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Welcome to the first GamesBeat weekly roundup of 2014! We’ve finished up our series on the best and worst games (and more) from 2013, made some bold predictions for 2014, and the Xbox One is … leaking?
Looking back at 2013 and predicting 2014
- The DeanBeat: More terrible predictions for the game industry in 2014 (poll)
- VentureBeat’s 12 most popular stories from 2013
- GamesBeat’s 2013 Game of the Year: The Last of Us
- The best games of 2013 (GamesBeat staff picks)
- Best of 2013: 10 of the weirdest, coolest, and most random screenshots of the year
- Best and Worst of 2013: The biggest surprises
News
- Postponed Battlefield 4 double XP event scheduled to begin tomorrow
- Microsoft considered releasing Xbox One without a disc drive following E3 2013
- Several Activision Marvel games are no longer available digitally
- Tobii and Steel Series to build a cool eye-tracking control system for games
- Titanfall will have sniper rifles — but they are less effective than in Call of Duty
- Game streamer shares his ordeal of hacker attacks and a terrifying police raid
- Hackers attack Dota 2 and League of Legends servers in quest for one game livestreamer
- Xbox Ones that leak oil? Microsoft’s never seen that before
- Publisher 2K working to fix NBA 2K14′s online issues
- China’s gaming industry generated $13 billion in 2013
- Battlefield 4 experiencing connectivity issues across various platforms
Mobile and social
- Wikipad announces tablet gaming controller add-on for Android and Windows 8
- PopCap CEO to retire, cofounder will take over the Plants vs. Zombies studio (exclusive)
- Sega releases Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed on iOS and Android
- How a mobile developer made tic-tac-toe harder — and more attractive — to casual gamers
- How an office sauna might help make Finland’s next tablet game blockbuster
- Xbox 360 Gold members can download Sleeping Dogs and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for free in January
Pieces of flair