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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Splatoon is still selling well for Nintendo, Blizzard considers a Warcraft 4, and we discuss why 20 million downloads doesn’t necessarily make Angry Birds 2 a success.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Casual Connect shows that the game business is a daily Darwinian struggle
- Here’s what Final Fantasy VII looks like as a 2D action game
- Square Enix needs to give Dragon Quest XI a chance in the West
- How Microsoft built, and is still building, Windows 10
- Want to wall-mount your PlayStation 4? There’s a rack for that — and it looks and works great
- Making VR games is tough when you’re living in Brazil — just ask this former pie seller
- A racing wheel makes driving sims — and learning to drive — much more realistic
- World of Warcraft: Legion — Will the ‘kitchen sink’ expansion save Warcraft or kill it?
- China’s game console problem and where the real opportunity is
News
- July 2015 NPD: Lack of new games doesn’t hurt industry — or PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 4 tops console and software sales in July
- Nintendo: Wii U game (not console) sales are up 10% thanks to Splatoon
- Digital game sales generate more than $1B in July thanks to mobile and Steam’s online store
- Dying Light surpasses 5M copies sold, continuing to boost Warner’s 2015 numbers
- Xbox Live down for many on Xbox One and 360
- Dozens of Grand Theft Auto: Online players banned as Rockstar cracks down on cheaters
- How Super Mario Maker will avoid overwhelming new players
- Western developers may bag just a 20% revenue share in China — and it may be worth it
- Capcom is doing a Resident Evil 2 Remake
- Blizzard will consider new Warcraft RTS after StarCraft II
- Divinity: Original Sin II coming to Kickstarter
- Big Rocket League patch adds new map and spectator mode
- You won’t be playing The Witcher 3 with the $300 portable Steam Machine
- Ex-Disney chief Michael Eisner tells game companies that content rules, not the medium
- Watching games may soon be more popular than playing them thanks to esports
- How to get into the Call of Duty: Black Ops III multiplayer beta
- Heroes of the Storm gets a $100K BlizzCon qualifer tournament in Las Vegas
- Cloud-gaming startup Shinra launches its Kansas City test
- Otoy’s new CG rendering tech provides more tools for creators of virtual reality experiences
- Halo 5 is the first game in the series to get a Teen rating
- Hearthstone makes $20 million a month — that’s more than Dota 2
- Hearthstone leads digital card games as they become ‘a dominant category,’ SuperData finds
- Another gaming Kickstarter project goes under, taking Belgian studio Grin with it
- Civilization series tops 31M games sold
- Take-Two plans new ‘triple-A’ mystery titles for release in future
- Grand Theft Auto V hits 54 million copies in lifetime sales
- Take-Two blows past revenue targets but misses on earnings
- Galaxy on Fire devs launch Kickstarter for rougelike 3D space shooter
- This Kickstarter project wants to put the International Space Station’s view of Earth in your VR helmet
- Germany’s Gamescom draws 345K visitors to one of world’s largest video game trade shows
- Rare Replay hits the No. 1 sales spot in the U.K.
- The Evil Geniuses score $6.6M prize as winners of the Dota 2 International Championships
- Blizzard registers ‘Compete’ trademark for an esports product
- Google Cloud challenges Amazon for the hearts of game startup CTOs
- Lionsgate enlists Starbreeze to make a virtual realty game based on John Wick film
- Heroes of the Storm is changing how it ranks and matches players
Mobile and social
- King shares down 8% in after-hours trading as Wall Street reacts to weak outlook
- 20M downloads doesn’t necessarily make Angry Birds 2 a success
- Mobile measurement companies greet Facebook’s retreat with relief
- Fallout Shelter is now available on Android devices
- Ingress developer Niantic Labs is no longer a Google company following Alphabet shakeup
- Pocket Gems launches Demi Lovato interactive story inside Episode app
- Here be dragons: Four lessons we learned creating our first hardcore mobile game
- How Angry Birds publisher Rovio maximizes organic installs via A/B testing
- This service tells you what Supercell, Machine Zone, and other big publishers spend on user acquisition
- Final Fantasy writer’s mobile role-playing game Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey ditches free-to-play
- You can buy Paris Hilton virtual goods in Star Girl mobile game
- Angry Birds publisher Rovio Entertainment appoints new head of its media business
- Khronos wins support from Google Android for its Vulkan graphics API
- Vainglory creator Super Evil Megacorp raises $26M for hardcore mobile gaming
- Kabam’s Kevin Chou on setting a strategy to win in global mobile gaming
- 10 free Google Cardboard apps you need to try out
- The return of Mark Pincus: His impact on social gaming giant Zynga after 100 days
Reviews, previews, and interviews
- Galak-Z: The Dimensional is a rare forward-thinking nostalgia ‘star trek’
- Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has a heart-wrenching story that’s tough to watch
- PlanetSide 2 on PlayStation 4 offers complex, rewarding battles — but only if you have time for it
- Heroes of the Storm adding StarCraft’s Medic as support character, changes to maps and heroes (exclusive interview)