- 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 4 4 6 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Sword and Award. It is February 17th, 2024. And this is Jen.
I got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about in this one and we'll just see how long this takes. It's not gonna be an overly long show. We do try to keep it down about 30 minutes, but we'll see how this goes. First of all, I've got a few articles here criticizing Activision Blizzard and you'll hear that just uh, in just a second in different ways. 'cause obviously every article is gonna be a little different.
So this is from Variety and it's titled Activision Blizzard, sued by eSports Pros seeking at least $680 million alleging monopoly over Call of Duty leagues and tournaments. The gaming company, which is now part of Microsoft calls the litigation meritless. And there's a picture from a Call of Duty game at the top of this article.
Two, professional eSports players are demanding that at least $680 million in aggregate monetary damages in a lawsuit against Microsoft's Activis Blizzard alleging the game company holds and quote unlawful 100% monopoly. End quote over professional leagues and tournaments.
For first person shooter Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard has used its quote, unlawful monopoly power to prevent would-be competitors from entering the market, as well as to coerce the market's other participants in particular professional call of duty players and team owners to acquiesce acquiesce to extortionate financial terms.
The lawsuit said the two eSport players suing Activision are Hector Rodriguez, known by his Call of Duty handle H three cz, founder of the Optic Gaming Team and Seth Abner known for his gamer stamp Sculp, no Call of Duty League teams are named as plaintiffs.
And this lawsuit calls the other teams in the CDL Co-conspirators in perpetrating division's alleged monopoly and says Plaintiffs reserve the right to name as defendants some or all of the entities or individuals who acted as co-conspirators with defendant in the alleged offenses. In an opening statement, an Activision Blizzard rep said, Mr. Rodriguez, AKA optic H three cz and Mr. Abner AKA Skump demanded that Activision pay them tens of millions of dollars to avoid this meritless litigation.
And when their demands were not met, they filed the lawsuit. We will strongly defend against these claims which have no basis in fact or in law. We are disappointed that these members of the eSports community would bring this suit, which is disruptive to team owners, players, fans, and partners who have invested so much time and energy in the Call of Duties. League success goes on from there. Vaso got one here from PC Gamer, which is probably gonna be somewhat similar.
This one is titled Top Call of Duty eSports Players Sue Activision for $680 million in damages alleging the publisher has an unlawful monopoly on the games eSports scene. Some of this is probably going to overlap a little bit.
Members of the Call of Duty League have filed a federal lawsuit against the league owner's, Activision Blizzard League owner, Activision Blizzard seeking $680 million in damages alleging the company has an unlawful monopoly over professional eSports leagues originally reported by Bloomberg Law, which I would've gone to, but they tend to put it behind a, like a paywall or a give me your data while so I don't do that one.
Uh, the lawsuit was filed by Hector hc, H three CZ Rodriguez, leader of Call of Duty, eSports Team Optic and Seth Skp Abner, one of the call, one of Call of Duty's best eSports players in a Los Angeles federal court on Thursday. The pair made the case that prior to 2019 the call of Duty eSports circuit includes leagues and tournaments hosted by multiple organizations including GameStop and Major League Gaming alongside Activision.
But in 2019, Activision took quote, concerted and purposeful actions and quote to control the call of duty eSports scene in a manner that occurred without the collaboration of existing Call of Duty eSports teams and players describing the nature of the action. The lawsuit states quote, this action arises from Activision's unlawful 100% monopoly over and agreements unlawfully restraining trade with respect to professional call of duty leagues and tournaments.
As a result of its myriad anti-competitive actions, Activision now holds an unlawful 100% monopoly over that lucrative and once vibrant market end quote. It adds that Activision quote has used that unlawful monopoly power to prevent would be competitors from entering the market as well as to coerce the markets of other participants to acqui acquiesce to extortion in financial terms. And it goes on from there for a little bit, um, but I'll give you a little more.
