Games – Page 4 – The Gaming News Corner

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sells 1.3 million units in Japan

Congratulations to Super Smash Bros. UIltimate and Nintendo. According to Famitsu and MorganStanley, the game has sold 1.3 million units in Japan only. In comparison, Super Smash Bros for 3DS sold around 980,000. This is the Switch’s most successful launch title in Japan. Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu/Eevee sold 552,000 copies, Splatoon 2 sold 631,000 units, and Super Mario Odyssey sold 514,000 copies during their first weekend in Japan.

Have you been playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Who are your favorite characters?

Sources:

ResetEra

Valve will offer more money for Successful Games

When you sell your game on Valve, the company takes 30 percent of your revenue for using it as a platform for distribution. It’s a common practice for business such as PlayStation and Xbox but Valve has been criticized lately for their user review system and lack of marketing support for new games. Steam is packed with thousands of games and nearly impossible to filter through them all. It’s difficult for developers to sell their game if they don’t understand Steam’s algorithms. They weren’t able to contact a Valve personal support and developers felt that the company didn’t “deserve” the 30 percent in revenue. To potentially earn developers’ trust again, Valve is offering them more money based on the success of their games.

Stated on November 30th, Valve stated

Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees. Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community.

Valve is also allowing developers to speak about their game sale on Steam.

Who does this benefit?

A lot of big brand name titles such as Fallout or Call of Duty will see bigger profit margins. However, smaller companies and developers will still have difficulties presenting their games to a mass audience. There are too many games on Steam, especially because any game can be on their market.

The changes are to incentivize more companies to put their games on PC only through Steam. With more companies hosting their own platforms such as Blizzard’s BattleNet, Ubisoft’s Uplay, EA’s Origin, and Discord, Valve has more competition. While their competitors have less selection, it’s easier to search and find a game you enjoy.

The profit changes won’t hurt Valve too bad. It’s rare for a title to make that much on Steam alone unless you’re a huge publisher. The mass majority won’t even make $10 million but bigger companies may just place their games on Steam to save money.

Sources

Steam Changes Announcement

What Games are allowed on Steam?

Polygon

Polygon 2

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

BlizzCon ANNOUNCEMENTS!

World of Warcraft:

Do you miss the old WoW? Blizzard is finally releasing World of Warcraft: Classic. The story has greatly changed since the initial release back in the early 2000’s. If you already have a subscription, Classic will be included. No need to pay for two. It launches Summer 2019.

Overwatch:

Two new heroes?! Ashe and Echo both made their debut in the new Overwatch cinematic. Ashe will be the 29th heroine and will release soon but Echo is still in development. Echo is McCree’s old partner.

Heroes of the Storm:

An original character called Orphea for Blizzard’s MOBA. She is the daughter of the Raven Lord. She aims to overthrow him

Warcraft:

A fan of old-school of strategy games? Warcraft 3: Reforged is receiving an HD remake. It will still have its modding tool called World Editor tool. That tool and the game led to League of Legends!

Diablo:

A new Diablo for mobile! Don’t worry fans, Blizzard is still working on Diablo 4. For fans of the story, it takes place between Diablo 2 and 3. It will have multiplayer and six player classes similar to the main game. There are 4-player dungeons and people can drop in and out.

What did you think of this year’s Blizzcon? Was there enough interesting announcements or did you hope for different content?