Author: blitzen34

Hello, my name is Benjamin Le. I am an avid gamer whose passion resides in Marketing for the Video Game Industry. This site is for people to read about gaming news and how the industry works. Please feel free to reach out to me at lebenjaminj@gmail.com for any questions.

Life is Strange 2 release date along with free Prequel

Life is Strange is a new IP from Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square-Enix that released in January 2015. An episodic story revolving around Max Caulfield, an 18-year-old photography student who discovers that she has the ability to rewind time at any moment leading to multiple butterfly effects for her town and her best friend, Chloe. The game was very successful and sold over 3 million units across console and PC. It was praised for its art, new story, and characters. They also release a prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm in 2017 which focused on Chloe.

Today, they announced their sequel: Life is Strange 2 for September 27, 2018. It has been confirmed by directors Michel Koch and Raoul Barbet that the game will not follow Max Caulfield or her friends from the previous games. If you missed the first game or watched a playthrough, you can start the game without worrying about missing anything. Instead, there is a prequel to Life is Strange 2 called The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. The prequel is completely free and the choices you make will effect Life is Strange 2. Captain Spirit will be released on June 26, 2018, for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit follows the story of Chris, an imaginative 10-year-old kid who imagines himself as a superhero. The game allows you to change your costume and will have dialogue trees similar to Life is Strange 1. The story takes 3 years after the first game. Since it’s free, might as well try it and it may interest you in playing the sequel itself.

Sources:

Gameindustry Biz – Sales numbers of Life is Strange

New Burnout-Style Game from old Burnout Developers and Creators

Electronic Arts owns Criterion, the developer studio for Burnout. Unfortunately, the studio hasn’t been working on any new Burnout games since the remake of Burnout Paradise in March. Their last new game in the series was Burnout Crash! which received mix reviews from fans considering it was the follow-up game after Burnout Paradise. Previous founders of Criterion, Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry, spun off their own studio in 2014 called Three Fields Entertainment which has been creating video games similar to Burnout such as Danger Zone. The game is considered a “spiritual successor” to the Burnout series.

Three Fields Entertainment is releasing Danger Zone 2 on July for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. There’s a bigger focus on driving and destruction which fans have been asking for. They will also release Dangerous Driving, a closed track competitive racing game featuring boosts, takedowns, destruction and massive car crashes – which sounds a lot more like Burnout. Ward stated, “Dangerous Driving gets me back to making arcade racing, the kind of software I am most passionate about.”

Are you excited to see a new Burnout-style game? Also, those game names are horrible. How is somebody supposes to find these games online?

Sources:

Eurogamer

Eurogamer – Danger Zone Review

Should Gaming Addiction be considered a Mental Disorder?

Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared video game addiction is a mental disorder. For clarification from WHO, gaming addiction is prioritizing games over relationship building, interacting with others, daily activities and thought process. For it to be considered a gaming disorder, it has to be seen over the course of 12 months. Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, a member of WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, spoke further on the topic and stated only qualified doctors should be able to diagnose properly. While it stated it has to be seen over the course of 12 months, severe cases can be an exception. They have compared gaming addiction similar to gambling and substance use. Poznyak hopes” that inclusion of gaming disorder in the classification will stimulate debate as well as further research and international collaboration.”

Recently, BBC posted an article/video of a teen talking about his “addiction” as play games for 20 hours a week. The article became famous and spread throughout the internet on Monday which further villainized gaming. However, we should remain skeptical of the reasoning. Games have been villainized by organizations and government for causing violence and shootings despite huge lack of evidence. With the popularization of Fortnite in mainstream media, it has caused an even bigger target regarding gaming addiction.

Even researchers disagree on the gaming addiction as a mental disorder such as Anthony Bean, a licensed psychologist and executive director at The Telos Project, a nonprofit mental health clinic in Fort Worth, Texas. He stated, “I’m a clinician and a researcher, so I see people who play video games and believe themselves to be on the lines of addicted.” In his experience, they’re actually using gaming “more as a coping mechanism for either anxiety or depression.” He also noted that most clinical doctors aren’t too familiar with gaming habits, in general, to diagnose people with “gaming addiction.” If they aren’t familiar with a illness, how can you accurately state somebody with a mental disorder if you are unfamiliar with the topic? Bean also noted that different effects on different people. Someone playing “Minecraft” is going to be completely different from someone playing “World of Warcraft,” he said: “They’re two vastly different genres.” They have different effects because the games are in different environments and you interact with people differently.

Games often receive a harsh feedback because gaming isn’t age-gated like drugs or gambling. Anybody can play which is the beauty in it. Of course, anything done in excess is bad, whether it’s eating, watching television, or exercising. Scientist and researchers don’t have enough information to fully develop a conclusion on the effects of gaming because every game is different. Other countries like Korea and China have huge gaming addicts who go to PC cafes all day. Korea even has gaming rehab centers for addicts. It’s a tricky thing to solve but I personally believe considering gaming addiction as a mental disorder is too extreme.

What do you think about people who play too many games? Do you know anybody whose gaming has ruined parts of their lives?

Sources:

WHO statement on Gaming Addiction

NBC news

BBC – 20 hours weekly video

CNN – WHO and Bean’s statement on gaming addiction

Business Insider – South Korea rehab centers

Sony responds to Fortnite Complaints

Epic’s Fortnite is quickly becoming the biggest and most popular game in the world. Fortnite released in 2016 and is now on every major console, PC, and iOS. However, recent discoveries by users noticed that they couldn’t use their Epic accounts (Epic studio’s log-in) on other consoles. Sony and PlayStation have received massive complaints from Fortnite players regarding their accounts. If you connected your Epic Account, you were unable to use that account for the Nintendo Switch or any other platform and vice-versa. If you try to log in, you’ll see this image below.

The Nintendo Switch’s version of Fortnite allows you to play with Xbox One, PC, and iOS players while PlayStation players have no cross-console options. Sony didn’t inform players that they would be locked into one account. Essentially, all progress on PlayStation is non-transferable to other platforms including in-game items. Many players are frustrated, including fans of PlayStation such as Gameover Greggy and the PS4 subreddit.

 

Hey, Sony, it would be really cool to have my epic account unlocked for switch and be able to enjoy my money spent on the battle-pass from PS4

Unfortunately, Sony didn’t really respond to the feedback. On the BBC, Sony’s stated “”With… more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we’ve built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles.” So not really a response but essentially they want to keep their players sticking to PlayStation.

Why did Sony do this?

The marketing answer is that Sony wants to focus on expanding their community. Fortnite recently reported that they have 125 million players. While the amount of each player per consoles remains to be seen, Fortnite is heavily promoted on the PlayStation Network and has been seen as the secondary platform to play it after PC.

Sony has a history of not allowing cross-platform for many of their games such as Rocket League and Minecraft. The business answer is Sony doesn’t want their player base to potentially switch to other platforms. By keeping their players to PlayStation consoles, they are less inclined to change over.

While Sony is stating this is for their community, it’s not good for consumers. Preventing players from playing with other consoles is harmful to their image especially if the Switch and Xbox One allow cross-platform play.

Sources:

BBC – Playstation statement

PSU – Fortnite Playercount

Reddit community backlashPolygon – Epic account locked due to PlayStation