The lawsuit goes on to detail severe restrictions allegedly used by Activision Blizzard to prevent the Call of Duty leak teams and players from participating in events outside of the league. According to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard called Teams, uh, charged teams hefty fees for competing in the CDL with 12 teams receiving a bill for $27.5 million a piece.
Moreover, teams that competed in the Call of Duty league were allegedly prevented from competing in or supporting other tournaments and were also unable to profit from playing Call of Duty beyond the structures of the league. And there's more. The Hollywood reporter says, Activision hit with $100 million lawsuit from pro gamers over claims it monopolized Call of Duty tournaments. Um, here's some about that.
Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit accusing it of monopolizing the market for Call of Duty leagues and tournaments. And then it's um, mentions the same two guys, H three cz and S Gump in a lawsuit on Thursday in California. Federal court alleged that the gaming giant violates antitrust laws by preventing would-be competitors from entering the market and coercing players and team owners to acqui to acqui acquiescing. That's a word to extortionate financial terms.
They point to the restrictions on their ability to earn compensation from sources besides Activision through endorsements or streaming, as well as mergers intended to cement the company's alleged monopoly power. In a statement, a spokesperson for the company said, the plaintiffs quote demanded that Activision pay them tens of millions of dollars to avoid this meritless litigation. And when their demands were not meant met, they filed.
According to the complaint, the market for Call of Duty leagues and tournaments was competitive until 2019 with multiple entities including Activision, GameStop, and Major League gaming hosting events. They mostly had modest entry fees, which ensured that the best players in teams were able to participate.
The suit said, but that year the gamers say Activis, which made the title, started to demand top players and teams to agree to quote, rent seeking demands and various trade restraining contractual provisions that allegedly violate the Sherman Act and antitrust law that among other things, Barr's illegal restraints of trade. Abner said he was forced to sign a contract during a photo shoot without adequate time to review.
Despite requesting counsel and under threat of being excluded from the Activision COD league.
Absent immediate acquiescence to its terms, according to the suit, teams must pay a $27.5 million entry fee to compete in tournaments, give Activision half their revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships and seed to the gaming giant, the exclusive right to contract with the most lucrative sponsors such as Monster Beverage, mountain Dew and USAA Insurance and Broadcasters Activision's League was modeled after traditional sports leagues like the National Base
Basketball Association, the suit says, but unlike those leagues, the company did not have a collective bargaining agreement with players and team owners. And it goes on from there. It's about half an article still here, well maybe more than half. And if you'll wanna see the lawsuit, it's uh, Hollywood Reporter has embedded the thing from Scribd if you care to read it.
Adam Fletcher, who is Pez radar, posted a lovely photo of himself and he wrote this on X today marks my fifth anniversary at Blizzard Entertainment, AKA Sword. Today the team did a whole surprise reveal for me today. I had no clue. I love the Diablo team best people. There's a little heart after that and now a new weapon joins Solarian in my office. So you could see him holding up the, the silver sword with like the blue colors on it.
And behind him is definitely solarian, which is like a very gold, shiny sword. So that's pretty cool. Overall, I love when companies like really treat their workers well like this. Uh, also Adam Fletcher also wrote Next week we will be announcing a date and time for a campfire chat that will full, that will fully focus on showcasing the gauntlet and our mid-season updates. The mid-season update will bring lots of class updates and will be in the same update as the gauntlet.
So that's pretty cool. So people are asking questions of course, but they'll get it in the campfire chat. Also, academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences wrote this on X Congratulations to hashtag Diablo four for winning online Game of the year at the 27th Annual Dice Awards. And there's like a beautiful picture here of Lilith, if you wanna call it. Beautiful. And it's, it won. So that's amazing. I think there's probably a ton of people playing this game still.
I haven't been at it in a bit 'cause I got sick, but I'll go right back to it when I feel a little bit better. But I think that's cool that Diablo four won this like huge game award. It's awesome. Then the Diablo account also said, uh, about this play together, slay Together and wrote thank you to official A IAS for awarding Diablo four online game of the year at the 2024 Dice Awards. And now all of this will be posted in the show notes when I'm done talking about it.
