It's time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Neum 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 3 9 6 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called settlement. It is February 3rd, 2023. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start off the show here with a lovely little press release from the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding Activision Blizzard. Now it sounds just immediately, if you're hearing my, the sound of my voice with this, you're probably thinking, oh, good. You know, Activision Blizzard is gonna have to pay for something great, eh, so I'll just read this to you.
The title is Activision Blizzard to pay $35 million for Failing to Maintain disclosure controls related to complaints of workplace misconduct and violating Whistleblower Protection role. This was posted today, February 3rd.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Activision Blizzard, Inc. A video game development and publishing company agreed to pay 35 million to settle that it failed to maintain disclosure controls and procedures to ensure that the company could assess whether its disclosures pertaining to its workforce were adequate. The company also settled charges that it violated an s e c whistleblower protection role. According to the s SEC's order between 2018 and 2021.
Activision Blizzard was aware that its ability to attract, retain, and motivate employees was a particularly important risk in its business, but it lacked controls and procedures among its separate business units to collect and analyze employee complaints of workplace misconduct.
As a result, the company's management elect sufficient information to understand the volume and substance of employee complaints about workplace misconduct, and did not assess whether any material issues existed that would've
required public disclosure. Separately, the CC'S order fines that between 2016, that's, you know, before the 20 18 1 they mentioned, and 2021 Activision Blizzard executed separation agreements in the ordinary course of its business that violated a commission whistleblower protection role by requiring former employees to provide notice to the company if they received a request for information from the s SEC's staff
, which is like, don't talk to them, that's really bad. You know, quote, the SEC's order finds that Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors. Said Jason Burt, director of the SEC's Denver Regional Office, moreover, taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with
the commission staff about a possible securities law violation. , it's not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal. The s SEC's order finds that Activision Blizzard violated Exchange Act rules 13 A through 15 a and 21 F through 17 A without admitting or denying the S SEC's findings. Activision Blizzard agreed to a cease and desist order and to pay a 35 million penalty. And then it says, who all was involved in this thing here?
There's also an article from CN B C, which is, I think where I saw it first before I found the, um, S SEC C thing. And their article is titled, ACT Vision Blizzard pays s e c 35 million to Settle Probe. There's a picture of Bobby Codick looking confused. Um, in this one, I don't know if he was aware someone was taking his picture. It was taken on July 8th, 2022. So here's a little bit from this article.
Video Game Developer Act division Blizzard agreed to pay a 35 million settlement over charges. It failed to maintain adequate end controls for collecting and assessing reports of workplace misconduct that had it had violated and that it violated Federal Whistleblower Protection Rules.
The Security and Exchange Commission said Friday, I read you the quote from s e c director Jason Bert already, the settlement is not an admission or denial of wrongdoing, but concludes a probe that focused on Activision Blizzard standards from 2018 to 2021. Activision Blizzard, CEO O Bobby Kodak was aware of reports of alleged sexual misconduct at the company, including alleged rape,
the Wall Street Journal reported in 2021. Mr. Kotak could, would not have been informed of every report of misconduct at every Activision Blizzard company, nor would he be reasonably be expected, nor would he reasonably be expected to have been updated on all personnel issues. And an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said at the time, these, these spokespeople don't seem to have names, so we don't know who's behind it. And that's kind of sketchy.
The S e c filing Claimed ACT Division Blizzard required a significant number of departing employees, and I kind of went over this to not talk to the S S E C. In short, the s e C noted it wasn't aware that of, uh, aware that of any specific instances where an employee was prevented from making a complaint or speaking to regulators. The s e C order did not explicitly mention kotick or sexual harassment claims by some employees.
Activision Blizzard has been under the s e c investigation over the company's handling of sexual and personal harassment since 2021. The Journal, wall Street Journal previously reported, yeah, Activision took steps from 2020 to 2022 to enhanced procedures for handling employee complaints. The s e c order noted quote, as the order recognizes we have enhanced our disclosure processes with regard to workplace reporting and updated our separation contract language.
