It is time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from Sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Nephilim Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo Community podcast. Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode four 30 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called, bye-bye, Bobby. It is October 13th, 2023. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start off today with the BlizzCon collection. That has something to do with BlizzCon, obviously. I think if you're going in person, you probably get a bunch of these things, if not all of them. If not, you can, uh, purchase them online basically. And there's a whole bunch of stuff in here. So let's just take a look at it. I'm gonna just look at the Diablo stuff because that's kind of what we're here for. So there's items here, apparently, unless they're talking about games,
now I'm looking at the BlizzCon collection. Okay, so within the BlizzCon collection, there is, um, stuff for different, it's different prices, I think, and different, um, packs and things like that. And it's got most of the games in there. So there is one that gives you, um, a couple of horses In Diablo four, there's a banner for Diablo four. There's like a Lilith looking sort of helmet and a premium battle pass thing. I'm not sure exactly what that is.
I'm gonna click on it and see if it does anything. No, it doesn't. Okay. There's also a smaller one, um, that's got one horse, the Lilith looking helmet and the banner. And then there's a third one, or is that the third one? Yeah, so there's a few of these. If you're going to BlizzCon, you're gonna get these anyway. Plus probably all the Hearthstone and Overwatch and, uh, world of Warcraft and things like that. So, um, you know, you can, you can get into that or not. It's up to you.
I'm not really concerned about it too much. You know, I don't know what it's gonna cost, but I think there's actually a thing here that might tell me about it. So this is talking about the BlizzCon collection. It's on the blizzcon.com page, and there's a pack you can choose of this. So here's what you can do. Uh, there's one called the BlizzCon Collection Epic Pack. And this is the one that has like a bunch of things in it. Well, they both do,
I guess. So the Epic Pack is, it's got one horse for Diablo four is a banner for Diablo four, and like a Lilith looking helmet. It's got some Hearthstone cards. It's got some interesting little world of Warcraft looking things. There's a thousand, uh, credits in Overwatch and a murky weapon charm and a mystery name card. There's asterisk after the mystery name card, so I'm not too sure what that means.
Means Hearthstone has a BlizzCon 2023 card back plus five standard packs and five golden standard packs. There's a Warcraft Rumble thing I think I talked about before, possibly. And that one is the Merlo Cobalt Portrait and Skin. Uh, going back to World of Warcraft, it's a Yal Pet. I think it's a, it's a Yal pet and the Chilling Celebration Banner Toy.
And as far as the Diablo four stuff for this pack, it is the ferocious lapis vein mount, the Cobalt Ensen Mount Trophy, and the Demon Mother Countenance Countenance Mount Trophy. There is an asterisk after that, and I'd really like to see what that means. Um, so it's got two dots about the, uh, mother's Countenance Mount Trophy. Now it's got one, it's got one dot there. So when we go to the bottom here, it says, limitations apply. See the Battle net store page for more details.
So maybe that's gonna be like a very limited thing to get. I'm not sure. There's another, there's a legendary pack, and this one gets you the bound blizzard flying mount, the Diablo four fearsome midnight Harness Armor with another asterisk for your mount and a premium battle pass redeemable for any one season. There's another asterisk there. Uh, Overwatch two, the Drowned Warrior Sigma Epic skin, as well as a season seven premium battle pass.
The Hearthstone one is a mystery signature legendary card. That one's got three asterisks and it will be available in November. And Warcraft Rumble is the Merlo Tower skin. So if you want any of those, there's buttons on here that, that say Buy now, and you can get them. I'm not sure if they're splitting up the games or if you're getting all this
stuff or, or how that works, but I guess we'll find out eventually. Um, I've said before, I'm not going to Bliss Con this year because I am immune compromised, and I don't think my immune system is gonna handle all those people this year, around this year. It's just, I feel like it's too much for me to go to. But if, if there's like an online looking one, maybe I'll try that or team up with someone else who might wanna talk about this
while it's live. Um, I don't know, but that's like the goodies you can get for this other interesting news. Possibly the most interesting news is that Phil Spencer, c e o of Microsoft Gaming published on Xbox News, or Xbox Wire, I think they're calling it now. And it's an, it's an announcement and it's titled Welcoming the Legendary Teams at Activision Blizzard King to Team Xbox. It's a little long, but I'll read you most of this. Everything else beyond that probably has some pieces of it.