And you can check it out there. The stuff on Twitter has like imagery you can look at like, you know, if you wanna see what the swords look like that Adam Fletcher has that kind of thing, but also the dice thing that that happened there. Xbox Game Pass says Guess who and has a little picture of a red flower sort of tipping over and a flower pedal on an unreadable book that the priests use in the beginning of the game. I won't spoil that for you if you have not gotten there yet.
It's pretty easy in the game if you go through the storyline and it says Diablo four is coming March 28th to Xbox Game Pass and says Hail Lilith. I think that's pretty cool. I've been playing Diablo four on Xbox because it won't run on a Mac, which is what I use and I prefer.
This is a good idea. It's a good way to get people who are like, yeah, you know, maybe I wanna play that game, but I'm not sure they could just play it through the Xbox Game Pass starting on March 28th and figure out if they like it or not with really, probably without having to pay for the game at first. I'm not sure how that goes because I just, I paid for the game, so I don't know.
But I think it's a good idea, especially considering that this game has like, you know, gotten some awards recently. It's a good idea. There's also new cosmetics for all of the classes and I've been sort of, kind of playing a sorcerer, but I'm not enjoying it very much.
So I'm gonna switch to a barbarian and wow head has this, uh, article titled New Barbarian Cosmetics, the Bloody Hawk, and it's like feathery and colorful and probably would intimidate other, uh, things that the, this particular barbarian in this photo in that, uh, in that website is, uh, you know, gonna be scary looking with all that . So here's the writeup on this another day. More new cosmetics.
These barbarians certainly aren't chickens, even if they are wearing the new Bloody Hawk cosmetics. While we don't know for certain when these packages will rotate out of stock, what we do know is that the shop refreshes happen daily at approximately 10:00 PM or 10:00 AM PDT. So stay tuned. We may have new cosmetic options soon. And then there's just some pictures in here of the armor on a male barbarian and a female barbarian.
The armor looks pretty much the same for the most part, it's very colorful, like you're gonna, you're gonna see the barbarians immediately if they're wearing this. And there's a couple of weapons that go along with this as well. And then there's some special markings you can put on your barbarian, whether male or female, if you wanna do that. I think that's kind of cool. I'm hoping, I'm hoping that this is one that you can just kind of get and not have to like, you know, do a lot for.
But in addition from wow had, again, from a while back, um, from, well, I guess a month ago, uh, Diablo four platinum pre premium currency in Diablo four, season three. And it's like how you can get this, you know, but I think if it's, I'm understanding this correctly, like you can try to buy some things, but you need a certain amount of platinum and you can't really get that from having it drop in the game.
So if these fancy Rooster costumes or whatever they are is something that's going to be accessible, it's probably gonna cost you some money. Wellhead has got a patch here for 1.3 0.2 Uber unique crafting that allows players to guarantee desired Uber uniques. This is written by Jez Tross and here's what was, uh, written by, uh, her on Wow Head. A common complaint from players in Diablo for has centered around the elusive exclusive Uber unique items.
These rare items such as Harlequin, Harlequin Crest, and the grandfather are easily some of the most powerful in the game and the most desired for their building, for their build completing properties. The downside, however, is that they were nearly impossible to find even after targeted farming of them was introduced. Now Blizzard has released the patch 1.3 0.2 that will allow players to guarantee a craft of any Uber unique of their choosing. Blizzard released patch notes today.
This was written on eight days ago. I just kind of missed it, I guess. Um, revealing Uber unique crafting providing a way for players with bad luck to gain the Uber unique they want for a price. So here is a post from Blizzard embedded in this article. Uber unique crafting developers note, Uber unique items are highly sought after with season of Blood. We introduced target farming Uber unique items with Uber Durio to give players another source of acquiring this type of item.
