Join the Leaders Making Gaming’s Next Big Deals. GamesBeat NEXT brings 500+ executives, CEOs, founders, and investors to San Francisco, November 2–3, to shape the future of gaming, entertainment, and AI. Connect with industry leaders, forge strategic partnerships, and close deals that move business forward. Be in the room. Get your ticket.
Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we reviewed the Xenoblade Chronicles port to the 3DS, we took a good look at the new free-to-play shooter Dirty Bomb, and Halo is going free-to-play … in Russia.
You’ll find all of that and more below. Have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Even for a second-generation game designer, being an indie is a survival journey
- Check out the agenda for the first-ever GamesBeat Summit
- We tour Square Enix’s awesome HQ since you probably never will
- GamesBeat Summit explores the bold ideas of gaming (May 5-May 6)
- Why Halo is going free-to-play on PC in Russia
- How Nintendo can capitalize on in-app advertising without annoying players
- The worst ideas you never saw in EverQuest — like the muffin zone
- Girls get kiddie tablets, boys get game consoles — researchers say tech gender bias starts with parents
- Show you care and save Konami’s franchises (or at least have a laugh with this parody)
- A 10-year-old designs Gunman Taco Truck with help from legendary gaming parents
News
- Hearthstone’s Blackrock Mountain expansion gets April 2 release date
- Purdue scientists say that a virtual nose may keep motion sickness at bay (update)
- Grand Theft Auto V graphics downgrade: Rockstar is ‘investigating a fix’
- GameStop misses earnings — will reduce game store count by 3%
- No, Facebook did not say the Oculus Rift will arrive this year
- More than 20 universities sign on to the Open Source Virtual Reality Academia program
- Crowfall finishes Kickstarter campaign well ahead of goal — but it will still take your money
- Halo Online’s first trailer — the Russia-only PC game is Halo 3 tech with more maps
- Oculus chief scientist says we’re all going to care about virtual reality
- Xbox One is costing gamers $250M a year, according to environmental group
- Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove passes funding goal on Kickstarter
- Evolve’s digital sales haven’t benefited from all of that downloadable content
- 10 years on, Half-Life 2 gets a major graphics update on Steam
- Smite’s first year sees it inching closer to MOBA elite League of Legends, Dota 2
- Microsoft on Minecon and Minecraft: ‘We want to listen, learn, and be inspired’
- Game of Thrones’ Arya and Sansa Stark on Gamergate: Don’t feed the trolls
- Andreessen Horowitz invests $20M in startup Improbable to build massive simulated game worlds
- New Evolve patch weakens its strongest monster
- Sweden’s Stugan game accelerator takes shape
- PS4 system update 2.50 arrives this week; adds capability to suspend and resume games
- Dota 2 makes $18M per month for Valve — but League of Legends makes that much every 5 days
- New texture pack makes Minecraft obnoxiously colorful
- Bloodborne fans on PC start a petition — but Sony has already said it won’t port it
- From Software working to fix Bloodborne’s long load times
- Change your Twitch password — streaming site warns of possible hack (update)
- Nintendo CEO: Zelda Netflix story was ‘not based on correct information’
- Batman: Arkham Knight suffers a (tiny) delay
- Going digital with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D? Then you’d better get a new memory card
Mobile and social
- Brave Frontier publisher Gumi of Japan announces layoffs just three months after IPO
- Supercell dreamed up that $9 million Clash of Clans Super Bowl ad in a hot tub
- Playstudios recruits Shaquille O’Neal to pump up its social casino games
- Fast & Furious: Legacy brings all seven films to one mobile game
- This iPad racing gadget is crazier than the Mario Kart Wii Wheel
- Memorado raises $3.3M to become a brain-training game leader
- In Tree Story mobile game, you nurture virtual seedlings and plant trees in the real world
- Compass Point: West is Next Games’s debut, mixes strategy, card-collecting, and cowboys
- Scopely teams up with Kung Fu Factory to make a series of mobile games
- UCool’s Super Bowl ad game Heroes Charge is ‘cut-and-dried’ case of copyright infringement
- Facebook has paid out $8B to developers
- Clash of Clans developer Supercell’s revenues tripled in 2014
- How to land one of the biggest fish in gaming: The story of Nintendo’s new mobile partner, DeNA
- Square Enix taps DeNA for its free-to-play expertise for Final Fantasy: Record Keeper
- How one studio is finding repeated success with Flappy Bird-style games
- Game Marketing Awards to honor game ads that get you laughing — and buying
Previews and interviews
- Dirty Bomb turns war into an e-sport (hands-on video)
- How Splash Damage crafted Dirty Bomb into a modern online shooter for Western hardcore fans
- Splash Damage puts your trigger-finger to the test in frenetic shooter Dirty Bomb (hands-on preview)
- At Facebook’s F8, Messenger Platform excites developers who see the boost it may give their apps
- Firewatch turns a boring wilderness job into a compelling adventure
- A face-to-face demo of Facebook’s Teleportation virtual reality app
- Controlling this game with my mind almost drove me crazy
- The new Unreal Tournament is a shooter — and a teaching tool
Reviews
- In Pillars of Eternity, you choose, and the world responds (review in progress)
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3D: One of the best Wii role-playing games is better on a portable console
- Game of Thrones: Episode 3 starts slow but finishes bloody strong
- Bloodborne is a fantastically demented test of player skill and patience (review in progress)
- Dying Light’s Hard mode and developer support make a good game even better (review)