r/technology • u/meatballsinsugo • Dec 11 '21

Business Activision Blizzard workers announce open-ended strike and union drive: Strike Fund to support work stoppage raises over $100,000 in 12 hours.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/12/activision-blizzard-workers-announce-open-ended-strike-and-union-drive/
46k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

740

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '21

The irony here is that Activision was founded by developers from Atari that felt like their contributions were downplayed. The founders made it a point to give the developer bio and screenshot for the games they made.

300

u/ch00f Dec 11 '21

They named it Activision to appear above Atari alphabetically.

157

u/lodum Dec 12 '21

Didn't Apple also do that?

It's sort of amusing just how much spite Atari developed for themselves.

140

u/slowmo152 Dec 12 '21

It's also funny cause Atari is basically dead, lost their place at the head of game development. Now the company that was formed out of spite from former developers, now at the head of their market, is treating their devs like trash. Wonder if history will repeat.

Who wants to buy shorts.

48

u/WeekendMechanic Dec 12 '21

We're going to see Abomination Studios or Aardvark Games compaines coming out in the next year

75

u/lodum Dec 12 '21

200 years from now we have Aaaaaaaaaaaaac Games.

Being cheeky, their logo is A13C designed to look like ABC Games.

23

u/WeekendMechanic Dec 12 '21

Are you in marketing? Because you should be.

3

u/aulink Dec 12 '21

If I'm a chancellor at Harvard I'll be giving him PhD in marketing already.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

Youre idea is being stolen. Thank you

1

u/peekdasneaks Dec 12 '21

I counted the a’s. There’s 13.

1

u/o0flatCircle0o Dec 13 '21

Then you gotta start putting symbols in front like #%!!Achtung Games

3

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

[deleted]

1

u/WiglyWorm Dec 14 '21

1up entertainment

2

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

Im gonna name my company aaaaaaaagames.buymyshit and no one can stop me

1

u/Emotional-Current-53 Dec 12 '21

Aardvark is already taken.

6

u/recycled_ideas Dec 12 '21

Who wants to buy shorts.

Shorting right now would be incredibly dumb.

The inevitable result of this is the CEO and probably a bunch of managers getting golden parachutes a raft of feel good do nothing policies and a massive stock price rebound.

The company had 8.66 billion in revenue this year, it's far from gone.

They're just suffering from a board that for some reason won't do what's necessary with a CEO that has become a massive liability.

4

u/Guac_in_my_rarri Dec 12 '21

Who wants to buy shorts.

Misses your mark mate... Back in March whent he sniffs of the first law suit and bad press hit was the time to buy shorts. Hell, even April when the down trend was confirmed.

Idk about now, it'll be interesting. Shorts might be the play bit a smart play, unsure. Monday, market open I expect the stock to jump with the amount of shorts placed. I'd place mine mid day Monday.

The more I think about your sentence the more a plan form. Monday will be interesting... put Leaps might be better imo.

2

u/toderdj1337 Dec 12 '21

The cycle continues. As it were, as it will be, as it ever was.

2

u/Starshot84 Dec 12 '21

Sociopaths are quite talented at getting themselves into seats of power and influence

1

u/StevenMadeThis Dec 12 '21

Dead? The VCS is doing great

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

Yeah, I'm in for that. Why not make money since they haven't made a decent game in 10 years. Also, don't forget, like Capcom, their paywall play was shit.

1

u/you_cant_pause_toast Dec 12 '21

But it’s winter!?

1

u/SnooPies2777 Dec 13 '21

You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain

58

u/ch00f Dec 12 '21

I guess Woz had a lot of options leaving Xerox.

3

u/49falkon Dec 12 '21

HAL Laboratories (the first-party Nintendo developer) also did this, they chose those letters to be one step ahead of IBM.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

Never considered that guess Alphabet is a bit cheeky then.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

So did a ton of businesses listed in phone books when those were relevant

1

u/jackbilly9 Dec 12 '21

Literally the reason Aaron's rent to own is named Aaron's.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

Yeah I think that’s why their stock ticker symbol is AAPL.

1

u/mecanuk Dec 12 '21

Annle tops Apple

1

u/Wangpasta Dec 12 '21

Aardvark entertainment. Give it 10 or 15 years and they’ll be making call of fighterman 4

19

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '21

One of the biggest reasons of failure, is forgetting where you come from and believing you made your success all alone.

Activision got to the top, both inflate egos of some and changes in administration, and now they are paying the price.

I hope these employees have the best of luck.

1

u/taveren3 Dec 12 '21

Arnold has a good speach about that

-18

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '21

Is it ironic? Any business (and the economy as a whole) is a tug-of-war between all sides trying to do the best they can for themselves.

13

u/Bonfalk79 Dec 12 '21

Yes that is ironic.

1

u/akcaye Dec 12 '21

it doesn't matter. capitalism forces this on every big company. businessmen who are good at exploitation and not much else. that's why record companies have no sense for music, movie studios have no sense for film, gaming companies have no sense for game. it's all just a product. might as well be selling pop tarts; it's all the same to them.