Category Archives: Games
Joystiq Rumoured to be Shut Down
We’re about a month removed from the original game magazine, CVG, being shut down but that isn’t stopping the games journalism industry from downsizing some more. Re/code is reporting that Joystiq, a gaming blog that’s been around for over 10 years, is on the chopping block.
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Game Trailers Roundup: January 26, 2015
I hadn’t heard of PAX South until this week but I suppose that if you were a gamer in Texas, having a popular convention in the neighbourhood would be a pretty cool thing. The nearest gaming convention to me is probably PAX East in Boston. Sure, I could do Fan Expo again but gaming is an afterthought there. Well, unless you want to watch vertical slices from Xbox and Ubi.
But thanks to PAX South, we have five trailers for you this week. For the most part, it’s DLC/expansion trailers but we have an announcement trailer for Milestone’s upcoming motorcycle racing game Ride. As a big fan of Tourist Trophy, I’m looking forward to that one.
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Monument Valley Review: Uncanny Valley
I’ve never been much of a mobile gamer but that’s probably prejudices getting in the way. When I hear about a mobile game, I immediately think of a free-to-play game of fairly low quality and nearly impossible to play without dumping a pile of money into microtransactions.
Monument Valley isn’t one of those games. You have to pay up-front but you also don’t have to pay microtransactions and the gameplay is quite good. Unlike the stereotypical mobile fare, you could actually call Monument Valley a real video game.
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Game Trailers Roundup: January 19, 2015
There might not be much in the way of big releases this week but that doesn’t mean that we have a shortage of trailers for you to look at this week. Between triple-As, indies, mobile, MMOs and MOBAs, this week’s roundup has ten trailers for you to watch. And who said that this was a quiet time of year for games. Okay, news and actual games, yes. Trailers? Definitely looks like a busy time.
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The Dollars and Cents of Monument Valley
You might not have heard Monument Valley but the Escher-inspired mobile puzzle game was one of the smash hit mobile games of 2014. It was one of the best rated mobile games of 2014 (that isn’t Hearthstone, anyway) and was the only mobile game to pick up a Game Awards nomination for Best Indie Game.
While they’re becoming more frequent, paid mobile games are more the exception than the rule. Despite costing over $1.4 million to make (including the Forgotten Shores DLC), ustwo Games sold enough copies and made enough money to more than cover the costs and get them on their way to the next game.
The lesson that ustwo Games teaches us with their breakdown of the dollars and cents of Monument Valley is that you don’t have to have a terrible free-to-play play-to-win monetization model on top of a non-existent game to make money in the mobile space. If you build a great game, people will buy.
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PC Gamer Editor Writes About Ubisoft While in a Relationship with Ubi Employee
Sometimes it pays to avoid controversial topics because people will dissect you if you poke the bear. PC Gamer executive editor Tyler Wilde just learned this one the hard way.
Wilde posted a column on PC Gamer advocating for the end of the term “PC Master Race” (while making some comparisons of the term to the Nazis) but I don’t think he expected what the fallout would be. While he had to weather the unfortunately expected personal attacks, he also had his personal life dragged into the matter. That’s because Wilde is dating a communications specialist for Ubisoft while still writing about Ubisoft for PC Gamer without disclosing his relationship.
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AGDQ Raises Over $1.5 Million for Charity
A lot of people love gamers who do YouTube let’s plays and Twitch live streaming for a living. Eventually, I’d like to add that stuff to the offerings I do online (under the etg banner or a different pseudonym). For now, though, I’m leaving it to the experts.
The great things about those experts is that they often put their talents to good use. A group of speedrunners joined forces to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation with a week-long speedrunning marathon streamed on Twitch.
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Game Trailers Roundup: January 12, 2015
After a little Christmas and New Year’s break, we’re back with the first game trailers roundup of 2015. Of course, I could have pushed this back another week because new trailers haven’t exactly been plentiful over the last few weeks. However, we have five trailers for some pretty popular games for you to watch today.
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Nintendo Pulls Out of the Brazilian Market
Back in October, we covered complaints over the price of the PlayStation Four and Xbox One in Brazil. As a result of the country’s high import duties and taxes, the PS4, which is priced at $400 in America, costs the equivalent of $1,800 USD in Brazil while the Xbox One jumped in price from $500 to $1,000.
Sony and Microsoft are continuing in the Brazilian market despite very nearly being priced out of it because of the local taxes. On the other hand, Nintendo has decided that the prices caused by high taxes are too much so they are pulling their products from Brazil.
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et geekera’s Most Anticipated Games of 2015
Since we did our look back at 2014 yesterday, it only makes sense to use the next day to look forward. It’s only logical to follow-up on our list of our favourite games of 2014 with a look at the games that we’re most excited about in 2015 with the Most Anticipated Games of 2015.
et geekera 