintenance, why not take a little time and dig through that screenshot folder. That way if you find something tasty from your travels, you can email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. Any other info you'd like to share about your guild, group, character, etc, is welcome as well. We'll post it out here and give you the thanks for contributing to One Shots!

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, crimson-alliance, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, tristalus, world-of-warcraft, wow

Should MMOs in general slow their roll?

by Kyle Horner Oct 14th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Culture, News items, Opinion

Over at Keen and Graev's blog, Keen brings up a rather interesting point about the pace at which we play MMOs nowadays. He's concerned that everyone -- developers included -- are too concerned with leaping and bounding through each and every moment they play an MMO.

There may really be no 'right' answer to the question this observation raises: Do we move too fast through an MMO? Or even more to the point -- in our opinion -- is this genre becoming too concerned with imitating a singleplayer game? Those two questions are most definitely connected and it really comes down to what people want, which ultimately reaches the question of how people spend their money.

Walled garden games -- we're talking World of Warcraft and such here -- most definitely thrive on pushing players forward. It's the sandbox games that ask their players to move around horizontally; to actually talk to someone for a reason other than finishing a quest to level or craft. It's all a matter of preference. If the sandbox loving, slow rolling players aren't being properly served, someone will capitalize on that. Why, we're pretty sure there's a new game called Fallen Earth that some of you may be interested in checking out.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, fallen-earth, fallen-earth-llc, keen-and-graev, social, world-of-warcraft, wow

Activision Blizzard's CEO is a funpire

by Kyle Horner Sep 17th 2009 at 9:30AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, MMO industry, News items

Bobby Kotick isn't just the CEO of Activision Blizzard. He's also the CEO of Activision Blizzard who recently said, "You have studio heads who five years ago didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO's office pretty regularly," Then again, as Ars Technica has pointed out, his incentive program that, "rewards profit and nothing else." may have something to do with that.

That's not all Bobby Kotick recently said, however. He's also known for this uplifting little diddy, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." Now that quote may be out of context, but what kind of context can make that look... well, good or even mildly acceptable?

Something smacks of bad omens here. Sure, things are going good right now for the company that puts out Blizzard games and Call of Duty, but when a company's Chief Executive Officer is saying things like, "We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression," it may be time to double-check your neck for bite marks and then get the hell out of Irvine.

Tags: activision-blizzard, ars-technica, blizzard, bobby-kotick, call-of-duty, ceo, funpire, funsucker, world-of-warcraft, wow

Sony, Turbine, Jagex, Blizzard, and NCsoft named in patent infringement lawsuit

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 16th 2009 at 4:30PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, News items, Runescape, Legal, Virtual worlds

It seems to be a World of Lawsuits (TM) recently in our industry. Bloggers are being sued for libel, NCsoft is being sued for patent infringement, Linden Labs is being sued for trademark violations, Turbine is suing Atari, and now five companies are all being sued over a patent dispute.

The Boston Globe has reported that Paltalk Holdings Inc. has filed a complaint in Texas against Sony Corp., Activision Blizzard Inc., Turbine Inc., NCsoft Corp., and Jagex Ltd. all for games that violate their patent on computers sharing data so that all users can see the same virtual environment. The games in question are EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, and RuneScape (in order of the companies as named above.)

What makes this lawsuit different from the standard patent shakedowns that we've been reporting on is that the patent has already been successfully used in court. Paltalk has already sued, and won against, Microsoft.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, breaking, everquest, guild-wars, halo, halo-2, jagex, lawsuit, legal, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, microsoft, ncsoft, paltalk, settlement, soe, sony-corp, turbine, world-of-warcraft, wow

A WoW players guide to Champions Online

by Kyle Horner Sep 7th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, Guides, New titles, Champions Online

We're sure many of you have noticed that Champions Online coverage has increased lately, primarily because the game just launched. Since many of you are current or former World of Warcraft players with another year before Cataclysm launches, we've constructed a handy guide to help you figure out if this game is something you'd be interested in playing.

So is the game for you or not? Well, we hope you'll have a better understanding of that answer to that question at the end of this feature.

Tags: activision-blizzard, atari, blizzard, cataclysm, champions-online, cryptic, cryptic-studios, featured, guide, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-players-guide

A WoW players guide to Champions Online part 2

by Kyle Horner Sep 7th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, Guides, New titles, Champions Online

Tags: activision-blizzard, atari, blizzard, champions-online, combat, crafting, cryptic, cryptic-studios, world-of-warcraft, wow

20k BlizzCon tickets gone in eight measly minutes

by Kyle Horner Aug 7th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Events, real-world, MMO industry, News items

Klondike ain't got nothing on BlizzCon tickets when they're selling out faster than fiber optic internet on steroids.We're pretty sure there are thousands of people who would commit all kinds of unspeakable acts in order to acquire one. Maybe next year they're hold a Running Man style competition, or they could just hold a random lottery. Fans would probably do whatever Blizzard asked them, just to get the tiniest of peeks at their next big thing.

Surely though, people must be expecting some serious info to drop if the tickets sold out that quickly. Obviously there's a slim chance Blizzard's next MMO could be announced this year. There's also a chance we'll just hear more about already announced titles, but what else is there to know about StarCraft II at this point? No, we're holding out hope for MMO 2, because what's life without a little dangerous hoping?