But this is the thing. We love gaming. We play games, create games, and know firsthand how much gaming means to all of us as individuals and collectively as a community. And today, we officially welcome Activision Blizzard and their teams to Xbox. They are the publishers of some of the most played and most beloved franchises in gaming history across console, PC and mobile. From pitfall to Call of Duty, world of Warcraft,
to Overwatch Candy Crush Saga to Farm Hero saga. Their stories, their studios have published the boundaries of gaming for players around the world. Phil Spencer continues. I've long admired the work of Activision Blizzard and King and the impact they've had on gaming, entertainment, and pop culture.
Whether it was late nights spent playing the Diablo four campaign with friends from start to finish, gathering the entire family in the rec room for our weekly guitar hero night, or going on an epic streak in Candy Crush. Some of my most memorable gaming moments came from experiences their studios have created. It is incredible to welcome such legendary teams to Xbox. As one team will learn, innovate, and continue to deliver on our promise to bring the joy and community of gaming to more people.
We'll do this in a culture that strives to empower everyone to do their best work. Where all people are welcome and is centered on our ongoing commitment of gaming for everyone. We are intentional about inclusion in everything we do at Xbox, from our team to the products we make and the stories we tell to the way our players interact and engage as a wider gaming community. Together we'll create new worlds and stories.
Bring your favorite games to more places so more players can join in and we'll engage with and delight players in new innovative ways in the places they love to play, including mobile cloud streaming. And more players have always been at the center of everything we do. And as we grow, we'll continue to keep players at the heart of it all.
We'll continue to listen to your feedback, build a community where you could be yourself, where developers can do their best work and continue to make really fun games. As promised, we'll also continue to make more games available in more places. And that begins now by enabling cloud streaming providers and players to stream Activision Blizzard games in the European economic area, a commitment made to the European Commission.
Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision Blizzard and King franchises to Game Pass and to other platforms. We'll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months. We know you're excited and we are too. For the millions of fans who love Activision Blizzard and King Games, we want you to know that today is a good day to play. You are the heart and soul of these franchises, and we are honored to have you as part of our community.
Whether you play on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, PC or mobile, you are welcome here and will remain welcome even if Xbox isn't where you play your favorite franchise. Because when everyone plays, we all win. We believe our news today will unlock a world of possibilities for more ways to play. Thank you for the ongoing support. We have so much more to come in the months ahead. I'm excited for the future and cannot wait to share it with you. So that's from C e o Phil Spencer.
And then Activision posted something on October 13th, which is today. It is a corporate news thing, and it's titled A new chapter, combining with Microsoft will enable us to deliver more fun, more joy, and more connection to more players. Activision Blizzard, c e o. Bobby Kotick writes, or is it Codick? I'm not sure, but here's, here's what he wrote. Activision Blizzard, c e o Bobby Codick sent the following email to employees team today mark's a milestone in our company's celebrated history.
Combining with Microsoft will bring new resources and new opportunities to our extraordinary teams worldwide. It will also enable us to deliver more fun, more joy, and more connection to more players than ever before. This moment is possible because of your efforts over four decades to innovate, inspire, and achieve. When Brian Kelly and I began this journey in 1991 says, Bobby Kotek, we intended to build a company that would have great impact and lasting value.
Your tireless work and unwavering commitment to excellence enabled us to do just that. In the 1980s, we pioneered independent to third party game development with Pitfall River raid, and kaboom, how many of you are old enough to remember playing those? 'cause I am . In the 1990s, we united the world with online multiplayer games like Mech Warrior Warcraft and StarCraft. In the two thousands, we introduced Call of Duty, which became one of the most successful entertainment franchises in history.
We also introduced Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which entered popular culture in ways few video games ever have. In the 2010s, we debuted Candy Crushed Saga, which to date has been downloaded more than 5 billion times and contributed to our total worldwide players being 50% female. Your dedication is what makes it possible for us to continually push envelopes, break records and delight players.
Amid the uncertainty of the last 21 months, you've remained focused as always, on serving our players and supporting each other. I have long said that I'm fully committed to helping with the transition. Phil has asked me to stay on as c e o of a b k reporting to him, and we have agreed that I will do that through the end of 2023. We both look forward to working together on a smooth integration for our teams
and players. Brian and I couldn't be more excited for the next chapter of a b K. We now join one of the most successful global companies poised for unprecedented opportunities to connect the world through our games as part of Microsoft. We will be even better together. Bobby, on that note, um, that's, that's the press release thing or the thing he sent out to the workers. Ours, Technica has a different headline. C e o Bobby Kotick will leave Activision Blizzard on January 1st, 2024.
