Gaming - Page 748

Respawn's red-hot 60-player battle royale Apex Legends is growing faster than Fortnite, and could eventually outpace Epic's titan.

Within less than a month, Respawn's free-to-play Apex Legends shooter has hit 50 million players across the globe, a feat that took Fortnite four times as long to achieve. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad explains this growth with some simple stats:

With tons of justified criticism and a rather low Metacritic score, Anthem doesn't appear to be doing too well right now. Could BioWare be next on EA's chopping block? Studio producer tells fans not to worry.

EA has a history of killing game devs. Since 1987, EA has shut down 14 studios, the most recent of which was Visceral Games (EA not only shuttered the studio but scrapped Visceral's ambitious Star Wars game). With two disastrous games back-to-back (Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem), fans are worried BioWare could be the 15th head in EA's macabre collection.

BioWare producer Mike Gamble is confident this won't happen (and we are too). Anthem is getting great support from the community and lots of people are playing it, Gamble says. "Don't worry about us. We got lots of work to do, but you aren't the only one who likes Anthem," the dev said told a concerned fan.

Microsoft's wildly popular Xbox Game Pass subscription service isn't coming to Nintendo Switch, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell Windows insider Brad Sams.

Microsoft does want to bring Game Pass to every device, but launching the service on a competing system could bring lots of issues. We recently outlined the big problems with Game Pass on Switch in a recent feature, discussing huge hurdles both companies would face such as technical limitations, service clashing, and missed revenues.

Now key sources tell known Xbox and Windows insider Brad Sams that the all-you-can-download Xbox service won't arrive on Nintendo's handheld-console hybrid. "There's been a lot of talk of Game Pass on the Switch. I'm hearing from multiple sources that's not happening," Thurrot.com's Brad Sams said in a recent video.

Today CD Projekt RED announced Crimson Curse, the first expansion for its popular free-to-play Witcher card game spin-off Gwent.

Like the main game, Gwent's new Crimson Curse expansion will be entirely free and ties directly into the Witcher series' rich medieval European fantasy lore. The expansion's story centers around the nefarious vampire overlord Dettlaff van der Eretein first introduced in Witcher 3's Blood and Wine, and brings an arsenal of new character cards across all factions and effects like poison, bleeding, shield and vitality to gameplay. The Crimson Curse adds more than 100 new cards to expand the core CCG experience.

"Dettlaff van der Eretein, the mighty higher vampire gamers first met in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine, is summoning his kin. As the Moon over the Witcher world turns red, new breeds of monsters awake, new villains emerge, and new heroes rise to answer the call.

In a bid to continue making money from their revenue-locked survival slasher, Gun Media plans to bring its brutal Friday the 13th adaptation to Nintendo's portable handheld-console hybrid.

Things are a-changing at Nintendo. Some of gaming's most bloody games are coming to the Switch. The ominous and thrilling Friday the 13th multiplayer game launches on Nintendo's once-wholesome platform this Spring, followed by the gruesome Dead by Daylight in Fall. The Switch flavor of Camp Crystal Lake's boogeyman-chaser is being developed by studios Black Tower and Nighthawk, and features all current paid DLC and content available in the PC and console versions.

The Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Switch Edition (what a mouthful) is a direct way for Gun Media to rake in more cash from the game. Back in 2018 the studio was forced to halt development of all future content, packs, and skins, thanks to a lawsuit. Now Gun Media can no longer sell additional DLC or monetize the game. So the studio's only option to make money from the project is to re-release ports of the game on different platforms.

Some brand new Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild merchandise is on the way to stores in the form of a new Nendoroid.

The newly announced figurine will most likely be arriving with interchangeable faces and other accessories to complement the statue as most Nendoroid's do. Unfortunately there isn't a release date set on the upcoming figure, but according to Destructoid's, these collectors items usually come to market only a couple of months after they are announced.

