In The News
Forbes announced its 30 under 30 for Games.
The Game Awards’ nominees have been revealed and voting is now open. Vote here.
Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment are reportedly close to finishing a deal on a new Mario movie. The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz and Takashi Mochizuki report that “Illumination … has been talking to Nintendo for more than a year about the movie, according to the people who know about the recent talks.”
EA kerfuffle:
EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen spoke out about the ongoing player outrage in regard to Battlefront II’s loot boxes and microtransactions. “‘So things that we we heard today, we’ll tune in the game, and they’ll be different tomorrow. Running a live service is all about constantly watching and listening to and reacting to the community to try to develop great gameplay,’” GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch reports. “‘But also [players should] really understand that we listen to the community very closely and we will always be changing the games to make those games better and make the community more excited about playing those games.’”
He also had this to say during part of his UBS Global Technology Conference speech, according to GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor: “‘If you have a live service component to [games on EA Access and Origins Access], you can have a subscription that’s uncapped … Give people a way to spend money on things they want to do and that they enjoy doing vs simply capping them at $9 or $10 per month and that’s all they can ever spend.’”
Is Blizzard trolling EA? Its Starcraft Twitter sent out a series of tweets yesterday that have some speculating that they reference EA’s Battlefront II controversy.
The account sent 3 tweets: “Number of pay-to-win mechanics in StarCraft II: 0,” “Number of hours before you can play ANY Co-op Commander in StarCraft II: 0” and “Number of hours it takes to earn the full StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Campaign: 0.”
Hmm, try again? The Russian Ministry of Defense reportedly used a video game screenshot in an attempt to show the U.S. is supporting ISIS. “The ‘proof’ included a still from a trailer for a mobile game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator,” PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk reports. “The MoD deleted the tweets and Facebook post in question.”
A former BioWare developer explained to Glixel’s Jared Newman how they had “honest intentions when they introduced loot boxes to Mass Effect 3 in 2012.”
Here’s a snippet of the interview: “Piracy was also huge back in the day, and the way around that was just releasing games for free, and then putting in content that people want to buy.”
GQ stepped on multiple high-profile esports toes with its article, “Are eSports going to replace the beautiful game?”
People like Rahul Uppal, Richard Lewis and a host of others took issue with this specific sentence: “Some of the athletes even look like they’ve had consensual sex.”
“Simple solution to this. Next time the slime at @GQMagazine comes around esports asking for quotes and content, tell them where to go. They need our demographic more than we need them,” Lewis tweeted.
GameStop was about to implement its new used-game subscription service but has since halted its launch, Polygon’s Owen S. Good reports. “GameStop’s all-you-can-eat subscription to used games has been suspended, apparently over concerns with how the aging computer systems in the company’s 7,000 stores can handle and track checkouts.”
Victoria state in Australia pledged $140,000 “towards seven developers in an effort to encourage more women to get into the games industry,” GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports.
The United Kingdom also just made a sizeable investment in its tech sector, Batchelor reports. “Of most interest to games firms will be the decision to double the number of visas available for bringing in overseas talent to 2,000 … The government also announced a £20m fund to aid the development of artificial intelligence.”
Digital gifting for Xbox One is live for everyone, Engadget’s Swapna Krishna writes. “A few select Xbox One titles, such as Play Anywhere games, can’t be gifted digitally. You also cannot gift Xbox 360 or original Xbox games. Pre-release titles are also restricted; a game must be out and available.”
Tecmo Koei won its lawsuit against “popular cracking-group 3DM Game in China for copyright violation,” Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft reports.
CCP Games layoffs ended up cancelling an EVE Online tournament. “The Anger Games, a player-organized tournament with a massive pile of in-game credits at stake for the winners, was supposed to have its third annual run last weekend,” Kotaku’s Lee Yancy writes.