Telltale Games removed from Online Stores as Studio closes down

If you haven’t bought any Telltale games (Which you haven’t since their sales numbers were atrocious), now might be the time. With Telltale closing down, the company is selling off their assets which include physical goods, trademarks, copyrights, software, and source code. This means other studios will be able to purchase the rights and potentially continue the game stories. On Steam, Telltale has removed their older games such The Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park. The Walking Dead: The Final Season and their more recent titles are still available but the date on which they’ll be removed is undetermined. Telltale is working with Skybound Entertainment to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season. 

In addition to the liquidation of their assets, Telltale can only provide their former employees’ health benefits until November 30th. This will leave their 250 former employees and contractors without health benefits after their layoff. Telltale has been facing lawsuits from former employees for the sudden layoffs. 

Sources:

GameDailyBiz

Happy 5th Anniversary to the PlayStation 4

PS4 Fifth Anniversary


The PlayStation 4 has been the dominating console in this current generation. Sony has been releasing great exclusives and has dominated the Xbox One. Below are some of the statistics PlayStation released.

Ironically, the highest selling games aren’t exclusives. Call of Duty remains the most dominant shooters for consoles. FIFA is the most popular sports games. Fortnite needs no introduction as it’s one of the most popular games at the moment. GTA V has recently sold over 100 million units.

Nintendo sues Couple for $12 Million for Rom Site

Nintendo has a long history with ROMs (Read only Memory) which allowed people to play Nintendo games on Emulators or Nintendo handhelds without paying. There are dedicated websites such as GBAtemp or LoveROMS which provide people a hub to download ROMS. As of 2018, Nintendo has been cracking hard on websites and forcing them to shut down. Today, Nintendo won a lawsuit against Jacob Mathias and Cristian Mathias, and their Arizona-based company, Mathias Designs L.L.C for $12 million.

Whether the Mathias’ will have to pay for the full amount remains to be seen. The huge fine may be more a warning against the other ROM sites. If you check out loveroms.com, you’ll see a final message from Jacob and Cristian.

Our website, LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co, previously offered and performed unauthorized copies of Nintendo games, in violation of Nintendo’s copyrights and trademarks. LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co acknowledges that it caused harm to Nintendo, its partners, and customers by offering infringing copies of Nintendo games and has agreed to cease all such activities. To access legitimate Nintendo games online, please visit http://www.nintendo.com for information about the Nintendo Game Store.

This looks like the end of ROM dedicated website by Nintendo. While many users are angry with Nintendo’s approach, it is still a business. Whether you bought the game or didn’t, Nintendo doesn’t want people distributing ROMS to the public.

Sources:

GBAtemp – Original lawsuit

TorrentFreak

 

FINAL FANTASY XV cancels Future DLCs

As a fan of Final Fantasy XV, I can fully admit the game is flawed. The story is not well told, there are major characters that aren’t given time to shine, and there are huge chunks of the story missing. Fans were hoping that the future DLC’s that were announced for 2019 would fulfill the holes that the main game left. Unfortunately, it seems Square-Enix has canceled all future DLC for FFXV except one; the Ardyn DLC for March 2019.

In April, Square stated they were working on 4 DLC packs: Ardyn, Aranea, Luna, and Noctis. Hajime Tabata, the director of XV, has announced that he is leaving Square-Enix. Whether he will still be with Luminous Productions, his spin-off company from Square-Enix remains to be seen. There was also news that FFXV Comrades would be released as a standalone title in 2019 for PS4 and Xbox One. You can watch the press conference below but it’s in Japanese.

Final Thoughts:

Final Fantasy XV will be officially finished by 2019. It’s unfortunate that we will never see the backstory for Luna and Aranea considering that they were important but barely in the story. XV is going to be remembered as a bad entry in the series. Even as a fan, there’s huge flaws in the game and the push for DLC to fix them are ridiculous to defend. So I guess I’m not a fan anymore. Square-Enix has burned me once again.

 

Sources:

Kotaku