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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we watch people try virtual reality porn for the first time, and we go hands-on with Halo 5. We also reviewed the latest Madden.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: How to get game developers to save the planet
- Cartoon Forum: Animation and video games growing closer than ever
- Save the date: GamesBeat Summit is May 3-4, and GamesBeat 2016 is September 19-20
- Experience ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in a 360-degree first-person video from ILMxLab
- Watch people try virtual reality porn for the first time
- GamesBeat 2015 puts a lens on mobile, motion capture, and virtual reality
- The ‘a-hole’ version of Super Mario World that’s inspiring Mario Maker’s hardest stages
- Game Insight CEO Anatoly Ropotov brings an Eastern European insight to GamesBeat 2015
News
- Divinity: Original Sin 2 nets Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale vet Chris Avellone
- How John Carmack pestered Microsoft to let him make Minecraft for Gear VR
- Everything Oculus announced today: $99 Gear VR, Touch release date, Minecraft, and more
- Here’s the one VR concept that the smartest people at Oculus admit they’re nowhere near figuring out
- FanDuel acquires AlphaDraft to get into esports
- Epic Games reveals Oculus Rift shooter Bullet Train
- TBS will air esports as Turner creates new league
- Oculus Touch will not ship alongside the Rift
- Minecraft comes to Oculus Rift
- Samsung and Oculus unveil new Gear VR, available in November for $99
- The Sims boss Lucy Bradshaw is leaving Electronic Arts
- Star Wars: Battlefront beta’s launch date is October 8
- Call of Duty gets a worldwide esports league from Activision
- Roblox comes to Xbox One, joins Minecraft in the growing player-made content space on consoles
- The Escapists: The Walking Dead arrives on Xbox One and PC next week
- Voxelus launches content creation platform that lets anyone create VR apps
- Nvidia kicks off Early Stage Challenge with $100K prize for best GPU startup
- PlayStation Network is down once again for many gamers
- Oculus VR warns fans to not expect Rift preorders and more at Connect developer event
- DraftKings brings its daily-fantasy sports empire to esports
- Watch the Angry Birds Movie’s first trailer — at least it doesn’t have any Minions
- Green Man Gaming to sell Nintendo digital games in the U.K.
- Payday 2 producer apologizes to frustrated console players — promises fix for Xbox One matchmaking
- Microsoft has updated the Xbox website with new features
- Here’s Fallout 4’s cinematic-sounding main theme
- Esports betting hub Unikrn buys statistics company DotaProHub
- Hitman delayed to March 2016
- ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ will have No Man’s Sky and PewDiePie on next week
- PC classic System Shock now on GOG in an Enhanced Edition
- Gamers no longer trust developers on security safeguards
- Nvidia launches latest high-end 3D graphics chip for gaming laptops
- Jonathan Blow’s The Witness has a puzzle ‘almost nobody’ will ever solve
- Minecraft developer pushes out update to ‘hopefully fix’ framerate problems on PC
- Cartoon Network launches Adventure Time virtual reality game for Samsung Gear VR
- How to stream games from your Nvidia GTX-powered PC to any Chrome browser
- Unity’s Rob Pardo describes the future of multiplayer
- Epic Games debuts documentary series to help you understand virtual reality
- Made With Unity platform launched to get your game discovered — ‘better than paying $15’ per user
- Unity touts new services for game developers for monetization, analytics, and discovery
- A million developers used the Unity game engine in August
- Unity’s Cloud Build is coming to PC, Mac, and Linux — features now free for all
Mobile and social
- How Sega drafted Demiurge for the frontlines of the match-3 mobile war
- Subway Surfers sails past 1 billion downloads
- How Toca Boca got 100M mobile downloads by putting kids first
- Shadow Fight 2 developer Nekki looks to maintain momentum as it surpasses 250M mobile installs
- QuizUp jumps into user-generated content with player-made quizzes
- Disney Infinity 3.0 lands on mobile today
- Why Boomlagoon is ditching casual games for Spirit Hunter’s card-slinging wizard
- Mobcrush launches mobile game streaming on Android to take on Twitch and Kamcord
- Kids abandon PC gaming for mobile devices
- Mobile user acquisition: Ad networks teaming up in ‘Collective’ to share data on mobile gamers
- Animoca Brands signs deal with Tencent to distribute a mobile game in Asia
- Playboy and Gamblit Gaming partner to make real-money betting mobile games
- iPro launches fantasy sports play-by-play predictions with Ringit!
- All aboard. The India mobile game train is about to depart
- Command & Conquer co-creator shows off Kixeye’s War Commander: Rogue Assault strategy game on mobile
Previews and interviews
- Hands-on with Halo 5: Guardians — Arena mode could turn into an esport
- Exploring Siberia in Rise of the Tomb Raider gameplay video
- How Lara Croft celebrates female empowerment and adventure in Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Rise of the Tomb Raider shows Lara Croft as an intellectual as well as an action hero
- Halo 5: Guardians’ executive producer explains Master Chief’s arrival on Xbox One
- Microsoft’s Phil Spencer on the importance of Halo 5 to the fate of the Xbox One
- Hands-on with Halo 5: Guardians: Campaign takes us in search of Master Chief
Reviews and impressions
- Madden NFL 16 review: Bending it like Beckham (Jr.)
- Evoland II is a grand-scale mashup of generations of games
- Star Wars: Uprising shows an ambitious multiplayer game can succeed on mobile
- Stern Pinball Arcade ensures you don’t have to drain your savings to own a classic machine
- World of Warships impressions: Damn torpedoes
- Persona 4: Dancing All Night is a sublime blend of rhythm game and story-driven teen-sleuthing
- FIFA 16 impressions: It’s got game-changing potential — but it needs more practice