We didn't actually get a real-life image of the statue but instead a concept art of what it will look like. All round I think its a very suitable design and makes me wonder what a Breathe of the Wild Link would look like with interchangeable swords or his other unique accessories. For more information about the Nendoroid, check out the above Twitter post from the official Good Smile US Twitter account.

Enter the Gungeon has amassed a quite impressive 2 million sales across all platforms, in celebration of this achievement the game will be debuting a physical edition for the Nintendo Switch.

Enter the Gungeon, developed by Dodge Roll and published by Devolver Digital is a fast-paced shoot 'em up, rougelike title that has become quite popular in its respective genre. Using Steam reviews and Metacritic as a basis for how well received the game has been we find a 9/10 for Steam and solid 87% from Metacritic. The game has seen a total of 2 million units sold across all platforms with 1 million of those units being held by the Nintendo Switch.

A physical edition has been announced and will soon be hitting the shelves, coming under the 'Enter The Gungeon: Ultimate Edition' title and features some extra collectibles for purchases. Included in the pack is; stickers, a bullet kin papercraft and a exclusive shotgun kin skin. The pack comes in at a price of $30 and will be available sometime this spring, and to keep tabs on anything else that announced for Enter the Gungeon visit the official website here.

Humble has a fantastic April bundle, with games such as Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, Absolver: Downfall, and Northgard heavily discounted.

Humble have started the month of April off with a sale most gamers won't be able to pass up, for just $12 buyers will get $94.97 worth of games. The titles that are included in the bundle are Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, Absolver: Downfall, and Northgard. Each of the games listed is redeemable on Steam through a key that will be sent to you upon purchasing.

To give a quick synopsis of each of the games, Northgard is a strategy game that allows players to experience the life of a vikings in Nordic times. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a turn-based tactical role-playing strategy game that follows the adventures of mutants in a post-human earth. While Absolver: Downfall is a martial arts fighting game that allows the player to create their own unique fighter and fighting style. If you want to to check out the Humble Bundle website, visit it here.

There is a very small market for physical media collectors of video games, and an even smaller market for people that collect limited edition versions. Luckily, there is a new exclusive collection for the Nintendo Switch from Super Rare Games.

Super Rare Games are debuting a new limited edition collection titled 'Fairune Collection'. The collection will debut to the market with only 4,000 physical copies and will contain Fairune 1, Fairune 2, Fairune Origin and Fairune Blast for the Nintendo Switch.

The Fairune Collection will not only contain a great selection of games but also some other collectors items such as a manual, interior artwork, exclusive stickers and some trading card packs. Super Rare Games will be making the Fairune Collection available to purchase on March 14 for just $32.54. For more information, visit the official website here.

Apex Legends is the hottest game in the world right now, with Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment alongside EA ready to launch the first season of the smash hit battle royale game.

Now we have Twitch streaming legend 'shroud' AKA Michael Grzesiek driving the hype of Apex Legends to new heights with a tease of future content in the game in a recent stream on Twitch. Shroud said that gamers might be anticipating the upcoming Battle Pass and tease of new legends for the game, but there are things that he helped Respawn on during the development of Apex Legends that isn't even in the launch version of the game.

Shroud said: "I can tell you this much ok? I saw shit 10 months ago in this game, that isn't even in this build, alright?". If that doesn't build hype, shroud added: "There's gonna be some shit. You just wait, just you wait, okay? Just wait, be patient". You can see shroud's comments in the video above which I've embedded at the right time of the clip, it is just 10 or so seconds but it is a great tease of things to come.

Riot Games has just confirmed it has hired its first chief diversity officer, someone who will hope to extinguish the flames erupting from its sexist and toxic workplace culture stories that surfaced in August 2018.

The League of Legends developer hired Angela Roseboro, the former global diversity and inclusion boss of Dropbox, who will now oversee creating diversity programming at Riot. Roseboro said in a statement on Riot's own blog: "I can't wait to get started and to do my part to make sure we have a culture that embraces the uniqueness of every Rioter and a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging".

