In The News
Do you know what time it is? Of course you do, you’ve been waiting for this all week. The Weekly Talkthrough is back, plagued only slightly by our vengeful-yet-hysterical editor Jess. Catch up on the most important news in esports and gaming this week!
They call it a Friday news dump for a reason. Polygon has “parted ways” with video producer Nick Robinson after he was suspended pending an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment.
Polygon editor in chief Chris Grant tweeted Thursday evening, “Update: We’re parting ways with Nick Robinson, effective immediately. I wish him the best.”
Robinson also posted a statement, saying in part: “I messed up, and I owe you an explanation. Over nine years on this website, I’ve used it for every aspect of my life: making friends, findings jobs, and, yes, embarrassingly, flirting. This means I have, on many occasions, used Twitter to hit on people … it’s now clear that some of these advances were unwanted or handled very poorly.”
Disney is being sued over alleged Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) violations. Disney Princess Palace Pets, a Disney mobile game, has been accused of “illegally collecting personal information from,” James Batchelor at GamesIndustry.biz reports. “Unity, monetisation specalist Upsight and ‘audience platform’ Kochava” are also being accused.
High ping can ruin any game and lead to a series of profane shouts and mouse-slamming. One Australian, however, managed to qualify for the Quake World Championship with a horrifying 272 ping. “Despite having an atrocious ping yet again, Daniel “dandaking” De Sousa somehow made it through,” Kotaku’s Alex Walkers reports.
The Xbox Live Creators Program is officially live.
Twitch has a new desktop app coming out, according to Game Informer’s Imran Khan. It’s called the Twitch Desktop App. Through it, you’ll be able to watch streams, use mods and chat.
The Lich King took a break from his (presumably) busy day to read Hearthstone fan mail yesterday, the same day Knights of the Frozen Throne launched.
Nintendo is being sued by Gamevice over the Nintendo Switch’s JoyCons. Engadget’s Jon Fingas writes that “The accessory maker is suing Nintendo for allegedly violating a patent for concepts used in the Wikipad, its gaming-oriented Android slate, as well as its namesake add-on controllers for phones and tablets.” Gamevice is asking for monetary compensation and a ban on Switch sales.
Nvidia’s doing alright. It pulled in $2.2 billion in revenue in its second quarter, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “One question is whether Nvidia’s earnings got a boost from cryptocurrency’s popularity, as rival Advanced Micro Devices cited the possibility of demand for graphics cards from cryptocurrency miners. Cryptocurrency miners can use computing power to unearth new cryptocurrency.”
Bungie released more information on Destiny 2 balance changes. PC Gamer’s James Davenport reports that you can “expect to see a longer Mercy rule timer for Crucible matches, improvements to competitive matchmaking, reduced Super charge times, increased Power Ammo drops in PvE, and more.”
There are PvP changes for both quick play and competitive and PvE changes.
A leaked internal Blizzard memo shows the company is launching “a ‘global diversity and inclusion initiative’ aimed at raising the percentage of women and underrepresented minority groups in its workforce and improving the work environment for those groups,” Kotaku’s Nathan Grayson reports. A Blizzard representative confirmed the memo is real.