And Activision Blizzard spokesperson, who is also nameless said on Friday , the company, settled an equal, uh, employment Opportunity Commission probe in March for 18 million over related claims of retaliation and connection with sexual harassment claims. And in December, the Federal Trade Commission moved to block Microsoft AC acquisition of Activision, which was announced in January, 2022. So that's the thing.
So Activision Blizzard as a company loses 35 billion to settle this probe because they couldn't get off their butts and actually work on things like good human adults would do and try to maybe prevent a majority of your workforce or a large chunk of your worf workforce from being sexually harassed or abused while they're at work. Way to go, Bobby. You know, moving on, I've got a thread here from the a better, a BK account, which talks generally talks about unionizing.
So I'm gonna read you some of this thread. It's a little bit long, but I think it's, it's worth it. So it starts with this. Last year, QA employees across a BK came together in a joint effort to list several concerns and changes we wish to see around performance improvement plans and disciplinary practices, and an open letter to management.
On December 8th, 2022, this letter was delivered. Now, I think the performance Im improvement plans and disciplinary practices might maybe, and maybe it'll be clearer as I go on with this, might be the thing that has to do with, if you are the manager or whatever of a group of people, you have to pick a couple of people or a quota of people. And even if they're doing really good work, you have to say, no, no, no,
you are not good enough. You can't get, you know, the stock that other people are getting and you won't be able to move up. And this sort of thing. I think it might be that, if I'm wrong, I'll find out as I go through this. So the next tweet says, uh oh, it's a partial tweet. So the letter was delivered to Minnesota QA leadership at the Eden Prairie Office location.
We received an email response from ACT Division leadership on December 13th, and we're incredibly disappointed to note that the concerns listed in this letter were blatantly and summarily ignored. So here's the letter. It's teeny teeny type, so I'm just gonna kind of go through it here. Central qa, thank you for sharing your concerns on December 8th, 2022. And thank you for all the work you've been doing together.
We've just recently had some of the most successful game launches in our history with Call of Duty, modern Warfare too, and wow Dragon Flight. The QA work across the company is important and we're so appreciative of this team's impact. We are aligned with you in that we want to consistently improve our work environment and communication and in turn, improve performance and productivity. So we're taking this opportunity to respond and address the concerns outlined in
this letter. And there's a link to something there. Of course, you all, as always, the, your review of this letter and participation in this process is voluntarily, is voluntary. So here we go with some more stuff. Detailed responses are provided below in your overall perspective are, and our overall perspective is that one, we only succeed as a team.
So it's unfair when people don't carry their weight and responsibilities. Two, we we're responding to feedback from employees that they are unduly burdened when their colleagues aren't showing up to work. Three ps are a way to work with an employee to get better instead of discipline or termination. And PIs are effective, which is why they're a common industry-wide business practice.
So starting with number one, your request, a clear appeals process with the right to a coworker witness of the employees choosing as well as a chance for the employee to present evidence that they have met job expectations. The performance review process is designed to be a dialogue between managers and employees only. Oh, so they can't have a friend come in and witness that.
Great. During this dialogue and process, there is a, there is ample opportunity for the employee to do a self-review and to provide feedback to the manager as well, including anything they feel shows that they are meeting job expectations. We believe the best and most fair approach to everyone across the company is to follow the existing performance review process and to keep the dialogue directly between the manager and the employee.
Employees can always request that an HR representative attend the meeting. And this allows us to protect the employee's privacy. We want every employee to be successful and the performance review process helps with that. It exists to facilitate feedback and development. Okay, this is a bunch of manager speak and what this boils down to is, well, we don't want them to bring in a coworker because then that coworker would know things, okay, we don't want that, definitely don't want that.
We wanna make this private so we can weasel this worker out of things that they should be getting because clearly they are pulling their weight. That kind of thing that's just sketchy as can be. Um, this is a long thing, so I'm just gonna read you like one more. Oh, and that part about, oh, employees feel burdened when their colleagues aren't showing up to work. Is someone sick? Is someone, uh, taking care of a sick relative?
