In The News
Weekend in review:
Happy Monday, happy lawsuits. James “Phantomlord” Varga is suing Twitch, Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner reports. He’s “levying a lawsuit seeking damages from Twitch due to his suspended channel, something he says were done under false allegations.”
CD Projekt Red spoke with PC Gamer’s Joe Donnelly about loot boxes. Here’s a snippet: “‘The moment they feel you are reaching out for their wallet in any unfair way, they will be vocal about it. And—frankly speaking—I think it’s good for the industry.’”
CI Studios laid off employees, GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. “In a statement on the developer’s website, CI Games confirmed it reduced its development staff down to 30 people.”
Atari intends to “create its own digital currency called Atari Token,” Bloomberg Technology’s Lisa Pham reports. “The company is also expanding its online casino-gaming partnership with Pariplay Ltd. to allow gambling with digital currencies.”
Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra took to Twitter to talk about APIs for keyboard and mouse use on Xbox One. He said, in part, “Developers have the choice to use APIs that detect and not allow these. It’s up to them, but the capability is there.”
The Entertainment Software Association is pushing back against the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment’s attempt to “preserve abandoned online games,” Haydn writes.
H1Z1’s players tumbled down to “an average of 9.5K concurrent players” in the last 30 days, The Esports Observer’s Jordan Fragen reports. “This represents a nearly 90 percent loss of concurrent players from the July 2017 peak.”
Call of Duty news:
Brandon “Sharp” Rodgers; Jeremy “Neslo” Olsen; Adam “KiLLa” Sloss and Marcus “MiRx” Carter joined Ascendant Gaming.
Dot Esports’ Justin Binkowski reports Jason “Prophet” Nicoletti is retiring.