NPD finally adds digital tracking to its game sales reports
For years, the NPD Group has tracked and reported video game sales figures. Every month, the company issues an email to the media detailing the top ten selling games for the month prior, total amount spent on games, hardware and accessories and year-over-year and generation-over-generation growth or decline. The glaring hole in those reports is that they didn’t account for digital game sales from places like Steam, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. But that’s changing and with this month’s data, we’ll finally have steps toward a true, comprehensive picture of how much a particular title has sold, both from retailers and digital distribution.
It’s something that’s been in the works for five years, and the NPD Group has struck agreements with a number of publishers to track their digital data. Those include Activision, Capcom, Deep Silver, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive and Warner Bros. Interactive. You’ll notice some pretty big gaps there: Bethesda, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. NPD spokesperson Liam Callahan said that if the group waited for everyone to come on board, that the tracking wouldn’t have ever launched. “If we waited to have every publisher in the world to sign up it would take forever,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.
In addition digital full-game purchases, add-on packs and micro-transactions will be tracked as well, but those sales numbers won’t be divulged to the press or public. And instead of separating the digital sales numbers from physical sales, they’ll instead be combined — much like the company doesn’t break down game sales by system. Games that come from publishers who aren’t disclosing digital sales data will be denoted as such.
Frankly, it’s about time that the NPD did this. As digital sales have ballooned (especially with the current crop of consoles), the firm’s reporting has been incredibly incomplete. With this, we’re getting closer to actually knowing exactly how popular a particular month’s games are in terms of sales.
Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the NeoGAF crowd and comment sections cheering over more data to scrub through and lord over each other’s heads come the third Thursday of every month.
Xbox Live now supports high-quality PC Twitch streaming
If you want to use the Xbox Live network to tell followers you’re streaming Xbox One games on Twitch, there’s just one way: Stream from the console’s Twitch app. The problem is that the quality and options are very limited, since the Xbox One isn’t exactly a TV production studio. However, Microsoft and Twitch have teamed up to make it possible to use Xbox Live when you’re streaming from a PC using a capture card — all you need to do is link your Xbox Live and Twitch accounts.
That’ll let you use a card or standalone box like the Elgato HD60, AVerMedia GC550 or other on a PC, along with an app like OBS (open broadcaster software), to get higher quality streams, keying, graphic overlays and other options not supported on the Xbox One itself.
At the same time, your content will show up in the “activity feed on Xbox One and Xbox apps on Windows 10, iOS and Android,” according to Xbox’s Major Nelson. Followers will also receive notifications on the Xbox One and Xbox apps, and on the “product details” page of the game in the Xbox Store. In other words, you’ll be able to get the word out about your Xbox One game streaming without giving up video quality, graphics, Skype guests and other options. The feature is now up and running, so to make it work, you’ll just need to link up your Xbox Live account from the connections section in your Twitch settings.
Source: Xbox (Major Nelson)
Build your very own vault in ‘Fallout 4’ June 26th
Whereas Fallout Shelter has become more like Fallout 4 in recent months, come July 26th those actions will swap. The “Vault-Tec Workshop” expansion hits PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One that day according to a post on Bethesda.net. What’s this add-on bring to the table? Creating a vault of your very own (like you did in Fallout Shelter on mobile) where you can attract folks to your custom-built domain, play dress-up with them and then put ’em to work. The company is sending out early beta access to folks on PC this week.
Anyone who’s spent a fair bit of time exploring the wastes of previous games has probably encountered at least a few vaults where overseers were running experiments on the dwellers. Now, you can do that yourself. The details of how far that will go aren’t clear just yet, but at least there isn’t much longer to wait.
Source: Bethesda.net
Sega Saturn copy protection gets cracked two decades later
Sega Saturn fans have a problem: while the console has long supported unofficial code on CDs thanks to mod chips, that’s no good if you want to use software in any other format. How will you play anything if your decades-old CD drive dies? You can rest easy after today. After years of work, enthusiast Dr. Abrasive has found a way to crack the Saturn’s copy protection system and let it run software from a card with USB support. This was no mean feat, as it turns out — the Saturn has a notoriously difficult-to-read anti-copying system that isolates itself from many cracking methods.
