TapTechNews October 2nd news, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier disclosed that Blizzard Entertainment once planned to develop the StarCraft, Overwatch and Diablo series in cooperation with Netflix, but with the legal disputes between the two sides (Blizzard filed a lawsuit against Netflix in 2020), these plans seem to have been shelved.
Schreier disclosed that all three works were once in the development stage, but after the legal dispute between Activision Blizzard and Netflix broke out, the cooperation projects between the two sides were forced to stop.
This lawsuit originated from Activision Blizzard's former chief financial officer Spencer Neumann, who joined Netflix within less than three years after leaving. Activision Blizzard accused him of violating the employment agreement, expressed strong dissatisfaction, demanded that Netflix compensate for the losses, and proposed a permanent injunction to prohibit hiring Activision employees who are bound by valid fixed-term agreements or inducing these employees to violate their valid fixed-term employment agreements.
According to Activision Blizzard, at the end of 2018, Neumann was favored by Netflix (TapTechNews note: he signed a three-year contract with Activision, and this time point was just over a year), and it was during the period when the two sides were negotiating on the animated series. Activision Blizzard believed that he violated the no job search clause (prohibiting him from considering other employment opportunities while working for Activision), which also led to his dismissal.
Shortly after that, that is, in January 2019, he joined Netflix and was appointed chief financial officer, which in turn prompted Activision Blizzard to file a lawsuit against Netflix, claiming that it violated California employment law.