Activision Blizzard Under Investigation for Fraud Following Bungie Split

Games Destiny
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Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard is under investigation for fraud after a claim was brought forth by the company’s investors. Currently, the lawfirm of Pomerantz LLP is gathering potential investors for a class action lawsuit, but as of yet no official suit has been filed.
Although the timing of the announcement would suggest that the investigation is related to Activision and Bungie’s recent separation, the press release does not mention any connection. Still, Activision’s stock did drop following the announcement that Bungie would split from Activision and take publishing rights for the Destiny franchise, which certainly didn’t please the company’s investors.

Given that information, it’s possible that investors called for the investigation in order to see how much Activision Blizzard knew ahead of the split and if that had an impact on the stock price. Another possibility is that stock shares were sold right before the split was announced, which would constitute insider trading.

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The only thing that we can say for certain at this point is that Activision’s officers allegedly participated in fraud or other unlawful business practices. It’s a very broad claim that could possibly have huge ramifications for Activision if true, but could just as easily be swept away after some general questioning.

Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that Activision has had a rough week. Though the split from Bungie seems to be amicable, many Destiny fans and even other publishers are excited by the prospect of Bungie operating apart from Activision. There is a belief among the community that Activision was pushing a lot of the unpopular features in Destiny like Eververse and Season Passes, but it was only an assumption. In essence, Activision is what prevented Destiny from realizing its true potential.

Regardless, it’s important to point out that Activision Blizzard is only under investigation. There is no active lawsuit and Pomerantz is merely trying to grab investors for a potential class action.

Fishing? or are investors really thinking that Activision is on the losing end of this?

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I am going with fishing to determine the reasons behind the split, as a investigation would bring that out under the notion of possible insider trading.

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More troubles?

Activision Blizzard Reportedly Laying Off Hundreds of Staff

It’s not been long since Bungie split from their long-term Destiny partners Activision Blizzard, and now the publisher is facing even more woes — apparently hundreds of staff are at risk of being laid off.

Bungie splitting from Activision and taking Destiny with them was a major blow to the publisher.
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Bungie splitting from Activision and taking Destiny with them was a major blow to the publisher.

According to Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard is due to make an announcement on Tuesday that “could number in the hundreds” if their anonymous inside source is correct. The changes are aimed at restructuring and centralizing,

Over on Kotaku, Jason Schreier found his own anonymous source who corroborated the news and said that layoffs in the Blizzard arm of the company were expected to hit non-game development departments primarily — areas such as sales, marketing and publishing. It’s possible that those jobs would move under Activision’s direct control. This particular shakeup could be due to flattening Hearthstone sales and poor performance for Overwatch .

We’ll likely get a little more of the story over the next couple of days, but as always our thoughts will be with those affected by these potential layoffs.

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I posted this on another thread, I know many gamers like to blame the large publishers for wanting to make $$ and rejoice in their failure but business makes world go round…these companies failing is not good for gaming…yes we need fresh ideas but EA, activision and the like have helped build the AAA industry we know and as mercurial as gamers are we forget that. I suspect we will get less content with less people working in the industry. I don’t think there is much we can do to help but as we see the giants fall, maybe we should pause before we rejoice. (FYI not really directed at GRG but A-hole gamers in general) :grin:

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