Did someone get injured and is in the hospital, hospital, did they catch covid? You know, there's no like clear explanation as to why they aren't showing up for work. And this is the type of response you get from huge corporations that don't really give a shit about their employees. You know, it's like, oh, it's on you to come in even if you're sick. You know, that kind of thing. And it just makes everybody's workplace worse than it was before.
So I'll read you one more part of this. We'll do this one, your request Mandatory manager training on the concept of progressive discipline and a progressive discipline policy that includes at least two steps before termination. The company feels that its current method of performance management, education, skill building, coaching, and when necessary, the use of performance improvement plans. That's the p i p thing and discipline is a fair approach.
Our leads and managers are trained to provide coaching when a tester's performance is not meeting standards. And we feel this approach demonstrates the company's faith that the employee will be responsive to instructive guidance on how to meet their targets. We feel this fluid approach allows for our managers to coach in a dynamic setting and address severe underperformance as necessary.
Our current plan of providing increased transparency around performance against milestones and a commitment to listening to our testers perspectives about their own performance provides the employee a clear understanding of whether or not they are meeting expectations in their role without a progressive discipline progress. So it's, it's basically this guy who is Josh.
It only says Josh at the end of this, and there's Warren here. I'm not reading, but I'll put everything that I talk about on the show into the show notes@chadsoulstone.com and you can check it out for yourself. But basically this is manager speak saying, yeah, we hear you, but we don't care. . That's what this is. It's disgusting. The thread from ABK continues, uh, due to this and a refusal to meet with us regarding ps.
We have chosen to refute their response publicly and bring our concerns to management by taking over a q and a session. Choosing to ignore our demands of this is issue diminishes the experience and concerns of employees on performance improvement plans. One, a clear appeals process keeping certain aspects of employment between management and employees is important. However, we must keep in mind intent versus impact.
A concept recently covered in zero tolerance training, the intent might be to help the employee improve, but the impact of bringing an employee into a sudden meeting with two managers and an HR rep gives the exact opposite impression and can often be intimidating. Offering HR to be present does not alleviate this concern because HR cannot and will never be a neutral party. Performance reviews are a helpful tool when utilized correctly and in a timely
manner. However, many QA employees across the company report that they've either never had performance reviews or they've seldom had performance reviews. This lack of consistent performance reviews leads to employees being blindsided when receiving a P I P and strips employee's ability to present their reasons for underperformance two, progressive discipline. Our demand for progressive discipline is rooted in the foundational idea that all employees, regardless of reason,
deserve a fair chance to improve their performance. Progressive discipline, when used correctly, allows for multiple steps prior to termination. Management has stated that something similar to this is already in practice. However, we have witnessed some of our colleagues undergo termination with no prior disciplinary steps. This is not progressive discipline, regardless of leadership's insistence that it is, quote, a fluid approach as mentioned by leadership,
leads to an inconsistent delivery of discipline. Similarly, the stack ranking system, we've heard about this when, um, in the last show I talked about and all over social media as well about, well, you have to dig somebody so that we can look better as a company or whatever nonsense that happens to be.
That's what they're mentioning in this part of this thread. Similarly, the stack ranking system at Blizzard has proven to negatively harm employees after one major life event with no re recourse other than to accept a poor ranking while dealing with the fallout of personal circumstances. The lack of progressive discipline in both Stack Ranking and Pips has shown they do not account for employees human experiences. Three,
a commitment to use PIs for employee growth. As mentioned above, performance reviews do not occur consistently enough to be utilized as they are intended. This does not provide space for employees to present their perceived deficiencies and difficulties. The current performance improvement plan cannot, sorry, process cannot be used for employee growth due to the stress of termination, which in turn decreases employee pro productivity.
The number of employees affected does not matter as if a single employee was mistreated during this process. The process should be revised. The revision of the performance improvement plan process is designed to protect the most vulnerable employees. Example, disabled or bereaved employees. Regardless, even, uh, intentionally poor performing employees deserve a fair chance of improvement that progressive discipline proc process would, uh, would provide,
goes on from here. And, um, they're really just going after it. There's a lot left to read, but you get the main idea. They're obviously a bk, a better, a bk, uh, workers union. A BK Workers Alliance is very upset about this whole situation and I could see why.
