Triplepoints of Interest – Oct. 23

In this week’s TPoI, Activision announces the return of Call of Duty World League with a $4.2 million prize pool, Online Forum NeoGAF goes offline following sexual assault allegations, and Microsoft officially discontinues their Kinect webcam.

NeoGAF Briefly Goes Offline Amid Sexual Assault Allegations

The online forum NeoGAF temporarily went offline following sexual assault allegations from Ima Leupp, a film director who worked with NeoGAF owner Tyler Malka. NeoGaf, which Cecilia D’Anastasio of Kotaku wrote, “has had significant influence in the video game industry since its founding in 2004” received criticism from members of the site as well as the general press due to the allegation as well as Malka’s previous behavior. The Verge reports that these allegations made by the producer were shared without her consent and that she intended to make the post as an outlet for her feelings associated with the event. In the follow up to the allegations, The Daily Dot reports that a large portion of the NeoGAF community has moved to a new forum, ResetEra, so that they can no longer support Malka.

Microsoft Discontinues the Kinect

After selling over 35 million units since its 2010 launch, Microsoft has discontinued and shutdown manufacturing for the Kinect depth camera and voice recognition microphone. CO.DESIGN reported in an interview with Microsoft’s Alex Kipman that the device has become a smaller part of Microsoft’s design strategy and that the team wanted to move away from working with it. ZDNet reports that this follows the decision to cancel efforts to bring enhanced voice controls to the Kinect and that other apps for the Xbox One like Netflix and Hulu have also removed Kinect support. The Verge reports that the technology used in the Kinect will continue to be used in products like Microsoft’s augmented reality glasses as well as their mixed reality headsets.

Activision Announces Call of Duty World League with $4.2 Million Prize Pool

Activision announced this week that the Call of Duty World League (or CWL) will return in 2018, with the first event kicking off at the MLG Arena in Columbus during early January. Gamesindustry.biz reports that this year’s league will feature 32 teams from around the world and that there will also be National Circuit tournaments which will offer competitions for teams that didn’t qualify for the CWL. ESPN covered the format changes for this years competition, highlighting that the CWL will now feature two divisions which will compete at the same time in lan settings. Telegraph reports that the near $4.2 prize pool will be spread out throughout the events and that the top team will be awarded a $1.5 prize at the end of the season.