News Mash-Up - Week # 39

Top News Items

• • Day two of the all-digital Tokyo Game Show 2021 included a 45-minute livestream from Xbox. Nine games were highlighted with a focus on GamePass. Xbox also released an accessibility livestream video that detailed new functionality for the physically impaired. Dolby Vision has now been patched for the Xbox Series consoles.

  • The launch of Amazon Studios’s New World has been a huge success on Steam. With 800,000 players, it secured the second highest concurrent Steam player usage on record (following the record set by Counter Strike Global Offensive). Over a million gamers played New World on launch day. Popularity for the game is so high that the game servers strained from excessive demand. Wait times to join a server have, at times, reached over an hour.

  • Gamers have taken to Twitter and Reddit to vent their displeasure with GOG. The release of Hitman on GOG required some degree of online functionality which is not in keeping with the DRM free service by the client platform. As a consequence, the game has been subject to a review bomb on the GOG site due to this .

  • Last week Konami released its free-to-play eFootball 2022 (a once paid for) game to a wave of negative reviews on Steam. Numbering over 15.000 votes, the game is now ranked as the worst game on the Steam platform with over 90% giving it a thumbs down.

  • A $18 million warchest has been made available by Actvision Blizzard for employees who experienced harassment and discrimination at the company. The company is currently under investigation by the California State and the US Securities and Exchange Commission for workplace malpractice.

  • Thailand has officially recognized eSports as an official sport. As a result, eSport “athletes” can apply for government grants.

  • The Chinese government has added even more restrictions on gamers. Now anyone under 16 has been banned from live streaming.

  • Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Bluepoint Games. The studio already makes games for the PlayStation console including the remakes of Demon's Souls, Shadow of the Colossus and the first three Uncharted games. In the last three months, SIE has bought four game studios.

  • StreamElements has acquired YouTube talent agency Paragon. Paragon boasts that over 1 billion views have been made so far this year on their content.

  • Netflix has acquired indie developer Night School Studio, the makers of Oxenfree and Afterparty. The week also saw Netflix expand its mobile game offering to include Spain and Italy after first trailing the service in Poland. Three additional games have been included bringing its roster of games to six.

  • Bandai Namco have released a new logo:

    

New games

Week commencing Monday 4 Oct. 2021