And after seeing what happened that I talked about in the previous show about a manager that did not want to give his workers a terrible score because he felt all of them were doing their best, um, and then left the company, Activision had to pay a bunch of money to the federal government in the, through the S E c and they're still apparently not willing to make any changes except throw money at it, and that's just gonna hurt employees.
The next thing I have has to do with, um, Overwatch. Overwatch two specifically. And there's an article here titled Overwatch two s. Art Director shares four key tips to becoming a video game artist. His name is Dionne Rogers, and he shares essential advice on creating work that will get you noticed. This is the first of three posts offering Roger's best advice for aspiring game artists. There he is, and he's got a nice smile and he is looking at the camera and there's an
Overwatch logo next to him, and it's all pretty cool. And there's definitely, oh look, this is actually the act division Blizzard ck I did not realize that it was that, but that's okay. You can continue redating it reading it if you just click the button. And so there are, he's got advice I've read through this about how to, uh, make your work stand out and, and this sort of stuff. Um, he's got some, I'm just gonna run over some little key points that he's putting here.
Know the game, make what the company makes, uh, not as in financial, obviously as we've seen here, um, , but like, you know, make your art sort of fit with in, for this example, it was Overwatch. You know, create heroes that kind of fit into that color scheme and universe do your research so, you know, like about Overwatch in this case. So you can craft maps and things like that and then have your references ready. Like an artist reference isn't like someone says, yeah, they did a good job.
It's, um, where you look at different things so you can get like poses correct and this sort of thing. So I think he's probably offering very good advice for that. And I'd like to see more about what he does. Cause I have a background in art, so I'm not good at Joy in Activision Blizzard, but it's always interesting to see how other people think art should go or give advice to people that are brand new to it, because you do need a lot of advice when you start.
So I think this is actually a good thing. On the other hand, , uh, we have, uh, an official blizzard post about Overwatch two, and this one was posted just a couple days ago. It's called Defense Matrix update, streaming protection features and new actions for cheating. That's what this is. , uh, we've talked about this before, that there was a while back, they were talking about putting something in place to, uh, reduce cheating and whatever else. Well, here it is.
So this is, uh, this is some of the stuff here that, uh, I'll read from this. With the launch of Overwatch two, we have welcomed over 40 million players both returning and new to the world of Overwatch. Exclamation point at the end of that sentence, for some reason, since becoming free to play, we've conne we've continued to combat disruptive behaviors including gameplay, sabotage, abusive chat, and cheating.
As explained in the introduction to our defense matrix initiative, there's a link to wherever that was. We've already made strides to push toward a fairer gaming experience for all our players. Today we have have a few updates we'd like to share about how we're continuing to ensure Overwatch two is a fun and safe game for everyone to play. The first part says, disruptive voice chat detection.
In our previous blog, we announced that we would begin to identify and take action against those who are disruptive in voice chat through the use of our new voice to text transcription and AI learning algorithms. We've begun to roll out this new technology starting in season two for select regions. And it's proven to be exceptionally accurate and effective in identifying abusive chat and language. We've already begun working to stop disruptive players with applicable chat
silencing and account suspensions as needed. This part's in bold, remember to report anyone you find to be abusive, whether in voice chat or text chat immediately as soon as you encounter it in your games. Reporting right away helps us take action on those accounts faster.
Now, if I'm going to look at this from the viewpoint of a skeptic , which I tend to do with these things, I think Blizzard is an Overwatch, you know, is hoping that what they're going to have people report would be things like anti-Semitism, uh, harassing people of certain genders or any genders, um, any kind of, uh, stuff that would get you banned from various internet sites, like social media sites, this sort of thing. Uh, harassment,
I think I said that one. Um, all these other things, you know, threats of violence towards you that is not within the gameplay. You know, like this is Overwatch, you can shoot each other, but you've, there's things you can't say, right?
