Zero2Zed Top 10 List - 10 Video Game News Stories so far in 2018
Lego are planning a video game and social network in China,
the Danish company has teamed up with Chinese internet giant Tencent to create
Lego branded games as well as a new social network targeted towards children. The
deal also includes the publication operation of the online operation system for
Lego Boost, which is a building and coding set for that will let children bring
their Lego Creations to Life.
Lego saw sales hit a peak in 2017, however towards the end
of 2017 saw a failure to see profits increase and as a result saw the company
lay off around 1,400 staff which was around 8% of the companies workforce.
China however has seen an increase in sales for the company, with sales
increase by double digits and is one of the companies fastest growing markets.
The World Health Organization, yes the same World Health
Organization that can’t seem to get the right flu strain for the flu vaccine
has recognized that Gaming Addiction is a disorder. January saw the 11th
International Classification of Diseases.
While this is only a draft, Gaming Addiction has been
recognized by several countries and has been identified as a major public
health issue. In the UK and several other countries already have private
addiction clinics to treat the condition.
Symptoms for Gaming Addiction have also been provided with
abnormal gaming behaviour being in evidence for a period of at least 12 months
with impaired control over gaming (frequency, intensity, duration),
increased priority given to gaming and continuation or escalation
of gaming despite negative consequences.
A 28 year old California man named Matthew Nicholson has
been arrested for allegedly killing his own mother, after getting into a row
with her over a broken headset, Nicolson who was playing video games in his
room, started shouting, when his mother went to see what was going on the pair
began arguing.
Nicolson then broke his headset and blamed his mother for
getting him riled up, he then threated to kill both his mother and father. It
was at this point Nicolson grabbed a gun and fired off two shots into wall
before turning the gun on his mother and firing once.
The shot hit his mother Lydia Nicholson in the head, Loren
Nicholson Lydia’s husband and father of Matthew was able to wrestle the gun
away from him, he then fled to his sisters in the nearby town of Riverbank
where he would be later picked at a traffic stop by Police. Lydia Nicholson was
rushed to hospital but sadly passed away from her injuries. Matthew Nicholson
is being held by Police at Stanislaus County Jail for Homicide and is currently
being held without bail.
The longest standing video game record which has stood for
35 years has been declared an impossibility and its holder Todd Rogers faces
being stripped of the record. The record was for the Atari 2600 game Dragster
with Rodgers setting the world record of 5.51 seconds in the Drag Racing game,
the game required changing gears at just the right time in order to maximise
the drag racers speed across the screen.
In 1982 Rodgers set the record, to prove that he had he sent
a Polaroid picture of his finishing time of 5.51 second to Activision, with
them confirming the record. Fast forward to the turn of the millennium and
Rogers score would be added to the database of Twin Galaxies, who keep track of
all video game related world records.
The following year Rogers record was also recognized by the
Guinness World Records as having the longest standing video game record in the
world. That was until Monday the 29th of January, when after facing
a increasing number of complaints that Rogers falsified his record, as well as
an increasing amount of evidence that suggested it was impossible to get a time
as low as he did. Twin Galaxies announced that Rogers record along with all
other records he holds have been thrown out. This includes his Centipede record
that stood at 65.000.000 when his nearest rival to the record was at just
58.078.
Video game development in Scotland has seen substantial rise
in the number of people working in the industry, with the total number of
people employed in the industry passing the 1.500 mark. With a total of 91
companies working in the video game industry in Scotland.
The mobile games market is credited with a large chunk of
this increase, with the video games industry in Scotland contributing around
£172 million to the UK’s annual GDP. With Scotland having the second largest
number of developers, with only London and the South East of the UK having more
companies and people involved in the industry.
Apparently Duke Nukem could be heading to the big screen,
with WWE wrestler John Cena is in talks to take on the role of the Duke. Not a
huge amount Is know about the project, other than Michael Bay’s production
company Platinum Dunes are behind it, as are Paramount who currently hold the
movie rights to Duke Nukem after acquiring them from previous holders Dimension
Films.