Uh, here's some pieces from that. Uh, Bobby Kotick, ick, I'm never sure of this. C e o of Activision Blizzard emailed employees after news of Microsoft's successful $69 billion acquisition to say he was quote, fully committed to helping with the transition and that he would would stay on as c e o through the end of 2023. Kodak's statement left some ambiguity about his plans for 2024, but Bloomberg's Jason Schreyer reports that on January one Kotek will
depart it's quote, a massive change for the video game industry. Shire writes, which seems almost restrained, giving Kotex longevity in recent history, several employees Schreyer spoke to are very excited for this deal to go
through, specifically to see leadership change. Kodak, who has led Activision for more than 30 years and orchestrated its merger with Blizzard, had considered stepping down late in 2021, following a lawsuit from the state of California alleging a frat boy culture rife with pay disparity and sexual harassment. A Wall Street Journal report alleged that Kotek failed to act on hundreds of abuse allegations within the company and also kept the company's board of directors in the dark.
Activis was also sued by its shareholders and pressured by state treasurers over its secrecy and responses regarding the California lawsuit. All of this led to an employee walkout and calls for Texs resignation. There's a little bit more in this article, but this is probably enough for now. I'll read you one more paragraph though. Codex stood fast through the flurry of criticism. In 2021, in early 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to buy Activision.
And the timing according to reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal was not a coincidence. Kodak, according to Bloomberg, didn't want to sell, but had little leverage with Activision's board to refuse an offer. Microsoft's purchase at $95 per share compared to the roughly $65 per share when the deal was announced, offered ick both the financial and narrative graceful exit according to the journal sources. There's a little more in there, but yeah, that's the thing.
That is a thing right there. So, you know, that's why I titled the show. Bye Bobby. You know. Bye-bye, Bobby, that thing? Yeah. PC Gamer has an article published two days ago by Harvey Randall at Activision's internal meeting, inexplicably hosted by James Corden, Bobby ick, ick. I'm gonna go with ick, uh, promises. A new dimension of emotional connection powered by ai. This just makes me cringe internally and be like, oh God, no.
Don't make these games. Ai, this is just, oh my God, no. So here's what's written by PC Gamer. As reported by Windows Central sources have shared the inside details of an internal town hall yesterday between Activision, C E o, Bobby Kotek and Activision Blizzard employees.
This was apparently hosted by James Corden. In case you're not familiar, Corden's known for his role in the beloved British sitcom, Gavin and Stacey movies like Into the Woods hosting the Late Late Show and Disrupting Traffic to promote Cinderella by hip thrusting in a mouse outfit. So perhaps a bizarre choice, but sure. James Corden hosted an internal town hall at Activision Blizzard.
Stranger things have happened somewhere, presumably Kodak spoke to, to Corden about how the company's leadership culture one he describes as magic and special, that's Disney, right, uh, would continue. The c e o also spoke on the future of AI in Activision's future games. Quote, if you look at the new technologies that are on the horizon, we're going to be able to do things that we've never done before.
With AI and machine learning, we have characters on the screen and video games with mouth movements and facial animation that is realistic. You're going to have a new dimension of emotional connection that we've not yet mastered. The writer says, I am not exactly sure how AI, specifically machine learning stuff, has anything to do with realistic animation.
One of the best physical acting we've seen as of late has been from Balder's Gate three, which was achieved through motion capture of over 200 actors, which animators then translated fully into the game. There's a lot of techno wizardry going on to achieve that, but part of me wonders says the writer, if Kotex missing his terms here, granted AI could nix a lot of the busy work in the right hands. Parentheses 20 eighteens into the Spider verse used some machine learning to
that effect. End of parentheses. So I can see a future where AI helps clean up process. On the other hand, realistic graphics aren't required for emotional connection. Some of the most heartfelt tear-jerking stories have come from indie games. Uns shoestring budgets achieved by humble pixels. Still, AI is definitely going to form a part of Actis and Blizzard's creative makeup in the future, considering they've already patented their own in-house systems. Oh,
I did not know that. Holy cow. There's a little more in here. KO Tech also highlighted Elon Musk's Neuralink as an example of technological advancement. He's keen to see develop. Now it's my understanding the Neuralink thing was something they put in monkeys and it didn't go well for the monkeys from what I've read. So maybe I'm wrong, but I'm, I've read that on different sites and not this article. So, Hmm.
