In The News
(Credit: ucirvine YouTube)
Collegiate esports is finding its footing, and The Daily Walkthrough spent time at the University of California, Irvine’s esports facility profiling everything acting director Mark Deppe is doing to turn his program into the golden standard for college-level play.
TheDW also spoke with UCI’s Overwatch team captain, Behrod “Baerod” Baghai, about life as a college esports athlete.
Check out “Welcome To UCI, Where Esports Students Pay For Their Education One Kill At A Time.”
Here’s a snippet: “UCI didn’t agree to all of this without a bit of skepticism. It took months of persuading –and some good luck– for the university to agree to give the program a shot. ‘We spent months asking them [the Student Center Board], pitching them to transition an old billiard room into an esports arena,’ Deppe said. ‘We also built the business plan that requires zero dollars from the campus. We pay all our…’”
Weekend in review:
Amra “Flitz” Ricketts is out at Smosh Games over sexual assault allegations. “Multiple women have made claims,” GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor writes. “Smosh Games is best known for its sub-channel Smosh, which presents comedy sketches to its 22m subscribers, and the satirical Honest Game Trailers.”
Sales news:
Mobile game spending “accounted for 82 percent of all revenue and rose 30 percent year-over-year to reach $48.3 billion” in 2017, VentureBeat’s Stephanie Chan reports.
The Nintendo Switch has now sold more units than Wii U in its lifetime in Japan. “The Switch reached 3,407,158 units sold by the end of the year, compared to the 3,301,555 sold by the Wii U,” Polygon’s Owen S. Good writes.
FIFA 18 knocked Call of Duty: WWII out of the top United Kingdom physical sales spot for week 10, GameSpot’s Oscar Dayus reports.
ASUS is pumping $16 million into “an esports headquarter in mainland China,” The Esports Observer’s Angelos Anastasopoulos reports. Its “subsidiary will be named ‘Huajing Culture Media Co., Ltd.’ and will focus on the development of esports in the country.”
Steam hit a new concurrent record of 18.5 million thanks in part to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports.
The Army and Department of Homeland Security are developing a school shooting simulator to better train first responders. “The simulation is used by 525 first responder agencies in 48 states,” Glixel’s Blake Hester reports.
Video games are helping doctors, “according to a new trial led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine … Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care.”
Patience is a virtue. Showtime president of programming Gary Levine told TV Guide’s Tim Surette “that Halo ‘is absolutely still in development, still moving forward and I’m encouraged by what we’ve seen so far.’”
Any Dragon Age fans out there? Varric’s naughty book, “Hard in Hightown,” is being published. It “is due out in July compliments of Dark Horse Books with Penguin Random House distributing it. At $20 and just under a hundred pages, the illustrated novel will make Varric’s fictional masterwork readable,” Kotaku’s Ethan Gach reports.
Cloud Imperium Games is firing back at Crytek over CryEngine “misuse” allegations, Eurogamer’s Robert Purchese writes. “‘The GLA eliminates virtually every claim and remedy Crytek seeks,’ said Cloud Imperium’s defence. ‘Crytek’s admission that Defendants are not even using Crytek’s software gets rid of the rest.’”
Lab Zero’s RPG Indivisible raised $2.2 million and will be released in 2018, PC Gamer’s Samuel Horti reports.
Congratulations to EUnited on winning SMITE’s World Championship. They defeated Team Rival.
Congratulations to Natus Vincere on winning Paladins’ World Championship. They defeated Fnatic.
Call of Duty news:
Jordan “ProoFy” Cannon joined UNiTE Gaming for the CWL New Orleans Open.
Ulysses “Aqua” Silva joined Echo Fox.
Richard “Ricky” Stacy; Jacob “Decemate” Cato; Maurice “Fero” Henriquez and Embry “Bevils” Bevil joined DooM Clan.
New organization GGEA signed two teams.
Athletico Esports let its Call of Duty roster go.
Pokkén Tournament DX is hosting its first Championship Series qualifier Feb. 10-11 in Sydney, Australia.