Dr. Abrasive ultimately had to fool the relevant chip into spilling its read-only memory, reverse-engineer its operating system and insert a custom board into the console’s Video CD card slot to feed the desired code. The result not only plays games faithfully, but does things the Saturn was never meant to do. It can write files to the USB stick, for example.
The project may be most helpful for archival, since it’d help you play the likes of Nights into Dreams or Panzer Dragoon on native hardware well after the CD drive kicks the bucket. However, it should also help tinkerers. Emulator developers could better understand how the Saturn works, homebrew game developers could easily load their content and non-gaming tasks (like playing chiptune music) would be that much easier. Dr. Abrasive is hoping to make a polished device that anyone can use, so there might soon be a day where you just have to pop in a card to relive classics you haven’t touched in years.
Source: Assembler Games, Debuglive (YouTube)
ESPN will air 18 hours of eSports coverage on July 17
ESPN is increasing its eSports coverage in a big way. The network will be airing 18 hours of eSports programming on ESPN2 and ESPNU on Sunday, July 17. This will mark the first time ESPN will air an entire eSports block on its major networks, a far cry from the days when it relegated League of Legends matches to streams on the web.
The programming block will start at 10 AM ET with re-airings of past matches such as the Madden NFL 2016 championship, and both the 2015 and 2016 Heroes of the Dorm: Championships. This will all lead up to the much anticipated 2016 Street Fighter V EVO World Championship final in Las Vegas, airing at 10 PM ET on ESPN2. Don’t worry cord cutters, all programs will also be available to stream via WatchESPN.
This is yet another sign of eSports going mainstream. It was only in 2015 that ESPN aired its first Heroes of the Storm tournament match on live TV. Since then, the network has launched a dedicated section on its site that focuses on professional gaming, and has aired a handful of championship matches.
With eSports bringing in over half a billion dollars in revenue in 2016 alone, it’s inevitable that ESPN will continue to increase its eSports coverage. It feels like a lifetime ago network president John Skippe said eSports aren’t real sports.
Holocaust Museum would like for ‘Pokémon Go’ trainers to back off
The world is rife with new trainers scouring the globe for Pokémon, unable to pry themselves away from their smartphones for even a moment lest they miss out on catching ’em all in Pokémon Go. They’re invading everywhere, from churches to police stations to graveyards, but there’s one place that would like to see the craze come to an end, as far as it’s concerned: the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
The Museum has found itself transformed into a series of three Poké Stops for each part of the facility, like several other inappropriate locales across the world, with visitors flocking to them, phones held high. Poké Stops are like caches of items for players who happen upon them, spawning items like Poké Balls, Potions and more. What’s more, certain Pokémon like Koffing are said to have appeared in some very precarious areas of the exhibits, though that may well have been a hoax. Museum directors are not taking to these displays well, and rightfully so:
“Playing the game is not appropriate in the museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazism,” said Andrew Hollinger, communications director when speaking to the Washington Post. The museum is looking into seeing if it can be removed as a home for Poké Stops going forward, as it seems “disrespectful” for visitors to be engaged in these displays in areas of the museum meant for reflection and solemnity, such as the museum’s Hall of Remembrance.
It’s a precarious situation that seems to be happening all over the world, what with an individual’s home marked as a Poké Stop and users needing to be cautioned from entering police stations and even courtrooms while attempting to catch ’em all. Niantic has yet to comment on this particular situation as of yet.
Via: The Washington Post
‘Pokémon Go’ update fixes the iOS app’s nosy Google access
Pokémon Go for iOS doesn’t have quite as much access to your Google account as some gamers have feared, but it’s clear that Niantic isn’t wasting time trying to assuage your concerns. It already has an update for the rabidly popular game that narrows the iOS version’s access to your Google data if you sign in using a Google account. In short, you can likely relax about your privacy while you’re Pikachu-catching — the biggest issue now is simply getting to play in the first place.
Source: App Store
‘Overwatch’ gets its first new hero: A healing sniper
In the month since its release, hero shooter Overwatch has received substantial praise and increasing speculation about new characters to come. Lauded game studio Blizzard has been characteristically silent about any additions to the game, going so far to placate clamoring fans with a panel at San Diego Comic-Con to discuss their next hero. But out of nowhere, the wait is over: the studio has announced Ana, a support sniper and mother of existing character Pharah. While she isn’t released publicly yet, she is playable on Blizzard’s PC-only public test realm (PTR) servers.
