Author: dpugh007

Two major new releases, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Fallout 76, failed to sell up to expectation at GameStop, the retailer announced today in its latest earnings report.

CFO Rob Lloyd said Black Ops 4 was “not as successful as we had hoped.” For Fallout 76, the executive said the game’s review scores likely hurt sales. “Obviously, you can see in the market what the Metacritic scores are around Fallout 76, and that’s impacted its sell-through. I’ll probably just leave it at that.”

Some of the sports games that released in August and September were also “not up to our expectations” in regards to sales, Lloyd explained. He didn’t name any titles, but Madden NFL 19, FIFA 19, NBA 2K19, and NBA Live 19 all released in August and September this year.

On the brighter side, GameStop management said Red Dead Redemption 2 and Spider-Man for PS4 were two of its top-sellers. And while Black Ops 4 did not sell up to GameStop’s expectations, the title launching in October instead of November helped GameStop’s overall game sales rise by more than 10 percent during the quarter.

GameStop management did not say what its sales expectations were for any new release, so we don’t know the degree to which Black Ops 4 and Fallout 76 underperformed. However, their underperformance was significant enough to disclose on the earnings call.

GameStop’s total global sales–comprising hardware, software, accessories, and more–rose by 4.8 percent to $2.1 billion for the quarter ended November 3. New hardware sales rose 12.8 percent thanks to gains from Xbox One X and PS4. As for software, as mentioned, game sales jumped by 10.9 percent. Accessories sales, meanwhile, posted the biggest gains of all, rising 32.6 percent. Pre-owned sales dropped by 13.4 percent.

Overall, GameStop posted a loss of $488.6 million for the quarter, which compares to a profit of $59.4 million during the same quarter last year. GameStop management said the loss was due to an “impairment charge” of $587.5 million that it paid as a result of the “sustained decline in the company’s share price.” Indeed, GameStop’s share price has been steadily falling for years now from more than $45 per share in 2015 to around $14.5 today.

Times have changed in the video game business. Game sales are increasingly trending toward digital over physical, which is theoretically a problem for GameStop, as physical sales–and re-selling games–was for a time the bread and butter of GameStop’s business model.

In June this year, GameStop announced that it was entering “exploratory discussions” with outside companies about potentially selling itself. Earlier this month, GameStop announced its plans to sell off its Spring Mobile division for $700 million.

The company is currently conducting a comprehensive review of its business, and this presumably also includes a potential sale. Former Xbox boss Shane Kim is the company’s interim CEO; he took over after Michael Mauler quit GameStop after only three months for “personal reasons.” Longtime GameStop CEO Paul Raines died in March at the age of 53. GameStop is currently working with an executive hiring company to find a permanent CEO.

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Tom Hanks is one of Hollywood’s biggest names, and now his next role has potentially been revealed. Collider reports that Hanks is being eyed to play Geppetto in Disney’s upcoming live-action Pinocchio movie. Geppetto is the toymaker who builds Pinocchio out of wood, and then wishes on a star for Pinocchio to come to life. Magically, it works.

Disney’s live-action Pinocchio is being directed by Paddington’s Paul King, with Star Wars: Rogue One writer Chris Weitz producing. Paddington writer Simon Farnaby wrote the newest draft of the script, taking over for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne.

According to Collider, the new Pinocchio has a budget of $150 million, with production expected to begin in summer 2019. If it’s anything like the 1940 original, you can expect a wild ride.

Hanks has worked with Disney before. He voices Woody in the Toy Story franchise, while he played Walt Disney himself in Saving Mr. Banks. His next big role is Fred Rogers in the upcoming untitled film about the iconic children’s TV show host.

Pinocchio is just the latest live-action remake from Disney. The company’s next big one is The Lion King, and Disney just recently released a stunning trailer for it. There are also live-action remakes of Mulan and Aladdin in the works, while some of Disney’s previous live-action reboots included Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson and The Jungle Book from Iron Man director Jon Favreau.

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Yet another video game industry group has come out to say government control of loot box regulations is a bad idea. International Game Developers Association (IGDA) CEO Jen MacLean released a statement this week where she called on developers and publishers to take this issue seriously to avoid a scenario where politicians get involved and put forth legislative action that could impact games with loot box mechanics.