I think they believe that somebody's gonna have, you know, they're gonna be the harassed person and they're gonna say, okay, immediately I'm going to file a report about exactly this player, and there's what they said and let you know the people checking this out over Blizzard to sort it out. What I think might happen is there is a chance, and now I've never played Overwatch.
I don't know the community very well at all, but there is a chance that some of these awful people that are likely to get banned because they are being abusive in one way or another, and they get caught, I think they're going to decide to report the person who reported them. I think that's what they're going to try to do to try to get around this.
And I'm hoping that's not true, but I've, I don't know. I just, there are people who just will do that kind of stuff just to be mean, you know, especially if the person that they've been harassing is, uh,
someone that they think is female, whether or not they really are or not. Um, you could have a non-binary person sound female and not be, you know, , but, um, and you could have a trans person sound female and, and be, you know, either way, the way they're going with trans, you can be a trans woman or a trans man and sound different than you might, might think.
And there are people that hate these groups of people and will probably try to say, oh, okay, well you're, you've, you're reporting me and I, I, you know, get in trouble for it. So I'm gonna come after you now and say you've did all these things instead. I think it's just gonna make things worse, but I'm hoping it's not gonna get that bad. There's another part here. Custom game moderation.
Many of the custom games our players have come up with continue to be fun and creative ways to enjoy Overwatch too. While we work to bring back our advanced workshop tools for custom game creators to use, we also wanna make sure we're providing ways to make sure our custom games remain safe and enjoyable for all of our players.
We will soon be adding in new moderation technology that works behind the scenes to automatically remove custom games containing inappropriate titles or content along with issuing restrictions or account actions to those who create and post such custom games. And then again, in bold, remember when you see any inappropriate custom game listing, be sure to open the custom games information tab and report them. Here's the stuff with streamer protection.
A part of maintaining a strong Overwatch two community is supporting our dedicated players who create content and livestream across various video platforms. A growing problem in live streaming communities is when disruptive players attempt to interfere with these content creators by trying to cue into the same match they want to play. Stream Sniping is not an easy problem to solve, but starting in season three, we're introducing new streaming protection features.
That should be a huge step toward enabling content creators to share Overwatch too with their fans safely. And without harassment from disruptive players, players will now be able to hide their current battle tag or hide the tags of other players in the same game they play in on their own game client. This will prevent those who may be watching that player's livestream from identifying if they're in the same lobby.
Players can also now hide the current cue times and even delay it for a random time before the game actually begins to find a match for that player. Replay codes can also be hidden from appearing in the game client. These features will be available starting in season three for all players and can be found on the social options in your settings. I think that's a good thing right there.
I think that is a good way to have a streamer who wants to play Overwatch too on stream, not have to worry about someone coming in and, I don't know, being harassing and getting reported or whatever. And then there's this thing about cheating. We acknowledge that cheating continues to be a major concern for many of our high ranked players. So far we have actioned over 50,000 accounts that we found to be cheating since the launch of Overwatch two. They have actioned them. Is this a new,
a new word for that? I mean, you banned them. That's probably what you did. actioned them. Okay. Along with taking action against cheaters, we want to discourage any incentive to take advantage of cheating, including grouping up with anyone who uses cheats and hacks. Oh, okay. So if you are, it is my understanding that Overwatch and Overwatch two are the type of thing
you end up in a group. Um, I don't know how much control you have over who's playing in that group, but if you're playing with someone who uses cheats and hacks, I guess it sounds like you could get in trouble too, because they're part of your group. No, maybe I'm wrong. As I said,
I don't play Overwatch. It doesn't run on a Mac. Yeah, you know, , uh, starting in season three, we'll be identifying players who willingly group up regularly with those flagged for cheating and they will also face account action even if they are not using cheats themselves. That's kind of scary, I think. Like if you're someone new to Overwatch and you jump in and you happen to be with a group that's, you know, cheating and you don't know it, I mean,
you're gonna get dinged as well. So that's, I think that's gonna push players to only play in games where it's like friends of theirs that they know well, you know, and that might make it harder for new players to like find, you know, good people to play with. It continues. Players who knowingly group up with cheaters are looking to take the same advantage as those who use cheats themselves, including boosting their accounts to skill levels they would not normally belong in with their own skill.