Maybe don't go into Neuralink. Okay. Uh, kadak said, I talked a little earlier about the physical experience of interacting with something on screen. I think you'll see things like Neuralink, you'll be able to interact with things on the screen where there isn't a controller. I just see unlimited potential for what we do. This to me says that Bobby would like to put chips in everyone's head and control them. . I mean, this is creepy. Um, there's more to this article,
but that's probably all you need to know right now. And End Gadget wrote, Microsoft officially owns Activision Blizzard ending a 21 month battle with regulators. This is written by Chris Holt on, uh, actually today the biggest acquisition in gaming history and one of the largest in the tech industry is in the books. 21 months after the deal was announced, Microsoft has bought Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest acquisition in the company's history, c e o of Microsoft Gaming.
Phil Spencer has asked Activision, c e o Bobby Kotick to stay on until the end of 2023, at which point he'll be leaving the company. It's been a long road filled with plenty of twists and turns to get to this point. The UK's competition Mar and Markets authority c m a initially blocked the deal in, in April, though it and the companies agreed to pause.
Microsoft's appeal to try and resolve the regulator's reservations over the merger, uh, or over the merger's impact, sorry, on the cloud gaming industry and Appeal Tribune approved a request to delay the proceedings in an attempt to win over the UK regulator, Microsoft agreed to sell the cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard titles to Ubisoft.
That means that not only should Activision Blizzard's games be on Xbox Game Pass, but they'll land on Ubisoft Plus and any other game streaming service. Ubisoft decides to work with concerns about competition in the cloud gaming market was the CMAs reasoning for initially blocking Microsoft's takeover of Activision. But the watchdogs said in September that the Ubisoft concession quote opens the door to the deal being cleared A few weeks later, the C m A has rubber stamped the merger.
I think in either the previous show or the one before that I talked about the Lilith skin that was in Over Watch two and people were kind of excited about that. So here's rock paper shotgun, and this is the article title Overwatch two lock's, new Diablo, four skins behind a bundle that cost as much as Overwatch one and players aren't happy. The byline there says hell to pay and there's definitely the uh, Moira Lilith skin in this picture. This is written by Matt Jarvis a couple days ago.
Overwatch two is getting new skins that clothe Moira and Farrah in the outfits of Diablo four's, A Lilith and Denarius. Those skins are part of a new wave of cosmetics incoming for the game's season seven Rise of darkness, but they're not part of the standard premium battle pass. Instead, they'll cost you another $40 as much as the whole Overwatch one did when it was first released. As you can imagine, people aren't too chuffed,
which means like thrilled. Uh, they're not thrilled. The Lilith, Moira and Aria Farrah Pharaoh Farrah Skins are part of Overwatch two's ultimate Battle pass bundle, which also include a pumpkin spice skin for Bastion 2000 Overwatch coins, which can be spent in the hero's shooter in game store and 20 tier skips that will accelerate you through the battle pass to battle pass unlock levels while putting skins behind a premium battle pass purchase is nothing new.
Part of what's enraged a number of Overwatch two fans who have taken to the game subreddit its forums and the comments on the latest season trailer to vent their disapproval is that the Diablo crossovers were heavily promoted during the run up to the new season, only to be locked behind its most expensive tier. There's also no option to buy either skin separately or to buy the bundle with
any saved in-game currency rather than real money. Quote, the skin that was the focus point of advertisements for this season is exclusive to the $40 bundle. Good job. Blizzard one player wrote casual reminder that Overwatch the entire game was $40 on release. Now we're paying that amount for a, a couple of skins in a battle pass, replied another. There is a picture here of the Anaria skin. You could see 'em both and everything goes into the show
notes@shatteredsoulstone.com. So you'll be able to check it all out there. To continue making things worse is the fact that Overwatch Two's premium Battle Pass includes its legendary pack sold for $50, but not the ultimate battle pass, meaning that players who bought the former will need to spend the full $40 to get the extra skins with no apparent discount if you already have the other battle pass.
It's not the first time that Overwatch two's controversial battle pass system has come under fire. The move is likely to win over players already disappointed by the shooter's forced replacement of its predecessors. Fairly generous loot box system cancellation of its promised P v E mode and pricey cosmetics, all of which saw it plummet to become the worst reviewed game on Steam. Only contested by the steaming mess of N B A two K 24.
Not to mention all the other factors surrounding the game itself at Activision Blizzard these past few years. So there's that, there's a little bit more in the article, you can check it out for yourselves later. And now I have a bunch of stuff from wow head and other places. So wow head wrote six days ago, all general improvements coming to Diablo four in season two. This is written by popular Popular and there's just all this stuff in here.
