“You are not prepared.”
IN THE NEWS
Another Friday, another Weekly Talkthrough covering the biggest moments in gaming and esports this week. Check it out! Or don’t, if you hate laughing or generally being happy.
PlayStation 4 was the top dog in June for sales, beating out the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. PlayStation did cheat a little bit, though. It released a new model for its slim PlayStation 4 and offered a $50 discount for a limited time. “The new gold 1TB slim PlayStation 4 drove those sales and led to the best June ever for PS4 system sales,” Jeff Grubb at GamesBeat reports. “Overall, however, the hardware market is in a relatively strong place with gamers still spending money on new consoles.”
Not to be undone, Xbox Live has garnered 53 million active users. That’s up from 49 million “during the same quarter last year,” GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch reports. “Across all of Microsoft’s divisions, the company posted total revenue of $23.3 billion, while profit came in at a massive $6.5 billion.”
Well, that’s nifty and most likely incredibly annoying. Atari has released a new hat that triples as a speaker system and microphone. The hat, as Jennings Brown at Gizmodo writes, has “two embedded speakers and a microphone that connects to your phone via Bluetooth. It’s for the casual hat-wearer who wants to bathe their face in music, but also doesn’t care if they’re annoying the shit out of everyone in their general vicinity.” We don’t yet know the price or release date for the hat.
Hello daddy. What better way to spend your free time than dating sexy daddies? So kick back, load this puppy up and find yo self A MAN! But really, Dream Daddy — produced by Game Grumps — is now out and has a “very positive” review score on Steam. Need a little more convincing? Here’s the description: “Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator is a game where you play as a Dad and your goal is to meet and romance other hot Dads. Are you ready? Hi ready, I’m Dad.” Go get ’em, tiger.
Congratulations to Twitch on raising over $75 million for more than 100 charities.
Ever lose $14 million before? Alibaba is getting a taste of that feeling after losing “60 to 70 per cent of” $20 million it invested in the World Electronic Sports Games. “The event saw top players compete for a $5.5 million prize pool in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, HearthStone, and StarCraft 2,” Dot Esports’ Thiemo Brautigam reports. For the second rendition of the games, Alibaba plans to cut costs heavily and partner with host cities instead of do everything itself.
Do you remember the Stormy Ascent level from the original Crash Bandicoot? Of course you don’t, because it was never released. Until now. You can download the level for free as a part of the N. Sane Trilogy remaster, Polygon’s Michael McWhertor explains. “The unfinished, unreleased Stormy Ascent level made for the 1996 original PlayStation game has been ‘remastered and updated.'”
FIFA 14 and FIFA 14 Ultimate Team are losing online functionality come Oct. 18, according to PC Gamer’s Shaun Prescott. “FIFA 14 will disappear from EA Access come October 18 as well,” Prescott writes. “It follows the discontinuation of both FIFA 12 and 13 earlier this month, as well as FIFA 12 and 13 Ultimate Team.”
United Kingdom tax relief is helping developers get their projects up and running. Games Industry’s James Batchelor explains that the U.K. government has paid out roughly $94.5 million in the last year. “From April 2016 to March 2017, more than 280 claims were successfully made by games developers – up by 115% from the 130 claims paid the previous year … Overall, 835 games have applied for certification, with 375 being granted an interim certificate and 400 qualifying for a final one.”
Rail Theory officially has a Kickstarter. The RPG is trying to raise $150,000. Developer Tryonic Studios released a playable demo, AFKer’s Ronald Mina reports. “Players will adopt the role of Flynn Whitera, the last human contact of a research facility on the planet Argenous. They must salvage working components from destroyed Argenian ships in an attempt to repair their own. However, an outbreak of a crystalline based life form known as the Rithamolous will not make this a simple task.”
LEAGUE LAND
Pentakill is back with a new video on YouTube titled From Fire Reborn. Here’s the description: “The infernal prophecy of Pentakill. Born of shadow. Forged in flame. Metal as hell. Their last performance ended the band – and the lives of the audience. But Pentakill didn’t stay dead for long, and now no stage can escape the Grasp of the Undying.”
What in the world is going on with SK Telecom T1? That’s what many are asking after watching the juggernaut team’s recent walloping. Slingshot Esports’ Emily Rand thinks she has the answer, and it has to do with poor budgeting. “Winning has effectively made SKT invincible in the eyes of many, a team without failings or flaws,” she writes. “Now, more than ever — including a 2014 slump — the community is asking: What’s wrong with SKT?”