Doing so creates unfair and imbalanced matches for many in our community and does not live up to our core value of play. Nice, play fair. While those who directly cheat are often permanently banned immediately we will be issuing severe suspensions for extended amounts of time, and in extreme cases, outright bands to those grouping up with known cheaters. And in all caps, in bold letters, big letters, it says, remember to report .
So they definitely want you to report people that are doing things that they're not supposed to be doing. And it sounds like I don't play Overwatch, I've said this a number of times here, I wanna make that clear. I've never played this game, but if I was going to play a game that had this much sort of emphasis on report people, I, I think I'd be uncomfortable. Not because I'd be using cheats,
cuz honestly I wouldn't even know where to start with any of those. But, um, I just feel like the more information that is constantly being pulled from anybody playing a game can be like, you need some of that for moderation, but every game and, oh, you got into this game with your buddy there who's cheating? Well, you're a cheater too. That's kind of harsh and I don't know, we'll see how this works out. If it bothers enough people, there will definitely be, you know, arguments about it.
I'm gonna talk a little bit about, uh, 3 43 Industries and they make games, they work on Halo and things like that. And I've got an article here from Game Spot titled Phil Spencer says, 3 43 Industries is quote, critically important and quote to Halo Microsoft Gaming ceo Phil Spencer says, the, that the heart and soul of Halo is with 3 43 industries. This was posted on January 30 written by Darren Banas. So I'm gonna read, read you a little bit of this.
Times are tough at Microsoft right now as the company recently slashed over a hundred, uh, sorry, 10,000 jobs. Holy cow. That's, that's better than a hundred thousand. But 10,000 is the actual number, uh, from its various divisions, including key staff at Halo Infinite Studio 3 43 Industries with the future of the iconic Xbox franchise, unclear Microsoft Gaming ceo Phil Spencer gave an update on three 40 three's. Future without directly mentioning if the developer was working on a new single
player content quote, every year is critical. Spencer said to ign, I don't find this year to be more or less critical. I feel good about our momentum. Obviously we're going through some adjustments right now that are painful, but I think necessary. But it's really to set us up and the teams for a long-term success. Halo will remain critically important to what Xbox is doing. And three four T 3 3 43 is critically important to the success of
Halo. The heart and soul of Halo is with 3 43 and the team that's there, and I have the utmost confidence in the team that's there and leading and the plan that they have going forward. As previous, a previous report, uh, claimed that 3 43 would be taken off of active development on the Halo franchise and that new games in the series would be created by third party studios. But 3 43 has denied these reports. Halo and Master Chief are ready to stay. Is it chief? It's gotta be chief, uh,
are here to stay. Studio head, Pierre Hintz said 3 43. Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including Epic Stories, multi-player and more of what makes Halo great. And it just kind of goes on from there a little bit. There's a Bloomberg article that, uh, was actually behind a paywall, but MSN has it because a lot of companies that write, you know, articles about really anything, um, can end up on MSN if they have some sort of partnership between them.
So this was written, I don't even know how many days ago exactly, um, but it's titled Microsoft Studio Behind Halo Faces a reboot on Years of Turmoil written by Jason Schreyer, who I mentioned in the previous show. That's the guy that, um, put the name of the person working at Blizzard into his article without talking to him first. So anyway, uh, here's a little bit from this. Microsoft Corp says it's going to keep making new games in the popular Halo
franchise at its prize. 3 43 Industries Industries Studio, despite rumors to the contrary, but after a leadership overhaul, mass layoffs and a host of big changes, the outfit is all. But starting from scratch, the Redmond, Washington based 3 43 industries released its latest game, halo Infinite in December of 2021 to widespread critical acclaim. It was seen as a redemption story for a title that suffered multiple delays, endless development problems, and a merry-go-round of creative leads.
In the months that followed, fans turned against the game, complaining about a thin roadmap and the slow rollout of features that had been expected on day one. At the same time, 3 43 was seemingly losing staff by the week and went through major leadership change last fall that led some employees to brace for a reorganization. The acts fell in mid-January when Microsoft announced mass layoffs in 3 43.
