Gaming News - Page 420

Three separate law firms have filed lawsuits against Activision-Blizzard alleging securities fraud.

Law firms the Schall Law Firm, Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC, and Rosen Law are all filing suits on behalf of Activision-Blizzard shareholders that allege the company of securities fraud. These new securities fraud allegations are separate from the harassment and discrimination suit the company is currently facing.

The lawsuits allege that Activision-Blizzard misled investors by not properly disclosing the harassment charges the company is currently facing. The ongoing controversy has had a material impact on shareholders, with Activision-Blizzard stock falling to its lowest point in the last 6 months.

Blizzard President J. Allen Brack leaves the company amid significant workplace controversy.

Right now Blizzard is caught in a storm of misconduct allegations that stretch back for decades. Multiple reports accuse Blizzard of a "frat boy culture" where women employees are subject to discrimination, sexual misconduct, and harassment. Blizzard workers are sharing their stories en masse, and employees have responded with walk out strikes and collective demands for change. Company stock has dropped to $79.61 per share, its lowest point in the past six months.

Although Blizzard harassment was quietly happening behind the scenes, many key executives have left the company over recent years, including co-founder Mike Morhaime in 2019. Shortly after Morhaime left, J. Allen Brack, a seasoned Blizzard veteran, took over as president.

NBA 2K and Grand Theft Auto-maker Take-Two Interactive jumpstarts its Q1 FY2022 period with strong earnings from some of its biggest franchises.

Although Take-Two's Q1'22 net revenues slid 2.1% to $813 million, the Grand Theft Auto franchise just made its second-highest quarterly earnings in history.

According to Take-Two filings, Grand Theft Auto earned about $274 million in the current Q1, beating out the previous high watermark set last year when GTA V was free on the Epic Games Store. These results are second only to the $1.4 billion revenues earned during GTA V's launch in Q3'14.

Take-Two Interactive kicks off its Q1 FY2022 fiscal year with $711 million in earnings and consistent growth across key franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, and NBA 2K.

As part of its earnings brief to investors, Take-Two updated its sales figures for top game series. Grand Theft Auto tops the charts with a whopping 350 million copies shipped, of which GTA V makes up 42%, or 150 million.

The annualized NBA 2K sports franchise takes second place with a huge 112 million copies shipped to date, with NBA 2K21 comprising nearly 10% of total sales, or 11 million units.

The hype train for Battlefield 2042 has died down considerably, and while we might only be less than 3 months away from the release of what should arguably be the biggest first-person shooter of the year, rumor has it Battlefield 2042 development could be "having issues".

This is coming directly from Battlefield 2042 leaker Tom Henderson, who now writes for DualShockers, nothing that we have only seen "Six seconds of gunplay is what Battlefield fans have seen so far with Battlefield 2042 and although I would have personally expected to see more trailers with gameplay soon, it's hard to not be concerned.

If you were waiting to see more Battlefield 2042 gameplay once the Technical Play Test kicks off later this month, you'll be disappointed... Henderson says that the Battlefield 2042 Technical Play Test users are under a "strict NDA". Anyone included in the test is unable to talk about the game, or show any gameplay footage.

Halo Infinite is well-optimized on Xbox consoles, and new metrics from VG Tech reveal how well the generations handle 343i's new shooter.

Halo Infinite plays amazingly well on both PC (I was able to hit 80FPS+ at 1440p with a RTX 2080 Super with Ultra preset) on Xbox Series X/S consoles, the latter of which has two frame rate priority modes: 60Hz or 120Hz. Infinite demands speed, though, and playing at 60FPS doesn't really do the game justice. There's some trade offs if you want to target 120FPS, though--The Series X's Zen 2 and RDNA 2-powered SoC is strong, but it can't hit native 4K 120FPS. Resolution drops are necessary to achieve higher frames.

New frame rate tests from VG Tech show Halo Infinite X targets at 1440p native resolution (upscaled to 4K) with an average 110FPS on the Xbox Series X. The Series S also fares well but has a much lower max native res of 900p, which is then upscaled to 1080p when in 120FPS mode. Infinite ran at a range of 104 - 118 FPS at 900p in the 120FPS mode.

Grand Theft Auto V has now shipped 150 million units worldwide, Take-Two Interactive today confirmed.

There's few games that will consistently sell millions of copies every quarter, but Grand Theft Auto V is one of them. The nearly 8-year old GTA V has now sold-in (shipped) 150 million copies worldwide since its launch in September 2013, making it one of the best-selling games of all time. GTA V currently makes up 42% of total franchise sales.

A quick bit of math shows GTA V managed to sell 5 million units from March - June 2021, kicking off Take-Two's Q1 period with a second consecutive first quarter sales gain of 5 million copies. The Grand Theft Auto franchise has generated $6.4 billion since GTA V's launch in 2013 and continues delivering high earnings for Take-Two's sales and recurrent consumer sales (microtransactions).

GTA V was free on the Epic Games Store in May 2020, which helped push total-year franchise revenues to their second highest point of all time.

Take-Two's Epic Games Store freebie paid off big time. Yesterday I put together a graph that charted total Grand Theft Auto franchise revenues from GTA V's launch to present on both a yearly and quarterly basis. There's a huge revenue spike in Q1'21 corresponding with GTA V's free release on the Epic Games Store during May 2020.

This isn't a coincidence. The free launch helped GTA hit $262 million in the quarter, which is the second highest quarterly earnings since the incredible $1.49 billion earned at launch in Q3'14.

The next Halo Infinite beta test should feature PVP right from the start, 343i says.

Halo Infinite's technical preview is now offline, but it we could get another chance to play before launch. 343i says it wants to hold another huge Halo Infinite flight before the game releases this holiday season. According to Halo community manager Brian Jarrard, the devs hope to do another beta centered around PVP and "other aspects of the multiplayer experience."

That last bit is pretty interesting. Could Firefight be making a comeback? Most likely it's just testing out stuff like customizations, maps, equipment, modes etc. Maybe even some 32-player big team battle action But we can hold out hope can't we?

Arena of Valor developer Netmarble buys one of the most lucrative mobile devs in the business.

Netmarble today announced it has acquired SpinX, a mobile developer behind social casino hits like Lotsa Slots, Cash Frenzy and Jackpot World. Netmarble paid $2.19 billion for the share buyout, which is almost as much as the company made in the entire FY2020 yearly period; Netmarble made 2.84 trillion KRW in 2020, which is roughly $2.287 billion.

SpinX on the other hand generated $432 million from its casino games throughout last year.