Pearl Abyss has announced the final beta for Black Desert, the open-world fantasy action MMORPG coming to Xbox One. The final open beta will run from February 14 to February 17, offering the last chance for players to take in the environments, quests, and action combat before the game launches on March 4. On Xbox.
Those who hit level 30 during the beta will be rewarded with a Calpheon chubby dog for launch. Everyone else can pass the time by watching the trailer below.
I’ve been holding off on the Trion Worlds lawsuit coverage for the simple fact that not a whole lot has been happening over the past couple of months, at least nothing of major significance. Right now the case is getting to the end of discovery, this is the portion of the lawsuit where the parties finish up requesting and handing over documents that will be used in the coming trial. To spare you the reader from boredom, I have kindly summarized the last few case management conferences into one sentence: “Information was requested, other information may be requested, we will let you know at the next conference, and class action status is still pending.”
You’re welcome. Now on with the meat of the latest filings:
The Asset Transfer, Or, A New Defendant
If you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing story of Trion Worlds, you’ll know that the company is virtually nonexistent at this point. Last October, Trion transferred its assets and property to Trion Worlds LLC, which subsequently sold said assets to Gamigo. Trion Worlds LLC was issued a subpoena to produce information regarding the transaction and has since turned over an Asset Purchase Agreement and related documents.
The documents have shined light on another entity that may currently possess Trion assets: Golden Gate Games Inc. The plaintiffs not only intend to serve Golden Gate Games with documents and deposition subpoenas, but also have noted their intent to investigate whether individual officers/owners of Trion may be liable to plaintiffs and the proposed class action lawsuit as part of the asset transfer. The document also notes that plaintiffs have been unable to serve Gamigo with subpoenas.
As far as Trion Worlds is concerned, all non-privileged responsive documents have been produced. Trion has not sought any discovery information from the Plaintiffs according to court filings.
What Are We Waiting For?
For the moment, we are waiting to see whether the plaintiffs in the case will be adding an additional party or parties to the defense which will be known within the next two months. The next case management conference is not set until March 15, during which the parties will discuss the ongoing motion to certify the lawsuit for class action status. A request to compel documents pertaining to ArcheAge’s financial information has been deferred for the time being as unnecessary for class certification, however there is the possibility that we will be made privy to the details of Trion’s asset sale to Gamigo at some point in this lawsuit.
Again, there hasn’t been much development over the past two months, and there won’t be for another couple of months to come.
As always, the documents related to the case have been made available on the MMO Fallout Google Drive folder for your use.
EA fought the law and the law won, at least that’s the lesson the company learned this week after going head to head with Belgian authorities regarding loot box sales for FIFA games.
Those of you keeping score will recall that last April, the Belgian government criminalized certain loot box systems in video games, and sent notices to Valve, Activision Blizzard, and Electronic Arts warning that several of their titles were found to be in violation of the law. The Gaming Commission warned that the loot boxes would need to be removed, otherwise the companies could face fines and even jail sentences.
Valve and Activision Blizzard took near-immediate steps to disable loot box accessibility to Belgian players, while a number of other developers have opted to either alter their titles or outright shut them down within the country. EA meanwhile decided to take a gamble of its own and face a criminal investigation in order to keep selling those sweet ultimate team bucks. Unfortunately for EA, this gamble didn’t pay off, and the developer has posted a warning that FIFA Points will no longer be for sale in Belgium by the end of the month.
In case you were worried, EA notes that this change will have no material impact to their quarterly revenues.
After further discussions with the Belgian authorities, we have decided to stop offering FIFA Points for sale in Belgium. We’re working to make these changes effective in our FIFA console and PC games by January 31, 2019. This means that players in Belgium will not be able to purchase points to obtain FIFA Ultimate Team packs. Players still can access Ultimate Team and play with their existing players. All content in the game can be earned through gameplay, as has always been the case, and players can continue to use coins and the in-game transfer market. Any players in Belgium that have existing FIFA Points in their accounts can continue to use them, but they will not be able to purchase more. We apologize to our players in Belgium for any inconvenience caused by this change.
