Gaming - Page 768

Investors are scrutinizing key Activision executives with a securities fraud investigation, a new press release confirms.

At the behest of its investors, Activision is currently being investigated for possible fraudulent activities by Pomerantz LLP, a law firm that specializes in securities fraud and anti-trust cases. The press release wasn't exactly concise and remains vague: "The investigation concerns whether Activision and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices," it reads.

This move seems to be catalyzed by Activision's recent breakup with Bungie, which saw the billion-dollar publisher relinquish control and publishing rights to the Destiny franchise. The split-up triggered Activision stock to plummet by nearly 10% the next day and shed $4.81 from share prices. This marks the second lowest point the stock has dropped in a 52-week span.

Made by the Dark Souls masters at FromSoftware, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is more stylish, fluid and strategic than its gritty medieval-fantasy predecessors.

Checking out Game Informer's new Sekiro gameplay, I was reminded just how much freedom the game offers players. Sekiro has a lot more verticality than other FromSoftware games thanks to the one-armed Wolf's grappling hook, allowing gamers to hook and zoom atop rooftops to plot tactical attacks. There's a kind of easy grace to this mechanic that opens the doors to all kinds of interesting skill-based opportunities, and I have a feeling players will find very creative ways to tackle bosses and enemies throughout sixteenth century Sengoku Japan.

Grappling also helps with exploration and general traversal of the levels, all of which have tons of ledges, rooftops, tree branches, and other latchable objects to cling to. As GameInformer notes, the verticality also dramatically expands the visibility of areas and enemies to give players more foresight in execution. This is opposed to the nasty surprises that the Dark Souls series is well known for. There's a sense of more preparedness with Sekiro and gamers won't have to keep their guard up as much--or at least in the same way as with other FromSoft Soulsborne games.

BioWare's new service game Anthem is shaping up to be an amazingly strategic shooter with lots of potential for carnage. There's a lot of moving parts in Anthem and a fan has put together a diagram to help break down the mechanics.

The more I look into Anthem the more surprisingly layered it turns out to be. It's built on a deep webwork of intricate systems and synergies: from the wealth of customizable gear, modules, and craftable upgrades to the swappable abilities and combos, the game is the most involved BioWare game ever made. We already know that weapons and secondary items like grenades and knives can prime combos, and that every single Javelin has its own combo detonation effects.

But what about specifics and skills? Which Javelins have which abilities, and how do they affect combat roles? With so many options, how do players create that perfect team-based cohesion and synergy to take on the highest-level dungeons and bosses? This handy diagram from Redditor carpaggio aims to answer some of these questions.

Epic's new digital storefront wants to compete directly with Steam, but that doesn't meant it won't borrow a few things from Valve's playbook.

The Epic Store now has a refund policy that mirrors Steam's. All games bought on the Epic Store launcher are can be refunded for any reason within 14 days of original purchase, but only if the game has less than two hours of play.

The one caveat is refunds are processed via tickets by Epic's customer support which is apparently quite slow--Epic's own local Better Business Bureau rated it an F for its poor customer support. The team is working on a "self-service solution," according to Epic's Sergey Galyonkin.

Ubisoft is keen on making Assassin's Creed: Odyssey even better through new updates, content patches, and bugfixes.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey isn't just a singleplayer game anymore. Instead Ubi has wrapped its live service framework into the campaign-driven game, creating a continually-evolving experience that's funded by optional microtransactions and season pass content. This adheres to its engagement-driven monetization strategy used in all Ubisoft's games, which requires steady content to keep gamers coming back into the game. Now we're seeing even more efforts to expand the ancient Greece odyssey with new patches.

A new patch 1.1.2 game update will add lots of new features to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, including level scaling options (fantastic news) and a new engraving workshop (even better!). Hephaistos' Workshop lets you buy previously unlocked engravings and even ups the engraving buffs to new tiers, but you'll need to complete challenges first.

Capcom issued a challenge with the Resident Evil 2 Remake demo by including a 30 minute countdown timer. If you can't beat it in 30 minutes then you're locked out and don't get to try again. But talented speed runners are obliterating the demo's clock with know-how.

