Activision Blizzard Celebrates Record Profits as Workers Suffer Low Wages (Source: Kotaku )
A few days ago, Activision Blizzard employees collaborated to circulate a spreadsheet so that the income disparity would be made apparent. Today, Activision Blizzard celebrated “record results,” in terms of their earnings report for Q2 2020.
The timing of this makes it easy to see that the gains of Activision Blizzard, its CEO, and the shareholders are at the expense of the company’s employees, some of whom barely make over minimum wage. Many are struggling to make ends meet. As a comparison, Bobby Kotick, the CEO, makes over 300 times that of the average employee.
Combined with strenuous working conditions, crunch, and a lack of job security, this news highlights the priority a company’s bottom line receives over the actual human lives of its workers. It almost seems as though it doesn’t matter how well a company does, it’s never enough. Companies will always want more.
PS5 DualSense Will Not Feature Back Buttons (Source: IGN )
Sony recently released an image of their new DualSense controller which allowed people to see the back of the controller for the first time. This is important because it confirmed that the controller wouldn’t have back buttons.
Back buttons are a convenient option, especially for competitive gamers. It allows people to use their otherwise unused fingers on the back of the controller so they don’t have to move their fingers off the analog stick or other buttons at important times in order to reach another button. The DualShock 4 just received an attachment that features back buttons, and Microsoft’s Xbox Series 2 controller also has them. This lead to speculation that the PlayStation 5’s new controller would also have this option.
There’s no reason to give up hope, yet. Sony could very feasibly release other, premium controllers, just as Microsoft has for their consoles. I guess it’ll just be a matter of waiting, but I imagine Sony is listening to consumers and gauging interest.
Familiar Faces Coming to Street Fighter V (Source: Kotaku )
Street Fighter V , which is around four and a half years old at this point, still receives support from Capcom in the form of seasons of DLC. The company has just revealed what we can expect from what is to be the final season of DLC.
For starters, there’s Dan, the silly, weak, and iconic Street Fighter character whose style is similar to Ryu and Ken’s, except much worse. The season will also include Rose, Oro, and Akira Kazama. Akira Kazama is a cool as heck, motorcyclist from the Rival Schools , a series where students fight other students. There’s a charm to it, and fans have been hoping for something like this for a while.
Capcom says it selected the characters in this pack because they have attachments to characters who are already in the story of Street Fighter V. The characters are still in development and not much is known about them at this point. What is known, though, is that Capcom still has at least one more character to announce and that they plan to start releasing the content this winter.