Here be dragons. And a billion-dollar deal.
GamesBeat wrote a lot about dragons this week, be they in the movie theater or behind a dungeon master’s screen. We also saw a key piece of Blizzard’s strategy for its Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft digital card game launch (and we can help you with it if you’re stuck), earnings news (and game delays) from two of gaming’s biggest publishers, and Google taking over another realm of video with its confirmed purchase of Twitch.
And we also read about how some developers react when the rockets and bombs are in real life, not just on the screens of the games they make.
Pieces of Flair
- The DeanBeat: When real-life war intrudes on game developer
- Read+Watch+Listen: Bonus material for The Wolf Among Us fans
- A trip inside the dream factory where they made ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’
- How ‘Dragon 2’ director used the cloud to create gigantic animated fight sequences
- How Dreamworks created a visualization system to prototype scenes for ‘Dragon 2’
- How Dreamworks reinvented animation software to make ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’
- How Dreamworks made ‘Dragon 2’ with the ‘absolute pinnacle of tech’
- The making Dreamworks Animation’s tech wonder: ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’
- The cryptic finale to The Wolf Among Us explained: The Internet’s two best guesses (and one crazy one)
- How Bungie’s Destiny compares to Halo and The World of Warcraft
- Super Smash Bros. demake: Not legit, but it’s free, has online multiplayer, and you can play it now
- Hearthstone: Curse of Naxxramas tips — how to beat the Arachnid Quarter
- Amazon Appstore exec paints one vision of gaming’s future: wearables, cars, and, of course, Fire devices
- How one gaming company is going out of its way to keep its employees happy
- People dress like Tetris shapes and actually accomplish something (kind of)
News
- Xbox boss: Not long before preloading digital games finally hits Xbox One
- Google’s $1B purchase of Twitch confirmed: Joins YouTube for new video empire
- The Titanfall studio is hiring for a game that doesn’t sound like Titanfall
- Oculus VR begins shipping its latest Rift development kit
- GOG.com adds Linux support as the open-source OS continues its march toward gaming relevancy
- Titanfall is getting a ‘black market’ that will enable you to buy burn cards
- Mario Kart 8 and the promise of Smash Bros. and Zelda Wii U lift sagging Nintendo
- Looks like the Steam Controller is evolving again, now sports an analog stick
- Microsoft already as new Xbox One feature updates planned through October
- Like GameStop, EA finds going digital for PS4 and Xbox One is good for its bottom line
- Destiny’s beta getting party stabilization errors on Xbox One. Bungie has a fix
- The Guardians of the Galaxy will land in Disney Infinity 2.0 at launch
- Game-industry acquisition deals turned red hot in the last 12 months (exclusive)
- Hearthstone’s Curse of Naxxramas is out now
- EA delays BioWare’s Dragon Age: Inquisition to Nov. 18, pushes Battlefield Hardline to 2015
- Titanfall gives EA a huge boost for second-quarter earnings
- Microsoft sold 1.1 million Xbox consoles last quarter
- Hearthstone players experiencing ‘Maexxna’ crashes and other bugs in Curse of Naxxramas
- Console and PC game markets doomed to shrink, analyst firm predicts
- Facebook closes Oculus VR acquisition: Let the virtual-reality ‘Liking’ begin
- 10,000-developer survey: 2 percent of coders split staggering 54 percent of all app revenue
Mobile and social
- Kamcord introduces network for gamers to gather and share their mobile gameplay videos
- Trip Hawkins releases second chapter of his If iPad game for teaching kids emotional life skills
- Tango launches secondary offering to let employees sell $8M in stock
- Mobile-games revenue will double by 2017 as growth spreads worldwide (exclusive)
- Samsung Ventures invests in Android microconsole maker Bluestacks
- ‘Hunger Games’ film studio Lionsgate partners with Finland’s Next Games
- After two years, KakaoGame hits 20M monthly active users
- Mobile marketers are turning to video ads to acquire new users (exclusive)
- A big wow for Android: Nivdia launches its Shield Tablet for hardcore mobile gamers
Previews and interviews
The new D&D and Neverwinter: Working in the Realms and our favorite dragons (Part 2)
The new D&D and Neverwinter: Putting dragons back into the world’s most iconic role-playing game (Part 1)
Reviews
Finally, Magic 2015: Duels of the Planeswalkers feels like the real card game