The RE2make's 1-Shot Demo's limited timer is meant to bring thrills and chills to the experience. Knowing their experience is limited, gamers are stressed to make every second count. But speed runner Trance makes those seconds count in a different way and finds an ultra-fast path to beat the demo in 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

Bear in mind speed running isn't about finding every item, uncovering secrets outside of glitches, solving puzzles or killing every enemy. It's simply about finding the quickest avenue to victory. That often means running past key story areas and circumventing baddies in a mad dash to the finish line.

All Bethesda Game Studios games have "cheat rooms," or little slices of the world cordoned off from the main game that have every item in the game. These areas are kind of like the space between worlds, a Twilight Zone of goods, gear, and content that didn't make it into the final game. They exist for developers to test out various scenarios and ensure items act the way they should. Fallout 76 has such a zone, and it's been accessed by players.

Remember the console commands "coc qasmoke" and "coc testqaitems" from Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 that granted you access to a special cheat area? Fallout 76 may be a live game but it's not that different than its predecessors in this respect--it has a QA zone too, but it's not accessible by console commands. Gamers have found a way to jump into the area and have found all sorts of surprises, including a human NPC called Wooby, as well as every item in the game.

Access essentially makes you into a god and removes the need to keep playing outside of leveling up. Everything from the weakest pipe pistols to the most powerful of weapons and gear can be found here, complete with unreleased power armor skins. Recipes and plans all have their own containers, and looking them over shows just how fragmented and grindy Fallout 76 actually is.

Tencent's MOBA continues its juggernaut microtranaction dominance thanks to China's eager playerbase.

Honor of Kings made $1.93 billion in 2018, making it the highest-earning mobile game of the year, analyst firm SensorTower reports. To put this number into perspective, this one mobile game made nearly 20% of Tencent's total 2H revenues of $10.2 billion. The game (known as Arena of Valor outside of Asia) saw a substantial 19.87% rise over last year's earnings.

Strong monetization and adoption in Asia is responsible for this megaton success. Nearly 95% of spending was from iOS users in China, SensorTower says, and less than 1% came from the United States. It's no wonder that every big games-maker from EA to Activision-Blizzard want to bring their games to China.

Verizon is funneling some of its billion-dollar might into gaming endeavors, more specifically the growing trend of cloud game streaming.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and now Verizon are all making their own subscriptions to beam games digitally to devices, ushering in a new era of convenience and ease-of-use accessibility to gamers. Sources tell The Verge that the telecom titan's service, Verizon Gaming, is currently being tested in exclusive alpha trials across NVIDIA's Shield set-top console box. Verizon Gaming (dubbed Vzg) is also planned for a rollout on Android mobile phones and other platforms.

The service has 135 games available for play in the testing phase, many of which are popular AAA titles. Yet early results aren't too favorable due to connectivity issues. In fact the service is so new that users can't even save their progress and must restart from the beginning each time. What's interesting is the Vzg store shows console exclusives like Detroit Become Human, God of War, and Red Dead Redemption 2, however Verizon spokespeople confirm these are likely placeholders and the store has yet to be fleshed out.

Today NetEase and Blizzard announced a publishing extension agreement that brings key games to China through 2023.

Chinese titan NetEase is mostly known for mobile games, but it also licenses the right to publish strong AAA franchises in the region, namely Blizzard games. The company currently runs popular games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo III, and Overwatch in China, and is overseeing development of the Diablo Immortal mobile game for the region.

This extension comes at an interesting time. Blizzard is working on multiple new games and projects including Diablo 4, a possible Overwatch sequel, a handful of mobile games based on key franchises, and even new IP. With NetEase's help, this strong pipeline of games will likely see their way into mainland China, a calculated move that'll earn Activision-Blizzard strong revenues. China is expected to rake in $37.98 billion in 2018's total gaming revenues, largely from mobile games.

You know those fake mock-up renders that pop up when searching next-gen consoles on Google images? The Mad Box's final design concept looks even more artificial.

Slightly Mad Studios, the devs behind Project CARS, is inexplicably making a next-gen console called the Mad Box. After teasing multiple designs of the system and making outlandish claims on performance, company CEO Ian Bell confirmed the Mad Box's finalized concept. The result is a futuristic console box with RGB lighting, a touchscreen front panel, curved winged vents, and a rather thin-looking chassis. Ultimately it looks very expensive to mass produce, and Bell notes that the design could be "slightly amended over time."