In an internal email to Rioters, the Emily Winkle, the Chief People Officer at Riot said: "We've been searching for the right person to help us become a positive force for D&I in our industry and beyond, and I'm thrilled to welcome Angela to the team. I know I speak for the entire Riot leadership team when I say that we can't wait for her to start. She brings with her experience and expertise that will allow us to truly blossom in our D&I efforts so we can recruit and retain the Rioters we need to make amazing things for players around the world".

Microsoft's end goal with gaming is a huge, multi-faceted webwork of services and content across all platforms--even those it doesn't own. But can it pull it off? And is it really worth it?

If you've read our Xbox content lately, you know Microsoft cares more about services than they do anything else. Its services that power games now, services that rule its online empire of billion-dollar earnings, and services that tie consumers together via console hardware. Its relatively new Xbox Game Pass subscription is a huge part of this revolution, and the company is keen on expanding the service to everywhere users play games, regardless if it makes sense or not.

"We want to bring Game Pass to any device that somebody wants to play on," Xbox division head Phil Spencer told GeekWire. "Not just because it's our business, but really because the business model allows for people to consume and find games that they wouldn't have played in any other space."

Thomas the Tank Engine is back, and he's out to stomp around Raccoon City and whistle menacingly.

Modding is a big part of why PC gaming is so great. And wacky mods like this new Thomas the Tank Engine creation for Resident Evil 2 Remake (or is it an abomination?) is a prime example. The mod swaps out the tyrannical Mr. X for a slightly less frightening Thomas to inject some whimsy and ridiculousness into a very terrifying game.

You can pick up the mod on NexusMods. While you're looking around, be sure to pick up the Mr. X beachbod mod (absolutely ridiculous) and the X Gon' Give it to Ya mod for extra Mr. X hilarity.

Games development is a messy, expensive, and risky business that can elevate a company to the very top or send them crashing to the ground in debt. It doesn't matter where you are, the risks are always there; regardless if you're at the top of the pile like Activision-Blizzard or at the bottom as an indie studio just starting out, there's lots of challenges and hurdles to overcome.

Activision's latest SEC Filings brought to mind a point that all gamers should remember about the industry: making games is hard and nothing's certain. There's risks for potential financial loss when games do badly or don't come out at all. EA's learned this with Anthem, Bethesda's learned with Fallout 76, and Activision-Blizzard learned from its big gambit on Destiny and is still learning about the monetization ceiling in its biggest games.

The document's "risk factors" section is absolutely huge, and warns Activision-Blizzard investors that they could lose money in many different ways. The company outlines a number of worse-case scenarios in the filings that don't just apply to Activision, but any games-maker. There's one section that's particularly interesting. Activision says it may actually grow too big to manage properly (that's kind of happening with microtransactions right now, it earned over $5 billion from live gaming in 2018, or 70% of total revenue).

Two new industry titans step into the bidding war for Maple Story games-maker Nexon.

Nexon's bidding war is heating up. Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju plans to sell off his enormous 98.6% stake in the company that's valued at an estimated $8.9 billion, and gaming's biggest names want to buy. First Electronic Arts and Chinese juggernaut Tencent made bids, and now Amazon and even Comcast are stepping into the ring, VentureBeat reports.

Nexon, who's mostly known for popular mobile games like Maple Story and Dungeon Fighter, is current the top 11th publisher with $1.84 billion earned in 2018 so far. It's likely these new bidders plan to use Nexon's IP and studios to fuel new gaming divisions, possibly even via experimental game-streaming technology. Amazon is currently working on a cloud streaming service set for 2020, reports say, and Nexon's know-how and might would be a valuable asset in that service.

Activision was glad to sell Destiny back to Bungie and terminate its 10-year agreement with the FPS giant. The franchise didn't perform as Activision had hoped and was becoming tougher to manage. Bungie wanted publishing rights so it could totally control its Destiny. But how much did the Halo developer pay?

