Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard, Inc.

Basic information
Founded	July 9, 2008
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Official website	https://activisionblizzard.com

Activision Blizzard, Inc., often referred to as ABK (Activision-Blizzard-King), or Act-Blizz, is an American video-game holding company.

Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units:

• Activision Publishing
• Blizzard Entertainment
• King
• Major League Gaming
• Activision Blizzard Studios

Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion on October 13, 2023. Activision Blizzard is a subsidiary of Microsoft Gaming along with Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax Media.

Products and franchises

• Call of Duty (Activision)
• Crash Bandicoot (Activision)
• Guitar Hero (Activision)
• Skylanders (Activision)
• Spyro the Dragon (Activision)
• Tony Hawk's (series) (Activision)
• Diablo (series) (Blizzard)
• Hearthstone (Blizzard)
• Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard)
• Overwatch (Blizzard)
• StarCraft (Blizzard)
• Warcraft (Blizzard)
• Candy Crush Saga (King)

Incidents

Account lock and Forced arbitration (2024)

Main article: Activision Blizzard account lock and forced arbitration

Activision Blizzard blocked access to Blizzard services, requiring customers to accept forced arbitration terms in the updated Blizzard end-user license agreement (EULA)

Termination of Blizzard's contract with NetEase (2023)

Mainland China lost access to Blizzard's main titles for over a year as a result of licensing agreements going unmet. Following this Overwatch was review-bombed on Steam and, eventualy, acquired by Microsoft Gaming.

Call of Duty selling AI generated content (2024)

An example of one of the paid AI generated loading screens for COD BO6

In late 2024, Activision introduced inside Call of Duty Black Ops 6 multiple pieces of content that were AI generated. This content was additionally paywalled, which further upset fans online. This content was not disclosed to consumers that it was in-fact AI-generated, and only until Valve changed Steam's disclosure policies, was it confirmed that this content was AI generated.

Microtransaction (MTX) overload

Further Reading: Microtransaction overload, DLC Overload

Activision is well-known for its excessive usage of microtransactions, with $1.34B in Q1 2021, and further peaks, such as $5.1B in 2022, it is clear that Activision is highly incentivized to generate as much revenue via microtransactions, going so far as to contribute to the detriment of the games according to fans. The cosmetics seen inside Black Ops 6 are reported to be the most distracting in the franchise to-date.

Blizzard is additionally not innocent of pumping their content with MTX, with one of the most egregious examples being Overwatch 2. The microtransactions among this game has sparked controversy among the community as well. Other Blizzard IP are also not safe from this either, such as Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft.

Patents

Patent	Name	Summary Of Invention	Consumer Related Drawback
US20160005270A1	System and method for driving microtransactions in multiplayer video games	The patent lays the ground for a dynamically adjusting matchmaking system to ensure a positive experience for players in order to increase micro transactions.	This patent includes a method to check quality factors such as facial expressions, body language, or "other observable metrics related to gameplay" in real time. That includes access to connected cameras like webcams. This clearly violates the consumer's privacy, especially without dedicated notice of such practices as in presumably Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Source video, needs solid verification of loaded DLLs How to list DLLs
US11896905B2	Methods and systems for continuing to execute a simulation after processing resources go offline	To simulate gameplay of NPCs, the system may identify end user devices (e.g., gaming consoles, personal computers, smartphones, etc.) that are connected to the system through a network and are available to participate in a simulated NPC gameplay session.	This patent essentially describes how a botnet is created in the consumer's network, which is outright stealing resources to train the company's NPC AI - even after closing the game. Further misuse of affected network devices is very well possible, thanks to unclear language like "an agent [...] may program one or more physical processors of end user device[s]". This seems to be already happening with Call of Duty Black Ops 6. The game is reported to still run in the background even after closing it. You need to use the Windows taskmamager on PC to fully close the game's process. There are also tutorials online on how to completely close the game on console.