So the general improvements, let's start there. Okay. General improvements, scrolls of escape are now consumed if a hardcore player disconnects while in combat disconnects, while in combat teleporting them to a safe location. That sounds excellent if you're playing hardcore in the senses now grant a bonus to experience and they perish after death experience. Bonuses are now multiplicative in the world's tier bonus 10 unlocked waypoints add to skip campaign two in each zone. Um,
so two waypoints in each zone to skip, I guess. Uh, renowned rewards now persist between seasons and new characters over world monsters in world tier three and world tier four no longer trail the players level after levels 55 and 75 respectively and two additional character slots. Other changes include renowned rewards becoming account wide within the same game mode.
That means that every renowned reward that you have previously unlocked will be automatically unlocked for every new character that you make going forward. The only caveat is that renowned progression is not shared between hardcore and soft core modes. Additional way points will also be automatically unlocked at the start of each season, which will make traveling around the world slightly easier for new characters.
And then we have another one also written by a popular, popular who wrote, who are the Blood Seeker lieutenants in Diablo four, season Two. So here's what we know. Uh, while it is widely known that Diablo four season of blood will have players facing off against the Vampire menace of sanctuary, the team recently introduced the big bad of season two in Lord Zeer, that's Z i r and his blood seeker lieutenants in Diablo four.
Season two blood seekers are enemy barbarians, druids, necromancers, rogues, and sorcerers, who similar to our player characters have been infected with Vampirism. The difference is that while our characters have learned to weld their vampiric powers, blood seekers have lost themselves to Vampirism and now serve under Lord Zeer.
Fighting against these blood seekers will reward players with potent blood, which players will be able to use in order to upgrade their vampiric powers or unlock new ones. One of the best ways to find these blood seekers is to use blood lures, which are rewarded for participating in the new open world event blood harvest. These new enemies can also be found in the open world and within Dungeons and are expected to provide players with more of a challenge than normal monsters.
We're excited to fight against these vampire infected adventurers when season of Blood goes live on October 17. And then we have an official thing from Blizzard about the Diablo four thing. They've titled it Bite Down on Darkness and Season of Blood. So here's uh, here's the thing. This was from the fourth. I don't know how much of this I've read to you already. I may have, but the main ideas here are it starts off with, uh, turn back Crimson, Crimson tides with Aris in a new quest.
This is A N P C that's gonna follow you around or maybe you follow her around. And, um, I think I did read like the storyline of this little bit. You can siphon the blood of your foes using vampiric powers. Uh, you can unpack your vampire power through your packed armor, which is interesting. There are three packs in pack types in total. Um, there's a reference here of shattered ru neck gloves that are one of them, uh, from left to right. They're called ferocity, divinity and eternity.
Keep your eyes peeled for chest armor, pants, gloves, boots, and helms containing packs that drop during season of blood because they are needed to activate your vampiric powers. Once you have both packed armor and vampiric powers equipped, you'll need to ensure that the armor you're wearing provides packs that match
the activation cost listed on the power. Um, you can also customize customize pack armor to your needs, uh, and says you might not always have the armor with the right packs to activate the vampiric powers in your collection. The Dark master servants have devised two types of items to remedy this situation. Standalone packs and cleansing acids, standalone packs are used to add a specific type of pack to an item of your choice.
This can only be done if the maximum amount of that packed type isn't already on that item. Cleansing acids are used to remove packs from an item, so that's pretty good. Bleed new blood into your build, um, and you just start becoming like a vampire hunter kind of thing, which sounds really good to me. Below are values that reflect each vampire vampiric power, sorry, at their maximum. Level three anticipation is one divinity, your ultimate skill skills gain 20% cool down reduction.
Your ultimate skills gain 12% increased damage for each nearby enemy affected by your damage over time effects. Covens fangs is two Divinity your conation companion minion and bat Familiar. We get a bat familiar. Cool, a tax deal, uh, a tax deal, 52% increased damage to crowd controlled enemies a lucky hit. Your conation companion minion and bat familiar have up to a 30% chance to inflict vampiric curse when hitting enemies. Domination is only one ferocity.
