Anthem and the peculiarities of modern monetization.

https://www.polygon.com/fortnite/2020/…s-fortnite-skin

"After years of asking Epic Games to give him his own skin in Fortnite, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is getting his wish. The streamer has announced on Mixer that his Fortnite skin will be added to the game on Jan. 16, though he’s currently playing games with it right now.

The Ninja Fortnite skin is part of a series — the Icon Series — that’ll bring “the artistic vision, personality, and attitude of top creators to Fortnite,” Epic Games said in its announcement. The Ninja Outfit will be available on Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. ET until January 19 at 8 p.m. ET, as well as a few extras: Ninja’s Edge Back Bling, Ninja Style Emote, and a Dual Katanas Pickaxe. Neither Epic nor Ninja have said how much the items will cost."

Well, I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the level of engagement and promotion present around Fornite. I don't know if I've seen a game become so mainstream (aside from cod and minecraft, but I would argue they didn't reach this type of level) and feature so many cross promotions and leak into pop culture. The end of the season event was also something never seen before. On the other hand, you've got worn down devs trying to keep up with the next updates without end. I hope they at least adopt a more healthy life-work balance progressing into this new decade. It's gonna be interesting to see how other big companies try to replicate this success.

"According to Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, their main platform is Mobile after the success of Call of Duty: Mobile. During Activision-Blizzard’s recent quarterly financial call, Kotick mentioned the rapid growth and revenue opportunities of mobile and the company intends to expand on the platform. There are apparently several Call of Duty projects in the works right now, on top of multiple mobile titles which include a potential Crash Bandicoot runner. Call of Duty: Mobile is available on iOS and Android now.

“Using Call of Duty as an example, with the introduction of Call of Duty: Mobile, we grew our player base from 40 million to 100 million players in less than a year,” said Bobby Kotick. “And we expect significant growth in the Call of Duty franchise in 2020 as compared to 2019, as a result of this and from other unannounced Call of Duty initiatives. Mobile, in fact, is now our leading platform. The business model for Call of Duty Mobile is free to play, which enables the rapid development of large community of players with the option to purchase digital items and services, as well as our ability to generate advertising revenues.” "

https://cogconnected.com/2020/02/activi…latform-mobile/

Hate to think how much money has been pumped into that by now.

I feel like this isn’t even a real game outside of headlines about how it’s being rebooted. Does this game even exist? Has anyone actually seen it in the wild?

Quote from FMPONE

1 hour ago, FMPONE said: I feel like this isn’t even a real game outside of headlines about how it’s being rebooted. Does this game even exist? Has anyone actually seen it in the wild?

Its the video game equivalent of a cryptid

Quote from FMPONE

17 hours ago, FMPONE said: I feel like this isn’t even a real game outside of headlines about how it’s being rebooted. Does this game even exist? Has anyone actually seen it in the wild?

It will become a game soon, once they add more motivating challenges, with exciting and meaningful rewards and progression.

Quote from Minos

3 hours ago, Minos said: It will become a game soon, once they add more motivating challenges, with exciting and meaningful rewards and progression.

I can't wait to face motivating challenges, to be excited by meaningful rewards, and to progress.

"Nvidia’s GeForce Now took yet another hit this weekend with a new publisher pulling its software from the cloud gaming service. That’s because GeForce Now, unlike competing services like Google Stadia, lets anyone who purchases a digital game on Valve’s Steam marketplace reinstall it on a virtual machine and play it using its cloud platform.

That doesn’t sit well with some game publishers and developers, including Raphael van Lierop, the game director and writer of indie hit The Long Dark from his company Hinterland Studio. Lierop pulled his game over the weekend, displeased that it was included in the paid version of GeForce Now without his explicit permission.

We’ve seen this before; Activision Blizzard and Bethesda have pulled their games from GeForce Now, presumably for similar reasons.

The publishers have given vague statements, leading many to surmise that it may be due to the lack of a revenue split or the fact that big game publishers would rather charge customers a second time for a separate license to play a game on a cloud gaming service, regardless of how it’s structured. Stadia, for instance, charges customers for games even if you own them on Steam already, and a lot of big publishers have signed up under those terms."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161…versy-licensing

"Ever since it officially launched last month, game publishers have been abandoning Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform in droves. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, meanwhile, has defended the service, arguing it’s the most developer-friendly option out there right now.

“Epic is wholeheartedly supporting NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW service with Fortnite and with Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusives), and we’ll be improving the integration over time,” Sweeney wrote in a tweet last Friday. He praised the fact that Nvidia doesn’t take a cut of sales from the games that support GeForce Now and said companies should support it if they want to move the “game industry towards a healthier state.” "

https://kotaku.com/what-s-going-o…-now-1842221576

There’s a new monetisation on the block: pay-per-match! (+base entry fee) in a battle royals game!

aaaaand it's dead

Isn't this like the 4th time they've released this game? Doomed to fail just let it die. What a ridiculous payment model.

Quote from Beck

7 hours ago, Beck said: Isn't this like the 4th time they've released this game? Doomed to fail just let it die. What a ridiculous payment model.

Yeah I know the name of this, it goes way back more than I thought --thanks Yong for the recap-- apparently they released a sequel that bombed, so they went back to the original... now this sounds like a spin-off from the title.

Whatevs, it's interesting see what people can come up with sometimes, this is basically slot-machine mechanic. Although to be fair, I think they probably created such an outrageous scheme to incentivise people to subscribe... and if someone does indeed buy token, they profit.

"Valve has quietly dipped its toes into the waters of cloud gaming with the beta rollout of Steam Cloud Play, which introduces GeForce Now streaming integration, but may include other services in the future. For now, it allows publishers to opt into GeForce Now streaming for their games through the Steam backend."

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-cloud-pl…rce-now-support

Some of the comments are raising some valid concerns like:

But with both Epic and Valve now supporting GeForce Now, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Yeah but you do choose where to play the game, nobody forces you to stream it. What does it mean to you end user if the servers you are streaming from are nVidia or something else? Also Valve's solution seems open to whomever comes forward with a compelling solution.

I think it's more interesting to understand if you can simply stream games you own on Steam, it does seem like it...