Industries was hit hard while Microsoft declined to provide specific figures, at least 95 people at the company have lost their jobs. According to a spreadsheet of affected employees received reviewed by Bloomberg, the list named dozens of veterans, including top directors and contractors, upon which the studio heavily relied, those temporary employees were given just a few days warning before their contracts came to an end.
According to people familiar with the process asking not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, the cuts led to rumors that 3 43 would farm out development of the Halo series to other game companies. Uh, Matt Booty, yeah, last name, b o o t y, head of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studio said in an interview that 3 43 will continue as the internal developer for Halo and as the home of Halo.
Internally, booty has assured 3 43 staff that even as they work with outside partners and outsourcing houses, they will remain in charge. Questions remain however, about the fate of the Halo franchise as the studio was hollowed out and makes big changes to how it develops. Games goes on from there a little bit. GeekWire has an article, Microsoft 3 43 Industries reportedly reorganizes after layoffs to Chart Future for Halo. It's probably similar stuff. It's mentioning, uh, Bloomberg's,
Jason's share Schreyer. So it's probably about the same thing. A lot of these things kind of copy from other things and that's fine. More people will see whatever's important And moving on to Diablo. Now. Finally, . Uh, there's, uh, you may remember a while back there was all these things on at least Twitter, maybe other social media as well about, uh, Diablo Hell's Inc. Well, they're bringing it back. So Hell's Ink Tattoo Shop takeover tour has reignited
. I'm not really, I'm sorry, I'm dyslexic. I can't handle this. So here's what the article's about Last year, hundreds of dedicated fans from around the world lined up across eight cities to receive a permanent mark of Diablo during the Diablo Hell's Inc. Tattoo Shop takeover tour. Due to the popularity of the previous year, we're reigniting it for a second run.
With all new stops shops and sizzling hot tattoo designs, H Diablo Hill's Ink Takeover Shop will feature some of the world's greatest tattoo artists creating bespoke tattoos inspired by the Diablo universe with their own unique art style and for a few lucky acolytes of the burning hells for a few lucky acolytes. Okay, yeah, that there will be four stops in total, three of which we have selected. It will be up to you, you as in all caps to help us decide our final stop for the Hells Inc tour.
So here's the ones that they have selected. They have Las Vegas, February 2nd, 2025, Pittsburgh, March 4th, 2023. Let me try that again. numbers, man numbers. I'm looking at a graphic that is moving lines around the screen and bouncing around. So forgive me for not getting this all straight. The first try. So, Las Vegas, February 25, Pittsburgh, March 4th, Dallas, uh,
March 11th. And then there's one that's just off to the side of this map of the United States that says Fan selected location on March 15. So yeah, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Dallas, and, uh, fan voted US City. Uh, they don't know who's gonna be the artist there yet because they don't know where they're going to put this one. I really don't know a lot about specific tattoo artists. I think the work that tattoo artists do is amazing.
I can't get it cause I'm immune compromised really badly and allergic to so many things, but I'm happy for other people to go get these tattoos if they want them. Las Vegas to Fat is gonna have Revolt Studios headlining Joey Hamilton. Pittsburgh has Wild Child Tattoo headlining. Sarah Miller Dallas has Eden Body Art Studios headlining Deanna James and whoever the fan voted one, uh, comes up to be. I guess we'll find out later.
There's directions on this post about how to enter to get a custom di Diablo tattoo from one of these franchises. Submissions will be accepted from February 1st to February 7th. Winners will be contacted via direct message on their respective social media
platform to verify eligibility and other prize related details. Uh, once Diablo fans from around the world choose the fourth stop of our tour, we'll announce later on our social media accounts how to enter for a chance to win a Custom Diablo tattoo from that location. And there's some tattoo artist work here leave with, with Ink and Loot. It wouldn't be a proper Diablo experience without loot.
