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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we got to try out Civilization VI, Turner gets bullish on esports, and Game of Throne stars hilariously play Overwatch.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair
- The DeanBeat: Doom is a memorable trip back into shooting hell
- Why saying goodbye to the Uncharted series was so hard for Naughty Dog
- Uncharted 4 creators share advice for game developers who want to make blockbusters
- Naughty Dog after Uncharted 4: Does Hollywood beckon?
- A trip down the memory lane of video games at Naughty Dog’s headquarters
- Veteran game analyst Michael Pachter will speak at GamesBeat 2016
- Overwatch is shockingly playable on a laptop without a dedicated graphics card
- How Naughty Dog created the ending of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
- Overwatch is so anime
- Gamified toothbrush maker Grush wins $1 million on America’s Greatest Makers finale
- How Mass Effect was transformed into gaming’s newest theme park attraction
- Why we already love Overwatch
- How Uncharted 4’s Monkey Island Easter egg nearly cracked
- Watch Conan O’Brien’s hilarious Overwatch game session with Game of Thrones stars
- Fraud is mobile gaming’s $6.3B problem — and publishers need to solve it
- Overwatch developers’ guide: How to win without shooting
- Our inspirational GamesBeat Summit ‘lightning round’ talks on lessons for game developers (video)
- Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney still opposes Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (video)
- How FanDuel grew from humble Scottish startup into an American fantasy sports giant
- ‘The Angry Birds Movie’: How Rovio turned its hit game into an animated film
- Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail shows why speaking out on behalf of indies pays off (video)
- Developer’s claim that Thai’s military junta is ‘great’ is about facing down uncertainty
- Robbie Bach’s Xbox journey, from underdog to survivor to civic leader (video)
- Epic Games explains why it’s backing Google Daydream VR
News
- Dark Souls III helps push digital game sales to $6.2B in April
- Minecraft-style Dragon Quest Builders is coming to the West for PlayStation 4 and Vita
- MSI’s new PC puts a wearable VR computer on your back
- HTC is making its first VR game for its Vive headset
- Twitch now has its own tool for making clips from game livestreams
- Nintendo’s underappreciated StarTropics series comes to the Wii U
- WorldViz creates ‘warehouse-scale’ motion-tracking for VR headsets
- PlayStation 4 sales worldwide pass 40 million
- The ‘.game’ domain extension officially opens for business
- Doom keeps terrifying TV viewers, as Uncharted keeps charting in game ads
- Microsoft will reportedly unveil smaller Xbox One and 2 streaming devices at E3, more powerful console in 2017
- Square Enix reveals Marrakesh as latest episode for Hitman’s ‘assassination tourism’
- Inc. Magazine names game maker Arkadium as ‘best place to work’
- Cryengine isn’t open source, but its full code is now up on GitHub
- Game marketing awards honors the best trailers and commercials, like Master Chief’s obituary
- Rocket League’s Xbox One/PC cross-network play goes live today
- YouTube Gaming teams up with host Geoff Keighley for E3
- Goat Simulator, XCOM: Enemy Unknown free for Xbox Live Gold members in June
- The Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine expansion’s new trailer is full of monsters and rock
- Turner’s Eleague will use Faceit to manage its tournaments
- Game academy exhibit opens at The Strong Museum
- The story is false’: ESPN, Riot Games deny $500M League of Legends esports TV deal
- Pac-Man 256 comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC with multiplayer
- With its Vive launch under way, HTC builds the case for VR in your living room
- E3 Live is a new public event that lets fans try unreleased video games
- Facebook buys VR audio company Two Big Ears, debuts ‘Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation’
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End sells 2.7 million copies in one week, beats a PlayStation 4 record
- Here’s when the EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Sony, and Microsoft E3 press briefings start
Mobile and social
- AppsFlyer expands analytics biz into $1.4B Latin American mobile gaming market
- Cost of acquiring app users drops in April as the spring lull hits mobile
- Tapjoy and IronSource to offer monetization services to mobile game and app devs
- Storm8’s Candy Blast Mania adds tournaments, bringing innovation to match-3 games
- ‘Captain America: Civil War’ gives Marvel’s games and media a big spike
- Pokémon Go beta test starts today — here’s how battles work
- Osmo Coding teaches kids to program using blocks and an iPad
- Plants vs. Zombies is a craze in China — but EA’s not seeing a lot of that money
- Versyv’s RiddleVerse awards cash for solving ‘un-Googleable’ riddles
- Skylanders Battlecast launches on iOS, Android in $1.2B digital card market
- Nexon’s Owen Mahoney: Artistry is key to solving mobile gaming’s malaise
Reviews, previews, and interviews
- Doom has us shooting demons like it’s 1993 and loving it
- Hands-on with Civilization VI: This is a very different game
- Why Firaxis decided to make drastic changes to cities in Civilization VI
- Loot Rascals is a quirky alien-killing action game from ex-Hohokum developers
- Twitch CEO describes values driving the company
- Razer Blade Stealth is an attractive alternative to a Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13
- Burnout creators find excitement — and fear — with their first indie, Dangerous Golf
- Why Turner is bullish on esports
- Hitman Go: VR Edition is Square Enix experimenting with virtual reality