SKT support Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan apologized to fans after they lost 4 times in a row. “‘I think there are many factors (for the bad performances), but I have definitely practiced less than the other players, and I think that is just starting to surface. I’m embarrassed, humiliated, frustrated, and angry. I’m very angry and frustrated at myself.'”
Riot game designer David Capurro posted a lengthy piece on the forums Thursday about Rengar’s current state. Here’s a snippet: “Rengar is far from perfect in his current state. I’ll be the first to admit that. I do remember feeling more nervous (than other updates I’ve been a part of) than usual prior to his release, because it felt like we took some pretty drastic steps to try to accomplish difficult gameplay goals. Some of these worked out well. Others did not.”
The application deadline for franchising has been extended from the original 6 weeks.
Interviews: Immortals’ Lee “Flame” Ho-Jong and Cody “Cody Sun” Sun.
The 2017 EU and NA LCS Summer Splits are ongoing.
Return of the Legends starts Aug. 4.
Champion and skin sale July 21-24: Djinn Malzahar, Rugged Garen, Master Chef Tahm Kench and High Noon Yasuo. Gnar, Volibear, Taric and Olaf.
Weekly free champions: Braum, Caitlyn, Karma, Lux, Nocturne, Ryze, Swain, Tryndamere, Udyr and Vayne.
OVER/UNDER WATCH
If you’ll be at SDCC, don’t forget to check out the Overwatch panel today at 7 p.m. PST!
Scott Mercer stepped in to explain how statistics and cards at the end of the game work. “To get a card for any statistic, you need to have the most of that statistic across ALL players, both on your team and the enemy’s. So even if you have gold medal for eliminations on your team, if a player on the enemy team has more eliminations than they are eligible for the card and you are not.”
Competitive Overwatch is in its infancy, but that hasn’t prevented a compelling timeline of major esports organization entries and exits from the scene. TheScore esports’ David Rabinovitch and Sasha Erfanian put together an interesting infographic detailing the competitive scene’s history.
Overwatch ranked 7th most watched by esports hours on Twitch in June at 2.5 million esports hours.
Sunrise, an Australian morning TV show, did a segment on esports. Check it out here.
Scylla Esports are back on the scene with a new roster. New teammates are Legabril, Molotov, Elim, Swilko and Joker as substitute.
OUT: Perttu, Cheridormi and BigG00se are no longer with Alfa Squad.
123 removed kodaK and are trialing Hafficool as his potential replacement.
Legend Series Overwatch qualifiers start July 22. It’s being put on by Battlefly and ELC Gaming.
Overwatch Chicago Season 3 League will be Aug. 10-Aug. 31. The entry fee is $25.
The TESPA Summer Series is ongoing through Aug. 20.
The Collegiate Star League is ongoing through Aug. 26.
Overwatch World Cup tickets are on sale for Poland (8/4-8/6).
The Sydney Group Stage starts today.
OGN Overwatch APEX Challengers Season 3’s Grand Final will be held in Busan Haeundae Beach, South Korea, July 29, between Lunatic-Hai and Kongdoo Panthera.
DOTA-THON
The Secret Shop released an update and apology and said it is temporarily shutting down: “We want to apologize for the roll out of the Secret Shop, we know fans are disappointed. It is our responsibility to make sure we offer a good experience to our players, and we did a poor job of that. The shipping costs are too expensive all around and make it hard for fans to get the merchandise they want at an affordable price … We’ve decided to shut down the Secret Shop for now while we figure out how to better handle global distribution. Providing merchandise for Dota has never been a profit focused endeavor for us. Our goal has been to give easy access to the greatest number of Dota fans possible so they can show their affiliation with the game we all love. The way it is currently set up makes it really hard for fans to do that, and until we can fix it, we shouldn’t have such an offer on the table. Anyone who already placed an order will continue to receive it, or may ask for a refund.”
HellRaisers have returned. Their new roster includes Alexei “j4” Lipai; Milan “MiLAN” Kozomara; Uroš “Swiftending” Galić; Neta “33” Shapira and Greg “Keyser” Kallianiotis.
Yesterday’s main client update includes in-game, broadcaster, dashboard and tooltips updates.
The Battle Pass is at $21.8 million for The International 2017.
DreamHack Atlanta 2017 is today through July 23.
Dota 2 is hosting a short film competition. Submissions are open through July 25.
There is 2 match today.
Yesterday’s match results can be found here.
WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU CS:GO
Caster Anders Blume had some humbling words for young aspiring esports players, commentators and casters: Be careful what you wish for.
