Hello, and welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This week, Final Fantasy XV knocks our socks off (and we show you how to get around, level up, and make money faster, too!), Hearthstone’s Mean Streets of Gadetzan launches (and we opened a ton of cards from the expansion), and The Game Awards showed off a bunch of trailers — and got muted on YouTube, too.
We also looked at how BioWare Austin continues to spin a Star Wars yarn that’s independent of the new canon, the birth of a new gaming platform on Facebook Messenger, and how Super Mario Go may not be the instant hit that Pokémon has been in mobile.
Opinions and pieces of flair
- The DeanBeat: The gaming world is flat, but you can tilt it in your direction
- PlayStation VR headsets in Japan live in cute little prisons
- Watch us get a little silly as we open 59 Mean Streets of Gadgetzan card packs in Hearthstone
- Assassin’s Creed film gets a companion experience for VR
- I’m going to miss Hearthstone’s vanilla Arena meta
- No Man’s Sky is better — but the Foundation update might be too late
- Does Final Fantasy XV make a good first impression? GamesBeat Decides
- The Japanese take their Final Fantasy XV quite seriously
- HTML5 is the next $100 billion game platform
- Final Fantasy XV tips for faster travel, easy leveling, and making money
- Minority Report science advisor builds the most awesome conference room
- PlayStation leads console brands’ ongoing stranglehold on fall TV
- How Star Wars: The Old Republic keeps rolling in a universe outside of the movies
News
- YouTube has muted The Game Awards due to a copyright claim
- Star Wars: The Old Republic launches Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion
- Dauntless is a free-to-play take on Monster Hunter from ex-BioWare and Riot devs
- Star Wars holochess-inspired AR game Hologrid: Monster Battle hits closed beta
- Blizzard fixes Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan pack bug and will compensate players
- Wargaming tanks up its mobile arm with Boomlagoon acquisition
- Oculus Touch: 53 launch window games for the new motion controllers
- Square Enix: Final Fantasy XV is the fastest-selling game ever for the series
- Hearthstone’s Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion is now live in the Americas
- Annapurna Pictures forms studio to bring storytelling of films like Her to video games
- Osterhout Design Group raises $58 million for augmented reality smartglasses
- Gears of War 4 is testing crossplay between Xbox One and PC
- Pokémon Sun and Moon are Nintendo’s fastest-selling games ever in the Americas
- Halo gets esports reality show from ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ creators
- Games of Glory is a competitive top-down team shooter coming to PlayStation 4
- PS Plus games December 2016: Invisible, Inc., VVVVVV, and more
- Ark: Survival Evolved will launch on PlayStation 4 on December 6
- Red Dead Redemption coming to PS4 and PC thanks to PS Now streaming
- Pokémon Sun and Moon are November’s top-selling games at online U.S. retailers
- Ark Park takes Ark: Survival Evolved and turns it into a VR dino school
- Lego’s Minecraft-like Worlds will leave Early Access and launch on consoles and Steam in February
- Universal will bring Nintendo attractions to its theme parks in Hollywood, Osaka, and Orlando
- PlayStation 4 beats Xbox One for the top-selling electronics product on Cyber Monday in the U.S.
- Tilting Point launches $12 million user-acquisition fund for mobile-game devs
- Xbox beat PlayStation as the top-selling console online on Black Friday in the U.S.
- Eleague’s season two Counter-Strike playoffs start November 30
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will appear at Thursday’s Game Awards
- Hitman gets update to improve offline play
- Konami stokes PES 2017’s esports ambitions with a free-to-play version
- Hearthstone’s Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion launches December 1
- Joint venture aims to take live esports events to bigger stages
- Pokémon Go could get a huge December update with 100 new creatures
Mobile and social
- Transformers: Forged to Fight coming to iOS and Android in spring 2017
- Minecraft developer Mojang looks back on 5 years of the Pocket Edition as it prepares version 1.0
- Pokémon Go leads list of Google Play’s top trending games of 2016
- PlayFab raises $3.1 million for back-end service for game developers
- Iam8bit announces game-related art showcase for the Game Developers Conference
- Super Evil Megacorp starts team-franchise program to energize Vainglory’s esports scene
- Skillz introduces brand-sponsored tournaments for its mobile esports games
- Marvel: Contest of Champions reached No. 1 on the iPhone top-grossing chart for the first time
- Plarium launches sequel to Soldiers Inc. on mobile devices
- Angry Birds maker Rovio spins off Hatch, a subscription video game streaming service for mobile
- Game Insight invests over $5 million on Facebook Messenger Instant Games
- Big Viking Games unveils $10 million fund for Facebook’s new HTML5 Messenger Instant Games
- Facebook brings ‘instant’ HTML5 games like Pac-Man to your News Feed and Messenger
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- How Nokia broke into virtual reality with its Orzo camera
- How Montreal’s Behaviour Interactive moved up the food chain from outsourcing to making original games
- Octogeddon’s eight-armed destructive gameplay is hilarious
- Logitech’s G933 Artemis Spectrum Snow is one of the best all-around gaming headsets
- Why Nintendo’s Super Mario Run may not have the same instant success as Pokémon Go
- Final Fantasy XV is a beautiful, big adventure about the bond of brothers
- The Turtle Beach Stream Mic is a good idea with poor audio
- Razer Ornata Chroma keyboard’s faux-click makes for an amazing typing experience
- Razer ManO’War 7.1 gaming headset is for gamers who want to step up their audio quality