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Archived News:
Activision Blizzard's First Quarter 2014 Financial Results are public,
showing better results than were projected, attributed to "record digital sales
in Blizzard Entertainment’s franchises, including World of Warcraft®, Diablo®,
and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft." They also have the latest World of
Warcraft subscriber count, for those keeping track, saying the MMORPG now has
7.6 million paying subscribers, down around 200,000 since their
last
report. Here are some numbers to crunch: For the quarter ended March
31, 2014, Activision Blizzard’s GAAP net revenues were $1.11 billion, as
compared with $1.32 billion for the first quarter of 2013. On a non-GAAP basis,
the company’s net revenues were $772 million, as compared with $804 million for
the first quarter of 2013. For the first quarter, GAAP net revenues from digital
channels represented 34% of the company’s total revenues. On a non-GAAP basis,
net revenues from digital channels were a record 68%.
For the quarter ended March 31, 2014, Activision Blizzard’s GAAP earnings per
diluted share were $0.40, as compared with $0.40 for the first quarter of 2013.
On a non-GAAP basis, the company’s earnings per diluted share were a record
$0.19, as compared with $0.17 for the first quarter of 2013. Our Q1 GAAP results
were higher-than-anticipated due to better-than-expected operating performance
in an amount about equal to our non-GAAP over performance and a recently
identified forecast miscalculation with regard to deferred revenue recognition
in our previous GAAP outlook, which accounted for the balance of the GAAP over
delivery.
Q4 FY14 and FY14 preliminary Financial Results for Electronic Arts are now
out, which Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson call "outstanding," saying it was "a transformative year for EA in a dynamic year for our industry." They say:
"For the quarter, non-GAAP net revenue of $914 million was above our guidance of
$800 million. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.48 was above our
guidance of $0.09." Here's a list of highlights:
- Calendar year-to-date, EA continues to be the #1
publisher on PlayStation®4 and Xbox One consoles in the Western World led by
FIFA 14, Titanfall™, Battlefield 4™, Need For Speed™ Rivals and Madden NFL
25.
- In the fiscal fourth quarter, EA titles
represented 40% of Western World combined title sales for the PlayStation®4
and Xbox One.
- Mobile revenue set a new EA record, contributing
nearly $460 million* for the fiscal year.
- EA’s mobile business reached more than 130 million
monthly active users in the fiscal year, and in Q4, EA mobile games were
downloaded 143 million times.
- EA’s Ultimate Team services generated more than
$380 million* in fiscal year 2014, with Madden Ultimate Team growing 90%
year-over-year.
- Operating cash flow for the fiscal year was $712
million, more than doubling last year’s operating cash flow of $324 million.
- Calendar year-to-date, FIFA 14, Titanfall and
Battlefield 4 were three of the top five best-selling titles across all
platforms in the Western World.
- EA makes history as Bruce Lee steps into The
Octagon™ for the first time with EA SPORTS™ UFC® launching on June 17.
NCSOFT and Carbine announce that open beta testing of
WildStar gets underway on
Thursday, kicking off 10 days of testing of the upcoming sci-fi MMORPG to help
pave the way for its official launch on June 3rd. Here's word: It’s
finally here! Open Beta will be starting on May 8th and we have all of the
details how you can jump in on the action. From May 8th to May 18th, you will be
able to visit our Open Beta page to request a key, and then hop into WildStar to
experience content up to level 30. If you have already participated in any other
WildStar beta event, including beta weekends and stress tests, you don’t need a
new key. Just patch up, and you’re good to go!
10tons Ltd. announces
release
plans for their remake of Crimsonland, saying an updated
version of their 2003 top-down shooter is coming to PCs via Steam and the
PlayStation 4 this summer. Here's a
trailer showing off gameplay, and here's where the project currently
stands:
Today we have both PS4 and Steam versions working and completely playable with
almost 100% new art but a lot work is still needed. We're not disclosing the
release dates yet (the rough target is summer 2014), but come back weekly for
updates plus interesting articles about the game. You can also order our
newsletter from above or follow us on
Facebook or
Twitter.
