Daily Briefing: Thursday 24th March

Activision-Blizzard Hit By New Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

A current employee, referred to as Jane Doe, has taken Activision-Blizzard up on harassment and discrimination, claiming she was pressured to drink and participate in ‘lewd games’. She alleges that complains made about this behaviour, as well as sexual advances made, were explained away as leadership trying to be nice, and be her friend. She also claims she was told not to make her concerns public, due to the company’s rep being damage. After complaining to J. Allen Brack, she was offered a lower role with significantly less salary to escape her position.

• All lines up with what’s been going on - and with the news that the $18m settlement with the EEOC is likely to go ahead, we may see more of this with individual victims seeking greater compensation.

Yuji Horii, Creator of Dragon Quest, Gets GDC Lifetime Achievement Award

The man who can largely be credited with creating the JRPG genre as it exists today has been recognised for his contribution to the industry. He joins Laralyn McWilliams, Amy Hennig, Tim Sweeney, Todd Howard. Hironobu Sakaguchi and more.

• I’m surprised it took this long for him to win one, but he absolutely deserves it - Dragon Quest was formative not just for RPG genre design, but also for being a cultural foothold for console gaming in Japan and inspiring the series and types of games that made gaming what is today. Dragon Quest walked so Final Fantasy could run! Maybe Hidetaka Miyazaki will win next year’s? He already has one from The Game Awards.

The DirectStorage API Has Forspoken Loading On Windows In Under 2 Seconds

Footage uploaded by Square Enix’s Luminous Productions shows Microsoft’s latest DirectStorage API in action: An M.2 SSD loads a scene in 1.9 seconds, the SATA SSD does it in 3.7 and the HDD does it in 21.5. A later scene that loads straight into gameplay takes 1.7s.

• We might finally see PS5/XSX load times on Windows PCs, though of course this is specifically demo footage and real world scenarios may differ. That said, Luminous Productions are some of the best in the business tech-wise... let’s just hope the game is good.