News Mash-Up - Week # 9

Top News Items

• • As war between Russia on Ukraine intensifies, the video game industry has responded.
    Microsoft, Nintendo, Activision, EA, CD Projekt have all suspended sales in Russia. PlayStation has temporarily stopped sales of Gran Turismo 7 on its Russian PSN store. Steam reseller Kinguin has discontinued sales in Russia. German Esports organizer ESL said it would block Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Russian teams Virtus.pro and Gambit from competing in the ESL Pro League in June. Donations to Ukrainian charities have been pledged from The Embracer Group, Activision, Unity, GSC Game World, Bohemia Interactive, 11 Bit Studios, Pokémon Company, CD Projekt, SEGA and from other numerous smaller studios and development houses.

  • The Steam Deck has been released with some preorders being met. Valve has promised that by April, “hundreds of thousands” of orders will be honoured. Valve expects production to "ramp very quickly" as it continues "surmounting" the initial supply chain issues that led to Steam Deck's delay last year.

  • Luna, Amazon’s cloud-based game streaming service, is now live in the US after its beta “invite only” test run. The streaming service offers 3 subscription tiers. Family Channel (monthly price $3) gives Prime members access to several family and children games. Retro Channel (monthly price $5) offers older console games. Luna+ (monthly price $6) is the premium service with newer games. The Luna Controller is also available on the market for $50. Luna will be playable on all app devices (including Apple) as well as Chromebooks, PC and Firestick.

  • FIFA 23, expected later this year, will feature cross-play across PC, Xbox and PlayStation consoles. This will be the first FIFA title to include cross-play.

  • Tencent acquired a minority stake in Offworld Industries. The Canadian company is famous for making multiplayer games such as Squad, Beyond The Wire and Post Scriptum.

  • Epic Games acquired Bandcamp, the online music store that targets music fans and communities. The music store prides itself on the business model that 82% of transaction revenue is passed on to artist concerned. Bandcamp put out a statement that its independence will continue under Epic’s ownership.

  • The London Games Festival between 1 and 10 April 2022 will be a physical held event after the last 2 years of it being a digital only event. The last physical event in 2019 saw up to 97,000 attendees. 2022 will mark the seventh London Games Festival since the event was revived in 2016.
    

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Week commencing Monday 7 March 2022