TriplePoints of Interest – Week of August 15

Photo credit: Twitch.

This week’s TriplePoints of Interest features Twitch’s acquisition of Curse, Facebook and Unity are creating a gaming platform, Paragon’s open beta is playable on PS4 and PC, and Blizzard trolls “gg ez” trolls in Overwatch.

Twitch acquired popular video game community and software maker Curse

Twitch revealed in a blog post that they’ve acquired a significant player in the video game industry: Curse, a a global multimedia and tech company. Curse is well-known for a service called Curse Voice, which lets players chat with each other while playing online games. Numbers provided by Curse reveal that its website has 32 million monthly unique visitors, one billion monthly page views, and has 16 million registered viewers. Not to forget, Twitch is the property of online shopping giant Amazon (acquired in 2014). TechCrunch says that details in the acquisition were not disclosed beyond the official announcement. As for the newly combined Twitch/Curse team, culturally it’s a logical fit … and it makes absolute sense!

Facebook is partnering with Unity for a desktop gaming platform

The Unity game engine is teaming up with Facebook to create an all-new gaming platform, tapping into the social network’s huge 650 million gaming audience. In addition, CNET says that the partnership seeks to broaden the Facebook experience for gamers. Starting today, game developers can apply until August 31st for instant access to a limited alpha of a version of Unity 5.4 that will allow them to build and export games to Facebook’s website and desktop app.Through this partnership, it looks like Facebook plans to bring gamers’ attention back to its service.

Paragon now free to all as open beta goes live

Epic Games’ Paragon is now in open beta and available for anyone with a PS4 or Windows PC to play, says Polygon. Announced in 2015, Paragon is a multiplayer online battle arena game that pits teams of five players against one another in a series of lane-based battles. There are currently 20 heroes in Paragon’s roster, spreading across six classes: tanks, assassins, rangers, casters, and support. Alongside the move to open beta, Epic Games announced that they will be releasing a new hero in the game every three weeks. Similar to its competitors League of Legends and Smite, Paragon is free to play at a base level with cosmetic items available as in-game purchases.

Blizzard replaces “gg ez” trolling in Overwatch with embarrassing alternatives

IGN reported that if you type “gg ez” into Overwatch’s chat, Blizzard will replace your poor sportsmanship with a funnier (and oftentimes more embarrassing) phrase. The update for the Public Test Realm (PTR) has replacement statements such as, “Well played. I salute you all,” “I’m wrestling with some insecurity issues in my life but thank you all for playing with me,” and “Mommy says people my age shouldn’t suck their thumbs.” Will this feature make it into the final patch? Hopefully, because fans are having quite a bit of fun!