According to new SEC Filings that reveal a dearth of info about Activision-Blizzard, the company made $164 million by selling Destiny's publishing rights back to Bungie. Depending on how that money was paid, it's possible that Bungie spent the big $100 million investment it received from Chinese titan NetEase on the buyback.

"As part of this termination, Activision agreed to transfer its publishing rights for the Destiny franchise to Bungie in exchange for cash and Bungie's assumption of on-going customer obligations of Activision. Going forward, Activision no longer has any material rights or obligations related to the Destiny franchise. As a result of the agreement to terminate the relationship, the Company recognized net bookings-a key operating metric-of $20 million, GAAP revenues of $164 million, and GAAP operating income of $91 million for the year ended December 31, 2018," reads the filing.

Activision-Blizzard's earnings follow a typical pattern that sees each segment tapping the platforms it knows best.

Recent SEC Filings gives more insight into Activision-Blizzard's business, and some of them are actually quite obvious. The jam-packed document sees Activision earning most of its cash from consoles, which makes sense given the massive popularity of Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft-maker Blizzard raking in most of its cash from PC. These two segments have sales strengths that compliment one another, and combined with King's mobile focus, the company has all bases covered.

In 2018, Activision earned $2.35 billion from consoles, or 86% of its total net revenues of $2.73 billion. Sony's PS4 was the main console platform and Call of Duty Black Ops 4 propelled earnings. Blizzard, on the other hand, raked in $1.71 billion from its dominant PC platform, or about 75% of total net revenues for the period. Blizzard's mobile earners were much higher than Activision's with $220 million, and that number should grow with new games like Diablo: Immortal on the way.

Respawn's big new Star Wars game gets a helping hand from one of the best writers in the business.

Fallout: New Vegas designer Chris Avellone is lending his storyboard prowess to Respawn's upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order game, the dev today revealed. Given the setting, subject matter, and talent involved, Jedi: Fallen Order sounds absolutely fantastic. The game, a third-person adventure experience with what Respawn calls "larger-than-life action," takes place between Episodes III and IV when the Jedi were being hunted and executed across the galaxy. Reports indicate Jedi: Fallen Order will be similar to The Force Unleashed while staying true to canon.

Anonymous sources say Jedi: Fallen Order follows the story of Cal, a padawan who escaped the massacre of Order 66, and takes place five years after The Revenge of the Sith.

Activision-Blizzard plans to pay out nearly $100 million in severance pay to its recently fired employees.

Read Also: Activision: our vision is monetization, engagement, and accessibility

In the same year it reported record earnings of $7.5 billion, the company behind World of Warcraft and Call of Duty recently fired nearly 800 employees to restructure its business. But the billion-dollar publisher plans to offer generous severance packages to those affected: according to a new SEC Filing, the company has laid aside $97.5 million in severance pay.

Microsoft wants to improve its PC gaming focus, but that doesn't mean big marquee blockbusters like Halo 6, Gears of War 5 and the next Fable will show up on competing storefronts.

Xbox gaming head Phil Spencer has been talking up PC gaming recently, and promises some surprises for E3 2019. Some speculate that huge franchises like Halo could show up on Steam. This is very unlikely to happen and is counter-intuitive to Microsoft's business strategy. The company is committed to PC, and all of its future first-party games will have PC releases, including Halo 6, Gears of War 5, and all the projects its newly acquired studios are working on.

The biggest reason why Microsoft won't bring huge franchises to Steam or the Epic Store is because of money. It keeps all the cash from every sale on wholly-owned platform like the Xbox or Windows Stores, and doesn't have to give anyone a cut. But it also keeps every bit of microtransaction revenue from live service games which is more important, especially since all big Xbox games are now monetized. For all the big talk about Microsoft being a proponent of cross-play and sharing, it behooves them to still retain a tight control over their ecosystem (and they will).