What's outside matters little, and gamers know it's what inside that counts. Although it's more than 3 years away, the Mad Box will be a powerhouse equivalent to a high-end PC from 2021, Bell asserts, with specs to enable native 4K gaming. The box sounds like an incredibly risky idea that could tank the games developer.

Although Bungie split up with Activision, the independent dev could still release a Destiny mainline sequel sometime next year.

Destiny 3 could happen as soon as 2020, analyst firm Cowen and Company told investors in a recent letter. Unfortunately we don't have direct access to the letter so we'll be paraphrasing from Gamespot's coverage, but ultimately the firm highlights many of the reasons behind the Bungie-Activision decoupling. Whether or not this prediction will happen depends on the timing, and how Bungie decides to use its big investment from NetEase.

By 2020 it's likely that the hand-off will be complete and Bungie will fully own the Destiny IP. The developer wants to self-publish its own games, meaning Destiny 3 may be released without the backing of a AAA publisher's millions. This is pretty risky for any company, even for Bungie. Luckily Bungie secured a whopping $100 million investment from Chinese juggernaut NetEase to fund its "bold new vision," and we recently posited this vision could see Bungie morph into a developer-publisher with its own label.

The Bungie-Activision split had me thinking about the future of both companies, namely Activision. With Bungie out of the picture, Activision's new core IP focus rests more heavily on Blizzard. Combined with what we know about Blizzard's new IP pipeline, it's possible the strength of these new games made Activision more comfortable with handing Destiny off to Bungie.

Publishers typically like funding and releasing games made by wholly-owned devs. Franchises like Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and Grand Theft Auto all get special treatment from their respective owners for good reason: pubs get to directly control every aspect of development, and more importantly, live service models. Knowing this, Activision's recent decision to give Bungie complete control of Destiny makes sense. Bungie was (and remains) independent even today, and can now go on its own way and possibly morph into a developer-publisher itself. But there might be more to Activision's decision that meets the eye, and it could have to do with what its partners at Blizzard are working on.

Destiny may have made Activision more reticent on taking new gambles on third-party projects, namely new IPs. We may see the publisher double-down on more "safe bets" in this respect, and any new IPs may be made by first-party studios. With Bungie gone this responsibility could rest strongly on Blizzard's shoulders.

Bungie's 10-year partnership with Activision is now over. The studio now wholly-owns the Destiny IP and will self-publish any future games in the franchise, a move that hints at bigger things down the pipeline.

After six years of back-and-forth tensions, Bungie and Activision are broken up. Signs of pressure were there as far back as 2013 when Activision forced Bungie to re-write the original Destiny story arc, leading to confusing results. The publisher's emphasis on casualized engagement strategies were ever-present, especially when microtransactions first debuted in Destiny alongside its frustrating paid DLC models.

But now all of this can change. Bungie is now the sole bearer of the Destiny IP and with this newfound freedom, it will decide how the series unfolds from all sides--business, content, engagement, etc. The company says it's "ready to publish on its own" and this endeavor may not be limited to just Destiny, but to its brand new IP and future games. Chinese juggernaut NetEase recently invested $100 million into Bungie to fund a "bold new vision," a move that could see Bungie not just remain independent but turn into a publisher-developer.

After nearly three decades of guiding and shaping Blizzard's gaming prowess, co-founder Mike Morhaime will leave the company officially in April 2019.

Ex-Blizzard President and CEO Mike Morhaime relinquished his position back in October 2018, leaving J. Allen Brack to take the reins. The company was wise enough to keep Morhaime on in an advisory capacity after his departure, especially given his long tenure as Blizzard president. But a new SEC filing confirms Morhaime's official termination in April.

This means Morhaime's effect on Activision-Blizzard's Calendar Year 2019 executions will be limited. The ex-exec likely gave advice on Blizzard's upcoming IP incubations as well as how to handle development of new games like Diablo 4.

Since data miners discovered details earlier in the week about the coming expansion to Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda and Znimax Online Studios scrambled and have announced a livestream to release some official details.

