In The News
The U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline is “1-800-799-7233, 1-800-787-3224 (TTY).” You can also speak to a representative 24/7 here. You are not alone, and there are people at the city, state and national level ready to help if you find yourself in an unsafe situation with a partner. You can find additional resources here.
While this PSA is in reference to a story in the League Land section, it’s important for everyone to see it.
Stephen “StepTo” Toulouse has passed away. He formerly worked at Microsoft “managing Xbox Live,” Venture Beat’s Richard Lawler reports. “A Microsoft employee for nearly 18 years, Stephen served as director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement until early 2012 and helped shape the company’s response to issues online communities are still struggling to deal with.”
Game Pass is proving to be profitable for Microsoft. Software revenue is up 21%. “Microsoft earned $24.54 billion in revenue, up from $21.93 billion in the previous fiscal year. Net income increased from $5.67 billion to $6.58 billion,” Attack Of The Fanboy’s Jose Belmonte writes.
“There’s something a little concerning about the way creators and studios presently feel compelled to make statements about just how healthy single-player is right now.” That’s how Rob Fahey starts off his op-ed about single-player games and their current state. Here’s another portion: “The economics of making and selling single-player games has been getting tougher and tougher as the costs of creating content have increased. Making content, after all, is…”
Gaming “addiction”? Maybe not. A new study suggests “People play excessively not because they are hooked on gaming itself, but because they feel unhappy about other areas of their life,” New Scientist’s Inga Vesper reports. “Further analysis by the team showed that people who displayed some of the proposed symptoms of gaming addiction had lower ‘needs fulfilment’, meaning they were unhappy in other areas of life, such as relationships or their career.”
Rocket League and Warner Bros. are partnering and Warner will “become the primary physical retail distributor for Rocket League. Warner Bros. Interactive will replace Rocket League’s previous retail distributor, 505 Games,” USgamer’s Matt Kim reports.
Um, hi. Could you not? EA has asked the Revive Network “to ‘please stop distributing copies of our [Battlefield] game clients and using our trademarks, logos, and artwork on your sites,’” PC Gamer’s Joe Donnelly reports. “The Revive Network project came in the wake of Gamespy’s 2014 closure, with the aim of making Battlefield 2142 et al playable online free-of-charge.”
Ubisoft has no intention of slowing down its pursuit of virtual reality, according to AListDaily’s Steven Wong‘s interview with vice president Chris Early. Here’s a snippet: “Our focus in the VR space has been to look at what’s fun. A variety of our studios are engaged in trying new game mechanics and what fits with existing game mechanics. So, we do look at a…”
Valve’s Steam Curators is set to receive changes “in an attempt to better serve its customers, game developers and the curators themselves,” Polygon’s Michael McWhertor reports. “Valve said it’s been ‘working on significant improvements and additions’ to Steam Curators over the past few months and offered a glimpse of what’s to come.”
SRG Studios was caught in the middle of Hurricane Maria, and CEO Michael Hoyos recounted what the storm was like to GamesIndustry.biz’s Brendan Sinclair: “‘Hurricane Maria knocked us back into the Stone Age for a few days; her fury and destructive power can still be seen and felt throughout the island.’”
Sometimes, the suddenly-wealthy buy opulent things like fancy cars. Other times, they indulge in slick sunglasses. Battlegrounds’ Brendan Greene spoke with GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch about what his life is like. Hint: It involves nice wine.
“The big difference is that Greene ‘live[s] in hotels now,’ as he travels the world to promote PUBG. For instance, Greene was in California for TwitchCon just days ago before flying to Melbourne this week for PAX Aus.”
GameMaker Studio 2 is working with Xbox Live Creators Program, according to Gamasutra’s Chris Kerr. “Devs using the popular 2D game engine can now quickly publish their games to Xbox One and Windows using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).”