Hello, and welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Final Fantasy XIV suffered a DDos (distributed denial-of-service) attack, Blizzard announced plans to make duplicate item drops in Overwatch and Hearthstone less of a pain, and Injustice 2 got off to a strong sales start.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The 12 best games of E3 2017
- Sea of Thieves should go into Early Access on PC and Xbox One right now
- AR/VR Weekly: Virtual reality takes a bigger stage at E3
- Nintendo has a plan to keep Switch owners happy, and it’s more than Mario
- E3 2017: What the hell happened? GamesBeat Decides
- How a 15-year-old coder balances her work and life
- Cliff Bleszinski is so glad he un-retired to create LawBreakers
- Watch Metroid Prime 4 make fans go nuts at Nintendo’s New York store
- Super Mario Odyssey is a Sonic the Hedgehog clone
- Grand Theft Auto Online gives Take-Two breathing room as it awaits Red Dead Redemption 2
News
- Blizzard doesn’t want duplicate Legendary cards in Hearthstone
- Overwatch is improving its highlights and loot boxes
- Warner Bros. opens New York office to support games like Injustice 2
- 26 VR startups debut at HTC’s Vive demo day
- Final Fantasy XIV’s seemingly unstoppable DDoS attack is the new norm
- Rocket League is NBC’s test drive for esports
- Cities: Skylines is building a PlayStation 4 release
- MIT accelerator Play Labs announces class of 13 AR/VR startups
- AMD launches broad Epyc server processor line with up to 32 cores per chip
- InXile launches its Bard’s Tale VR game, The Mage’s Tale
- Twitch signs exclusive esports deal for 20 Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Heroes events
- Diablo III banks on a Necromancer to breathe life into its aging community
- LG uses Augmented Pixels’ sensor for better robot navigation and VR tracking
- Newzoo: Global game market to grow from $108.9 billion in 2017 to $128.5 billion in 2020
- E3 thrilled fans, but everyone agrees: The show must change
- Tobii Pro extends eye-tracking to non-game VR applications
- Harvest Moon farm-life sim celebrates 20th anniversary with its first-ever PC game
- May 2017 NPD: Mario Kart and Zelda outsell Prey
- Call of Duty World League gains momentum as an official esport
- FTC moves to block DraftKings and FanDuel fantasy sports merger
- WWE 2K18 features Seth Rollins as its generational-shifting cover star
Mobile and social
- 8i lets you superimpose holographic characters into photos with Holo mobile app
- Mistwalker’s RPG Terra Battle is expanding with two new games for PC and mobile
- IronSource joins playable ads movement with interactivity that far outperforms video ads
- Sega Forever bundles a collection of classic video games on mobile
- South Korea’s Lineage2: Revolution is now a No. 1 hit across Asia
- SafeDK: Analytics and advertising are the most popular SDKs in free Android apps
- MTG buys GameStop’s mobile game publisher Kongregate for $55 million
- Jam City’s Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow debuts on June 29
- Pokémon Go shows off gym system updates and upcoming co-op Raid Battles
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Super Mario Odyssey’s interdimensional travel is one of its best visual tricks
- Creative’s Sonic Carrier megasoundbar was the most impressive tech at E3
- How the ubiquitous game actor Troy Baker plays Talion in Middle-earth: Shadow of War
- Days Gone will be an open world full of fast zombies, wolves, and bears
- Build your own steampunk ice age society in Frostpunk
- Gran Turismo creator expected a ‘more incredible’ PSVR
- Super Mario Odyssey: Catching a ride on a sphinx
- Cory Barlog paints a picture of a kinder, gentler God of War
- How Microsoft’s Rare imagined the pirate world of Sea of Thieves
- Polyarc’s Moss hides clever VR game design under its cuteness
- Knack 2 is more fun than it should be thanks to co-op
- Microsoft creative director on reviving Age of Empires and making PC-only games
- How Sledgehammer games reinvented multiplayer for Call of Duty: WWII
- How Machine Games envisioned an America overtaken by Nazis in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
- Hands-on with 3 missions of Call of Duty: WWII multiplayer
- Watch us play Super Mario Odyssey — the best game at E3
- Super Mario Odyssey: Clothes shopping at the short-and-squat store
- Total War: Arena will be an accessible free-to-play strategy game
- Crytek’s Hunt: Showdown is where the hunter becomes the hunted
- Super Mario Odyssey: We find an expert treasure tracker
- Watch us play Sea of Thieves on Xbox One X