Become a member of GB MAX to gain exclusive access to the industry and to the most influential global B2B leadership community in the business of gaming, entertainment, and tech. Join now and also get a VIP ticket to GamesBeat Next (Nov 2-3, SF).
Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! We’re still catching up from last week’s E3 in Los Angeles with tons of interviews, previews, and other coverage (including our non-awards). Elsewhere, Batman: Arkham Knight had a rough launch on PC, and Square Enix loses a chairman.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
E3 2015
- The DeanBeat: E3 signaled a bright future for gaming
- Rare Replay celebrates the historic studio’s past — and future
- Eve: Valkyrie is the Star Wars VR game I’ve always wanted
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Best consensual groping on the show floor
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Oops, it did it again — the cursed Uncharted 4 stage demo
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: The Best dumb reasons to get excited about Super Mario Maker
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Worst Star Fox game I think I’m still going to buy
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Best VR introduction I could have hoped for
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: Best Mega Man game that isn’t a Mega Man game
- GamesBeat’s E3 non-awards: The Last Guardian looks so last generation
- Animal Crossing director on how Amiibo influenced new games
- Firaxis and 2K show off XCOM 2 gameplay
- E3 2015: The GamesBeat staff’s Games of the Show awards
- Oculus chief explains the secret to fun VR games and how to make them just right (interview)
- Unravel showed me something I don’t remember ever seeing before in a video game
- Xbox One won E3, according to Amazon U.K. and social-network data
- The best (and dumbest) jokes, memes, and GIFs from E3 2015
- Why Star Wars: Battlefront is one of our most anticipated games from E3 2015
- Xenoblade Chronicles X’s director on building an RPG for multiple audiences
- Heroes of the Storm devs on the MOBA’s future, new heroes, and Overwatch
- Blizzard will wrap up 17 years of storytelling in StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
- Total War: Warhammer will deliver giant battles with thousands of soldiers
- Hands-on with Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s new specialists: Prophet and Nomad
- How No Man’s Sky creator is using clever tech to build a truly indie game universe
- Our nutty and cool images from a week at E3 (photo gallery)
Pieces of flair and opinion
- Making educational games is tough, especially if you want to make money
- Read+Watch+Listen: Bonus material for Witcher 3 fans
News
- Splatoon’s Splatfest event kicks off July 4 in North America
- Matterport raises $30M for virtual reality real estate tours and more
- Warner Bros. suspends PC sales of Batman: Arkham Knight, retail stores pulling it from shelves
- Dying Light studio responds to Destiny, Red Bull partnership with a beverage promo of its own
- Forza-themed Xbox One sports a 1TB hard drive and racing sounds
- One in ten Wii U owners already bought Splatoon
- Super League Gaming lets kids play Minecraft in movie theaters
- Apple granted patent for Beats-style gaming headset
- Vatican City gamers are playing a ton of Natural Selection and an RPG with busty girls
- Help DARPA improve national security with this flash game
- Turkey’s Gram Games bet everything on the success of puzzle game 1010!
- Crosscut Ventures raises $75M fund for early-stage tech and gaming startups in LA
- Square Enix’s Yoichi Wada steps down as chairman
- Xbox Live is down for many on Xbox One and 360
- Batman: Arkham Knight studio acknowledges PC issues as fans blast the Bat with negative reviews
- F-Zero for Wii U was nearly a thing, but Burnout Paradise developer turned it down
- YouTube Gaming’s first head-to-head battle with Twitch gets it 8M views in 12 hours
- Sony announces a lighter, more energy-efficient PlayStation 4
Mobile and social
- Kate Upton is expensive. Sources say Machine Zone is trying to raise $500M for Game of War: Fire Age
- Apple’s contempt for games: Civil War apps are latest casualties of the company’s double standard
- Mobile MOBA Vainglory gets a date for its official release
- Fallout Shelter is the No. 1 downloaded game in 48 countries
- RPG classic Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation comes to mobile
- Big Huge Games unveils industrial age expansion for DomiNations
- Shiver Entertainment unveils Beasts vs. Bots real-time strategy mobile game
- Mobile developer Innospark earns $6.5M in Series B Funding
- Uh oh: Mobile user acquisition fraud almost doubled in 2015
- Southeast Asia mobile game revenues to hit $7B by 2019
- iWin acquires PC casual game site JenKat Games
- China’s Ourgame acquires World Poker Tour for $35 million
- Use your brainz: Nonprofit GlassLab creates an educator’s version of Plants vs. Zombies 2
- Soomla raises $5.5M to help game developers catch ‘whales’
- CEO of Puzzle & Dragons studio Gung Ho prefers console games to mobile
- Leaving mobile behind: The indie developers heading back to PC
- EA Mobile believes that brands are only half of the answer in mobile games