Update Patch | January 2021
Congratulations! You have made it through the first month of 2021. A month in which vaccines for our pandemic disaster have started being given out to mixed results and a different old white dude became the US President following an attempted insurrection in the Capitol building.
Thank god for good ole’ games. Hitman III, The Medium, Olija, Torchlight III and more have been some of the first games to release this year, even if many of us are happy to make our way through our backlog this month. January has also seen plenty of great video game announcements and developments. It’s been a busy month of news, so in anticipation of a busy 2021 in gaming, let’s look back on some of the biggest and most important news stories from January.
1. GameStop Stock: A Short Saga
Summing up this story is a gargantuan task, but the biggest take away has been the massive rise of the GameStop stock, $GME, which has ballooned recently following users on r/wallstreetbets driving up the price of the stock to over $400 a share at points.
GameStop’s stock closed on January 27th at $347.51, a stark contrast from the same day last year when it was valued at $4.28. The price has seen plenty of amateur traders get rich from later selling the stocks as well as the three largest shareholders, Ryan Cohen, Donald Foss and George Sherman, making more than $2bn as a result.
Some of the biggest losers were hedge fund companies, who had been ‘shorting’ GameStop stock and many companies which have been seen as “dead in the water” for the last few years, such as AMC and Blackberry. ‘Shorting’ refers to a practice in which a stock is borrowed and sold at a high price, then bought back at a lower price with the borrower pocketing the difference. However now all those that shorted GameStop have to deal with having agreed to buy stocks which are rocketing in value, potentially bankrupting them. This led to a large amount of the stock market growing volatile and the US government stating they are “monitoring the situation”.
You could say that this stock is skyrocketing… huh, huh?
Amongst the controversy, amateur trading site Robinhood has begun to prevent users from buying additional shares of these particular stocks, citing “significant market volatility”, while speculation runs rampant that it is more likely due to pressure from the powers that be. The decision received plenty of criticism as it prevented traders from investing in the rapidly rising stock, but Robinhood will be re-opening trading following a $1bn cash injection.
2. The Xbox Live Gold Fiasco and Microsoft’s No Good, Dirty Rotten, Very Bad Day
Speaking of money and raising prices, Microsoft received plenty of flak following their decision to announce a price increase to their online subscription service, Xbox Live Gold.
In a post on January 22nd on Xbox Wire, Microsoft announced that the price of a 1-month subscription would increase by $1 and 3-month subscriptions would increase by $5, thus standardising each subscription to approximately $120 for a year. In the blog post, Microsoft stated “Periodically, we assess the value and pricing of our services to reflect changes in regional marketplaces and to continue to invest in the Xbox community”.
More like Game Passing The Buck, amiright?
The price change was seen by some as a way to push customers into subscribing to the much-lauded Xbox Game Pass service, a model which Microsoft has pushed plenty in the past year (Microsoft recently reported the service had crossed 18 million subscribers). This comes after Microsoft quietly removed the ability to buy Gold for $60 for 12-months this summer The increase in price of Xbox Live Gold has been seen as a way of removing choice from players, something especially questionable during a pandemic when many people are hurting financially. The largest outcry came from players frustrated by Microsof’s long-standing policy of making free-to-play offerings such as Fortnite, Apex Legends and others cost $120 a year as Gold is required for any online game on Xbox, unlike PlayStation where Free-to-play games can be played without PS Plus.
The criticism was so large that Microsoft quickly u-turned on the issue, updating that same blog post stating, “We messed up today and you were right to let us know. Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.” On top of this, they have also reverted the position on free-to-play games, meaning you can now play the likes of Fortnite without a Gold membership.
3. Scavenger Studios’ Internal Issues
Scavenger Studios (Darwin Project, Season) is facing serious public scrutiny following the publishing of a report from Rebekah Valentine on GamesIndustry.biz detailing allegations against now-former creative director Simon Darveau.
In the report, nine current and former employees at the company spoke of a “boy’s club culture… actively led by” studio co-founder, Simon Darveau, with women facing sexist remarks from Darveau and others. Stories mentioned include a team meeting in which the main character of the upcoming Season, Abby, could play the guitar. To this, someone said, without objection or reprimand it “wasn’t realistic”, giving the reasoning that it was too complicated for a woman to play.
A company party in January 2019 saw numerous employees claiming Darveau would “inappropriately touch and grab multiple female employees”. Following a female employee leaving the company, an external investigation was held, however, it reportedly did little to prevent Darveau being a disruptive influence.
In the report, criticism was also aimed at co-owner Amélie Lamarche. According to reports, Lamarche was the de-facto person to go to with staffing issues as Scavengers Studios have no HR department. However, Lamarche was reportedly in a romantic relationship with Darveau “up until the last few years”, dissuading people from reporting issues worried by a potential conflict of interest among management.
