Daily Briefing: Monday 11th October (Patreon)

California challenges $18m Activision Blizzard lawsuit

The California Department of Fair Housing and Employment have issued a formal objection to Activision Blizzard's recent settlement with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Under the terms of the agreement, Activision Blizzard were required to establish an $18 million fund to "compensate and make amends to eligible claimants." The number itself was immediately criticised for being too low given the scale of the lawsuit and the weight of Activision Blizzard's wallet, but now the DFEH have said the settlement could cause "irreparable harm"

• The crux of the DFEH's objections revolves around the fact that the terms of Activision Blizzard's settlement with the EEOC require employees to release the company from claims under California state law. Oh, and the DFEH say "the proposed consent decree also contains provisions sanctioning the effective destruction and/or tampering of evidence critical to the DFEH's case, such as personnel files and other documents referencing sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination." This would obviously severely impact the DFEH's own ongoing case against Activision Blizzard, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be too thrilled.

Back 4 Blood isn't amazing for solo players at the moment

Turtle Rock's Left 4 Dead successor zombie shooter Back 4 Blood is out now in early access for the folks who preorder the game's fancier version. The game was always going to be heavily multiplayer-focused given both its subject matter and Turtle Rock's history, but it turns out the singleplayer experience isn't so hot at the minute. Anyone playing Back 4 Blood solo won't be able to work towards achievements, earn supply points, track stats for...some reason.

• Players understandably aren't too happy about this rather baffling limitation as they feel it just outright punishes players who are just trying to play alone a game they paid for. Turtle Rock responded pretty quickly to the complaints all this considered, promising to  "address the issue" at some point in the future. It's still not the best response though is it? Especially considering Turtle Rock will likely be ready getting ready for launch. Solo players may just be out in the cold for a while.

GOG.com pull Hitman amid DRM row

A bit of an argument recently broke out over on CD Projekt Red's digital marketplace GOG.com when Hitman's release brought an unwelcome chunk of DRM to the supposedly DRM-free platform. While the game was advertised as being DRM-free on its store page with the wording "no activation or online connection required to play," a large portion of the game's content required an active internet connection in order to run.

• All of the above issues kind of went together to prompt players to leave a spate of negative reviews criticising the game's less than accurate store listing. At the time, GOG took a pretty dim view of the complaints, writing a lot of the negative sentiment off as "review bombing," which didn't do much to help the situation. Now, GOG have pulled the game from the store and apologised to the community "for the confusion and anger generated by this situation." They also pledged to improve communication going forward. So there you go.