You will deal 24% increased damage to enemies who are stunned, immobilized, frozen or feared. And if they're also injured and not an elite, they're instantly killed. Feed the Coven one Eternity, lucky hit Conation Companion minion and Bat Familiar Attacks. Have up to a 60% chance to restore 10 primary resource to you and increase your damage by 10% for four seconds. It goes on from here. There's a lot of stuff you can do in this and I'm hoping I'll be able to get
into it. There's also Major Vampiric powers and I'm just gonna name them. There's an cursed touch, a bathe in blood, a blood boil call, familiar, uh, flowing veins, metamorphosis and moonrise. And there's just, uh, an event in here that is, let's see, re punters acclaim from the Blood Harvest Season event. When is that gonna happen? Let's see. Um, probably when the season starts and then there's a bunch of stuff. Uh, there is, let's see, mountain in here.
I'm not really sure exactly what that's for or how you get that. There must be some way to do it though. There's like, there's two mounts in here. One of them looks like he's on, he's kind of on fire. He's like a flaming horse. And the other one is, um, kind of got like a bunch of armor on it and I don't know, I'm not really sure. I guess I'll have to understand it when I jump into the game. Game Spot has an article titled Diablo four Discounted to lowest priced yet for Prime Day Round two.
This was posted on October 10 by Darien Bontis says This is a devilishly good price for Diablo four on PlayStation platforms. So, um, that's what it was. That's obviously done. Um, that was October 10 when they did the prime day round two. So if you didn't get it then um, you're probably not gonna get that discount. Um, yeah, it's talking a little bit about the game itself. There's not a whole lot here, but if any of you got that, you know, through Prime day round two, then good for you.
'cause it was a lot less expensive than it was when it originally showed up. So yeah. And one more thing. Training dummies are going to be added with patch 1.2 0.1 in Diablo four posted by varied. And there's a way to configure the training dummies. There's this little box here that says, if you, you which one do you want? Do you want the normal training dummy, the elite, the boss, the single training dummy or multiple training dummies?
So according to wow head training dummies will be added to Diablo four with patch 1.2 0.1. During season two, blizzard has heard the community feedback stating that many other Blizzard games already give players meaningful ways to theory craft game aspects like character damage or skill rotation.
And so should Diablo four with the introduction of training dummies in patch 1.2 0.1 at the end of October, players will be able to spawn different types of dummies in what appears to be a private instance in voad according to the images shown during this week's campfire chat livestream, which I missed, but I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere. A configure training dummy window will let players spawn normal elite boss,
single or multiple training dummies. Given the, given the fact that Blizzard is actively working on changes around damage calculation and character itemization having a meaningful way to test different aspects of a character power may, that may have changed due to content updates will be very welcome. We can also see a stash in the training dummies instances shown in the bl in blizzards footage, which makes a ton of sense if players want to test out different item load outs
for their different power levels. So that's the end of that one. I don't have a whole lot more to talk about really, but I think, you know, the BlizzCon stuff that you have to pay for unless you're going to BlizzCon, which means you already paid for tickets and you'll probably get all that stuff.
I think that's cool. I think it's good that, uh, Bobby Codick is not going to be the main guy in charge of Activision Blizzard King anymore because well, if you've been listening to this show at all, you know, he's not really very nice to a lot of people and yeah, that kind of thing. So there's that. I kind of think it's bogus that Overwatch hyped the Lilith, uh, skin for Moira and the Anus, one for Farrah, and then went, oh, you gotta pay money for it. I, I think that's bogus.
I don't think they should have done that. I think that's gonna tick off a lot of players, but you know, they do what they do. Yeah, and the other thing I could think before I finish the show here is that sometimes when two companies or a conglomeration of three companies and one
other company merge together, sometimes there's layoffs. And I'm really, really hoping that's not gonna happen for all the people that are still working at, you know, Activision and Blizzard and King, because that would be like the worst possible thing that could happen, you know? So I'm hoping this all goes well. I I think it will, I think it's gonna go well after all these months of trying to get the merger to go through or the acquisition to go through.
I think people that work at Activision Blizzard King are probably having a sigh of relief because they know they're, they're not gonna have Ko Tech in charge very much longer. And, um, maybe that's, you know, the best thing to come out of this, just right off the bat, you know, in a couple of months it won't be him anymore. It'll be probably Phil Spencer or something like that, . And that's where I'm going to end the show today.
You have been listening to episode four 30 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo community podcast missed an episode. You could find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game in our in-game community and clan. They're both named Shattered Soul Stone, and they're open to anyone who would like to join.
You can also join us on Discord for the ultimate team and community-based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter at Shattered stone, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.