Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, studios are welcoming and saying goodbye to a lot of executives (one of them with an incredibly coincidental name), Blizzard’s multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) Heroes of the Storm entered open beta, and we found at least one sign of legendary game developer Hideo Kojima that still exists at Konami, the publisher with which the Metal Gear Solid creator has had an ugly, increasingly public breakup.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The place in Venice Beach where you can find the real innovation in gaming
- Konami has not killed the Kojima tree … yet
- Maybe motion-controlled fountains are Kinect’s future
- A Witcher virgin’s impressions of Wild Hunt
- Heroes of the Storm tips for MOBA beginners and League of Legends/Dota 2 deserters
- This couple turned their GoPro backpacking footage into a video game … kind of
- The hardware highlights — and horrors — of the 2015 Neurogaming Conference
- The Old Blood made a piece of plumbing the most deadly of Wolfenstein’s weapons
Above: An above-ground view of a hungry monster in Evolve.
Image Credit: 2K Games
News
- Legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu releases new track for Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
- Stardock CEO: In the future, publishers will be partners — and not owners
- Xbox One tests Windows 10 support and new avatar features in preview
- New Blood Brothers 2 update adds guilds and team-based benefits
- Need for Speed reboot coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this fall
- Nintendo announces Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon for 3DS
- Microsoft’s Xbox Store isn’t trying to cut out Steam in Windows 10
- Elderly Japanese prisoners are playing Nintendo DS to help combat dementia
- Sony president confirms more Bloodborne is coming
- Intellivision classics Astrosmash, Shark! Shark!, and Night Stalker make a comeback on Kickstarter
- China hands down two sentences in Razer counterfeit ring bust
- Parents spent an average of $131 on ‘toys-to-life’ games like Disney Infinity over last 6 months
- IMVU’s virtual rooms are ready for social VR
- Warner Bros. pulls out ‘Back to the Future’ trailer — and a compatibility guarantee — to market Lego Dimensions
- Games poised to outstrip broadcast TV revenues, SuperData finds
- Nintendo’s new vice president of sales is really named ‘Bowser’
- Xbox One gets a $100 price cut in China
- Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm MOBA begins open beta
- New USC program helps students form their own game studios
- Former Electronic Arts president Frank Gibeau leaves the company
- Beefjack is opening two new divisions to help game developers
- Nintendo defeats patent case over Wii Balance Board
- Nintendo announces its World Championships qualifying venues
- Virtual reality porn? We’re cool with it, Oculus exec says
- Sales of new IP Evolve hit almost 2.5M on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC
- Grand Theft Auto V sales hit nearly 52 million copies
- Take-Two Interactive’s 2015 profits show Grand Theft Auto’s power
- Love your favorite game mod? Show it with #modlove2015
- Valve adds its heavyweight name to Razer’s open-source VR initiative
- Microsoft launches global tournament to celebrate 25 years of wasting time with Solitaire
- Mass Effect creative director Casey Hudson joins Microsoft to work on HoloLens
- InXile tells the next chapter of The Bard’s Tale on Kickstarter
- Final Fantasy XV demo 2.0 coming in June with combat and camera improvements
- Release the kraken! Civilization: Beyond Earth takes to the seas
- Umbra’s 3D graphics tech to be used in next big Warhammer game
Above: It’s electric.
Image Credit: NetherRealm Studios
Mobile and social
- Fantastic Boyfriends is heading West with its gay main character and hunky ogres
- More Finnish game studios break off to create new mobile game studio
- Amazon Game Studios releases Wayforward’s Til Morning’s Light on Fire and iOS
- Chartboost introduces new services to help mobile game developers maximize their revenue
- Kick9 CEO: China’s confusing mobile market is ‘not sustainable’
- Video ads keep mobile gamers playing longer, AppsFlyer finds
- Mobile trivia game QuizUp relaunches as a social media network
- Twitch adds on-demand videos to mobile app
- Finnish game company Tribe Studios now belongs to Palringo
- Mortal Kombat X was April’s most downloaded iOS game
- Final Fantasy VII, Tactics vets bag $7M for their mobile studio
- Liftpass lets developers adjust in-game microtransaction prices — in real time
- To succeed in China, game developers must consider monetization first
- Mobcrush raises $4.9M for mobile-gameplay livestreaming platform
- How Crossy Road’s creator succeeded by making games for his mom, his wife, and a girl who loves horses
Previews and interviews