In The News
NCAA Football (Credit: Tom Woodward/Flickr, no changes made)
News that the NCAA is looking into collegiate esports has a lot of people spooked. The Daily Walkthrough reached out to three esports industry veterans to get their take on what exactly this means. Portions of the full article, “The NCAA Is Looking Into Esports, And That Has A Lot Of People Concerned,” can be found below.
Analyst and former professional CS:GO player Tomi “Lurppis” Kovanen: “The NCAA is currently widely considered to be bad for the young athletes — some go as far as to…”
National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) executive director Michael Brooks: “They’re not necessarily the monsters they’re made out to be on a day in and day out basis. But you’re right, there is a huge concern about, ‘What is their interest in the esports space?’”
University of California, Irvine Esports acting director Mark Deppe: “How do they do that? What do they tell universities? ‘Shut your doors’? I don’t see them having influence there.”
TheDW is doing a giveaway! Enter and you have a chance at winning a $100 Blizzard Balance Card.
Does Quake Champions have what it takes to launch back to the top of the competitive esports scene? There’s a lot of “early optimism,” ESPN’s Timothy Lee writes. “One of the event’s commentators, John ‘BLU’ Mullen, is optimistic that Quake’s duels will fill a void in competition because there is a lack of player vs. player skill battles … For stunna, a former Cloud 9 player and manager for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, the idea that Quake can make a resurgence is exciting.”
Lordmancer 2 is saying “yes” to in-game and real-world money transactions. “Lordmancer 2, in beta on Android right now, is a sword-and-sworcery RPG where players are invited to freely purchase and sell weapons and artifacts in-game with the game’s custom cryptocurrency Lord Coin, which can be exchanged for real money outside of the game,” Kotaku’s Cecilia D’Anastasio reports. “By leveling up and earning better items, players can mine cryptocurrency with real value.”
Ignore that first bit, it’s Just Survive. Daybreak Game Company is dropping “H1Z1” from the title.
“First there was H1Z1. There [sic] there was H1Z1: Just Survive (the one with zombies) and H1Z1: King of the Kill (the one without zombies). After today, there will only be one H1Z1 game, called H1Z1: King of the Kill. The other game — the one with the zombies, mind you — will be called Just Survive,” Polygon’s Charlie Hall reports. “‘A new narrative has been established, separating Just Survive from the H1Z1 universe. Just Survive’s rebranding and content update represents the development team’s evolved vision for the game and lays the foundation for future updates in the months to come,’ Daybreak said in a press release.”
Discord has banned users and shut down servers in response to the Charlottesville rioting that ended with Heather Heyer, 32, being hit and killed by James Fields, 20. TheDW sends its thoughts and prayers to Heyer’s family and friends.
“Altright.com group’s server on the platform” is no more, Will Freeman at GamesIndustry.biz reports. “Discord CEO Jason Citron said: ‘Discord was built to bring people together through a love of gaming and our mission is to connect positive communities who share this appreciation. We unequivocally condemn white supremacy, neo-Nazism, or any other group, term, ideology that is based on these beliefs.’”
The Xbox PC wireless adapter is being delayed until 2018, according to Game Informer’s Matthew Kato. “The adapter ($24.99) lets PC gamers hook up to eight Xbox controllers wirelessly at once. There is a device that currently does this, but the new product is smaller.”
Telltale Games has some new job listings up that Pocket Gamer’s Emily Sowden says could mean more Nintendo Switch titles. Telltale is looking for a “Nintendo Compliance Specialist.”
Negative, captain. There are “No plans to release Destiny 2 on PC anywhere else,” Bungie community manager David “Deej” Dague said. GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch reports that, “Dague said on Twitter that Silver [Destiny 1’s microtransaction currency] showing up on Steam was an error. He added that Valve will process refunds, and he apologised for the ‘confusion.’”