As NetEase reportedly stops funding overseas devs, The Witcher 3 director's next game The Blood of Dawnwalker is apparently safe thanks to being "fully-funded" already - Related to blood, kotick's, blizzard, waiting, netease

As NetEase reportedly stops funding overseas devs, The Witcher 3 director's next game The Blood of Dawnwalker is apparently safe thanks to being "fully-funded" already

The Blood of Dawnwalker dev Rebel Wolves is partially owned by NetEase, but the studio wants you to know its upcoming game is fine despite recent reports.

Things are a little rough over at NetEase at the moment, as recent reports have claimed that a bunch of big overseas studios won't get anymore funding, and that they'll have to finish their games with the budget they've got left. That potentially leaves developers Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi up a particular creek, given that he left RGG to form his own studio to develop a new IP. The news also left some worried about the state of The Blood of Dawnwalker, the first game from Rebel Wolves, a new studio led by the director of The Witcher 3, as NetEase does own a stake in the developer. However, in a post shared to LinkedIn (thanks, Eurogamer), Rebel Wolves' chief publishing officer and co-owner Tomasz Tinc explained that there's nothing to worry about.

"I've also read the articles suggesting that Rebel Wolves may be in danger due to the rumoured situation at NetEase," Tinc wrote. "First and foremost, thank you for all the warm messages and wishes. The development of our game is progressing steadily, and we're facing no financial issues. The Blood of Dawnwalker's production is fully funded, and we work alongside our partners and friends from Bandai Namco, our game's global publisher, to bring the first chapter of the Dawnwalker saga to life.

"The vast majority of Rebel Wolves' ownership rests in the hands of Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and other studio co-owners, all of whom are employed by Rebel Wolves. NetEase is Rebel Wolves' minority shareholder."

That's obviously good news for those excited about Dawnwalker, but you still have to wonder what's going on over at NetEase, as one investigation even claimed that the business's CEO wanted to cancel Marvel Rivals, or potentially just make an original game instead, because he didn't want to pay Disney a licensing fee. Need I remind you that this is the same game that just hit 40 million players, so take of that what you will.

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More job cuts waiting to bite at NetEase studios, according to insiders

Corporate gaming giant NetEase are hunting for more jobs to slash among their overseas studios, . The parent business not long ago cut a bunch of US jobs among their Marvels Rivals developers despite the game raking in a big profit. And it now looks like that was just the start of a larger mauling which may hit up to 20 of the business's non-Chinese studios.

"NetEase is actively shopping around more of its non-Chinese studios—many of the very same ones it unveiled over the last three years," says Stephen Totilo in a investigation for Game File. "One of Game File’s reports says NetEase plans to divest itself of the majority of its overseas teams, leading to the potential closure of more than a dozen game studios, if they can’t secure new post-NetEase funding."

Among the overseas studios owned by NetEase are French studio Quantic Dream, who were acquired in 2022, and Nagoshi Studio, a venture set-up by a former Yakuza director. The corporate behemoth also own several overseas studios that haven't released a game yet, such as US studio Bulletfarm and Bad Brain Game Studios in Canada, among 16 other studios in various countries. It's not clear which of these studios are on the chopping block.

"[All] studios and projects are in constant review and evaluation," the enterprise told Game File after a request for comment, "and NetEase will determine changes needed to be made throughout that process.”.

NetEase are also partial owners of Polish studio Rebel Wolves, the developers of lately revealed RPG The Blood Of Dawnwalker. But they are minority shareholders, as clarified by co-owner Tomasz Tinc on LinkedIn, who stated that Dawnwalker is "fully funded" and not in danger.

"The development of our game is progressing steadily, and we're facing no financial issues," he stated.

A pattern of cuts to relatively new NetEase studios has already emerged. As noted by Edwin in the recent past, NetEase have pulled funding for Worlds Untold, split with Jar Of Sparks, and laid people off at Liquid Swords. All these studios were in the recent past set up by industry veterans who had worked on game series' like Mass Effect, Halo, and Just Cause.

The move is a strategic set of cutbacks envisioned from on-high, , who findings that NetEase CEO William Ding has "reasserted his leadership with a series of dramatic decisions over the past year", including hiring a number of 20-something finance graduates to "lead or supervise gaming units", 's information.

NetEase laid off almost 900 workers from various games subsidiaries over the course of 2023, Bloomberg also notes. But when asked about the status of overseas studios on a conference call last week, Ding responded via translator to say that the organization will continue to support "high-quality studios and really master creators.”.

“That is our strategy,” he noted. “There’s no change on that.”.

If you are one of the 448,000 players who played Marvel Rivals at the height of its popularity on Steam, you may be looking at those lately laid off and wondering what counts to Ding as "high-quality".

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Unions slam Bobby Kotick's claims that Activision Blizzard harassment reports were "fake"

The Communication Workers Of America (CWA) has slammed former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's asserts that the numerous reports of harassment that allegedly took place when he led the firm were "fake."

"Bobby Kotick’s comments on a podcast uplifting billionaires are both insulting to the Activision workers who spoke out about the harassment they faced and unsurprising," a CWA spokesperson told RPS in an emailed statement. "Fortunately for workers, Kotick is gone and thousands of workers have organized unions with CWA without intimidation or interference and now have a voice at work."

In a wide-ranging interview on the Grit podcast, Kotick also mentioned the petition that called for his resignation signed by 1300 employees was "fake" and intimated CWA initiated the complaints after it "started looking at technology" and "were losing members at a really dramatic rate."

In July 2021, The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, accusing the organization of fostering a culture of harassment and discrimination against women. Then, in November of the same year, The Wall Street Journal .

In May 2023, Kotick blamed the firm's image problems not on a toxic workplace culture that spawned numerous gender discrimination lawsuits from former employees and state and federal agencies alike, but "outside forces" and unionization supporters. By December, Kotick revealed he was stepping down after 30 years.

"The indicates Bobby Kotick presents in the podcast regarding the 'fake lawsuits' are false," a CWA spokesperson told RPS in an emailed statement.

"In 2021, Activision agreed to an $18 million dollar settlement with the EEOC following a lawsuit that Activision had sexually harassed and discriminated against its workforce. Bobby Kotick himself apologized in his own press release for the inappropriate conduct that happened under his watch.

"Alongside the settlement money, Activision also agreed to provide anti-harassment and anti-discrimination trainings, expand mental health counseling services to its workers, and provide victim-specific relief, as outlined in the EEOC’s release on March 3, 2022," the statement added.

"Subsequently, in 2023, Activision reached a $54 million dollar settlement with the California Civil Rights Department (which was formerly known as the California State Department of Fair Employment and Housing, as Kotick references in the podcast) for discriminating against women in the workplace and for pay inequities."

"The trauma, discrimination, and abuse that our coworkers and former coworkers endured is not fake or a 'plan to drive union membership'," added ABetterABK.

"Our unions were born from the very real and harmful way executives reacted when made aware of these situations.

"The executives of our business did not protect us, and often made the situation worse or directly perpetuated the harm. That is why we decided to stand up for ourselves and make our business improved, a place where we truly lived by our core values and looked out for one another.

"A common misinformation tactic used by companies during a union campaign is to assert that a union is a third party that comes in and makes changes. This is not true. The workers are the union," the statement concluded.

"We are not a third party looking for companies to prey on. We are workers with a vested interest in making our enterprise the best it can be."

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