Activision Blizzard veterans Jen Oneal, J. Allen Brack, and John Donham have come together to create a new studio called Magic Soup Games. The studio’s goal is to build original AAA games that focus on being uplifting and inclusive to players across the world.
Magic Soup Games is currently working on an unannounced game and also hiring for new positions at the studio. There are two positions open right now on its career page: concept artist and server-side engineer. The existence of the latter position could hint that the studio’s debut game might involve some sort of live service or have online elements.
Troubled exits
J. Allen Brack became president of Activision Blizzard in 2018 and stepped down in 2021 amidst the company facing a lawsuit from the State of California alleging widespread discrimination and harassment within.
After his resignation, Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra lead Activision Blizzard as co-presidents. However, Oneal also left the company at the end of 2021 after serving in her role for three months. She reportedly left due to not being paid an equal amount to Ybarra despite having the same roles and was only offered an equal contract after she tendered her own resignation.
We know the quality of our games will be a reflection of our team culture.
Oneal wrote that she, Brack, and Donham are “tighty aligned” on the new project.
“We know the quality of our games will be a reflection of our team culture. We’re doing the work up front to make sure we’re fostering creativity, fully remote collaboration, and a diversity of backgrounds,” Oneal wrote in a statement.
Magic Soup joins a host of other studios founded by Blizzard veterans, from co-founder Mike Morhaime to the team behind StarCraft 2, as the flood of new studios fueled by heavy investment shows no sign of abating despite troubles in tech elsewhere.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
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