Is Duke Nukem still popular enough to warrant a movie based
on him while the recent 20th Anniversary was quite well received who
can forget the cesspit that was Duke Nukem Forever. while Cena certainly has
the look of Duke Nukem, but he is not exactly known for his foul mouth which
the Duke is famous for, with Cena appearing in films like Daddy’s Home 2 as
well as the upcoming spin off to the Transformers
film Bumblebee.
The 2017 NPD results are in, the NPD’s are provided by The
NPD Group who track retail and digital sales for video games, the latter when
the digital retailer allows it. 2017 saw a return to form for the Call of Duty
series, after some disappointing entries in the first person shooter series
with Ghosts and Infinite War.
Activision and developer Sledgehammer Games produced the
best selling Call of Duty game since 2012 and topped the sales chart for 2017.
Second place saw NBA 2K18 Something of a surprise in light of the
microtransaction issues the game had, but it clearly looks as if sports game
fans don’t care about them as much as when they appear in other genres.
Destiny II made it into the top three as well, the developer
Bungie waited until well after the game release before they started screwing
things up, as a result sales we pretty good for the game, even though the game
was the 3rd highest selling game of 2017, it was still well down on
the sales numbers of the first Destiny.
Amazing after 4 years since the games release Grand Theft
Auto still remains as one of the best selling games, retaining its 6th
place from the previous year. Nintendo also had a very good showing in 2017,
with the release of the Switch and it selling incredibly well. Nintendo also
managed to get three games into the NPD top ten, with The Legend of Zelda
Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 making it to 5th,
9th and 10 respectively, these games also don’t include digital
sales so could well be much further up the chart.
Credit must also be given to Ubisoft who like with Rainbow
Six Siege have managed to release another sleeper hit with Ghost Recon
Wildlands which proved highly popular and even managed to beat off Star Wars
Battlefront in the NPD charts, may have been different if Digital and PC sales
were included for Battlefront, but they were not and it finished ahead of Star
Wars Cashfront in 7th overall..
Japan are pushing for video games tournaments to become
legal in the country, with the end goal being video games to be represented at
the Olympics. With eSports being a multi billion dollar industry Japan has been
unable to take advantage of it, due to Japanese Laws that prohibit illegal
gambling.
There is hope on the horizon however, with four eSport
organizations as well as the Japanese Consumer Protection agency have
negotiated a possible workaround that would exempt esports from this law. In
more possible good news for professional gamers in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe and his ruling party are considering changing the laws to allow
professional games to make a living through esports in Japan.
Anti Video game attorney, sorry is should say former
attorney and disbarred attorney Jack Thompson has reared his septic and hideous
face ones again, this time the parasite has latched on to the tragedy that
occurred at Marshall County High School on the 23rd of January.
Thompson was disbarred back in 2007 when facing 31
violations and eventually being found guilty of 27 of those violations, these
violations include improperly practicing law outside of Florida cumulative
misconduct, a repeated pattern of behavior relentlessly forced upon numerous
unconnected individuals, a total lack of remorse or even slight acknowledgment
of inappropriate conduct, and continued behavior consistent with the previous
public reprimand.
Thompson was initially considered for a 5 year disbarment,
that was then upped to a 10 year disbarment but eventually they settled for a
permanent disbarment as well as a cash fine of $43.000 dollars. the delusional
and unhinged Thompson announced a year after his disbarment that he would
return to practicing law, with Thompson claiming his disbarment never happened.
Microsoft are considering an acquisition, with three
companies rumoured to be a target of the Xbox and Windows creators. The first
and most obvious target of Microsoft is Player Unknown’s Battleground developer
Bluehole, a company that Microsoft has already tried to acquire in the past,
and the acquisition would make a lot of sense with PUBG being such a success on
the Xbox One..
The second company that is rumoured to be a target of
Microsoft, and by far the most far fetched of the three and is Valve the
creators of Steam, who have pretty much a vice like grip on PC gaming
distribution as well as destroying Microsoft’s
previous attempts to crack the PC gaming market.
The final rumoured acquisition for Microsoft is EA, this is
by far the most interesting of the three, it does however raise some questions,
the biggest of them are the sports game like Madden and Fifa. I don’t really
see the NFL or Fifa wanting their games to be console exclusive.
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