Continue here to read the full story.
Iceberg Interactive announces plans for two DLC packs coming to Gas Guzzlers
Extreme, saying the first of these will be released for the road rage game
next week and the second will follow in the summer. Here are
some
screenshots, and here are the details: The first Gas Guzzlers Extreme
DLC pack, Full Metal Frenzy, will debut on Steam next week and features two new
race arenas, three new game modes, a female announcer, and many more new
additions.
Full Metal Frenzy DLC Includes:
- Two levels (arenas)
- Two new cars
- One new team skin for all 20 cars, including police skin with siren and
lights
- Female announcer voice-over
- Two new power-ups
- Three new game modes
The second DLC, Full Metal Zombie, will launch summer 2014, complete with
nine different types of zombies and a thrilling new game mode Defend the Base.
Full Metal Zombie DLC Includes:
- One new level (arena)
- One new car
- One new team skin, for all 21 cars
- Nine zombie types and animations
- One new game mode ‘Defend the Base’
The Star Wars: Empire at War
Gold Pack Steam page and the
Star Wars Battlefront II Steam
page reveal that each game is among the titles being impacted by the
upcoming shutdown of GameSpy
services. Both pages offer the same message: "As of May 31, 2014, online
functionality, including network multiplayer and wireless chat, will no longer
be available for this title. We regret any disappointment as a result of the
shutdown of the services supporting these online features." Each game also
currently has a note that they are temporarily out of keys, as
Polygon notes that, in a bit of bad timing, both games were part of a Star
Wars day sale last week. Thanks nin.
Battle.net has details on the upcoming patch 6.0 for World of Warcraft,
saying this will offer the chance to check out their new raid format before the
release of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Here's word: In the upcoming
Patch 6.0, the pre-expansion “systems” update planned to go live in the weeks
leading up to Warlords of Draenor’s release, we’ll be converting Siege of
Orgrimmar to use the new Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulties. Both Normal
and Heroic difficulties will support flexible raid sizes and our cross-server
Group Finder tool, while Mythic will be a fixed 20-player size. At the same
time, “stat squish” will be in effect, the new class changes will be live, and
Hit and Expertise will no longer be stats on items, so those will be replaced
with more useful ones on all existing items. The raid as a whole will be retuned
for the new numbers and scaling size—overall, it should prove no more difficult
than it is currently, and will likely be easier in many places.
With the end of an expansion and a raid tier, along with introduction of a new
level cap, we’ll also be retiring a handful of rewards. We want to encourage
everyone to enjoy one last hurrah in the Siege of Orgrimmar before your
adventure on Draenor begins.
Keen Software House proudly announces that they've sold more than a
half-million copies of Space Engineers since Early Access commenced for their
sandbox space game, releasing
a new trailer to
celebrate the milestone. "We are very excited to celebrate this milestone with
our fans, whose encouragement and active participation made this possible," said
Marek Rosa, CEO and Founder, Keen Software House. "As an independent developer,
finding an audience of this size, with this kind of support for our game – even
while the product is still in development – is incredibly inspiring. The fans,
with their limitless ideas and passion, continue to push us to improve, add
features, and develop innovations that our community deserves." Continue here to read the full story.
- Full Bore on
Steam. Save 10%.
- Outlast on
Steam. Save 66%.
- Spacebase DF-9 on
Steam. Save 40%.
- Spring Sale on The
Humble Store. "Hundreds of humble discounts. Daily flash sales. Now
through May 21!"
- The Whispered World Special Edition on
Steam. Save 20%.
