Community Concerns: The Importance of Reading Comprehension


Yea, we’re still talking about Blizzcon.

It’s been a while since I talked about the whole nontroversy surrounding Blizzard and the prize pool for World of Warcraft’s Blizzcon tournaments, so I will sum up for those who don’t feel like clicking the link in this paragraph. Blizzard sold digital toys with 25% proceeds going toward a prize pool with a guaranteed minimum of $500k, and some people interpreted this as Blizzard footing $500k and then the toy sale portion being on top of that. In fact, a lot of people with direct financial incentives to the prize pool being bigger happened to think that. Crazy.

One of those people is Shanna Roberts, general manager of the esports team Method. Roberts released a statement yesterday (November 10) to talk about a breakdown in trust between Blizzard and the community because a number of people didn’t correctly read the plain English of the promotion. Roberts claims that Blizzard announced that the $500k minimum would be supplemented by 25% sales from the toys (they didn’t). I’ll put up the plain language of the promotion for your perusal:

“For a limited time, every purchase of the Transmorpher Beacon or Lion’s Pride and Horde’s Might Fireworks, 25% of the proceeds will contribute toward the year’s finals LAN event prize pool for the Arena World Championship (AWC) and the Mythic Dungeon International (MDI) with a guaranteed minimum prize pool of $500,000 USD ($250,000 USD for each event.) Your support will help take the WoW esports prize pool to the next level.”

25% of proceeds contributed toward the year’s finals with a guaranteed minimum of $500k. The misinterpretation is then followed up by conspiracy-level speculation that Blizzard deliberately backtracked on something they never said they would do to ensure that Warcraft’s prize pool wasn’t bigger than any of the other big tournaments which has no logical conclusion and would have absolutely no benefit for Blizzard.

“It is my personal hypothesis that this is exactly what caused the backtracking: Blizzard couldn’t allow AWC or MDI to have bigger individual prize pools than Hearthstone Grandmasters, OW World Cup, or SC2.”

Roberts goes on to complain about how the practice facility was only open for one day and didn’t provide adequate snacks or comfortable chairs, and how the opening rounds were held offline thus preventing players from using the streams to make money because it turns out being a WoW pro player doesn’t pay like a full time job. Who would have thought?

I’m not going to fault Shanna Roberts for doing her job which is to get her team more money.

If she had hired MMO Fallout’s Master Gaming Consultancy since I read the announcement when it came out and could have fully explained it to her and any other esports folks who were confused, this matter might have been resolved pretty quickly and we wouldn’t be here today. I have eleven years experience writing about video games and my flat fee is two grand per month which is frankly a deal since I’m not going to torpedo your business like what happened with that Sunset game.

Otherwise I think I’m done talking about Blizzcon 2019.

PSA: Need For Speed: Heat Will Be (Almost) 50% Off This Month


Need For Speed: Heat is the latest title in the popular Need for Speed franchise, and those of you who went out of your way to buy it on day one are set to be rewarded by paying a $30 premium for a couple of weeks head start. Need for Speed is going on heavy discount this Black Friday.

Target this past week released their Black Friday ad which runs from November 28-30 and Need For Speed is about to get a substantial discount. $35 in fact, down from its current asking price of $59.99. The $35 sale includes “over 10 games” and also contains recent releases like Borderlands 3, NHL 20, and Monster Hunter with Iceborne. We do not know what the other titles are that are included in the sale.

Need For Speed: Heat launched on November 8 and notably released with no microtransactions.

Sony’s Cartridge Patent May Mean Absolutely Nothing


With Disney Plus launching on Tuesday and Google Stadia not out for over a week, it’s time to set our sights on 2020 and that can only mean one thing; Next gen console speculation. Letsgodigital is reporting that Sony has filed a patent for a game cartridge in Brazil. Not a whole lot about the cartridge is known; in fact, nothing is known outside of a flat image of its design. The patent was filed by Yujin Morisawa who is the senior art director of Sony Interactive Entertainment and is listed as the inventor.

The internet of course has gone into full-blown speculation mode. Could this be a feature of the Playstation 5? Is Sony working on a Vita 2? Or some other handheld? What if this is for a standalone wireless VR system? Maybe it’s an expansion pack like the Nintendo 64 had. Maybe it will boost the ram of the system.

Or maybe it’s nothing. Honestly you could pick out any of the major game companies and fill a book with the number of things that they have patented and never ultimately created a product out of. Sony has stated on several occasions that a new handheld system just isn’t in the books thanks to the fantastic support that the Vita received, but there is also nothing to say that Sony hasn’t looked at the success of the Switch and given a second thought to a portable successor. On another side, it would seem odd to imagine that there is a time where Sony isn’t actively thinking about coming back into the portable world.

Or it could be for another kid computer toy like the Toio.

Call of Duty, WoW Classic Make Activision Blizzard Mucho Dinero


The success of World of Warcraft Classic could only come as a shock to J. Allen “You think you do but you don’t” Brack, but to the rest of the world the idea that the classic servers brought back a lot of players isn’t surprising in the least.

Activision released their third quarter statements for 2019 and the results are pretty great for them. With sales from Call of Duty BLOPS 4 and WWII still strong and World of Warcraft Classic leading the way, Activision hauled in $1.28 billion dollars compared to $1.51 billion in 2018. World of Warcraft Classic drove subscriptions to its highest quarterly increase in franchise history while Candy Crush somehow continues to grow in revenue. In addition, the launch of Call of Duty Mobile has been a major success in terms of downloads and revenue.

Despite recent controversy, Blizzard has created a good amount of hype with the announcement of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV at this year’s Blizzcon.

