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It’s another week in gaming and Gamer Grub has searched the internet, dived deep into our inbox, and found the biggest stories in the industry for this week. Whether you’re looking for the latest on an upcoming indie title, screenshots of next-generation games or that big announcement for your favorite franchise, keep your eyes glued to Gamer Grub’s hottest gaming news of the week posts.
It’s no secret that Square Enix have been struggling in recent years but a recent announcement has added extra concern for even the biggest of Square Enix Fans. The struggling game developers recently posted a 13,700 million Yen loss for the fiscal year finishing on March 31st. They also announced that they have begun a number of strategic initiatives to help improve their returns for 2014, including changes in their development policy and a new look at their business model.
Square Enix have blamed the decline in revenue on poorly performing games with a number of their biggest games underperforming in the industries biggest markets. Both Tomb Raider and Hitman: Absolution failed to meet expectations and Square Enix have yet to impress fans with any recently released Final Fantasy titles, arguably their most popular franchise.
Despite the decline in games sales their browser-based and smartphone market has increased, with Dragon X leading the charge. They have also said that they feel the console market has become too competitive which could potentially mean that we could be seeing less and less console titles from Square Enix and more mobile-based games.
It must be so difficult having such a strong reputation for good RPG games and then refusing to listen to the hundreds of thousands of requests. Final Fantasy Versus? FF7? It’s not rocket science SE.
Following the massive success of TellTale’s adaptation of The Walking Dead, fans have been waiting in their millions for the news of Season 2, that wait has come to an end. In a recent interview with Game Informer it was confirmed that The Walking Dead Season 2 will launch in fall of this year. Originally the interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors stated that it was a 2014 launch but it was later corrected and truly confirmed for 2013.
The original episodic release of the first game took the gaming industry by storm. Millions rated it as one of the best games of the year and tons of awards followed for developers TellTale. Whether you enjoyed it for the intriguing story, surprising depth of character or branching progression options, it’s a struggle to find many that don’t.
The developers are keeping their cards close to their chest as they’ve yet to really reveal anything special about the game although Dan Connors did say they would be trying something “a little different”. We expect to hear more about the games new features, cast and location in coming weeks but for now we can rest easy knowing that it’s only a matter of a few months before we’re able to sample that zombie-filled world once again.
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Electronic Arts stunned thousands when they announced that the domain name, Battlefield.com, cost them over $80,000, but they’re at it again with another buying spree. Whether they’re protecting the Battlefield plans or they actually have active plans to release dozens more games, Electronic Arts have gone out and registered over 10 new domain names for the Battlefield franchise.
It’s almost as certain as a new Call of Duty release. Electronic Arts and Maxis have announced the next title scheduled to join the 130 million selling franchise, The Sims. The Sims 4 has now been officially revealed and is currently in development for both PC and Mac, expecting to release sometime next year.
The Sims 4 is said to celebrate the very roots of the franchise and return players to what the game was originally designed to do. Stepping away from the debacle that was the SimCity launch, Maxis have made it very clear that they will not be featuring any heavy forms of online play or DRM. Players can expect a far deeper connection with the most charming and expressive Sims to date. In true Sims fashion players will be encouraged to customize and shape their own game world before sharing their creations n the internet with friends and family.
The Sims franchise has one of the most loyal and dedicated fan bases in the industry. The millions of fans continue to devote their time providing constant feedback for the new title and they were even among the first to know about the game itself.
As a thanks to their legions of fans the developers invited some of their biggest social followers to a unique VIP briefing where they were among the first to hear about the news Sims game. The Sims 4 is expected to launch on PC and Mac sometime next year.
Nintendo have kept their promise releasing the Wii U virtual console after the speed improvements update for the Wii U. Ryan McBride shows off some game play footage of Super Mario world and discusses some of the new games and features that will become available as the virtual console matures.
Deep Silver hoped to build on the success of the original with the release of Dead Island Riptide, but have they fallen short? Ryan McBride of Gamer Grub takes you on a brief tour of the game and explains why he feels you should save your money. If you don’t mind spending $40 on an hour or two’s worth of fun, but any more than that results in a kick-headshot fest that offers very little variety outside of the beginning experience.
We’ve seen a number of leaks regarding the latest addition to the Call of Duty franchise over the last week weeks, but has the official reveal of Call of Duty: Ghosts proven the franchise is on its last legs? The official reveal trailer was released yesterday but it didn’t really have that epic feel that came with its predecessors. I usually have literally hundreds of emails from friends and fellow journalists discussing the latest installment but when I spoke to people, most of the fans weren’t even bothered about watching the new trailer.
A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Sega and Gearbox Software after they were accused of intentionally misleading consumers to purchase their latest FPS project, Aliens: Colonial Marines. Both companies have been accused of presenting early demo footage that bore very little resemblance to the final product, something we see occurring all too often in today’s gaming industry.
The case has been filed by the US law firm, Edelson LLC, on behalf of Damion Perrine. The pair are seeking damages and costs for Aliens consumers that purchased the product based on the misinformation seen in the demo.
“Each of the ‘actual gameplay’ demonstrations purported to show consumers exactly what they would be buying: a cutting edge video game with very specific features and qualities. Unfortunately for their fans, defendants never told anyone – consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters – that their ‘actual gameplay’ demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of unwitting purchasers.”
Adding to the plaintiffs case was the recent acknowledgement from the head of Gearbox Randy Pitchford. In a message he stated that he was aware of the obvious differences between the demo and the full game and the company would “take a look at it”
“Class action lawsuits continue to occur in the US games industry from time to time, recent examples including class action lawsuits against EA over their use of real life players in their sports games as well as against various games publishers for ‘sunsetting’ or closing down their social games,” Jas Purewal, an interactive entertainment lawyer at Osborne Clarke told Eurogamer.
“That said, the reality is that it is still relatively rare for consumer complaints (over, for example, a game’s features, quality or use of DRM) to materialise into a class action or other lawsuit (not least given the complexity and cost involved in getting it off the ground). So far as I’m aware, none of them has yet been brought all the way to trial.”
A recent complaint from a UK user of Reddit forced Sega to add a legal disclaimer to the Aliens: Colonial Marines Trailer after the Advertising Standards Agency followed a complaint from the individual.
In the UK, a complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency forced Sega to add a disclaimer to Aliens: Colonial Marines trailers, identifying footage that doesn’t reflect the actual game. Although I don’t have any knowledge of American legal proceedings, I would like to think the individual has a case as many players purchased the game based on the footage in the demo, but only time will tell.
Gamer Grub are proud to announce out latest addition to our YouTube channel, a video preview for the upcoming hybrid of FPS and tower defense mechanics, Sanctum 2. The game will be launching on Valve’s popular digital distribution platform, Steam; but the developers gave us the opportunity to dive into the game and explore a little before release.
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