Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we were all busy covering our conference in San Francisco, GamesBeat 2014. You can find all of our reporting from the event below.
We also wrote about a printer that can play Doom, Destiny’s impact on its publisher’s stock, and a change of directors for Final Fantasy XV.
Enjoy all of the stories, and have a great weekend!
GamesBeat 2014
- The DeanBeat: GamesBeat 2014 conference brought insights from two generations of EA CEOs
- You can watch the GamesBeat 2014 conference Twitch archives right now
- All the stories from our GamesBeat 2014 conference
- Sony and Unity extend their partnership for providing game engine tools for PlayStation developers
- ‘Who’s Got Game’ winner channels Pokémon Snap with Sasquatch photo game
- Tencent looks to the West for innovation in untapped genres coming to China
- Clive Downie: Zynga looks for ‘creative risk-takers’ and ‘best-in-class technology’
- Kixeye CEO: We only use data science half of the time
- Twitch has a huge, highly engaged audience — and it craves more
- How mobile developer Wooga creates massive hits from the misses
- Walking Dead studio Telltale Games: We have franchises coming to us now
- Competition, not cooperation, is the key element in Chinese mobile games
- How to pitch your mobile game to Apple
- Tapjoy: If your in-game ad is intrusive, you’re doing it wrong
- Ex-EA boss John Riccitiello: ‘Anyone who cares about games won’ the console wars
- Long before acquiring Twitch, Amazon wrote a press release to help it decide if the move would make sense
- Western mobile gaming is ‘years behind China’
- Flurry chief: Mobile gaming still has plenty of opportunity
- Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney: Fun should matter above all else in the free-to-play market
- Google recognizes that its plan for gaming domination hinges on how people pay
- Lionsgate exec: ‘We’re looking at our games business as the third leg of the stool’
- Michael Pachter: Microsoft is preparing for life after the Xbox
- Unity CEO hopes Clash of Clans ‘drops like a fly’
- EA CEO Andrew Wilson explains how EA Access feeds our need to ‘steal’
- Dean Takahashi’s opening remarks on Total World Domination at GamesBeat 2014
Pieces of flair and opinion
- How Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor stays true to Tolkien’s fantasy universe
- Nvidia is going to change the way games look
- The Destiny minority: Here’s what happens when a noob and a multiplayer hater play Bungie’s online shooter
- This hacked Canon printer is running classic shooter Doom
News
- Neal Stephenson kills his $500,000 Kickstarter swordfighting game, Clang
- Nvidia aims to usher in a new generation of amazing 3D graphics with Maxwell
- Final Fantasy creator Square Enix unveils Shinra Technologies to make ‘revolutionary’ cloud game tech
- Destiny attracts Twitch’s largest audience of the year for a console release
- PlayStation Now launches its PS3 open beta
- Swap your violent video games for ice cream, says Marin County DA
- Final Fantasy XV director leaves project after 8 years of work
- Destiny sells more than $325M in first five days — and publisher Activision’s stock takes a dive
- Evolving with the times: GameStop experiments with new tech to keep customers in stores
- WWE 2K15 delayed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Super Smash Bros. for 3DS sold 1 million in its first weekend
- DLC, season passes, and expansion packs: It all comes down to how we play
- Bad news for underage buyers: ESRB ratings checks at an all-time high
- Microsoft’s Mojang deal gives it Minecraft — and the massive audience that adores it
- Hearthstone achievement unlocked: 20M players
- PewDiePie of YouTube fame says ‘let’s play’ on MLG.tv (update)
- Markus ‘Notch’ Persson leaves Mojang and Minecraft after Microsoft sale
- Microsoft buys Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5B
Mobile and social
- Mobile game developer TinyCo apologizes to the feds for improper marketing toward children
- Users are slower to adopt iOS 8 out of the gate compared to iOS 7’s release
- With $2M in preorders, Tangible Play ships its Osmo social iPad educational game
- Former Zynga CastleVille team creates Dungeon Boss mobile title for Big Fish Games
- Anki Drive smartphone racing game gets new cars, modes, and an Android version
- Eve Online marketing chief David Reid joins Motiga, the well-financed startup creating Gigantic
- Mobile marketing automation firm Swrve raises $10M
- 5 ways to increase advertising revenue from your game
- Zynga calls on vets from film and games to replenish its leadership bench
- King vs. copycats: Settlement forces 6Waves to remove its games from the Web
- Twitch’s mobile integration expands to a third iOS game — and it’s about showing off virtual fish
- Goat Simulator is now out on iOS and Android
- NHL 2K on mobile marks a hockey comeback for 2K Games this fall
- Chobolabs raises $1.3M to put hardcore gaming on mobile
- Harmonix partners with publishing service Tilting Point to make music games for mobile
- Tango scores a hit with 10M downloads for its Road Riot mobile game
Previews and interviews
- EA used Polaroids and a physical sandbox to design levels in Medal of Honor: European Assault
- 5 reasons to build garrisons in the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor expansion (interview and guide)
- This War of Mine puts players in the heart of war — as a civilian
- 20 years of ESRB: More blood, less hassle for developers (interview)
Reviews