
Just when you thought Witcher 3 cosplay couldn’t get any better, along comes a recreation of some of the game’s best fan art, Ástor Alexander’s noir take on Geralt and friends.
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Just when you thought Witcher 3 cosplay couldn’t get any better, along comes a recreation of some of the game’s best fan art, Ástor Alexander’s noir take on Geralt and friends.
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The recent changes made to Pokémon Go’s ‘Nearby’ feature, originally only live in certain areas of the US, Canada and Australia, are now rolling out to “the rest of the continental United States and large parts of Europe”.
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Cities: Skylines, a game which until this week was all about building things, has a new expansion out. And will henceforth be a game about tearing shit down, burning it, shaking it loose then watching it sink under the waves.
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2016 has been a hellscape. Everywhere. Even for those managing online video game marketplaces.
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A few days ago, I was hanging out at some friends’ house. One of them, Ian, decided to buy a new PS4 game. “Get The Witcher 3!” I yapped, briefly outdoing his tiny dog, who looked on with a mix of curiosity and some other dog emotion. “Get it, get it, get it!” It was only then that I realized I’d made a grave mistake.
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“You have your mission, Doctor, and I have mine.” Paladin has debuted a trailer for the film The Ottoman Lieutenant, another historical war drama, this one directed by Joseph Ruben. Set during the first World War (or “The Great War”), the film is about a woman who ends up in a love triangle between an American doctor and a dashing lieutenant for the Ottoman Imperial Army. Josh Hartnett stars as the American, Michiel Huisman as the lieutenant, and Hera Hilmar as the woman who comes between them. The cast includes Ben Kingsley, Haluk Bilginer, Affif Ben Badra, Paul Barrett, Jessica Turner and Peter Hosking. For whatever reason this reminds me of Bitter Harvest, and sadly both films look quite mediocre. ›››
Continue reading Watch: First Trailer for Historical War Drama ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant’
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DC’s biggest heroes have been facing an adversary even bigger than Doomsday or Kryponite as of late: their own studio, Warner Bros. It was last month when it was revealed that director Rick Famuyiwa dropped out of directing The Flash, citing creative differences. This was a sizable loss for the film, as Famuyiwa’s hiring was considered a major coup. His departure hints at trouble for DC on film, who has stumbled out of the gate when their films should be leaping over tall buildings in a single bound. Along with countless mixed to negative critical reactions to their last two offerings, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, it’s become clear Warner Bros is struggling to bring DC’s finest to the big screen. But why? ›››
Continue reading How Warner Bros Might Be the Biggest Enemy of DC Entertainment
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As it stands today, the physical gaming market is still very big business for Electronic Arts, but the FIFA and Battlefield publisher is bullish on a more digital-centric future.
Speaking today at a Nasdaq investor briefing in Europe, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen pointed out that the company already makes more than half of its total revenue from digitial sources. This is spread between full-game downloads, add-on content, subscriptions, and mobile. The other half is physical, which is a significant chunk of the pie, but digital may overtake it in the coming years.

EA’s latest numbers showed that 25 percent of its full games were downloaded last fiscal year, spanning Origin, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network; that figure will rise to “closer to 30 percent” for the current fiscal year. Some games skew higher toward digital than others, Jorgensen said, without naming any names.
While impediments like bandwidth speed and the need for a credit card still exist, Jorgensen said consumers are driving the trend towards an all-digital future because ultimately it’s convenient.
“Like in books, music, film, and TV, we see that the consumer will ultimately consume [games] digitally,” Jorgensen said.
Over the next five years, Jorgensen predicted that full-game download figures for EA games could reach 50 percent. This benefits EA, as the margins are higher for digital products that aren’t sold at a physical retailer. Brick and mortar stores remain important, Jorgensen said–for now at least.
“Like everything else, the consumer is ultimately going to default to convenience” — Blake Jorgensen
“We’re careful to continue to work with our retail partners; they are very important in the mix, but we’re also ultimately trying to be where the consumer ultimately wants to consume the product,” he said.
For its part, GameStop–one of the biggest video game retailers in the world–is preparing for a more digital world. The retailer announced earlier this year that 50 percent of its total revenue will come from non-physical sources by 2019. Just this month, GameStop’s revenue took a hit in part because Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and other major games failed to sell up to expectation, suggesting that digital sales are creeping up fast.
For Jorgensen, he believes getting in a car and driving to a store might be a thing of the past.
“Like everything else, the consumer is ultimately going to default to convenience,” he said. “If it’s a choice of getting in the car and driving to the store and the weather is bad outside, if you want to download it, I think you’ll see more people do that.”
Helping drive digital adoption, Jorgensen said, are consoles that come with larger hard drives. He said 1 TB is considered the “standard” today, though the most heavily advertised consoles–the $300 Xbox One S and PS4 Slim–come with 500 GB hard drives. Both console families have 1 TB options, too.