We seek to bring choice, fairness, value and fun to our players in all our games. In addition to providing players options in how they play, we include pack probabilities in our games for the transparency players want to make informed content choices. While we are taking this action, we do not agree with Belgian authorities’ interpretation of the law, and we will continue to seek more clarity on the matter as we go forward. The impact of this change to FIFA Ultimate Team in Belgium is not material to our financial performance.
Source: EA Games
Another day, another publisher picked up by the lure of more money. Deep Silver is the latest publisher to become ensnared in the growing Epic Games Store, with Steam players being notified that Metro Exodus, which has been up for pre-order on Steam, will no longer be on sale as of today. Metro does not release until February 15, and Deep Silver has assured Valve that those who pre-ordered will still be able to access the game and future updates.
Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.
The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.
We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.
The initial reaction by the Metro community has not been positive, with the announcement being very quickly deleted following a wave of negative feedback. Negative reactions have already begun flooding the Steam forums with players assuring developer 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver that the store shift has convinced them to not purchase the game period. We will most likely know in a few months time whether the exclusivity deal was as lucrative as 4A Games hopes.
Source: Steam
Reuters is reporting that Shanghai Fukong International plans to sell its partial or full stock in RuneScape developer Jagex at some time presumably in the near future. Shanghai Fukong International was formed in 2016 and is a venture capital firm that bought all investments from Jagex’s previous investors for a 100% stake in the developer to the tune of $300 million USD.
Previous Jagex investors include Insight Venture Partners, The Raine Group, and Spectrum Equity Investors (source).
App Annie, a company that provides analytical data for mobile apps, released a list this week of the top companies of 2018 by worldwide consumer spending. The top members of the list might not be all that surprising, with game companies including Tencent, Activision Blizzard, and Netmarble topping the charts.
App Annie did not include specific data on how much each company brought in in revenue, but considering the market surpassed $92 billion last year, it’s bound to be a truckload.
Caret Games has announced the official launch of their mobile MMO RebirthM in North America for January 24.
RebirthM starts players off at level 100 and lets them loose to level up indefinitely through a new upgrade system. Exclusive elite dungeon challenges will open as players level, facing off against powerful bosses that will reward valuable items. The game also boasts as PvE environment with an endless world, as well as challenging PvP modes for more rewards including a battle royale system where players fight to the last person standing.
To celebrate its launch, RebirthM is holding a number of launch events for players to receive exclusive items. More information can be found on the official Facebook page. While the launch is exclusive to North America and Brazil, Caret Games has stated that the title is slowly expanding to more countries with a global server on its way.
Planetside Arena will launch on March 26, Daybreak Game Company announced in a news post circulated today.
Initially set for launch in early 2019, Planetside Arena will now feature an exclusive Founders season to get the “most dedicated” fans in before launch. Before the full game goes live, however, Daybreak is still gearing up for the first closed beta starting on January 30 with specific server times coming later this week. The founder’s season meanwhile will begin on Febuary 20, 2019 and will feature exclusive items that can only be obtained during this season of the battle pass. Those who preorder will receive immediate access to the founder’s season and battle pass.
More information can be found at the official website.
Perfect World Entertainment this week announced that Mirror of Discovery, the latest expansion, is now available on PC with Xbox and Playstation 4 coming later this year. Star Trek fans will have the opportunity to meet Captain Killy of the Terran Empire, voiced by Mary Wiseman. Leader of the I.S.S. Discovery, Killy is never shown on screen in Star Trek: Discovery, however her reputation as a ruthless leader is often mentioned.
Mirror of Discovery picks up on the story left off by the prior expansion, Age of Discovery. The update in full contains the following new features:
Source: Perfect World Press Release
RuneScape is well known for its constantly changing landscape and design philosophy, weekly content updates will do that to you. The completion capes involve a long list of achievements in-game. As a show of their difficulty, these caps also happen to be best in slot stats and utility, which has made them almost mandatory for player vs monster activities.
This week’s poll is asking if players want to change that. There are two versions of the poll, one for players who have achieved the completion cape and one for those who never have. The sample questions below are for those who have never owned a completion cape.
The poll is accessible within RuneScape and will be live for another week. Jagex did note that this is not a guaranteed content poll, so the results are not guaranteed to lead to changes.