Ana’s kit is pretty unique: a ranged support character that can both heal and do damage over time with her weapon. Both of her abilities follow the role, with an area of effect grenade that both heals allies and prevents enemies from getting healed, while her sleep dart temporarily incapacitates enemies for a time period or until they take damage. Her ultimate, Nano Boost, is an all-around buff that increases damage and movement speed while reducing damage taken. In short, a distance healer-fighter hybrid that can help while staying out of harm’s way.
According to the video below, Ana was one of the old guard of the Overwatch organization. An efficient professional, she completed her missions until apparently hesitating to shoot Widowmaker, an old friend turned into an assassin by a shadowy terrorist cabal. Believed dead, she lost an eye and her team of friends, but is apparently back in the fight.
Overwatch rose from the ashes of Blizzard’s canceled MMO Titan, and to keep the game’s focus on light multiplayer, all backstory is hidden in artifacts around the levels. Thus, gamers churned the rumor mill with theories about soon-to-come heroes, correctly deducing that a sniper character would soon be released and even rightly guessing her identity and story connections to the Overwatch organization. After a hint-packed tweet was sent last week by the official Overwatch account, buzz grew around when, not if, Blizzard would officially announce her.
The studio’s silence about elements in development goes hand in hand with their motto of “it’s done when it’s done.” This reflects its famously high level of polish, but also the painful process learning how much fans soured on news of game delays. Now the company only makes announcements when they are certain that characters or modes will end up in the game, though by that time they are so unusually refined that they are almost ready for live play.
It seems Blizzard’s rigorous testing process still has a ways to go with Ana, as they have only stated she is “coming soon” to Overwatch. PC players can try her out on PTR servers, which the studio uses to test new additions before they release a patch to update the game globally. The latest of these was released today, limiting teams to one of each hero in the relatively new Competitive Mode so you won’t have to worry about slamming into six Torbjörns.
Source: Overwatch blog
‘Pokémon Go’ is the ‘aha’ moment AR has been waiting for
Pokémon is a thing right now thanks to Pokémon Go. Niantic’s AR creature-catching game is number one in both the Android and iOS app stores and it’s on track to have more daily active users than Twitter thanks to an install base of 7.5 million players so far. It was impossible to go out this past weekend without being surrounded by Pokémon Go players of all stripes — a lot of kids, sure, but plenty of adults too. Some were revisiting their childhood love of the franchise, while others were discovering it for the first time. But cute little monsters aren’t the only thing Pokémon Go is their first exposure to: For many of these players, it’s their first time using augmented reality. And, based on their reactions, they love it.
Augmented reality has been around in various forms for years, but it’s failed to take the mainstream by storm. Sure, you can see what a kitchen remodel would look like or get more information about a work of art hanging in front of you, but these aren’t things a person does on a regular basis. Most uses of AR have been tied to very specific experiences and locations rather than a person’s daily routine.
Instead, AR is more like virtual reality’s neglected cousin. While consumer-grade VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are available now, high-profile AR projects like Hololens are still only in the developer stage. Sure, there’s Lenovo’s upcoming Phab2 Pro, a phone optimized for AR usage. But Lenovo isn’t a marquee name when it comes to phones, and is unlikely to sell enough to make an impact.
Pokémon Go, however, has exploded into a full-on phenomenon. My Facebook and Twitter feeds have been overrun by people’s experiences with the game. As I walked around my neighborhood this past weekend I encountered plenty of people excited to catch Pokémon. A small child running with an iPhone in hand, his mother laughing at she tried to keep up. Three teenagers, standing outside my local library, discussing how to take over the Pokémon Gym there. I found myself walking by people with their phones out and turning to look at their screens to see if they were playing Pokémon Go… only to find they were looking back at me for the same reason.
The reasons for some of its success are clear: The app is free, which means there’s no financial barrier. It was released on both iOS and Android at the same time, which means nobody has to miss out on the initial excitement (unless they’re one of the 1.1 percent running Windows Phone). And then there’s the fact that Pokémon is an internationally recognized brand that once graced the cover of Time magazine.