Also during the event today, Jorgensen talked about the future of the Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront franchises. Check out the story linked below to learn more.
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Speaking today at an investor briefing in Europe, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen discussed a number of interesting topics, including the future of the Battlefield and Battlefront franchises.

Starting with Battlefield, Jorgensen confirmed that there won’t be another game in the series anytime soon. “We won’t have another Battlefield for a couple of years,” he said during a Nasdaq speaking event, suggesting the next one might not come until 2018 or later.
Though he didn’t give anything away about what this game will be, Jorgensen was asked how EA is thinking about further engaging players in the product. He was asked if the EA Sports Ultimate Team model could be applied to Battlefield–and it sounds like EA is cooking something up.
“We’re looking at all of our games and asking, ‘How might we provided additional opportunities for the player to engage?’ The players want to engage deeply in the game,” the executive said.
Jorgensen said you can poll EA executives and developers and they’ll tell you that driving engagement is the company’s principal focus for all of its games, ahead of financial considerations. At the same time, he pointed out that if people engage with a game more, “they may monetize more over time.”
Another key consideration is to keep the core gameplay intact. EA is “looking for ways to [deepen engagement] without disturbing the gameplay,” Jorgensen said, pointing out that FIFA‘s Ultimate Team mode doesn’t take away from the bread and butter of the franchise.
Finding a way to add an Ultimate Team-style mode to Battlefield is overall a “great challenge” and an “exciting” one,” Jorgensen said.
“It’s not just about building another game. If we can build another stream of revenue that’s high-profit, it’s highly accretive to the overall company,” he explained.
Also during the event, Jorgensen discussed the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront sequel. Some criticized the game for not going deep enough, something that Jorgensen acknowledged in the past and again today.
“If there was criticism, they just wanted more,” he said. “So we’re taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had.”
The first Battlefront, which shipped 14 million copies to become one of the best-selling Star Wars games in history, focused on characters and locations from the original trilogly. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, Darth Vader, etc. The sequel, however, will leverage “the new movies,” Jorgensen said (repeating what he said earlier), which should give the game an opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Overall, Jorgensen described Battlefront 2 as a “much bigger, much more exciting Battlefront.”
The game, which has not yet been formally announced, is reportedly due out in fall 2017. It’s being made by EA-owned studios DICE and Motive Studios.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 is not the only Star Wars project currently in the works at EA. Titanfall developer Respawn is making a third-person action adventure game, while Dead Space studio is making a Star Wars game, too, under the leadership of Uncharted director Amy Hennig.
The first Battlefront’s next expansion, Rogue One: Scarif, adds content and characters from the upcoming movie. The DLC comes out in December, before the film arrives.
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Starting with Battlefield, Jorgensen confirmed that there won’t be another game in the series anytime soon. “We won’t have another Battlefield for a couple of years,” he said during a Nasdaq speaking event, suggesting the next one might not come until 2018 or later.
Though he didn’t give anything away about what this game will be, Jorgensen was asked how EA is thinking about further engaging players in the product. He was asked if the EA Sports Ultimate Team model could be applied to Battlefield–and it sounds like EA is cooking something up.
“We’re looking at all of our games and asking, ‘How might we provided additional opportunities for the player to engage?’ The players want to engage deeply in the game,” the executive said.
Jorgensen said you can poll EA executives and developers and they’ll tell you that driving engagement is the company’s principal focus for all of its games, ahead of financial considerations. At the same time, he pointed out that if people engage with a game more, “they may monetize more over time.”
Another key consideration is to keep the core gameplay intact. EA is “looking for ways to [deepen engagement] without disturbing the gameplay,” Jorgensen said, pointing out that FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode doesn’t take away from the bread and butter of the franchise.
Finding a way to add an Ultimate Team-style mode to Battlefield is overall a “great challenge” and an “exciting” one,” Jorgensen said.
“It’s not just about building another game. If we can build another stream of revenue that’s high-profit, it’s highly accretive to the overall company,” he explained.
Also during the event, Jorgensen discussed the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront sequel. Some criticized the game for not going deep enough, something that Jorgensen acknowledged in the past and again today.
“If there was criticism, they just wanted more,” he said. “So we’re taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had.”
The first Battlefront, which shipped 14 million copies to become one of the best-selling Star Wars games in history, focused on characters and locations from the original trilogly. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, Darth Vader, etc. The sequel, however, will leverage “the new movies,” Jorgensen said (repeating what he said earlier), which should give the game an opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Overall, Jorgensen described Battlefront 2 as a “much bigger, much more exciting Battlefront.”
The game, which has not yet been formally announced, is reportedly due out in fall 2017. It’s being made by EA-owned studios DICE and Motive Studios.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 is not the only Star Wars project currently in the works at EA. Titanfall developer Respawn is making a third-person action adventure game, while Dead Space studio is making a Star Wars game, too, under the leadership of Uncharted director Amy Hennig.
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