A new digital distribution service is now underway at
Games Republic, where ii bit studios
offers the ability for anyone to set up a storefront and begin to collect
commissions on game sales. They are kicking things off with a few special
offers, including a free copy of their RTS/tower defense game Anomaly: Warzone
Earth for all who register. Here's word:
- any registration with Games Republic equals
Anomaly: Warzone Earth for free
- Anomaly: Defenders (latest installment in Anomaly
series, launching in May) preorder is reduced 10% to $8,99 and is bundled
with free copy of Anomaly 2
- Hotline: Miami is -50% ($9,99 to $4,99)
- Defense Technica is -50% ($12,99 to $6,49)
- Depth Hunter is -80% ($9,99 to $2,00)
- Deep Black: Reloaded is -80% ($29,99 to $6,00)
- all 11 bit studios titles are -80% (apart from
Sleepwalker's Journey which is -30%)
A
Steam Community announcement announces that Valve is offering refunds for
those who have paid for Early Access to Earth: Year 2066, citing
dishonesty in how the game was marketed.
Gamasutra notes that
this Reddit thread has been a campaign to inspire scrutiny of how this game
is being presented. Here's Valve's explanation of what happened: On
Steam, developers make their own decisions about promotion, features, pricing
and publication. However, Steam does require honesty from developers in the
marketing of their games.
We have removed Earth: Year 2066 from Early Access on Steam. Customers who
purchased the game will be able to get a refund on the store page until Monday
May 19th.
Steam News announces
Early Access is now available for
Flockers, offering
the chance to play the alpha version of Team17's new project. Here's word: Flockers™
is Now Available on Steam Early Access!
New from the creators of Worms, Flockers is a modern day take on the classic A
to B puzzle genre with a generous helping of dark humour for good measure.
CAUTION: Be aware that Flockers is an Early Access game you may experience some
bugs, crashes or compatibility issues.
Open beta testing is now underway for
Panzer General Online,
Ubisoft's turn-based tactical battle game set in the Panzer General
world of tanks globe of armored combat. Blue Byte's browser-based game
is free-to-play, so this can be considered a soft launch, and word is closed
beta participants are being rewarded with two free exclusive tanks. Here's
a launch trailer and
here's the latest on the fine-tuning of the game's card-based mechanics: During
Closed Beta the development team worked closely with the community to gather
feedback and implement improvements. The team optimized the mechanics of the
booster packs and fine-tuned the balance of both the singleplayer and
multiplayer battles. Powerful new units and command cards were introduced to add
new strategic elements and completely new features including the Skirmish 2.0
multiplayer mode were added to enhance multiplayer. Skirmish 2.0 allows gamers
to enter player versus player battles with pre-constructed decks so new and
advanced players can face-off on equal footing. Panzer General Online will be
supported by new content releases through Open Beta and into launch.
Continue here to read the full story.
Tuesday is the new Monday on
GFK Chart-Track, where
they now offer last week's new U.K. sales charts. Dark Souls II debuts at
number one on the
full price PC top 20, Child of Light joins the chart at number four,
and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 swings in at number 13. The Spidey tie-in
snags the top spot on the
all platforms/all prices chart. Here's word: The ‘Amazing Spider-Man
2’ ends ‘Titanfall’s 3-week reign at the top.
It’s Activision Blizzard’s first No1 since ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ in December
2013. It goes one better than its 2012 predecessor ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ in
terms of chart position, despite a 5% drop in sales. ‘Titanfall’ (-17%) is
pushed down to No2 but stays ahead of ‘FIFA 14’ (-1%) which climbs a place to
No3.
The second FIFA title ‘2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil’ (-33%) slips two places to
No4 rounding off a trio of EA titles in the Top 4. ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ (-24%)
is at No5 ahead of ‘Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition’ (-1%) which holds steady at
No6. New from Ubisoft this week is ‘Child of Light’ which debuts at No9. This
Deluxe Edition hits the shelves at retail and features a host of bonus content
and collectibles alongside a digital download code for the game itself. A PC
release for ‘Dark Souls II’ (+36%) gives a boost to Bandai Namco’s title
propelling it up four places to No14.
The only other new release to make an impact in the Top 40 this week is
Nintendo’s ‘Mario Golf: World Tour’ which lands for 3DS at No22.
R.I.P.:
MAD Editor Albert B. Feldstein, R.I.P. Meant to mention this the other day
(thanks Devicer). Haven't seen MAD for years, but I don't know anyone my age who
wasn't a fan at some point during childhood.
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