Triplepoints of Interest: Jan.29

In this week’s TPoI, GDC withdraws award for Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, Ubisoft cancels Rainbow Six Siege price hike, and EA CEO Andrew Wilson defends the company’s current games lineup.   

GDC Rescinds Pioneer Award for Nolan Bushnell Due to Past Sexual Misconduct  

The Game Developers Conference announced in a blog post on Tuesday the recipients for the special awards at the event, Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail, Double Fine Founder Tim Schafer, and Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell’s nomination for the award drew a huge amount of criticism from members of the industry, which The Verge collected and featured in an article which detailed reports of Nolan harassing and sexually exploiting women. Glixel reports that GDC acknowledged the feedback and has decided to rescind his Pioneer Award nomination. Nolan Bushnell also came out with a message on his Twitter account praising the conference’s decision to rescind the award and has apologized for his past transgressions.  

Ubisoft Withdraws Rainbow Six Siege Price Hike In Response to Community Backlash

Ubisoft’s tactical first person shooter Rainbow Six Siege has built up a large community over the last 3 years, with the game receiving regular updates and re releases throughout the game’s lifespan. While fans have generally enjoyed the updates that Ubisoft have brought to the game, a recent price increase announcement drew criticism from the community. Gamesindustry.biz explained that the price increase would affect all retail copies and would raise the price of the base game from $40 to $60. Paste Magazine reports that the developers have retracted their decision and are now offering rewards for player who play before the next content expansion as a way to give back to the community.

EA CEO Defends Company Line Up

During the company’s quarterly earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson reportedly defended the studio’s recent releases, praising his employees for their hard work and the diversity of content they have put out. Kotaku reports that while critical reviews of Electronic Arts recent releases haven’t been overwhelmingly positive and some titles have underperformed, EA’s stock as continued to rise and the company plans to continue developing new titles while employing the same design strategies. Variety recently covered the company’s decision to reintroduce microtransactions into the controversial title Star Wars: Battlefront II so that it aligns with their current design strategy. While the company has prospered and generated lots of revenue due to big budget launches and microtransaction sales, this has come at the cost of their image, with Comicbook.com reporting that EA was named one of the worst companies in the world in Wall Street’s newest ranked lists, which cross references customer satisfaction surveys, employee reviews, and the American Customer Satisfaction Index to find out which companies are disliked the most.  

Triplepoints of Interest – Sept. 25

In this week’s TPoI, Atari releases more information about their new Ataribox console, YouTube changes policies on external links for non-monetized users, and Bluehole confirms negotiations with Tencent.

Atari Unveils Details on the Ataribox

Atari sent a newsletter Tuesday morning with details on their upcoming Ataribox retro gaming console, including details on the hardware and initial pricing. TechCrunch reports that the system will run Linux and will be powered by a customized AMD processor and Radeon graphics processing unit. These components, which SegmentNext reports are very similar to parts used in traditional PCs, allow the Ataribox to run modern games as well as arcade classics. The Verge reports that preorders for the system will begin this fall on Indiegogo and that the system will start at $249 and could go up to $299.

YouTube Restricts External Links for Non-Partners

Non-partnered YouTubers have recently been reporting that they are no longer able to post links to online merchandise stores, personal websites, and their crowdfunding platforms. A representative from YouTube told Polygon that the site is changing their external links policy to “combat inappropriate and abusive content.” Engadget reports that this policy change affects non-partnered YouTube channels and that a YouTube channel needs 10,000 views before it can be considered for partnership, a number which many smaller content creators are struggling to meet. VentureBeat mentioned that this change follows YouTube’s recent demonetization policy changes and the decreased advertising revenue which many content creators are struggling with.

Bluehole Begins Business Negotiations with Tencent

South Korean developer, Bluehole Software confirmed on Thursday that they are talking with Chinese publisher Tencent about publishing PlayerUknown’s Battlegrounds in China. Gamesindustry.biz reports that while Bluehole had previously denied rumors of the partnership plans but that Bluehole chairman and cofounder Chang Byung-gyu has now announced that Tencent is interested in buying an equity stake in the company to help encourage development.  Bloomberg reports that Bluehole, which is now worth over $4.6 billion dollars, is interested in expanding the feature set of their game and launching it before the end of 2017. PCGamesN reports that Tencent has now purchased a 5% share in the company and is planning to buy a larger stake in the company in the future.