The quarter ends on September 30 and does not reflect any potential consumer reaction to the Blitzchung Hearthstone controversy, nor does it include sales from the latest Modern Warfare title.

Source: Activision report

Pearl Abyss Announces Three New MMOs


Pearl Abyss today has dropped a surprise ahead of the annual Pearl Abyss Connect event in the form of three new games under development.

  • PLAN 8 is an exosuit MMO shooter.
  • DokeV is a collectible MMORPG for all ages.
  • Crimson Desert is an open-world MMORPG set in an epic-fantasy world.

Pulling no punches, Pearl Abyss announced that PLAN 8 is being spearheaded by Minh Le serving as technical director. You may recognize that name as one of the co-creators of Counter Strike. DokeV has brought on a couple of former directors from Black Desert Online including Sang-young Kim and Suh Won Choi.

All three games will be featured at next week’s Connect event. In the meantime you can sign up at the links above to be notified of the trailers when they go live.

Source: Pearl Abyss press release

China Clamps Down On Child Spending, Adult Gambling In Games


Sorry industry!

China, a country famous for its friendliness toward entertainment media, has officially begun cracking down on the gaming industry in the name of protecting vulnerable citizens. As reported by NPR, the move outlines six initiatives to prevent minors from indulging in online games. Minors are restricted to playing 90 minutes of video games every day except national holidays when that limit goes up to three hours. In addition, minors will be limited to spending $28 or $57 per month depending on age and can not game between the hours of 10p.m. and 8:00a.m.

But the restrictions don’t just apply to kids. All Chinese gamers will be prohibited from enjoying games depicting sex, gore, violence, and gambling.

China’s new directives implicate adult gamers too. A state spokesperson says that everyone, regardless of age, is prohibited from playing games that depict “sexual explicitness, goriness, violence and gambling.”

No word on how loot boxes fit into the depiction of gambling.

Source: NPR via MassivelyOP

Striker/Tamer Out Now On Black Desert (PS4)


Today marks the launch of two new classes in Black Desert on the Playstation 4; the Striker and Tamer.

The Striker class is a melee fighting class that specializes in hand-to-hand attacks to bring down his enemies. The Tamer as you might expect is joined by her animal companion and utilizes powerful area of effect attacks while evading counterattacks. In addition to the two classes, Black Desert on Playstation 4 sees the addition of a new world boss in the form of Karanda The Queen of Harpies. Karanda has a chance of dropping the dandelion weapon box which contains the most powerful awakening weapon in Black Desert.

Information on the classes can be found here with Karanda and a new world boss schedule here. Black Desert is currently 25% off on the Playstation Store and 50% off for plus members as part of the ongoing Double Discount sale.

Vicious Circle Goes Free To Play, Refunds Everyone


Back in September we reported on the failed launch of Vicious Circle, the latest title from Rooster Teeth Games. In that time, the crew has been working behind the scenes and at the start of the month announced that not only would Vicious Circle be going free to play, but that those who bought founders packs would be refunded.

“Why is Vicious Circle going Free to Play? In short, the game didn’t succeed. We came together on a super creative ambitious new project, put our hearts into it, did our best to support it, and it didn’t work out, and that’s okay. Not every idea we have will be a success. We have to fail to find success. Servers will remain up because we made a game and we want the community to still have a chance to play it. We don’t want price to get in the way. We remain proud of the work that was put into the game and want as many people to have the chance to experience it as possible.”

Don’t get too excited about that free to play, though. While the game is going free to play, Rooster Teeth has no intention of supporting the title outside of some bug fixes.

Source: Steam

Jagex Will Discuss RuneScape Monetization On November 5 Stream


RuneScape. Financially the game is in a fantastic position; back in May we discussed how Jagex had posted a 9.3% increase in overall revenue with subscription numbers at their highest ever in the game’s history thanks to the launch of Old School mobile.

But all has not been great on the western front. MMO Fallout has reported for several years on how RuneScape’s monetization efforts have been very successful, but also very polarizing in the community. Every couple of years, Jagex reaches out to try to pull on the brakes of the game’s heavy microtransactions and it looks like it’s time for another heart to heart. Community animosity has been high ever since a UK parliamentary report from September specifically called out the developer when discussing egregious microtransactions, pointing to one player who had spent more than $62,000 USD.

On November 5, several Jagex staff will host a stream discussing the future of microtransactions in RuneScape. Those of you placing bets should keep in mind that Jagex receives one third of its revenue from these microtransactions.

“Tune in at 5PM GMT on November 5th for a very important livestream. Mods Osborne, Warden and MIC will be on the couch discussing plans for the future of MTX in RuneScape.

Ask your questions in the Discord room, on the forums, or in the dedicated Reddit thread – or email Mod Warden directly at AskModWarden@jagex.com. Your opinion is important to us, especially when it comes to controversial topics like this one – so let us hear your thoughts!”

Source: RuneScape

World of Warcraft Squishing Levels Down To 60


Blizzard is crushing your head.

Blizzcon came and went this weekend and World of Warcraft players received confirmation on a feature that many probably knew was coming months ago. Blizzard officially announced that World of Warcraft will see an arguably much deserved level crunch as the max cap goes from 120 to 60. Current level 120 players will be crunched down to 50 and be able to make their way to the new level cap of 60.

Another positive of this announcement is that alt leveling is supposed to be more user friendly. Alts will be able to level in any zone or through world quests, and while you’ll need to hit level 60 to unlock the ability to align with end-game factions, your alts will be able to take advantage of the faction alignment from the start and begin farming end-game materials earlier.

Enjoy level 120 while it lasts.

Source: Blizzard press release