In The News
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EA/Star Wars Battlefront II news:
First week sales in the United Kingdom were “significantly lower than anticipated,” GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring reports. “First week sales are more than 50% down compared with last year’s shooter. The boxed sales figures are also down 61% compared with 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront.”
GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch writes that EA share prices closed down 2.5% on Battlefront II’s release day, Friday. “That comes out to around $2.78, dropping EA’s stock price to $108.82 at market close on Friday … For the month overall, EA’s stock price is down by 7 percent, though for the full year, EA is doing incredibly well; it’s stock price is up 42 percent this year.”
Wall Street Journal’s Sarah E. Needleman and Ben Fritz report that players weren’t the only ones pressuring EA to temporarily disable microtransactions at launch — Disney was as well.
The 2017 Golden Joystick Awards have come and gone. Here’s a portion of the winners, courtesy of The Telegraph’s Hannah Dwan:
- PlayStation Game of the Year – Horizon Zero Dawn
- Xbox Game of the Year – Cuphead
- PC Game of the Year – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Critics’ Choice Award – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Lifetime Achievement – Sid Meier
- Ultimate Game of the Year – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Bit Awards released its 2017 nominees, Glixel’s Blake Hester reports. PC and Console Game of the Year nominees include:
- Black Future ’88 by SUPERSCARYSNAKES
- Heliophobia by Glass Knuckle Games
- Next Up Hero by Digital Continue
- Perception by The Deep End Games
- Slime-san by The Fabraz Company
Daniel A. Dematteo will be GameStop’s interim CEO while CEO J. Paul Raines handles health issues.
CD Projekt Red didn’t hold back when concerns were raised over Cyberpunk 2077’s “online elements.” They tweeted this Sunday morning: “.@PrettyBadTweets Worry not. When thinking CP2077, think nothing less than TW3 — huge single player, open world, story-driven RPG. No hidden catch, you get what you pay for — no bullshit, just honest gaming like with Wild Hunt. We leave greed to others.”
Xbox One X sales numbers are in for Japan’s first week. Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft reports that it sold 1,639 unites. That still came in behind the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, new Nintendo 2DS XL, new 3DS, PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation Vita, respectively.
Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin told GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor, “‘I think you can go full-blown Hunger Games. You look at the success and continued growth of Battle Royale games and particularly PUBG – probably one of the fastest growing games in history. It would be super cool to add in that sort of mechanic where the audience can vote, or vote with their money, to help their favourite player or team out. That’s very near.’”
Speaking of Twitch, a streamer was suspended for streaming the new Pokemon game out on 3DS — even though it had already been released in Australia. It hadn’t, however, been released in the U.S.
“Australian streamer Mark ‘Werster’ McKenzie received a temporary ban from Twitch last week, because the service said the Pokémon game he was playing was ‘unauthorised pre-release content,’” Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett reports. “Nintendo of America filed a DMCA takedown notice.”
After Disney and Gazillion Entertainment parted ways — spelling the end for Marvel Heroes — players are requesting large amounts of refunds, Batchelor reports. “Console players appear to be particularly frustrated, as the game was only released on Xbox One and PS4 earlier this year.”
The Venture Reality Fund released new numbers, saying “the number of investments in the entertainment sector in the second half of 2017 is up 79 percent compared to the same period a year ago.” It’s a venture capital fund “that tracks investments in the sector,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “The VR Fund’s latest report highlights more than 450 companies developing infrastructure, tools, platforms, and applications for the VR/AR ecosystem.”
MAG Interactive, a Swedish mobile game company, intends to do an initial public offering before 2018. Bachelor explains that “The company is expected to offer 4.5 million shares, while certain shareholders intend to sell roughly 6.8 million shares, with the total planned for the offering expected to be over 13 million (13,047,280 to be exact).”
Congratulations to:
Against All Authority Gaming, who came in first to take home $60,000 at IEM Oakland’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Invitational.
OpTic Gaming, who defeated Team Liquid 4-1 at the HCS Pro League Fall Finals.
Ence Esports, who defeated Black Dragons to win the Season 3 Rainbow Six: Siege Pro League finals!