In The News
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Loot box/microtransaction kerfuffle (including Bungie):
The Change.org petition calling for Lucasfilm to revoke EA’s license to Star Wars has reached 60,000 signatures as of the time of this writing.
EA just got more bad news. CNBC’s Tae Kim reports that “EA’s stock is down 8.5 percent month to date through Tuesday compared with the S&P 500’s 2 percent gain, wiping out $3.1 billion of shareholder value … The game is still not on the top 100 list of Amazon’s best-selling video games year to date as of Tuesday.”
Polygon’s Michael McWhertor reports messing up Star Wars canon is the reason Battlefront II’s controversial loot boxes aren’t for cosmetic items, EA CEO Blake Jorgensen said. “‘The one thing we’re very focused on and they are extremely focused on is not violating the canon of Star Wars,’ Jorgensen said at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference.”
GameSpot’s Chris Pereira writes that Bungie cancelled its Curse of Osiris stream today. “The developer will instead release a blog post that shares some ‘higher priority information,’ which seems to be in response to the recent uproar over the discovery of an undisclosed XP scaling system.”
Newzoo’s newest report shows “revenue from gaming is a bigger global business than sport,” GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. “Including gaming hardware revenue of roughly $10 billion, and PC gaming systems and accessories sitting at around $23 billion, gaming is on par with even the most generous sports revenue estimate of $150 billion.”
How’d Noah Whinston do it? Bloomberg’s Christopher Palmeri takes a look at the rise of Immortals’ 23-year-old CEO and founder, and how he got investors to fork over their cash.
Here’s a snippet: “Whinston grew up in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, where his father was an economics professor and his mother taught political science. Whinston played online poker for…”
Ah, my youth. As a grossly addicted Final Fantasy XI player back in the day, Kotaku’s Cecilia D’Anastasio does a good job capturing a lot of the reasons why fans still play on legacy servers for the notoriously grindy, community-oriented MMORPG. Some of my closest friends today are products of both XI and Final Fantasy XIV. If only I had 6 hours to spend every night waiting on Nidhogg spawns.
Unity has acquired “the game server hosting Multiplay Digital division of United Kingdom retailer Game Digital for $25.2 million,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “The deal is part of the company’s ambition to be more than a game engine maker and to provide all sorts of services.”
Bluehole CEO Hyo-Seob Kim explained a little more about the company’s upcoming MMORPG, Ascent: Infinite Realm. “Partly informed by the early popularity of PUBG, Bluehole has attempted to make A:IR an MMORPG that can thrive in a market in which time is seen as the most precious resource of all, and where franchises as disparate as Destiny and FIFA have absorbed the kind of sticky, persistent systems that were once the genre’s unique selling point,” GamesIndustry.biz’s Matthew Handrahan reports.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 passed 1 million copies sold, Larian Studios tweeted yesterday afternoon.
How’d they do it? Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield talked to developers to learn “unusual solutions to unusual problems from across the industry” when a game’s deadline was due. Here’s a portion: “In the final stretch of certification, with every level and rewind buffer painstakingly tweaked to perfect balance, we got a new bug from QA…”
Playing Ducks released its rosters for multiple games back in September, and now news is coming out that the organization owes players money. “A source explained that the payments they did receive were often late and that they are also owed SteelSeries hardware worth in excess of 1,000 €,” Per Sources’ Jarek “DeKay” Lewis reports.
Reigning champion Du “NuckleDu” Dang pulled out of Street Fighter V’s Capcom Cup. “Nothing is known about how or why Dang came to this decision, and neither he nor Team Liquid have responded to Compete’s requests for comment,” Kotaku’s Ian Walker writes.
Call of Duty: WWII competitive news:
The 16 qualifying teams for the CWL Dallas Open in December have been revealed.
Next Threat’s new Call of Duty: WWII players include Anthony “Methodz” Zinni and Jared “Nagafen” Harrell, Dot Esports’ Justin Binkowski reports. They “replace Steve ‘Mochila’ Canle and Marcus ‘MiRx’ Carter.”