Fans have been clamoring to see the franchise on smartphones for years and, though The Pokémon Company has released a handful of apps, none of the games have really utilized the basic mechanics of capturing a plethora of fantastical creatures. The motto of the series for years was “Gotta Catch ‘Em All,” and if you were to talk to a layperson even remotely familiar with the franchise, they’d probably mutter those words at some point. It’s only appropriate to make this mechanic the center of Pokémon Go.
The whole process is extremely intuitive: When you see a Pokémon on the map you tap on it. Then you center the Pokémon on the screen, and flick Poké Balls at it with a swipe of your finger. The balls even obey the laws of physics, following an arc downward as gravity pulls on them. They even roll away if you miss (you pick them back up by tapping on them). The learning curve is incredibly small for this core part of the game.
But it’s the connection to the real world that really cements the experience for newbie players. They might not feel comfortable immersing themselves in a fantasy world with a lot of backstory like the Kanto region of Pokémon Red and Blue. Instead, Pokémon Go is asking them to take a closer look at something a bit more familiar — the world around them.
It’s a lot less intimidating, especially to a newcomer. It helps that in establishing its reality the game firmly grounds itself in our world in ways that make sense to a player: Of course Water-type Pokémon live near rivers and lakes and Grass-type Pokémon are in the park. Of course notable locations like a historic house or mural would be a PokéStop. And, while there aren’t many actual gyms serving as Pokémon Gyms in the game, heading to your local library or church makes a weird sort of sense too, because these are important buildings to a community.
Pokémon Go is operating as a trojan horse for AR, because it isn’t touting itself as an enhancement in any way. It’s not going to give you restaurant reviews when you look at a storefront, and that’s fine because most people don’t need an extra layer on the world right now. Granted, AR has its own pitfalls: Pokémon Go trainers have stumbled upon dead bodies, almost caused a few accidents and there’s at least one case of late-night players being accused of drug dealing. However, smartphones are so ubiquitous that no one really questions seeing another person wave one around, and the ability to show off the game and easily explain how it works has rendered it mostly harmless.
Pokémon Go is a great introduction to AR, showing people how the technology works and putting the idea into people’s heads that there could be something more to the world around us. Right now those thoughts fall along the lines of “What if there’s a Weedle behind that bush?” But, as people get used to the idea of pointing a phone at an object or place to reveal a hidden layer to it, it’ll become second nature to them, paving the way for more substantial AR experiences.
Warner Bros. paid YouTubers for positive game reviews
Warner Bros. has settled an FTC complaint accusing the company of paying YouTubers “hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars” to make positive review videos for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. FTC filed the complaint back in 2014, after the studio ran an online marketing campaign for the game. According to the the commission, Warner Bros. required (PDF) the online influencers they hired to make a video that “promote[s] positive sentiment about” Shadow of Mordor. That video should “not show bugs or glitches that may exist” and should “not communicate negative sentiment” about Warner Bros. These influencers also had to promote their videos on Facebook and Twitter. The commission didn’t release a list of the YouTubers the studio paid, but it did name PewDiePie as one of them.
Since those influencers received payment for videos praising the game, their creations are classified as sponsored content. That wouldn’t have been a problem if they diclosed it, but the FTC says the company didn’t require them to do so within the video itself. Warner Bros. only instructed them to place disclosures in their videos’ description boxed, and most of the time, you can only see the entirety of what’s written in there by clicking “Show More.”
In PewDiePie’s case, you’ll see a line that says “This video was sponsored by Warner Brother” when you view the video’s whole description. Some of the reviewers didn’t even say that their videos were sponsored, only that they received a free copy of the game. In all, the paid reviews raked in 5.5 million views, 3.7 million of which came from PewDiePie, who has over 46 million subscribers. It’s worth noting that Shadow of Mordor was well-received and won eight out of the nine DICE awards it was nominated for. Warner Bros. probably didn’t even need to pay people to get good reviews.
If you’re wondering what kind of penalty the company got, well, let’s just say it got off real easy. The commission only wants the studio to make sure the influencers it hires clearly and conspicuously disclose that they received payment from Warner Bros in the future. It also has to review those videos for compliance and withhold payment if they don’t contain the proper disclosure stating their status as sponsored content.
Via: Mashable, Ars Technica
Source: FTC
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