In The News
Congratulations to the Nintendo Switch on being selected as TIME Magazine’s Gadget of the Year!
EA/Battlefront II news:
Undercharged. That’s what one Wall Street analyst is saying in regard to how much gamers pay to play. KeyBanc Capital Markets’ Evan Wingren says gamers overreacted with the Star Wars Battlefront II controversy.
“‘Gamers aren’t overcharged, they’re undercharged (and we’re gamers) … This saga has been a perfect storm for overreaction as it involves EA, Star Wars, Reddit, and certain purist gaming journalists/outlets who dislike MTX,’” he said, according to PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk. “What it comes down to, in Wingren’s estimation, is a simple measure of cost per hour relative to other forms of entertainment.”
Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports that EA told investors not to worry about earnings after Battlefront II microtransactions were temporarily disabled. “‘On November 16, 2017, Electronic Arts Inc. (‘EA’) announced in a blog on its website at www.ea.com/news that it will turn off all in-game purchases for the Star Wars Battlefront II title until further notice,’ said the statement. ‘This change is not expected to have a material impact on EA’s fiscal year 2018 financial guidance.’”
The Washington Post’s Gene Park received a statement from Lucasfilm about the issue. “’Star Wars has always been about the fans — and whether it’s ‘Battlefront’ or any other Star Wars experience, they come first,’ the Lucasfilm spokesman told The Post on Friday. ‘That’s why we support EA’s decision to temporarily remove in-game payments to address fan concerns.’”
Allegations just surfaced against director Hiroaki Yura, who’s accused by developer Tariq Lacy of embezzling $1 million from the Project Phoenix Kickstarter to put toward his game, Tiny Metal.
What’s more, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier reports that Yura turned around and accused “Lacy of sexual harassment, which Lacy denies.”
One developer is arguing that loot boxes aren’t bad design. “‘Do we really think the kids growing up today will be complaining about loot boxes and micro transactions – that have been an ingrained part of how they played games ever since they were born? It’s just us dinosaurs that remember buying a game once for a fixed price and getting a set experience,’” Paradox Interactive VP Shams Jorjani told GamesIndustry.biz’s James Brightman. Brightman interviewd a host of developers to get their feelings on the loot box and microtransaction issue.
Valve is once again tweaking Steam reviews. The “helpful reviews” system, PC Gamer’s Shaun Prescott reports, is being abused. “Users ‘outside the norm’ (ie, those heavy raters who are clearly trying to fudge the system) will be treated differently when selecting whether a review is helpful or not. Secondly, the default ‘helpful’ reviews shown most prominently – whether they be positive or negative – will be weighed in accordance to the overall score of the game.”
Nvidia GPU sales outpaced both AMD and Intel in the third quarter, VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb reports. Nvidia grew “its share of the market with a 29.53 percent quarter-to-quarter increase in total GPU shipments … AMD shipped 7.63 percent more and Intel was up 5.01 percent during the same period.”
Look at that. H1Z1 technical director Joshua Kriegshauser accidentally streamed some matches with cheats turned on. “During a match with friends, Kriegshauser was shocked to find that he seemed to have forgotten to turn off his developer-only invisibility until he blasted another group of players,” Kotaku’s Heather Alexandra writes.
FlyQuest posted “An Open Letter to Our Fans.” Here’s a portion: “Over the course of the next year, our fans will see and be a part of a plethora of new activations that will allow them to align themselves closer with our organization. Watch parties, monthly design contests, split based merchandise design and content…”
If you missed the Hearthstone livestream revealing new Kobolds and Catacombs cards, you can check out the full list here. Courtesy of theScore esports.
Alex “Machine” Richardson and Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere give an inside look into the live of an esports commentator in Mashable’s new video, called “An Inside Look at Life as an Esports Caster – No Playing Field.”