Update Patch | August 2022 (Gamescom Edition)
August has come and gone, the city of Cologne hosted Gamescom back in person (which we’ll get to), the gaming world was indoctrinated by lambs just before it will be being reintroduced to some realistic goats and the men’s football is back on with Nottingham Forest back in the Premier League, which matters mostly to me (editor’s correction: this matters only to Alex). However, despite all that, the news continues and gaming has seen a fair few developments in August.
1. Gamescom Round-up
Gamescom was back in person as a public convention in the Koelnmesse for the first time since 2019. While it may be have been a quieter year for games, with lower attendance by the public*, there were plenty of games on display on the show floor and Geoff Keighley presenting the Opening Night Live showcase in-person.
Fun story, during Gamescom Frontiers was being shown on the public floor and behind closed doors. Press were embargoed on some of the details of what they saw but at some point people in the public booth broke the game and got to areas only the press were meant to see and started posting videos online while the press that’d had hands on couldn’t technically write about it.
The showcase provided plenty of details on upcoming games, including the following:
Dune: Awakening, a new “open world survival MMO” game based on the classic sci-fi franchise is in development, with no release date currently given.
Sonic Frontiers received a new story trailer that actually looked quite good, and got a confirmed release date of 8th November, because no other games are out in November.
Lords of the Fallen 2 has been in development since 2014, but now has appeared in the wild with a CGI trailer revealing the new title, The Lords of the Fallen, and that the game will release in 2023 (allegedly).
Plenty of new IP of varying sizes were also shown, with some of the most promising being the soulslike action game Lies of P, with its gorgeous Bloodborne pastiche, RPG Atlas Fallen from Deck13 Interactive, another intriguing sci-fi space shooter in Scars Above, and an excellent reveal of an open-world RPG set in ancient China, Where Winds Meet.
Dead Island 2 got a big set of trailers with some gameplay revealed, and a release date of 3rd February next year. The game, which was also first announced in 2014, has been in the hands of multiple developers with the final team to attach its name being Homefront: The Revolution’s Dambuster Studio. The game will be set in Los Angeles, which is not an island.
Next year’s Gamescom has already been announced for the 23rd - 27th August, following the same 4 day schedule from this year.
*This year saw an attendance of 265,000, while in comparison 2019 recorded 373.000 visitors to the showfloor.
2. Embracer Group Continues to EMBRACE
It wouldn’t be another 2022 edition of the Update Patch if we didn’t discuss mergers and acquisitions, and Embracer Group has certainly been busy on this front this month.
Please give tuxedo Labs a Middle Earth game. I want to procedurally knock down Helm’s Deep.
The Swedish company announced a whole load of acquisitions on the 18th of August. The biggest of these was acquiring the IP rights to the J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by acquiring Middle-Earth Enterprises, with CEO Lars Wingefors excited for the acquisition “opening up more transmedia opportunities.” The other acquisitions included Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Maneater), publishing company Limited Run Games, fellow Swedish studio Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and Singtrix LLC, a company specialising in “[creating] industry leading vocal processing effects technology for karaoke, gaming, and entertainment. In all the deals, Embracer have not revealed any prices, saying “The parties have agreed not to disclose specific terms due to commercial reasons.”
Additionally, the group officially completed the acquisition of the studios obtained from Square Enix back in May, which includes Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal. As per the company’s press release, a “12th operative group under the leadership of Phil Rogers and his management teams” will be formed to manage the companies. This acquisitions sees Embracer Group obtain many IPs including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and “more than 50 back-catalogue games from SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO., LTD.”
3. Sony Acquisition
Speaking of mergers and acquisitions, Sony has come in right at the end of the month with one of their own, picking up Savage Game Studios. The mobile studio is young, having only been formed in 2020 and still advertising plenty of open positions at the studio on its website. After acquiring Mac and PC porting house Nixxes last year this move sees PlayStation branching out further from just publishing games on the console market.
The good news is there is very little way whatever games come of this could be worse than the Uncharted phone game.
On the PlayStation blog, CEO and Co-founder of the new acquirees Michail Katkoff said “We made this deal because we believe that PlayStation Studios’ leadership respects our vision for how we can best operate and succeed, and because they too are not afraid to take chances.”
Packaged within the announcement is the news that Savage Game Studios will form part of a new group to put together entitled the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will “operate independently from our console development and focus on innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP.” The blog also confirms Savage is working on “a new unannounced AAA mobile live service action game”, but it is not revealed as to whether this is based on an existing PlayStation series or a new IP.
4. Another Activision Blizzard Update
As usual, news continues to circulate around Activision Blizzard as their acquisition by Microsoft carries on. In good news for them, the deal has received its first regulatory approval from a government body, The General Authority for Competition (GAC) is the regulatory body for Saudi Arabia, and published a No Objection Certificate to indicate their approval of the deal. Word is not expected from other bodies for a while, with Microsoft expecting to complete the process in 2023.
We have officially run out of new images to use in these sections…
Current Xbox chief Phil Spencer has made a rare comment on the acquisition in an interview with Bloomberg nicely summarised by IGN, describing the progress as “good” and saying “I go into the process supportive of people who maybe aren't as close to the gaming industry asking good, hard questions”. Spencer also admitted that “I've never done a 70 billion-dollar deal, so I don't know what my confidence means”.
