Online Gaming
Epic Games and Brazilian soccer player Neymar are teasing a likely appearance by the star athlete in Fortnite on March 16th, with clues coming via a couple of tweets. Eurogamer first reported the news, including a video tweeted from the Epic Games account showing Neymar's No.
Live events in Fortnite have proven hugely popular, with a 2019 concert by Marshmello drawing 10 million people, which was a record event for the game at the time, and performance last year by Travis Scott, which also took place inside of Fortnite, drew more than 12 million people.
Google is shutting down its internal Stadia game development division, the company announced today, as it refocuses Stadia to be a home for streaming games from existing developers instead of developing its own games for the service.
Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin's Creed for Ubisoft and moved on to EA several years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, is exiting the company, according to Google.
Phil Harrison Vice President of Google Stadia wrote in a blog post today: "We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia's advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools."
Video game giant Electronic Arts announced it would buy Britain's Codemasters, known for its F1 and Dirt racing game franchises., in a deal worth $1.2 billion. EA's move has come as a surprise - most people thought Take-Two's proposal last month (had offered a package worth $973m) was pretty much a done deal, and Codemasters itself had supported the earlier buy-out plan.
There is still a chance that Take-Two could respond with a better offer, and spark a bidding war between the two US gaming giants. This particular race is not won quite yet.
"We believe there is a deeply compelling opportunity in bringing together Codemasters and Electronic Arts to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans," said EA's CEO Andrew Wilson.
The new World of Warcraft expansion scheduled to arrive 23rd of November called "Shadowlands" has set a record number for the amount of pre-orders registered by game developer Activision Blizzard.
Previously the number of active subscribers has doubled since the release of World of Warcraft Classic.
The Chinese gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. reported its net profit for the third quarter surged 89%, thanks to continued strength in its gaming revenue and better cost-efficiency. The Chinese group has a solid pipeline of new games waiting to be released, including a testing launch of a mobile version of League of Legends in Asia last month.
"I think Tencent's fintech focus has been on payment business, and it is quite prudent on lending; the stance is more in compliance with regulations (than rivals)," said Alex Liu, an analyst with China Renaissance.
Apple has removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic Games implemented Thursday its in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s standard 30% fee. Later Thursday Google also removed the game from the Android Play Store.
Epic Games responded with a series of calculated actions, including an antitrust lawsuit claiming Apple's App Store is a monopoly, a video mocking the iconic "1984" Apple ad, and encouraging fans to use #FreeFortnite on their communications with Apple.
Spotify’s spokesman Adam Grossberg said, "We applaud Epic Games' decision to take a stand against Apple and shed further light on Apple's abuse of its dominant position."
Professional skater Tony Hawk has announced that for the new installation of the Tony Hawk skating game, the "mute air" or "mute grab" called trick has been renamed. According to him around 1981 the trick had been invented by Chris Weddle a back then "prominent amateur on the competition circuit". As Weddle is a deaf skater and the other skaters wanted to give credit to the inventor, it became known as "mute air". Hawk states that "we all went along with it in our naive youth".
Hawk states that he has talked to Weddle last year and decided to change the name of the trick to "The Weddle Grab".
Tencent reported on Wednesday results. for the three months through to the end of June. that beat analyst expectations in one of the fastest revenue-growing quarters in two years.
The company is one of the targets of the executive order signed by President Donald Trump, prohibiting any transaction related to WeChat, the popular messaging app owned by Tencent.
Revenue from online games, which accounts for one-third of total sales, increased 40% in the second quarter, primarily driven by mobile games including Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite.
The gaming platform Roblox, announced over the weekend, that it has over 150 million monthly active users. The number is a considerable increase over the 115 million it announced in February during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the Roblox Developer Conference 2020, the company also shared that its developer community will earn over $250 million in 2020, up from the $110 million earned in 2019.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 will launch for PC on August 18, the first release of the franchise since 2014.
The game will come in three versions:
- The standard edition ($59.99) includes 20 planes and 30 airports.
- The deluxe edition ($89.99) adds five planes to the fleet and five additional international airports.
- The premium deluxe edition ($119.99) has a total of 30 planes and 30 airports.
It is possible to pre-order the game now on Windows 10, or pre-install with Xbox Game Pass for PC.
Sony has invested $250 million for a 1.4% stake in Epic Games. With the new investment, the developer behind Fortnite and the Epic Games Store has raised $1.83 billion to date and it is valued at $17.68 billion.
"The investment cements an already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces the shared mission to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially-connected online services," stated Sony, in a press release.
Following the news that AT&T is considering parting ways with Warner Bros., Microsoft is considering acquiring the game division.
The Information reported that Microsoft is not the only one interested in the company; EA, Take-Two and Activision Blizzard are also considering buying WB Interactive and its several development studios (Avalanche Software, Monolith Productions, NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady Studios, TT Games, and many others).
Horizon Zero Dawn prices on PC have increased in some countries most likely as a result of people using VPNs to buy the game from a different country where the game was cheaper due to regional pricing.
Some example include Argentina, Turkey and Russia where the prices increased by 389%, 351% and 301%, respectively.
La Liga will be exclusive to the FIFA game franchise until 2030, Electronic Arts announced it today. The new 10-year agreement is the longest renewal in the partnership between Electronica Arts and La Liga.
The announcement also includes a commitment to grow fandom and esports participation through LaLiga’s official esports competition, eLaLiga Santander.
Epic Games has removed all police cars from Fortnite after the game's latest update, and according to a report on the Wall Street Journal that was a response to Black Lives Matter protests over police violence.
The company was not the first one to acknowledge the movement. Activision delayed the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone‘s fourth season release date as well as adding in a Black Lives Matter loading screen. At the same time, Sony postponed the unveiling event for its highly-anticipated PlayStation 5.
At its PlayStation 5 gameplay even, Sony announced the release of "Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the sequel of 2018's Spider-Man.
The game, expected to be launched alongside the PlayStation 5, will be released in "holiday 2020", so approximately between October and December 2020.
Sony's event to show off new games for its PlayStation 5, launching in the fall, will be on June 11 20:00 (UTC). The event had been delayed to allow more focus on George Floyd protests.
The broadcast will be streamed at 1080p and 30 FPS, instead of 4K and 60 FPS that may be required to showcase what the console has to offer. About this "downgrade" Sony stated: "This eased the show’s production process during a time when many of our team and developers are working from home. The games you'll see on Thursday will look even better when you play them on PS5 with a 4K TV, as you'd expect.".
Epic Games has delayed the next Fortnite event and season once more. A one-time event called The Device is moving from June 6th to June 15th. Chapter 2 Season 3, which will probably feature a flooded map, will start two days after that. The publisher made the call amid widespread anti-racism protests.
Epic Games announced that Chapter 2, Season 3 was delayed once again. Initially planned to be released on April 30, Epic already had pushed the season to June 4 before this latest announcement.
The company said: “In an effort to get everything ready for Chapter 2 - Season 3, we’re extending Season 2 by one week. The new launch day of Season 3 will be Thursday, June 11.”.
Epic Games online store was down on Thursday due to massive traffic after rumours that it was giving the premium edition of "Grand Theft Auto V" for free.
Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, has given away dozens of free titles since their online store launched in December 2018, and the company said in January that it plans to continue to give away free games through 2020.