welcome to watch
mojo and today we'll be counting down
our picks for the top 10
worst things activision blizzard has
done this was wondering
is this uh an out of season april fool's
joke
for this list we're looking at the most
infamous controversies reported under
this video game holding company's roof
what do you think is the worst thing
that activision blizzard has done
let us know in the comments now let's
roll
number 10 constant cod content
the call of duty franchise you'll wipe
out half of europe
every year without fail a new call of
duty game will hit shelves
it will leave the core game play and
multiplayer almost untouched adding
little more than a short campaign some
flashier graphics
and devouring all of your hard drive
space
on top of annual releases these new cod
games will always cost far
more than they're worth forcing people
to pay out extortionate amounts of money
not only for the game but for those
pesky season passes as well
few people would be disappointed if call
of duty changed tact
and put out better games less often but
when activision is still raking in the
cash with this
business strategy it's not likely to
change anytime soon
who's your team comrades
number nine warcraft 3 reforged
in an era of non-stop reboots and
remakes the vast majority are
resoundingly
disappointing warcraft 3 reforged was no
exception
its wealth of technical issues wasn't
the worst of blizzard's errors either
it was also significantly more limited
than the 2002
original with many promised features
completely missing
but to make matters even worse this
wasn't a case where players could just
ignore the remake and keep playing reign
of chaos because blizzard used the same
servers
this meant players were forced into
updating to the newer inferior version
and losing some of the functionality the
original had blizzard ended up offering
everybody refunds
[Music]
number eight tony hawk's pro skater 5.
[Music]
in a bid to maintain the licensing
rights to the tony hawk series
activision decided to mercilessly
destroy what was once one of the best
franchises out there
pro skater 5 was a cheap cash in on tony
hawk's name
and little else besides its gameplay was
completely uninspired
featuring bland maps that asked players
to collect random items while playing
music
that couldn't match up to the iconic
soundtracks of the original
though it was the worst tony hawk game
the worst skateboarding game
and one of the worst games ever made
period the fact
activision thought they could get away
with this might be the worst thing about
it
number seven the auction house diablo
iii
[Music]
a defining feature of diablo has always
been its randomly generated loot
and diablo 3 went a step further by
introducing an in-game auction house for
you to buy
and sell items to get the loot you
really want though there was an
auction house for in-game currency there
was another far more controversial one
where players could use
real world money to buy high level items
for people willing to
farm loot the auction house was big
business
but paying to be better at the game was
widely disliked
finally in 2014 the auction house was
shuttered for good
with blizzard developers saying that
implementing it at all
was one of their biggest regrets so as
you saw we're going to be shutting down
the diablo auction houses
number six the treatment of bungie
destiny
and destiny 2.
after the wild success of halo all eyes
were on bungie to see
what its next big ip would be destiny
was promised as a
aaa adventure through the solar system
but on release
it didn't live up to expectations it was
over
hyped to oblivion by activision's
marketing and an unpleasant deal with
sony meant that until 2019
ps4 players were getting exclusive
content over other platforms
following the disappointment of the
first game activision pushed bungie
into releasing a sequel long before they
wanted to the companies ultimately split
and bungie self-published destiny 2
greatly improving it and making it free
but activision almost killed the
franchise in the process
[Music]
pre-order and get beta early access
number five
infinity ward call of duty modern
warfare 2.
get up private rangers lead the way
activision has a bad reputation for
enlisting lots of studios in the
development of cod with
studios infinity ward trey arc raven
software
and sledgehammer games all playing a
role in producing the new
fps each year but this approach made
enemies of infinity ward's co-founders
jason west and vince zampella
just a few months after the launch of
modern warfare 2.
already tired of making call of duty
games activision alleged that zampella
and west were in talks with ea
which caused activision to
unceremoniously fire both of them
the duo sued activision for wrongful
termination and came out on top in the
end
winning tens of million dollars from
their former employers
i'll brief you on the chopper let's go
number four tweeting a fake terror
attack
lots of politically contentious things
happen in call of duty
who can forget no russian but this
marketing stunt for black ops 3 was
particularly awful
somebody at activision had the bright
idea to transform the official
twitter account into a fake news network
and started posting
about an alleged terrorist attack in
signapore
followed by rioting and a state of
emergency being called in the city
when it was revealed that no signibore
hadn't been the victim of a devastating
attack
and the entire story was just to promote
one of the world's most lucrative video
games
people had run out of patience for
activision who thought this was
acceptable
[Music]
number three microtransaction patent
forget paying sixty dollars for a
finished game at release
now you'll pay more money for unfinished
games and are expected to buy virtual
items on top microtransactions are the
bane of every gamer's life
and activision blizzard is no exception
overwatch is famously riddled with loot
boxes while even call of duty had supply
drops for a while but worst of all was
activision's patent for a matchmaking
technique that would drop
players who had bought items through
microtransaction
into matches that would make those
weapons highly effective
this would serve to convince people to
shell out even more for a clear gameplay
advantage
it hasn't been implemented but the
patent's existence is unpleasant enough
number two the blitz chung controversy
in 2019 popular hearthstone player
blitz chung spoke out in support of the
hong kong protests during a tournament
much to the ire of blizzard he was
kicked from the tournament
forced to forfeit his prize money and
was banned from competing for a year
the public backlash was enormous with
blizzard wildly perceived as pandering
to china
not in the least because chinese
publisher 10 cent owns a stake in
activision blizzard
blizzard rolled back blitzchang's
punishment a little and apologized
but not until after overwatch players
began using may
as a mascot for the hong kong protests a
boycott of activision blizzard was
launched and mitsubishi a sponsor of the
tournament
withdrew support before we unveil the
worst thing activision blizzard has done
here are a few dishonorable mentions
call of duty modern warfare remastered
people who bought infinite warfare for
this lost out when it was released on
its own pre-purchase elected editions
and play the modern warfare remastered
campaign 30 days early starting october
5th only on ps4
diablo immortal unfortunately for
blizzard
this was not a prank
open.dlc for a hundred cod points
a red dot sight marginally different
from the free one
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number one starving staff our
independent studios are the creative
engine of activision they are
responsible for making our
video games and you'd think that with
ballooning video game budgets
at least some money would go to the
developers themselves
but despite activision making billions
of dollars each year
in 2020 it came out that many activision
blizzard devs
were struggling to make ends meet ceo
bobby kodek took home a paycheck for
more than 30 million dollars in 2020
and in protest the developers shared
their own salaries on an anonymous
spreadsheet they discovered they were
being grossly underpaid and many of them
were having to skip meals because their
wages were so low
even the company's shareholders aren't
happy with the huge bonuses codec
and the other executives give themselves
i see more opportunity
for our company than i've ever seen in
the 30 years that i've been doing this
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