In The News
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EA/Battlefront II news:
As of this writing, 20,006 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for Lucasfilm to revoke EA’s license to Star Wars. Its target is 25,000 signatures.
Lucasfilm has weekly meetings with EA, Lucasfilm’s Douglas Reilly told VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb. “‘We spend a lot of time with EA, both on the marketing side and the production teams … ‘In general, we’ll have weekly meetings between the production teams and the marketing teams.’”
Grubb also spoke with Battlefront II director Mark Thompson. Here’s a snippet of their interview: “‘I think we take on the responsibility as lifelong fans of the brand, of the IP. Whenever you get to work with something that has such personal impact, especially from my perspective—it is an honor to get to work on Star Wars.’”
The microtransaction and loot box controversy was briefly touched upon in the first piece.
GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports that Britain’s Gambling Commission and a French senator are concerned about loot boxes. The senator called for “‘Prompt and sincere self-regulation of the sector.’”
Sales news:
Gamasutra’s Chris Kerr reports the Pokemon series has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. “The long-running video game franchise was born all the way back in 1996 with the release of Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue on the Game Boy — the latter of which was called Pokemon Green in Japan.”
Taylor writes that in the Nintendo Switch’s first 10 months, it’s already “on track to outpace the Wii by 20%.”
Glixel’s Stefanie Fogel reports that Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice hit 500,000 copies sold by November.
GamesIndustry.biz’s Matthew Handrahan says PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR are doing well in the United Kingdom with Black Friday sales. “PlayStation 4 had its strongest Black Friday week since 2013, the same week that the console launched. Sales of PlayStation VR, meanwhile, were “on a par” with the headset’s launch week, and equivalent to the total sold through in the preceding 18 weeks.”
You see that face? Now look at the bottom center of the screen. That’s why. Kotaku’s Ethan Gach reports streamer Cheese’s reaction as being astounded.
“’What’s happening here?’ Cheese said. Stunned, he struggled to keep playing, somewhat dazed and definitely confused by what had just transpired. ‘Give me a second cause it’s kind of hard,’ he continued. ‘Okay what the fuck dude. What the hell. What’s happening. Did you actually just do that?’”
Niantic pulled in $200 million in Series B funding, CNET’s Michelle Meyers reports. “Additional investors include Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin, You & Mr. Jones and NetEase.”
Niantic’s Pokemon Go challenge to catch 3 billion Pokemon was met Saturday, a full day before the deadline, Polygon’s Owen S. Good writes. “Those final rewards mean Farfetch’d, formerly a region-exclusive Pokémon, is now available worldwide for the next 48 hours. Kangaskhan, formerly exclusive to Oceania, is now available in East Asia over the same span.”
Remember when Epic Games sued 2 Fortnite players? One of them is 14, Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett writes, and if his mother’s letter to Epic is an indication, she’s pretty angry.
If you feel like terrifying your children or roommates, this is the purchase for you. First 4 Figures “unveiled its newest life-size collectible” Aku Aku from Crash Bandicoot. It’s yours for a measly $384.99, Game Informer’s Elise Favis reports.
Bungie is changing its XP awards after it was discovered they are scaled, PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk reports. “‘We are not happy with the results, and we’ve heard the same from the community,’ Bungie wrote. ‘Effective immediately, we are deactivating this system.’”
Redditor EnergiserX “raised some interesting questions about the way the game grants XP, and more importantly, how it may be curtailing XP gains, particularly for players who ‘power-grind.’ What’s happening, according to his testing, is that the game indicates XP increasing at a normal rate using the bar on-screen, but your actual progression can occur at a much slower rate.”