Author: dpugh007

Key developers behind Pillars of Eternity, the isometric-view RPG that generated about $4 million on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, will begin to discuss ideas for a sequel within a matter of weeks.

Though the Pillars of Eternity release date is just over a month away (March 26), the development team at Obsidian Entertainment has completed the main bulk of work and is already eager to discuss future plans.

“We’re going to do some expansions because we said we would as a part of the Kickstarter,” said studio chief executive Feargus Urquhart, as quoted by Polygon.

“We’ve already started working on artwork [for the expansions]. So we’ve already kind of figured out where we want to go in the world and the artists are doing some tests.”

He continued: “But with Pillars of Eternity 2, that’s the next thing. Probably at the end of this month, Josh [Sawyer] and Adam [Brennecke], the key guys on the team are all going to sit down. They’ve already come up with a list of what they want to do, kind of new game systems and that kind of stuff. We’re going to try and get going on that as soon as we can.”

Pillars of Eternity thrived on Kickstarter and immediately attained cult status specifically because of its spiritual link to old Infinity Engine games such as Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale.

Now Urquhart is pondering whether Kickstarter is the right path to take for the sequel.

“I think so, I think that’s what we’ll do,” he said.

“It’s not 100 percent. The reason is because first we didn’t want to do it until [Pillars of Eternity] came out. The second thing is that the Kickstarter stuff is kind of up and down here and there. But the Shadowrun guys look like they’re pretty successful, they’re like one and a half or two million. I know if we put exploding kittens in it we could make billions.”

Obsidian is now applying finishing touches to the Pillars of Eternity PC build, including gameplay tweaks and balancing; issues which are being discovered via developer playthroughs.

“We told the entire team that no one works for a week and instead they just play the game,” Urquhart said.

“It gave everyone a chance to be proud of what they had done and to figure out what they wanted to fix and change. This whole process has been great.”

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Japanese video game publisher Square Enix–which is behind franchises like Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider–on Wednesday announced sales results for the nine-month period ended December 31, showing year-over-year gains for total revenue and profit

Revenue was ¥118 billion ($1 billion), up 16 percent compared to last year when company posted ¥102 billion ($870 million) in sales. Profit also showed year-on-year gains, more than doubling from ¥5.2 billion ($44.4 million) last year to ¥10.9 billion ($92.9 million) this year.

Meanwhile, Square Enix’s game-specific division, called Digital Entertainment, posted revenue of ¥75 billion ($639.6 million), up 33.4 percent year-over-year. Operating income also jumped, rising 107.6 percent to ¥14 billion ($119.4 million).

Square Enix called out smartphone and PC games such as Sengoku IXA and Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light as games that “continued to show strong performance.” Meanwhile, other smartphone games such as Schoolgirl Strikers, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, and Kai-ri-Sei Million Arthur also were meaningful contributors to Square Enix’s bottom line.

In the home console space, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX sold well, and catalog sales were also “strong,” Square Enix said. Meanwhile, the publisher added that Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X are “making favorable progress.”

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Nintendo says it has been inundated with requests from YouTube personalities who want to strike partnership deals.

The backlog of requests has become so long that the 72-hour wait time for video approval has been extended, the company claims.

“Due to your enthusiasm for the program, we’re receiving a higher volume of applications to register channels & videos than expected,” the company announced on its website. “It is taking longer than we anticipated to confirm the applications. We appreciate your patience as we work through them as quickly as possible.”

The apparent flood of requests for video approval come days after prominent YouTubers, including PewDiePie, criticised Nintendo for the terms and conditions of its partnership program.

Nintendo has the authority to take all the ad revenue (after Google’s cut) from any YouTube video that features its copyrighted content. However, if YouTubers send their videos to Nintendo for approval, the ad revenue will be split.

While some complain that Nintendo is one of the first companies to take a slice of the content creators’ ad revenue, others take issue with Nintendo rewarding positive coverage (or, content it approves) with cash.

“I think this is a slap in the face to the YouTube channels that does focus on Nintendo game exclusively,” PewDiePie wrote recently.

“The people who have helped and showed passion for Nintendo’s community are the ones left in the dirt the most.”

He concluded: “There’s just so many games out there to play. Nintendo games just went to the bottom of that list.”

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The 18th Annual DICE Awards are in full swing and we’ve been giving away tons of codes! Each giveaway will last only 24 hours, so sign up quickly.

Today (Wednesday, February 4th) we’re giving away the following games:

• Wolf Among Us on Steam
• Hohokum on PS4
• Shovel Knight on Steam
• Sound Shapes Bundle on PS4
• inFAMOUS: First Light on PS4
• Never Alone on Steam, Xbox One and PS4 (Europe)

In an effort to be transparent, these codes were provided to GameSpot by DICE. As such, the parameters for the giveaway were put in place by them. That being said, Never Alone will be available in Europe as well as South America. The next giveaway will be available on February 5th at 12:00pm PST. Good luck!

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