In The News
Weekend in Review:
Telltale Games shocked the industry Friday when it laid off some 80-90% of its workforce. Gamasutra first reported only 25 people remain “to complete work on a single project.” This comes on the heels of a 25% workforce layoff in November 2017 and The Verge’s report in March 2018 that “toxic management” cost Telltale “its best developers.”
The studio’s official Twitter account later released a statement confirming the beginning of “a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges.”
Additionally, Telltale co-founder and former CEO Kevin Bruner — who is suing the company — issued a statement that reads, in part, “I’m mostly saddened for the people who are losing their jobs at a studio they love. And I’m also saddened at the loss of a studio…”
Melissa Hutchinson, the voice actor for Clementine in Telltale’s Walking Dead series, said she does “not know the fate of the final season of TWD.”
Today in wholesome news, both Bethesda and Nintendo granted the wishes of terminally ill children to play Fallout 76 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, respectively.
Game Informer’s Elise Favis reports “Bethesda’s assistant director Matt Grandstaff drove four hours from the company’s headquarters” to let “Wes, a 12-year-old boy from Virginia” play the game.
Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports Nintendo “flew a demo build of the game to” Chris Taylor Friday. “Taylor’s friends and family got to play the game for three hours today and let him take a whole bunch of pictures he promises to put up.”
Diablo coming to Netflix? “Boom! Studios founder Andrew ‘Andy’ Cosby tweeted on Wednesday that he’s in ‘final talks’ to write and show-run the upcoming series from Activision and Netflix,” Variety’s Brittany Vincent writes.
Swiss soccer fans, uh, really don’t like esports. They “held up play by throwing tennis balls and games consoles on the field in an unusual protest against esports on Sunday,” The Associated Press reports.
PlayStation dominated “gaming industry TV” advertisement from Aug. 16 to Sept. 15, VentureBeat’s Eleanor Semeraro reports. “Once again overall TV ad impressions increased for the gaming industry, up to nearly 2.8 billion … PlayStation scored an impressive 901.7 million impressions from its four commercials that aired over 2,400 times, and ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man: Gameplay Launch Trailer’ was the most-seen with 543.2 million impressions.”
Magic Leap and HoloLens are fighting over the military, Bloomberg’s Joshua Brustein writes. “Magic Leap Inc. is pushing to land a contract with the U.S. Army to build augmented-reality devices for soldiers to use on combat missions … The army’s program has also drawn interest from Microsoft Corp., whose HoloLens is Magic Leap’s main rival.”
The Stillfront Group acquired Imperia Online for $11.8 million, GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports.
2K Games’ support line is being bogged down by a large “volume of complaints as NBA 2K19 players log a litany of issues,” Eurogamer’s Vikki Blake writes.
CS:GO topped Twitch for most hours watched last week at 20.9 million, TEO reports. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 came in 2nd at 15.2 million, League of Legends in 3rd at 15.1 million and Fortnite in 4th at 12.8 million.
Interviews: Alibaba’s Jason Fung (GI.biz).
Extra Esports News:
ESPN’s Jacob Wolf is out with a profile piece on compLexity Gaming owner Jason Lake. Here’s a snippet: “The most important moment of Jason Lake’s 15-year esports career stared him in the face this week.”
IN: Team Envy signed Evil Geniuses’ Call of Duty team.
OUT: Street Fighter V player Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo will not attend “Tokyo Game Show’s Capcom Pro Tour event this weekend as the team [Panda Global] investigates reports that he abused his wife,” GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair reports.
Happy weekend birthdays Kim “QO” Seon-yeop, Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong and Marc Polo Luis “Raven” Fausto and happy Monday birthdays Kristijonas “Krr” Barisas and Eo “soO” Yoon SU!