In The News
Why’d Visceral Games die? Not because of anything having to do with single-player, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said. “‘It wasn’t about this was just a single-player game or it needed to be a live service, it was more about how do we get to a point where the overall gameplay experience was right for players,’” GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor reports Wilson as having said during EA’s earnings call. “Earlier in the call, Wilson also stressed the importance of live services to the publisher’s future plans.”
Star Wars Battlefront II’s loot boxes are getting an update after intense push back from the community. Engadget’s Timothy J. Seppala reports that “what the development team has done is removed a good deal of the “pay to win” criticisms lobbed at it by making sure you can’t access stuff like Epic Star Cards (high value power-ups) from crates.” Read the full post here.
Sony’s monthly active users are a new metric it’s using to measure the health of its services. “It tracks engagement rather than single-time sales, checking in on how many people are engaging with their services on a monthly basis,” Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports. Microsoft has also started tracking monthly active users.
Want to sell your product? Head on over to Facebook. AListDaily’s Will Drickey reports that “Facebook beats out all other social media networks in last-click commerce, according to a study by Open Influence. Of the polled social media users, 48 percent reported buying an item off of Facebook.”
Real life or screenshot? Check out this incredible Assassin’s Creed: Origins cosplay of Bayek by Leon Chiro. Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett reports that “The costume was a collaboration between Chiro himself and Cosplay Annart” and Chiro went to a desert in Kuwait for some of the shots.
Brendan Greene thanks Steam for not needing to put a lot of money in advertising for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. “‘We published on Steam, you know?’ said Greene. ‘And that’s allowed us to sell millions of copies without having any marketing budget essentially, or store copy.’” IGN’s Luke Reilly reports that “According to Greene, prior to the release of Battlegrounds on Steam Early Access, the team were hoping to sell ‘maybe five million copies, first year.’”
Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode pushed passed 811,000 concurrent players, Gamasutra’s Alissa McAloon reports. “That’s a jump of 286,000 simultaneous play sessions since the number reported just over three weeks ago.”
Welcome to collegiate esports, Averett University! Based in Virginia, “Averett says it already has more than 50 players signed up for the program, making up 10 teams of varying sizes,” Glixel’s Blake Hester reports.
Put those puppies away! “Makers of certain adults-only games on Steam are now barred from sharing official patches to uncensor their games,” Polygon’s Allegra Frank writes. “‘Steam reps have told us that they no longer allow any information or links to the uncensored patches on Steam, so they all had to be removed.’”