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, blizzcon, diablo, diablo-3, starcraft-2, world-of-warcraft, wow

The Digital Continuum: SWTOR is in a year far, far away part 2

by Kyle Horner Jul 27th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: New titles, The Digital Continuum, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Tags: activision-blizzard, bioware, blizzard, ea, electronic-arts, grand-theft-auto-iv, gtaiv, konami, lucasarts, metal-gear-solid-4, mgs4, rockstar, star-wars, swtor, world-of-warcraft, wow

What if you beat out World of Warcraft and nobody cared?

by Tateru Nino Jul 15th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Opinion

Actually, here's a straight-up tip for you. If you're trying to beat World of Warcraft at its own game, nobody really cares. The users, and would-be users don't. The media doesn't. Your investors might care, but they're probably really the only ones.

In a sense, World of Warcraft has already been beaten in various ways. There are games with arguably better graphics, that are arguably more fun, and lower subscription fees.

You can argue that there are games that are better than WoW in every way, but that actually really doesn't matter either. Nobody much cares about that, because WoW has something that can't be copied or improved on.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, culture, opinion, the-winslow, world-of-warcraft, wow

China investigating potential World of Warcraft upset, may ban game

by Kyle Horner Jul 14th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, News items

Blizzard and World of Warcraft have been having some trouble as of late in China, but this piece of news seems much more foreboding that anything that came before it. Apparently, an anonymous insider says China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has assigned Shanghai's News and Press Bureau to investigate a joint venture established by NetEase and Blizzard. Not too long ago, NetEase became the new benefactor of licensing rights for World of Warcraft, but GAPP thinks the deal aims to break Chinese law.

China is very clear when it comes to foreign companies operating online games domestically through a joint venture or sole investment -- they do not tolerate it. Without argument, GAPP approval is required for any foreign online games. If they find that the NetEase and Blizzard deal aimed to operate as a joint venture, thus allowing Blizzard more control of their MMO in China, things could become bad for the two companies.

Without GAPP approval, World of Warcraft cannot be displayed publicly, traded or promoted. If a company were to attempt such a thing without approval, GAPP has said they will shoulder legal responsiblities. Assuming that were to happen, it could become very difficult for Blizzard to find a Chinese distributor for World of Warcraft. Considering the massive amounts of players who live in China, 11 million subscribers could be easily halved in the worst case scenario.

[Thanks, ScytheNoire!]

Tags: activision-blizzard, ban, blizzard, breaking, china, chinese, netease, rights, the9, world-of-warcraft, wow

In-game ad spending to reach over $1 billion by 2014

by Kyle Horner May 26th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Business models, Economy, News items

In a future where unfathomably large sums of money are spent trying to get you to buy things, only one man can make a difference. We haven't found that man, so until he shows up we're going to buy a new Dell and maybe some Pepsi. We don't know why this urge has struck us -- maybe it has something to do with all those ads we just saw in [INSERT LATEST ACTIVISIONBLIZZARD TITLE HERE].

We know not what fate awaits us in this future, but since everyone will be too busy buying stuff it probably doesn't matter. It's not like the machines will rise up or anything, right?

Tags: activision-blizzard, advertising, billion, dell, in-game-advertising, pepsi, screen-digest, terminator

First official confirmation that new Blizzard MMO is original IP

by Kyle Horner May 13th 2009 at 12:15AM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items

While we've had reason to believe that Blizzard's next MMO would be a new IP, but this marks the first occasion that we've had some kind of official confirmation of our speculation.

In a post on the official World of Warcraft forums, Blizzard community manager Zarhym came out and said the new MMO was in fact an original IP, saying, "We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this." While it's no press release or big event reveal, this is certainly the closest we've come to someone officially with Blizzard saying that, yes, it's not a previously created franchise.

So now that speculation on whether or not it's a new IP is over, we can begin to speculate on what genre this new IP will be! Science fiction, steampunk, cyberpunk or another fantasy setting? It's hard to say, although our hopes go for something decidedly not fantasy since Blizzard has already spent plenty of energy in those genres up to this point.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, blizzard-mmo, breaking, cyberpunk, diablo, fantasy, sci-fi, starcraft, steampunk, unannounced-mmo, world-of-warcraft, wow

GDC09: A candid interview with Age of Conan's game director

by Kyle Horner Mar 30th 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage

Last week at GDC 2009 was exceptionally busy, but that didn't stop us from talking with Age of Conan's game director Craig Morrison and discussing what went wrong with the game at launch and what's been done since to improve upon it.

You're in for a treat, we think.

After the jump, you'll also find discussion on free trails for this year, the DX10 client, successful MMOs and upcoming content philosopy for Age of Conan. It's a bounty of information even King Conan would be proud to see!

Gallery: Age of Conan Gallery

Tags: activision-blizzard, age-of-conan, aoc, blizzard, craig-morrison, featured, funcom, gdc, gdc-2009, joystiqfeatures, world-of-warcraft, wow

World of Warcraft dual-spec requirements massaged for your enjoyment

by Kyle Horner Mar 21st 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Patches, News items

When dual talent specializations were revealed in the upcoming World of Warcraft 3.1 patch, Blizzard had some pretty stringent rules in place. Players had to be level 80 to access the ability and also needed to be near a Lexicon of Power (found in various capital cities) to even switch specializations. But Eurogamer as discovered that things have changed!

Now, the required level is 40 and training costs 1000 gold -- which is easy for someone to do if they've got a character in Northrend. Also, players can proceed to switch talents anywhere they like, so long as they're not in battle, a PvP Arena or Battleground. The talent switch will take 5 seconds and reset class resources to zero. In addition to these changes, a one-click equipment manager will also been added to streamline switching from one build to another.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, dual-spec, dual-specs, eurogamer, northrend, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-patch-3.1