News Mash-Up - Week # 30

Top News Items

• • Steam, Dota 2, Counter-Strike and EpicGames are some of the video game products now all blocked from operating in Indonesia. They failed to comply with new licensing rules to take down content that was deemed unlawful or that "disturbs public order."
    
    
  • Microsoft released its calendar Q2 2022 results. The Xbox division posted a year-on-year loss of -7% or -$259 million to reach just over $3 billion. Xbox content and services revenue declined by -6% due to lower engagement hours and monetization for both Microsoft and third-party titles. Xbox Hardware revenue declined by -11%.
    
    
  • In its financials for the same period (calendar Q2 2022), Capcom posted a staggering -48% decline compared to last year to reach $184 million. Digital sales for Capcom declined -55%. This tough comp is due to the release of Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Rise which both released in Q2’21.
    
    
  • From the 1st September, Valve is introducing new rules on what developers can include in their graphics on their store page. Valve wants to clean up the store with less “noise.” This means no review scores, award names, discount marketing, graphics promoting a different product, or other miscellaneous text.
    
    
  • Rockstar has pledged that GTA VI  will not offend people and will include a female protagonist for the first time (played by Alexandra Echavarri).
    
    
  • After a month’s delay, Diablo Immortal was finally released in China. In the 2 months since release, the game has already grossed more than $100 million, making it the second fastest mobile game to do so.
    
    
  • Ubisoft will shelve its new free-to-play game Roller Champions. The game just launched in May and will cease to operate sometime later this year.
    
    
  • Although not confirmed by Aspyr, the studio behind the remake of Star Wars KOTOR, the game is rumored to be indefinitely postponed.
    
    
  • 2K Games has delisted WWE 2K17, 2K18, 2K19 and 2K20 from Steam, PSN and Xbox stores. No explanation was given.
    
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• • A new study involving 39,000 participants by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that time spent on video games has no overall effect on the state of a person's well-being. According to the study, the average player would have to play for 10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference, and the reasons for playing were far more likely to have an impact.

Week commencing Monday 25 July 2022