Welcome to another weekly roundup of GamesBeat’s stories. This time, we look at Sonic’s worst games, we talk about how important a game’s length really is, and we look at Minecraft’s next update.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: It’s time for the U.S. to wake up and support game startups
- Someone remade Call of Duty: Zombies in Trials Fusion
- Five bugs and jokes in The Sims that went on to become features — and two that did not
- A game’s length is one of its least important measures
- Master the trapper class in Evolve with our step-by-step guide
- The original indie dev: How one man made 22 games in 22 years, mostly from his basement
- What Sega should learn from Sonic’s worst games
- This U.K. mom drives her kids to school in a Need for Speed police cruiser
News
- World’s largest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament heading to Germany this summer
- Silicon Valley insiders’ favorite board game ‘Settlers of Catan’ to be turned into a movie
- Warner Bros. invests $24M more into game video site Machinima
- Here’s what’s new in Minecraft 1.8.2
- A card game called Exploding Kittens just made Kickstarter history
- Bitcoin can get you illegal drugs — but a game developer is using it to redefine digital ownership
- Brianna Wu’s Giant Spacekat pulls out of PAX East, blames GamerGate death threats
- World of Tanks is coming to Xbox One — with cross-platform play with Xbox 360 tankers
- Epic’s CEO touts a $5M fund to give grants to Unreal Engine developers
- Why the Shadow of Mordor developer is finally letting you fight Sauron
- Sega Networks acquires Marvel Puzzle Quest’s Demiurge Studios, invests in 2 Western developers
- Xbox One is finally getting screenshots in next update
- PS4 will outsell the Xbox One by 40% over the next 4 years, analyst bets
- Koei Tecmo taking baby steps into the PlayStation 4, Xbox One age
- Xbox Live down for many on Xbox One and Xbox 360
- Look out, HoloLens — Sony’s dorky augmented-reality glasses go on sale in March for $840
- Hurry: Wii U GameCube Controller Adapter is in stock at GameStop
- League of Legends, Dota 2 could push e-sports to make at least $465M in 2017
- Playtech buys GameMaker creator YoYo Games for $16.4 million
- Sony still says The Last Guardian is in development
- Nvidia’s Grid cloud gaming service will soon have 40 games
- Wargaming launches closed beta for World of Tanks Generals digital card game
- Nintendo’s New 3DS XL is selling out and difficult to find
- Shadowrun: Hong Kong studio finds Kickstarter is a viable business model
- The Order: 1886 is approximately 6 hours long, according to leaked video
- Day 1 players of F2P games are much more likely to still be there a year later
- Game streaming startup PolyStream completes its seed funding
- Sony’s trademark for The Last Guardian has expired again
- League of Legends continues its dominance as most-played PC game
Mobile and social
- Swrve aims to put an end to annoying push-notification spam on your phone
- Mobile gaming in public markets: Let’s take stock
- Puzzle game Line: Disney Tsum Tsum hits 40 million worldwide downloads
- Math Blaster is back — and it’s on Facebook
- Rovio taps Chinese developer to create regional Angry Birds games
- Upsight unveils real-time analytics and marketing platform for mobile and online marketers
- How one mobile developer says it has an ‘ethical monetization’ plan for its kids game
- App maker Biba and playground manufacturer PlayPower combine mobile games with real-world kid fun
- Spil Games gets new mobile-savvy CEO to oversee social-gaming transition from Facebook
- Angry Birds developer launches its latest third-party publishing game Jolly Jam
- Mobile-marketing company Leadbolt introduces ‘non-intrusive’ video ads for mobile
- Taking your social game to mobile is easy — taking your players with you is tougher
- Amazon releases its exclusive Saber’s Edge puzzle-RPG on Fire tablets
- China’s Tencent moves into Europe with investment in mobile and online game publisher Miniclip (exclusive)
- Firefly Games raises $8M to bring top Asian mobile games to the West
- Proletariat readies Thursday launch of mobile game World Zombination
- Nonprofit brings back Zoombinis educational game and launches Kickstarter
- Former Z2 Live execs form Mobile Game Partners consulting firm
- FreshPlanet follows up its mobile song-trivia hit SongPop with a sequel
- App Annie: Guns and advertising dollars led the mobile gaming charge in January
Previews and interviews
- Following The Sims and Second Life, Rod Humble’s third act takes on religion … in a strategy game
- BrightLocker makes a game out of making games
- Atari producer Peter Banks on Asteroids’ new direction
- Explore the mysteries of Saturn’s moon with Oculus Rift game Pollen
- Atari producer Peter Banks on Asteroids’ new direction
- Splash: Underwater Sanctuary will use Carmen Sandiego tactics to teach you about fish
Reviews
- Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a finely molded touchscreen adventure
- The Order: 1886 is the best game from 10 years ago
- Hori’s PlayStation 4 Full HD Monitor is worth more than the $15 I paid for it
- Total War: Attila will bring out the barbarian in you
- Redux: Dark Matters evokes shoot-em-up nostalgia but offers nothing new