However, we want to give players increased autonomy in obtaining their desired Uber unique by addressing feedback that expressed how acquiring, uh, duplicate or undesired Uber unique items lessons that feeling of triumph. A new system empowers players to make use of duplicate and undesired uber unique items by salvaging them for a new resource which can be used to eventually craft an Uber unique of their choosing.
Additionally, the chance for Uber unique items to drop everywhere, but in Uber Durio encounters has been increased. Uber unique items can now be salvaged to provide a new resource re spend. Resplendent Sparks players can bring five resplendent sparks to the Alchemist and Transmute and Uber unique of their choice. The refined resources tab at the Alchemist has been renamed Transmute and the option to craft an Uber unique item can be found under that tab.
Note that the preview window for crafting an Uber unique won't display the items apexes the drop chance of Uber unique items acquired outside of Uber dural encounters have been increased. These Uber uniques will still be difficult to obtain because crafting your chosen Uber unique will require having five other Uber uniques drop first. This is certainly a challenge given their rarity and will allow for a small bit of bad luck protection without flooding the player base with Uber uniques.
So there's that. And I've got one more thing in here. Now I think the Howler hunt in Diablo Immortal might still be going on, but Diablo immortal on uh, X Twitter, whatever, uh, is already announcing season 23. So Diablo immortal season 23 is called the consumed. The outfits that the character classes are wearing are very much in tune with the like lunar New Year stuff that we're seeing in Diablo four. And they wrote this, live your Life within the MA that will One day swallow You whole.
Our season 23 Battle Pass the consumed is available now until March 14. So they're kind of planning ahead with it. And some people have described their reactions to this particular thing. One of them says this season only the barbarian outfit and weapon and the monk weapon are only good. The rest are not good at all. And then there's someone that just posted a skin from their, their character.
Some of these I can't read and well, I could probably puzzle that out, but I'm pretty sure it's Portuguese and I'm not really good with that. And then someone else is really mad about the Necro Skins . So, you know, you can't win on social media no matter how big a company you are, I suppose. I just really think that's, that's something that's gonna be happening forever and ever. Um, so this is kind of a shorter show in many ways, in part because I've been sick lately.
I have a ton of allergies and that provoked, uh, a lot of, uh, downtime that was necessary. So I'm not gonna push myself too hard today. I'm hoping that this is enough stuff to give you some ideas of what's coming up in Diablo four as well as Diablo Mortal and all the other shenanigans going on with Activision Blizzard. I am quite surprised that after Microsoft obtained Activision Blizzard or whatever, um, that they, you know, that's part of them now, Activision Blizzard King part of Microsoft.
And I figured that because they're under Microsoft now, that perhaps the shenanigans that were going on that led up to very many people that love Call of Duty being angered about it. And, you know, being told you can't, you can't leave your league or you can't, you know, play on other people's leagues and all that kind of stuff. I think it's possible that, um, this is probably illegal in some way. I mean, honestly, if you look at like, I don't know, baseball or something, right?
And somebody doesn't want to be on that team anymore and has enough of courage or money or something that makes them very, very interested in playing on a different team altogether, they can actually do that if they want to. If they don't get, you know, a return, come back to our team again next season type thing, they'll probably know that before that season even starts.
But like with this eSports stuff, it seems like it's all locked down under Activision and I honestly hoped that Activision Blizzard would be a better company to, you know, the players and the people it's got hired. I know they laid off a ton of people, uh, Activision Blizzard King, and it might have been Microsoft's uh, coercion to that. I don't know, maybe Microsoft decided this was too many people. That's how we lost the unannounced adventure game. Um, that kind of thing. But I don't know.
I mean, I just feel like the bigger the company, the more problems it makes for itself. You know what I mean? And that's where I'm gonna end this episode. You have been listening to episode 4, 4 6 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo Community podcast missed an episode. You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at Shattered Soul www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Do we need the www? I don't know. Come join us in game.
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