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Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

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271–280 of 379 posts

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blizzard created a modestly successful MOBA to compete with League of Legends and it just couldn’t make a dent in LoL’s Asia numbers, so they slowly put the game into maintenance mode (effectively given up on it). Are you talking about DOTA2? It was hugely successful, both from a gamer's perspective, as well as in the eSports world.

No, Heroes of the Storm. DOTA2 was created by Valve :p

Oh, whoops.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the best fiction was written by people with absolutely despicable opinions like Francois Céline or Knut Hamsun. You can see it in their art, but their art isn't limited to it, and still holds a lot of value. Friedrich Nietzsche's opinions on women and politics are plain dumb, yet his other thought can be extremely compelling, and he is rightfully one of the most influential thinkers of modern times. Going bac…

What we're Nietzsche's opinions on politics/women? I'm not surprised based on the bit of his work that I read that he has some unappealing thoughts on women, but am surprised to here his politics may be problematic as well(aside from the whole nazi affiliation thing - which as I understand is a misrepresentation of his work by his sister and her Nazi husband).

Nietzsche was ultimately pro authoritarianism and anti liberalism. His view on women is fairly standard nineteenth century misogyny, like how he "compliments" them by saying they are more clever and wicked than men.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company is only just a shell. It is the creative people that work for a company that make the actual products. If you like a game, keep bookmarks on the people who made it and follow them around the industry.

This is a really awesome point, and one that I hadn't considered before. This is how I normally find new books to read (by following authors) for some reason it just hadn't occurred to me to follow individuals in the gaming space. (Except for the Mode 7 Games, which put out Frozen Synapse, the awesome turn-based RTS [0] ) I'm curious how you follow people when so many games are made by teams of people - how do you fi…

Western gamedevs are almost universally on twitter. Pick the ones whose contributions to the games you enjoy you think mattered most (narrative designer of a story you liked, or combat designer of a gameplay loop you liked, or lead programmer of a technically robust complex game, 3D artist of a game with beautiful environments, etc). Follow them and their recommendations! Ditch them when they turn out to be predatory/abusive assholes.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quote from the article: '"Wilmerhale’s own site advertises its expertise as "union awareness and avoidance."' Therefore, yes, it is accurate to define them as a "union-busting firm". They fulfill other roles than just that, but they do act as union-busters, and they even describe themselves as such.

There's nothing "notorious" about a maintstream legal practice representing corporations against unions, and "busting" is pejorative. It's opinion click-bait.

With all due respect, this view is conversely weak willed, and complacently takes the side of Acti-Blizzard.

The firm directly states they help companies with "union avoidance."

Even charitable interpretations here support "busting" the aims of the union. This isn't an issue where "both sides" are equal in moral standing when one is advocating for better working conditions and the other is legally fighting for more profit

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#275

Union busting behavior is not that surprising, but talk about awful timing. Do the people at the top not consider the PR implications of this stuff?

If you're having a bad news cycle, why not just dump the rest of the trash with it. Let it all blend in together instead of clearing one cycle, then creating another. People can only focus on so much at one time. In a few months, people won't remember and order their next release.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#276
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet Michael Jacksons music is still played on the radio and in other media contexts.

Aside, but there seems to be a much higher level of collective cognitive dissonance with Michael Jackson, perhaps because of his stature in popular culture. I'm guilty of this myself - my brain sets a higher bar for evidence, perhaps unreasonably.

Yeah, same. As a lifelong fan of the genre, I think R. Kelly's work is boring pastiche, almost entirely forgettable (notable exception, "I believe I can fly" does have some nostalgic value). So it's never been a challenge to put his music away...

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#277

Union busting behavior is not that surprising, but talk about awful timing. Do the people at the top not consider the PR implications of this stuff?

These messages are quite common. "What terrible PR, what are they thinking."

The truth is? It doesn't matter nearly as much as people think. Companies have caught on - a vocal minority will call them out, but it won't matter. People will still buy the next COD. At the end of the day, that's all anyone cares about top to bottom.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough people are going to unsubscribe from WoW for it to make a difference, enough of the public is anti-union and many of the rest don't care.

I’m actually seeing a lot of rage directed at them from the gaming forums I interact on, including a lot of people claiming that they’ve canceled. Completely anecdotal, I know, but it was not what I expected at all. I think this one is going to hurt more than usual.

Don't let this be a confirmation bias type of situation though. The number of people that are vocal in forums rarely outnumbers the silent majority that just aren't bothered.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#280
post #3

Is there any way to break the stranglehold of large studios and enable smaller studios to build high quality games? I loved Blizzard back when they made their OG triad (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft) now it just seems indistinguishable from…EA. How can we enable more scrappy Blizzards?

Buy indie games.

That's it.

Buy indie games, usually in Early Access if the game is something you like or would like.

Phasmophobia has made millions. Gunfire Reborn has made millions. Small game companies are more popular than ever. There's even a game about powerwashing out right now.

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