In The News
Weekend in Review:
Cover up those pixels, devs. “Multiple developers of anime games on Steam that contained sexual elements have reported warnings from Valve for ‘pornographic content,’” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine reports. “This warning came as an unpleasant surprise to the developers, many of which have had games on Steam for months or years without trouble.”
Xbox wants you to vote with its Xbox Ideas feedback program, Engadget’s Jon Fingas reports. “It revolves around the concept of one- to three-month ‘Idea Drives’ where Microsoft collects suggestions, picks the concepts it likes the most, and then asks you to vote and comment on your favorites.”
Tencent acquired a majority stake in Grinding Gear Games, PC Gamer’s Joe Donnelly reports. “Grinding Gear says it’ll maintain its independent status and that there ‘won’t be any big changes to how [they] operate.’”
Partnership News:
DreamHack and “Madrid-based business school ISDE” are partnering “for a masters program in esports business,” TEO’s Jordan Fragen writes.
ESL and Game Insight are partnering “to launch the inaugural esports season” of Guns of Boom, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “The season has a $200,000 (£148,495) prize pool, and will see both North American and European teams initially compete through open cups hosted by ESL.”
Gamingzone Entertainment and Mr Green “have established a joint venture to ‘create a new community for esports fans with focus on entertainment, news and gaming possibilities,’” Esports Insider’s Sam Cooke writes. “Mr Green runs a number of online betting sites, such as its primary product Mr Green as well as Redbet.”
Game News:
Any other Final Fantasy Tactics fans out there? Director Yasumi Matsuno showed images of its cancelled sequel, Game Informer’s Suriel Vazquez reports. *Wipes away nostalgic tear*
Black Ops 4. Woo? “Change is always going to be hard for people,” Treyarch co-studio head Dan Bunting told Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole about the game’s lack of single-player campaign. “I would say to our fans, Treyarch has never let you down over the years.” Minus the whole no campaign bit.
“More than 14.1 million hours of major console esports events have been viewed on Twitch since the year began, growing to 20 million overall when you include YouTube,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes. “The Twitch figure is 95.5 per cent higher than the same period (January to April) in 2017.”
The International’s prize pool is already over $10 million, Dot Esports’ Patrick Bonifacio reports. “After just 12 days of crowdfunding, the prize pool for TI8 has hit the $10 million mark—around four days ahead of the previous tournament according to the prize pool tracker.”
Happy weekend birthday to Juan Carlos “SpeCial” Tena Lopez and Monday birthday to William “Blitz” Lee!