Time for reevaluation.
Since the report, Scavenger Studios have released an official statement in which it was stated Darveau has been indefinitely suspended from “all responsibilities within the company” along with an external audit being launched and a new COO, Daisy Lilly Best, being put in place. Best “will be reporting directly to the board of directors for the duration of the audit to ensure complete transparency and accountability.” Lamarche will temporarily step down from her role during this audit.
4. A Treasure Trove of LucasFilm Games Announcements
January saw the announcements of two new licensed games based on the catalogue of LucasFilm.
Firstly, a new Indiana Jones game is in the works, marking a return to gaming for the character for the first time since 2009’s LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues and the DS game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings.
The new game will be developed by Bethesda studio MachineGames, who are experts when it comes to games about beating up Nazis, with the Wolfenstein franchise being one of the most critically acclaimed series of the last decade. It was also announced that Bethesda Game Studio’s Todd Howard is on board as executive producer.
Little is known about the game, other than the game will have a “completely original” story and a short reveal trailer that doesn’t give away much. Of course, there’s no release window but hopefully, we’ll hear more about that over the course of the year.
Books? Notes? Bet this dude is a nerd.
Additionally, Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment (Tom Clancy’s The Division 1 and 2) is working on a “new story-driven, open-world” Star Wars game. This means Massive Entertainment are working on this project as well as the game based on James Cameron’s adult version of the Smurfs, Avatar.
Massive Entertainment’s Snowdrop Engine will be used on this Star Wars project, having already fuelled projects such as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and Tom Clancy’s The Division series. Most importantly, this sees a Star Wars game being developed by a non-EA studio, despite EA having penned an exclusivity deal back in 2013 for 10 years with Disney to produce Star Wars games. Could this have something to do with EA having only released five Star Wars games since getting the licence, including the controversial Battlefront 2 and mobile Galaxy of Heroes? We don’t know but EA has stated that they are continuing work on multiple Star Wars projects.
Chris you look different. Has your character model changed again?
5. Resident Evil Village Demo and Details Stand Tall Ahead of Release
Despite unfortunate leaks, the latest instalment in Umbrella’s alphabet-soup-based virus extravaganza is one of this year’s most anticipated releases. Luckily, Capcom unveiled more information on the project in a presentation last week.
Capcom confirmed a worldwide release date of 7th May which will also be a cross-gen release and showed plenty of gameplay. Similarly to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Village has received a demo which is available now on Playstation 5.
You knew we’d have to drop an image to the game industry’s new favourite boss that stalks you through a scary game.
The presentation displayed plenty of details from the game, including the gorgeously intricate castle that players will be exploring for a good portion of the game, as well as the castle’s friendly vampires led by the, erm… imposing Lady Dimitrescu who has, to put it lightly, caught the attention of many ahead of the game’s release.
The game sees the return of Ethan Winters but with plenty more combat than the previous entry in the series, with red barrels making their return to the series and a larger degree of enemy types. Other returning concepts include Resident Evil 4’s crafting and inventory management systems, the merchant system and plenty of puzzles to be solved in the castle itself.
We would also like to send our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of actor Jeanette Maus, who has passed away at the age of 39 from complications as a result of colon cancer. Maus has contributed to numerous characters in the upcoming game and taught acting at John Rosenfeld Studios.
6. AGDQ 2021: Breaking Records and Raising Money (All in the Blink of an Eye)
We’ll end with a feel good story as speedrunning marathon charity event Games Done Quick (GDQ) held their Awesome Games Done Quick livestream from 3rd January - 10th January and managed to raise over $2.75m for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, a US-based charity “solely dedicated to cancer prevention and early detection.”
Across the week, the event saw the usual array of cult classics, such as Echo The Dolphin and Aladdin being run, alongside recent hits like Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. But the biggest news saw numerous records being broken. Two records for different Sonic games were broken by Flying Fox, who beat Sonic The Hedgehog in 20:03, and Zaxon96, who beat a PC port of Sonic The Hedgehog 3 in 34:24. Notably, this was the first time that two world records were set back-to-back during a GDQ marathon.
Other incredible and more unique runs include PeekingBoo’s 14:41 run of Celeste using two dancepads and Bubzia’s blindfolded playthrough of Super Mario 64 in 39:09.
Games Done Quick will be back again with their usual Summer Games Done Quick event, with more details due over the coming months. If you want to see even more from them, check out their YouTube channel where you can view these speedruns and more.
If you’ve played the game then make sure to check out the Hades run, it is stellar.