The news comes from the above tweet from the official Elder Scrolls Online Twitter account. The post was caption "Cat's out of the bag!" which is in direct reference to the data mining leaks that were discovered earlier in the week regarding the possible Necromancer classing being added to the game.

Bethesda did not supply any details about what the livestream will include, but for players that want to tune in to subside their curiosity the stream will be held on Twitch.tv and will begin on "January 15 at 2:00 p.m. PT or 5 p.m. EST." The new Elder Scrolls Online expansion has been titled "The Season of the Dragon" and will be available on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Jagex has announced that "Today is the day" and Old School RuneScape will be hit with another massive content update. Bringing new features to the game for both high and low level players.

Jagex has issued out a brand new update titled the 'Kebos Lowlands', the update will be the first new region released for the game since Old School RuneScape went multiplatform on iOS and Android back in October. The Kebos Lowlands update will be bringing content for all levels of players, there will be new monsters to slay, new slayer dungeons, a farming guild, two new quests and of course brand new rewards.

The introduction of the Kebos Lowlands update links all the way back to RuneFest 2018, and since then the community has had an overwhelmingly positive push for the update to be released. Since Old School RuneScape is community driven, before each update is added to the game Jagex present it to the community and allow them to vote on it. An update won't be added to the game if it falls below the 75% agreed margin, the Kebos Lowland update came in at a staggering 95% positive support. For more information regarding the Kebos Lowlands update, visit the official Old School RuneScape blog post by the Old School Team here.

We now have some numbers for the final week of 2018 in Japan regarding software and hardware sales. No surprise whatsoever, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sits upon the top of the software sales as well as the Nintendo Switch for the hardware sales.

Media Crate has not released their numbers for the holiday sales margin, but Famitsu the Japanese video game magazine has. The sales numbers for both hardware and software only cover the last week of 2018 in Japan, ending on December 30th. The numbers showcase that the Nintendo Switch has taken first place for hardware sales with a hefty, 186,806 units sold. Beating the likes of the PS4 which came in at 75,683 units and the Nintendo 3DS with 11,775 units.

Moving onto software sales now, we have Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sitting upon the throne with 253,977 units, and in second place Super Mario Party with 86,265 units. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also beat Splatoon 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Pokemon Let's Go, Pikachu and Eevee! and Super Mario Odyssey. A full list of the sales for both hardware and software have been provided within the entirety of this post.

DICE has officially closed the nominations for their annual DICE Awards, some familiar titles sit at the top with the most nominations, take a guess at who you think they are.

Before jumping into who has been nominated, the DICE Awards are organized by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences who represent over 30,000 development and creative members. The members of The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences bestows awards in the following categories; animation, art direction, character, music composition, sound design, story, technical achievement, action, adventure, family, fighting, role-playing, technical immersive reality, independent game, portability, game design, game direction and of course Game of the Year.

Now that the submissions have been closed, we can talk about what games currently hold the most nominations. As expected, Sony Santa Monica's God of War sits upon the throne with 12 nominations, followed by Marvel and Insomniac Games' Spider-Man with 11 nominations and finally Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 with 8 nominations. In the entirety of this post you will find each of the categories mentioned above and the respective nominated game for that category. If you want to read up more on the DICE Awards, visit the official website here.

The release for JUMP FORCE is about a month away and Bandai Namco are gearing up for the launch by revealing the dates for the open beta weekends that are about to be upon us.

Bandai Namco have revealed the beginning date for the JUMP FORCE open beta weekend, players will be able to literally 'jump' into Bandai's upcoming game on January 18th. The open beta will give players the opportunity to play the games online versus mode across the span of 17 different characters. Players will be able to battle across five stages and also test out the online lobby using six preset avatars.

The open beta will last for three hours each day and will begin on Friday, January 18th at 4:00am and will finish on Sunday, January 20th at 3:00pm. PS4 and Xbox One owners will be able to pre-load the beta on January 17th so its ready to play when the weekend starts. If you are interested in more news about JUMP FORCE, check out the character reveals for; Kenshin and Shishio, SSGSS Vegeta/Goku & Golden Frieza and the $260 JUMP FORCE: Premium Edition. JUMP FORCE will be officially launched on the 15th of February.