Meanwhile, the, Activision-Blizzard-King, acquirees have been accused of spying on workers who took part in a company walkout in July and threatening to close channels that staff used to discuss wages by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), who have filed an unfair labour practice charge against the company. The CWA states “The complaint highlights examples of Activision Blizzard’s continued efforts to undermine and suppress workers’ right to organize.” In response to this reporting by Engadget, the company dismissed the claims and said the CWA “willfully ignores the facts”. The claim can be investigated by the National Labor Relations Board.
5. EVO IS BACK BABY!
The ultimate esports fighting championships was back after a muted year of online tournaments in 2021 and a cancelled even in 2020. EVO 2022 took place from August 5th - 7th and hosted a number of world championships for games including Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate, Skullgirls: 2nd Encore and many more… But not Super Smash Bros.
Do yourself a favour and watch the Street Fighter V Top 8 for an all time great lower bracket run.
This year saw plenty of prize money being given out, with the biggest singular winner being UMISHO who took home $21,500 for his winning effort in the Guilty Gear: Strive tournament. Prize money is awarded proportionally based on the number of players in a tournament, who all pay a $10 entry fee and the winnings split between the top 8 players, with the winner receiving 42% of the pot.
EVO is also know for its FGC focused announcements. This year included an early first look at a 3D model for Kazuya in the next Tekken entry, Xbox Series X│S and PS5 versions of Dragon Ball FighterZ with much requested rollback netcode being added, and a look at Juri and new character Kimberley in the upcoming Street Fighter 6.
6. Phil Spencer Comments On Crypto And Exclusive Games
As noted earlier, Phil Spencer was doing the press rounds and noted his positivity at the progress of the deal to acquire Activision Blizzard and had a few other notes on current trends in the industry.
Oh please god, no one ask Todd Howard about NFTs.
Much has been made of Xbox’s continuous acquisitions and push for exclusive content, but Spencer has suggested that exclusive games are something he hopes to see “less and less of” and was keen to promote cross-play as being necessary for gaming going forward. In the same interview he explained that less exclusives across video game consoles would be “good for this industry.”
Additionally, Spencer had comments on NFTs, because apparently we have to care about people making rubbish images of apes and 3D animations not good enough for the PlayStation 1. Spencer didn’t completely write the idea off, saying “the actual human use, or player use in our case, of these technologies, I think there could be some interesting things.” Where Spencer took umbrage was with the concept of the “play-to-earn” suggestion with NFT based games, saying “It creates a worker force out of players for certain players to monetise.”
7. PQube Controversy
Finally, some controversy regarding the UK publisher PQube Games, best known for New Super Lucky’s Tale and Inertial Drift. PQube were due to publish Toge Productions’ (Coffee Talk) and Mojiken Studio’s next game A Space for the Unbound.
PQube have a lot of questions to answer.
However, in a statement on Twitter, the developers announced they would delay its release of the game indefinitely after claiming that the publishers misused a diversity grant fund that was “intended to help underrepresented game developers, especially during the pandemic.” In the statement, they allege that PQube Games “intentionally withheld information about the grant and used it as a leverage for their own commercial gain… PQube Games hid the facts about the grant’s award and added it as a recoupable minimum guarantee and then used it to negotiate the increase of their revenue share”. The developers claim they found out about it in March of this year.
As a result, the developers say they have felt “manipulated and exploited” and so they have terminated their agreements with PQube Games. However, the publisher is still not handing back publishing controls for console platforms, claiming the developers are holding back work.
PQube Games have responded in a statement to Eurogamer, refuting these claims and even claiming that their support for the developers has included going “over and above grant funding”, stating unequivocally “We have honoured all obligations of our publishing agreement and have supported Toge Productions at every stage of product development.” The publisher also claims Toge Productions have “sought for some time to unilaterally enforce unreasonable revised terms to our agreement”.
On the 1st of September, indie developer, Corecell, have come forward with similar allegations of misleading business practices against PQube in regards to its game, Aetrono Blade II on Switch. While this is developing story, we here at startmenu will keep you updated in the coming months.
Patch Notes:
It is easy to clown on the idea of a Comix Zone movie but…
Actually, no but, it is just very mock-able.
HBO has shown off the first footage of its TV adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us as part of a trailer showing off its upcoming slate of TV.
Gematsu have reported that Elden Ring has continued its excellent sales over the year, with an announcement in its recent financial report that it has surpassed 16.6m sales.
Developer Massive Monster have announced that Cult of the Lamb has hit 1 million units sold, and in doing so had the most creative press release of the year which can be read here.
Sony have announced that PS5 consoles will be increasing in price by £30 in the UK, citing “high inflation rates” in selected markets. Microsoft and Nintendo have released statements indicating they will not be doing this presently.
Avalanche Studios’ Christopher Sundburg revealed in an interview with MinnMax that the company were “2 years” into development on an open world game based on Marvel’s Iron Man before the project was cancelled, citing “company politics” and a “(shortened) development time… (that) it would have broken the studio completely”.
Speaking of Disney-related things, the company has announced a Disney & Marvel Games Showcase for Friday 9th September as part of the D23 event, with details and “new content from Disney & Pixar Games, Marvel Games, Lucasfilm Games, and 20th Century Games.”
Bend Studios’ Days Gone is reportedly due for a cinematic adaptation from Sony, with screenwriter Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air, The Longest Yard) and Vendetta Productions currently attached to the production.
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that a live action Pac-Man film is in development from Bandai Namco with production company Wayfarer Studios also involved. (Writer’s Note: After Pixels, we can stop now.)
Sega, in the wake of the success of the film adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog, have announced similar adaptations are in the works for Space Channel 5 and Comix Zone with production company Picturestart.
