Rumors And Hearsay
Activision Blizzard have come under a whole lot of fire over the last few weeks – multiple accusations of harassment by employees have lead to not only a walk-out protest by their employees, but also a criminal lawsuit by the state of California itself. Now, however, a new drama has arisen for Activision Blizzard due to rumors that they had invested the princely sum of $100 million into the Nevada-based development studio PlayStudios,
PlayStudios are a development team who have focused on the casual and gambling side of gaming, working on titles like My Vegas Bingo, My Vegas Slots and Kingdom Boss. Recently, rumours began to spread among the gaming sphere that they had received a significant investment from Activision Blizzard, who have over the last little while been trying to combat their own bad press.
Between the harassment lawsuits and the criticism that arose from Activision Blizzard’s supposed interaction with PlayStudios, the company have been keeping an eye out for bad press over the past little while, likely in an attempt to save a little bit of whatever reputation they’ve got left. Ever since the reveal of the harassment case, even the most avid players of Blizzard’s biggest games like World of Warcraft have been jumping ship to other alternative titles – Final Fantasy XIV in particular has been affected by the huge amount of players growing disenchanted with WoW and other Blizzard titles.
In response to the investment rumours, a spokesperson from Activision Blizzard clarified the compay’s relationship to PlayStudios: “Activision Blizzard did not invest $100M into PLAYSTUDIOS nor increase its investment in the company. We owned an interest in the original PLAYSTUDIOS that was recently party to a merger with a listed entity. As a result, we received shares in the new entity and are now disclosing that ownership as required by the SEC”