TriplePoints of Interest – Week of May 1

Breaking a record is usually an admirable feat and often desired outcome, but Activision might not be too happy with its latest record. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s newest trailer just became the most disliked gaming video on YouTube. On a more positive note though, Oculus is shipping off a few Rifts into stores and YouTube just announced cable bundles for streaming. So that evens it out, right?  Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of May 1

TriplePoints of Interest – Week of April 25

Big steps are being taken in the games industry as the market expands into film and sports. Blizzard celebrates the launch of Whispers of the Old Gods with impressive player numbers, Valve and Lionsgate partner up, and ESL starts its own channel for eSports fanatics. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal is getting ready to add some Pandas and Dragons into their line-up.  Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of April 25

TriplePoints of Interest – Week of April 18

This week, the Clash Royale-playing contingent of TriplePoint PR is devastated that a former low level colleague of ours has ABANDONED our clan. Something about not donating enough giants…we were all ignoring his near-incessant requests for high level cards anyways.

But, in all seriousness, this week’s TPoI is full of developer outrage, VR eSports, and the continued growth of mobile gaming!

Mobile Games Make Money, Lots of It

According to an industry report from Newzoo BV, mobile games are forecasted to generate more revenue that PC and console games in 2016. The Wall Street Journal reports that this will be the first year that mobile games overtake traditional games in revenue, and that mobile platforms will make for 37% of all software sales world-wide this year.

Games Industry Outrage on the Internet – Developer Edition!

Game industry vet Alex St. John penned a byline in VentureBeat this week shaming game developers’ “wage-slave” attitude and criticizing devs who complain about crunch and being overworked. This sparked much outrage in the games space, with many coming out to challenge his arguments – Rami Ismael of indie studio Vlambeer penned a line-by-line retort, and St. John’s own daughter even described his comments as “vile”. One particularly interesting topic that this has kicked off is that of video game developers potentially unionizing to help promote a healthy work-life balance and avoid the dreaded crunch.

eSports + VR = PlayStation VR?

Writing in Fortune, John Gaudiosi writes that Sony is thinking about virtual reality eSports in advance of the October launch of PlayStation VR. While there are no specific plans for VR eSports content just yet, Sony is starting to talk up the eSports potential for VR games like RIGS, a futuristic mech combat game.

TriplePoints of Interest – Week of April 11

This week in TPOI, Nostalrius, a private legacy server for WoW, shut down to the dismay of its many players. Rust also stirred up a bit of controversy by randomly assigning genders and races to players, but still managed to keep up its outstanding sales numbers. Oh and ESPN has also started investing in drone racing.

Goodbye, Nostalrius

World of Warcraft’s largest private server, Nostalrius, closed on Sunday night after receiving a cease-and-desist order from Blizzard earlier that week. According to Blizzard, private servers violate the company’s terms of use. The popular server, run solely by enthusiastic volunteers, was known for their support of a vanilla version of WoW and boasted over 150,000 active accounts. The forced closure drew a significant amount of backlash from the community and many felt that Blizzard should have supported the nonprofit fan project despite the illegal nature of the server, reports BBC. According to Polygon, in the days leading up to the closure, many players paid tribute to Nostalrius through a pilgrimage march from Orgrimmar to Thunder Bluff, while other fans posted footage of the crowds that gathered for the server’s final moments.

Rust Throws Gender and Race into the Mix

Rust, a multiplayer survival game still in Steam Early Access,has found itself in a strange intersection between controversy and impressive success. The game recently introduced an update that randomly assigned players a race and gender (mixing up the completely white, male character population it had earlier). The change has received both extreme criticism and praise from the community. Developer Garry Newman posted an interesting article on the feedback received after the update in The Guardian. Despite all this, Rust has reported hit 3.5 million in game sales, reports GamesIndustry, heralded as “a paragon of the creative potential of Early Access”.

ESPN Gets Their Drone Racing On

Drone racing is getting serious. ESPN has recently signed a broadcast deal with the International Drone Racing Association. Drone racing features fast-flying drones that navigate through preset courses, while racers don head-mounted displays that show them the view from the drone’s front camera. The network will stream the 2016 Drone Racing Championships on ESPN3, with an hour-long special on ESPN2 and potential other channels. Tech Crunch notes that drone racing may someday get its own vertical, much like ESPN’s efforts with eSports like DotA 2 and League of Legends

TriplePoints of Interest – Week of March 7

The games industry is a tumultuous one. Competition is fierce and studios have to keep up with the times or find themselves left in the dust. This week, Fable Legends was deemed unworthy by Microsoft Studios and was canceled, Riot Games looked to expand their portfolio by acquiring Radiant Entertainment, and the new launch of The Division breaks Ubisoft’s sales records.  Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of March 7

TriplePoints of Interest – Week of February 29

 

The Dota 2 Shanghai Major is taking place this week, but not without a few bumps and drama. With Valve’s public firing of 2GD and laggy streams, the tournament has definitely managed to turn a few heads…In more positive news, two gaming companies have made Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For list and Yahoo opens up its own eSports vertical. 

Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of February 29