“By not taking significant action as an industry and global game developer community to self-regulate how loot boxes are used, we run the very real risk that governments around the world will take that action for us, and perhaps create significantly restrictive laws that could impact any random reward elements in games,” she said. “I offer my strongest advice to game developers and interactive entertainment businesses on this matter: addressing how loot boxes are used is both the right thing, and the smart thing, for the global game development industry to do.”

MacLean’s statement comes in response to the news this week that the US Federal Trade Commission may launch an investigation into loot boxes. Australia’s government has also called for a “comprehensive review” of loot boxes to determine what might be done. The IGDA backs up what the Entertainment Software Association has already said: the industry should self-regulate when it comes to loot boxes. Politicians, meanwhile, will argue that laws are necessary to ensure that something is being done to protect young people from falling into dangerous gambling habits. Self-regulation may be a good idea in theory, but actual laws or regulations would put more pressure on developers and publishers.

In her statement, MacLean–a former executive at Curt Schilling’s controversial defunct Rhode Island developer 38 Studios–said loot boxes with real-money mechanics “run the risk of triggering gambling laws.”

As an industry, MacLean said she advises the following three steps be taken immediately to avoid a situation where the government gets involved:

• Affirm an industry commitment to not market loot boxes to children
• Clearly disclose the odds of different rewards when purchasing loot boxes (as many games already do to comply with Chinese law)
• Launch a coordinated education campaign that boosts awareness of the parental controls that are available to appropriately limit how players engage with games

A politician from Hawaii, Democrat Chris Lee, is trying to make a law that would limit the sale of video games with “gambling-like mechanisms” to people under 21. Lee told GameSpot that he was aware of ESA lobbyists being flown to to Hawaii to try to stop the conversation about loot boxes from happening.

“We have to try and stand up for what is right,” Lee said earlier this year. “I think it is inevitable that, whether it was spurred by Battlefront or some of the recent big-title games just being so ridiculously exploitative of the player base, there is enough of generational transition in politics and positions of authority around the country and the world, that you have people who understand what the industry is doing and are willing to stand up and take action and do something about it. Inevitably, the industry will have to change.

“Because more and more jurisdictions are going to start protecting their citizens from the kinds of exploitive and predatory practices that the industry has been employing lately. Inevitably, that means a better industry for everybody and better games for everybody.”

Conversation around loot boxes heated up at the end of 2017 in the wake of EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront II. For a brief period of time, before the game’s official release, the title was set to allow players to spend real money on loot boxes that could potentially include items that impact gameplay. Some said this made Battlefront II effectively a slot machine where players could pay for the chance to get something they wanted. EA removed loot boxes from Battlefront II on the eve of the game’s public release, though it appears the controversy negatively impacted the game’s sales. Battlefront II re-introduced microtransactions in 2018, but only for cosmetics. EA’s newest shooter game, Battlefield V, features no loot boxes at all, while microtransactions aren’t turned on yet. Other games, such as Overwatch, continue to use loot boxes as an extra method of monetisation.

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December is almost here, which means Niantic will soon roll out a new batch of Field Research tasks for Pokemon Go. As usual, if you complete enough of these before the month ends, you’ll earn an encounter with a rare Pokemon. This time around, however, the developer is giving players another chance to catch not one, but six previously featured Legendaries.

Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough in December, you’ll earn another chance to capture one of six Legendaries: Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, or Suicune. Each of these Pokemon was featured with previous Field Research tasks this year, making this a good opportunity to catch any of the ones you missed the first time around (or simply add more Legendaries to your collection).

The Legendaries aren’t the only things returning to Pokemon Go in December. Niantic says it is also bringing back “some of the most popular Field Research tasks from past months.” As before, you’ll be able to acquire these by spinning the Photo Disc at different Poke Stops. In order to achieve a Research Breakthrough, you’ll need to complete at least one Field Research task a day for seven days.

The new Field Research tasks are scheduled to roll out on December 1 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET. You’ll have until then to complete your current slate of tasks and earn an encounter with Shedinja, the Bug/Ghost Pokemon first introduced in Ruby and Sapphire.

Pokemon Go’s next Community Day celebration is scheduled to begin on Friday, November 30. This time around, the event will run through the entire weekend and bring back every featured Pokemon and special move from previous Community Days. Another Gen 4 Legendary, Cresselia, is also now available in Raid Battles and will remain there until December 18.

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