“On March 9, 2015, Anders’ son Walter was born. Two days later, on March 11, he flew to the ESL One: Katowice Major. At the time, he felt like he had to go. He was driven by this desire to be the best caster. To not be overlooked for future gigs because he missed an event. To stay among the most popular voices in CS:GO. Now, he can’t imagine doing anything so stupid,” theScore esports’ Daniel Rosen writes.
Numbers are in for ESL One Cologne 2017, and they paint a picture of a tournament less desirable to watch, sponsor and promote. SmartCast Ninja’s Jean-Baptiste Saelens breaks down the various statistics with both text explanations and nifty infographics. All in all, viewership and fanbase growth were both down substantially.
Natus Vincere is getting a roster shakeup, according to confirmation from captain Denis “seized” Kostin and a tweet by Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.
Looks like Team EnVyUs’s Cédric “RpK” Guipouy missed his flight. Oops.
Time for a vaca. Michael “shroud” Grzesiek said “all players from top teams decided we need a player break. Therefore August nobody will be competing in tournaments.” Enjoy the R&R, guys.
Mathias Lauridsen is calling for a major that includes a BO3 groupstage — people seemed pretty receptive to the idea.
DreamHack Atlanta is today.
PGL Major Krakow 2017 goes through July 23. The Group Stage had started. Reddit has an overview thread here.
The main event starts today with the quarter finals and ends Sunday.
PGL posted a short hype video on Twitter to get everyone excited. Check it out here.
DreamHack Masters Malmo 2017 is Aug. 30-Sept. 3.
ESL One New York 2017 is Sept. 15-16.
Intel Extreme Masters World Champions is Nov. 18-19 in Oakland, Calif.
BLAST Pro Series is Nov. 24 in Copenhagen. The prize pool is $250,000.
Mapcore and FACEIT have $10,000 for the top 4 bomb defusal and hostage-rescue maps CS:GO players can create. The contest entry deadline is Oct. 31, 2017, and winners will be chosen in December.
There are 7 matches today.
Yesterday’s match results can be found here.
WINS AND FAILS
It’s important to laugh. That’s why TheDW has compiled some of the best wins and fails of the last 24 hours, delivered to you in a convenient gif package.
Did you see something better? Shoot TheDW an email at katie@thedailywalkthrough.com with the subject line GIF. If we like it, we’ll throw it in tomorrow’s walkthrough!
SECRET UNLOCKED
ENDING TODAY: Nintendo Switchs are back in stock at GameStop! Certain stores will get “limited quantities.”
Mmm, the smell of a sale. Sennheiser’s HD 6XX open back headphones are on sale at MassDrop for $200 while supplies last.
UPCOMING RELEASES AND EVENTS
RELEASES
The official Call of Duty: WWII Nazi Zombies trailer is out! Are you prepared?
One Piece: Unlimited World Red is coming out on Nintendo Switch Sept. 29.
Superhot will be out in America today for PlayStation 4.
Destiny 2’s open beta is today through July 23 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Fable Fortune has been delayed until July 25 for Xbox One and PC.
Namco Museum is out July 28 for $29.99 on the Nintendo Switch.
Secret World Legends is out July 31 on Steam.
StarCraft Remastered releases Aug. 14 for $15.
EVENTS
Ongoing: San Diego Comic-Con International through July 23.
Swinging by San Diego Comic-Con? The Entertainment Software Association is throwing a free party Saturday, July 22, that’s looking to be a pretty good time. Nika Nour, ESA director of federal government affairs, told TheDW, “Come grab a cold one on us and meet Congressman Darrell Issa and Scott Peters this Saturday. Door open at 3pm!” It’ll be held on WeWork San Diego’s office rooftop at 600 B Street San Diego, CA 92101. You can RSVP here.
July 27: CWL Last Chance Qualifiers-NA Florida and Florida Supercon (July 27-30).
July 28: Dokidokon (July 28-30), MechaCon (July 28-30), Tampa Bay Comic Con (July 28-30) and Fandom Fest (July 28-30).
July 29: Manchester MCM Expo (July 29-30).
Rocket League Championship Series Season 4 starts in August.
Niantic is hosting Pokemon Go Fest in Chicago tomorrow.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Congratulations to Rocket League on being the 5th most-watched esport on Twitch in June.
When the divine lag god intervenes, it’s usually trying to send a message. In this PUBG game’s instance, that message was “fists of fury.” Server lag stopped anyone from ejecting from the plane, and then forceably pushed everyone out at the same time — meaning they all landed in the same spot. Some fled, Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett reports. Most decided to stay and declare the victor through good ‘ol fashioned fist boxing.
COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Whether you hate it, love it, miss it or want it, send TheDW an email at katie@thedailywalkthrough.com.
Thanks for reading!