Fans who receive either a flash tattoo or custom tattoo at any of our tour stops will also receive early access to the Diablo four, open beta, the mother inked in game title for Diablo four and other exclusive Hell's Ink gifts. So that's what you need to know about that if you're interested in doing it. Carbo animations has been putting, uh, compilations of its Diab la l o l two comp compilations. Uh, the one that I'm looking at that's was posted just two days ago is act three
nightmare. So you can check that out. I think this is the one where they have, um, like a singing thing happening and I remember looking at part of that, but it's 10 minutes long. They're usually shorter than that, so they're kind of fun to watch. If you wanna check 'em. The Blizzard forums for Diablo two resurrected had on January 30. Pez Radar Community Manager said thanks to all the feedback on the ptr, some pretty significant changes will be coming up based off community feedback.
Uh, and we know now that it's, um, actually ended the, uh, yeah, Diablo two resurrected, PTR 2.6 new Ruin words has ended. So, uh, if you were thinking about getting into that, your time is up. Maxwell has a preview for the PTR 2.7 0.5 and season 28 overview. This is for Diablo three and there's a lot of information in here about the, the theme is Rights of Sanctuary. There's some description of that. There's theme details.
It's got this picture here of basically the alphabet and little circles next to it with connecting lines. It's the Altar of Rights menu and select as you go. It looks like you have to work your way from the bottom of the chart to the top. Maybe I'm not entirely sure, but all the details are here for that. If you wanna check it out. It kind of reminds me of a smaller portion of what we once were shown with Diablo for, with all the little dots and lines everywhere to try to fill in.
So that's a thing. It has the cost of different things in here and, uh, how seals and potions work, how to unlock those, uncover an ancient legend, unlock all the seals, looks like wings of terror, cosmetic kind of thing. And it goes on from there. I think Maxwell does a really good job with all of the Diablo games. I haven't really looked into the other games that they do because I don't play them . So this looks good though.
This looks really good if you wanna know what to do. Uh, as far as that, uh, the ptr, I think is now going on. Now. Pur Diablo, they are, uh, they do a lot of things, but they also have a podcast. And the most recent one that they put out was on February 1st, titled The Future of Diablo Diablo Podcast slash Vidcast episode 17. And that one included, let's see who was there. Uh, let's see if I can see anybody's names on here. I I could see, uh, nine Ball in there. I can see Dready.
I'm not familiar with the other two's faces in there. I really wish I heard it is. Okay. It's H C Z nine Ball Angst a n g, ZT and Dready that they were there to talk about the future of Diablo four. So check it out if, if you have the time and are so inclined, you know, I'm sure it'd be good with this group of people that I think they're probably doing good stuff. I've been super busy and I've been really sick because again, immunocompromised. So, um, I haven't caught up to any of these yet.
You could get them on YouTube though, if that's your thing. And I, there must be, I dunno if it's just on YouTube Vidcast. Yeah, I guess it's on YouTube. So, um, check it out there if you want. I think they're probably, from what I've seen, just based on who has been involved in these, when they talk to people about this, I think they're making really good choices about very, very knowledgeable people who know probably more than me about the Diablo
franchise and lore and things of that nature. So that's what I have for today. It's kind of a lot of different things that are both good and bad. The settlement thing was a surprise. I did not expect to see that today popping up in, you know, in the news. I don't know. I mean, so Activision Blizzard has less money now, but is it really gonna make a difference? I don't know. It doesn't sound like they're really interested in doing good things
for their employees overall. And they definitely don't like unions. So I don't know. It's not like that s e c thing was specifically about that, but still, I can't help but wonder what the regulators that are considering saying, you know what, Microsoft, you can't buy Activision Blizzard after all for these reasons.
Whatever those reasons may come out to be. I can't imagine that, you know, the, yes, we're going to pay you a bunch of money and no, we're not going to change anything kind of thing is like, that's gonna make things worse, I think. But anyway, that's all I've got for today. Uh, so I'm gonna close out the, the show you've been listening to episode 3 96 of the Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community Podcast, missed episode.
You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game our in-game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, are open to anyone who would like to join. You could also join us on Discord for the ultimate team and community based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter and Facebook page, as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.