In The News
Is it all about the money? A former Sony CEO thinks so (or maybe not) when it comes to PlayStation’s refusal to engage in cross-platform play, Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports. Here’s what John Smedley, former CEO of Sony Online Entertainment, said in what seems to be a now-deleted tweet: “btw when I was at Sony, the stated reason internally for this was money. They didn’t like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on a Playstation. simple as that. dumb reason, but there it is.”
He backpedaled in response to IGN tying his tweet to Fortnite: “rofl um. no, that’s not what I said. I was just talking about when I was there. nothing to do with Fortnite and I’m not saying that’s the reason now.”
Smedley did, however, leave this tweet up: “if we keep the pressure up this problem goes away.”
Qutee put out a study in response to the World Health Organization’s intention to keep “gaming disorder” as a part of its addictions category. The study, titled “Gaming and You,” involved 7 influencers and 835 gamers. Some quick stats from the study:
- 89% of gamers think gaming is beneficial to everyone.
- 44% of gamers say it benefits them emotionally.
- 63% of gamers have made “up to 5 friends through gaming.”
Confirmed: GameStop is definitely looking to sell its soul. It “confirmed it is in exploratory discussions with third parties regarding a potential transaction. There can be no assurance any agreement will result from these discussions,” according to a press release.
Twitch users now can “turn on up to three different video overlays and a trio of below-player Extensions for their channel,” Engadget’s Timothy J. Seppala reports. “To celebrate, there are even a handful of new Extensions available from developers, some explicitly made to be combined with one another.”
Steam introduced homepages for developers and publishers, it announced in a Steam Blog. “We’ve just launched an open beta for Creator Homepages, a new part of the Steam store designed to help players discover and connect with the developers and publishers behind their favorite games.”
Unity and Google Cloud “announced a new partnership to make development of multiplayer and online games easier for teams of all sizes,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine writes. “The two companies are working on a suite of open source tools to support creation of connected games.”
The Netherlands continue to crack down on loot boxes, TEO’s Graham Ashton writes. “Several game publishers had until June 20 to address the loot box mechanics in their games, which were deemed to be in violation of existing Dutch gambling laws. If game publishers have not made the required adjustments, the Gaming Authority can impose a fine of €830K, or 10% of the company’s worldwide turnover, whichever amount is higher.”
Worried you missed something at E3? GI.biz has a roundup of all the major announcements and known release dates.
Miscellaneous Esports News:
Franchised competitive Call of Duty incoming? “Activision Blizzard plans to ‘launch team sales for the Call of Duty professional league’ later this year, according to the company’s 2017 annual report,” Dot Esports’ Justin Binkowski reports.
Happy birthdayAmer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi!