Tekken Producer Says A Possible Xenosaga Remaster “Failed Market Analysis”

Despite calling on the community for help revitalizing the Xenosaga series with a potential HD remaster collection, the project has officially fallen through the cracks. A producer at Bandai Namco has confirmed that a remaster of the long-dormant RPG franchise would be “difficult” to do based on current market analysis.

Katsuhiro Harada, a director/producer at Bandai Namco and the producer of the Tekken series, shared on Twitter that an HD Xenosaga remaster collection didn’t make sense from a profitability standpoint. Harada said that the project was progressing as a potential plan but was dropped somewhere along the process. According to Harada, resurfacing the project would be difficult to do.

Harada sent a request to fans on Twitter in 2014, asking the community to band together in the hopes of getting a Xenosaga HD remaster collection off the ground. At that time, Harada said he couldn’t “find the necessary market size” to make bringing the franchise back worthwhile. He said fan voices might chance those prospects.

Though the possible Xenosaga HD remaster collection remains left on the cutting room floor, Harada has kept himself and his team busy with Tekken 7, which received an 8/10 in our review when it launched in 2017 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The critically acclaimed fighting game has revealed two new combatants for its third season, one of which is an original character added to the series. Tekken 7’s latest character, Leroy Smith, launched on December 10 for all platforms.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/tekken-producer-says-a-possible-xenosaga-remaster-/1100-6472432/

Tekken Producer Says A Possible Xenosaga Remaster “Failed Market Analysis”

Despite calling on the community for help revitalizing the Xenosaga series with a potential HD remaster collection, the project has officially fallen through the cracks. A producer at Bandai Namco has confirmed that a remaster of the long-dormant RPG franchise would be “difficult” to do based on current market analysis.

Katsuhiro Harada, a director/producer at Bandai Namco and the producer of the Tekken series, shared on Twitter that an HD Xenosaga remaster collection didn’t make sense from a profitability standpoint. Harada said that the project was progressing as a potential plan but was dropped somewhere along the process. According to Harada, resurfacing the project would be difficult to do.

Harada sent a request to fans on Twitter in 2014, asking the community to band together in the hopes of getting a Xenosaga HD remaster collection off the ground. At that time, Harada said he couldn’t “find the necessary market size” to make bringing the franchise back worthwhile. He said fan voices might chance those prospects.

Though the possible Xenosaga HD remaster collection remains left on the cutting room floor, Harada has kept himself and his team busy with Tekken 7, which received an 8/10 in our review when it launched in 2017 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The critically acclaimed fighting game has revealed two new combatants for its third season, one of which is an original character added to the series. Tekken 7’s latest character, Leroy Smith, launched on December 10 for all platforms.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/tekken-producer-says-a-possible-xenosaga-remaster-/1100-6472432/

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – Kevin Knezevic’s Most Anticipated Game Of 2020

2020 is almost here, so we’ve asked GameSpot’s staff to share which games they’re looking forward to most in the new year. New consoles are going to dominate the headlines, but at the end of the day it’s all about the games, and there are a ton of exciting ones to look forward to. When you’re done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2019 hub and our Most Anticipated of 2020 hub.

Nintendo may have only given us a brief glimpse into its 2020 lineup, but we’ve already seen some exciting titles in store for Switch next year, including the long-awaited new entry of Animal Crossing. The game I’m most excited for, however, is unquestionably Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, a remake/remaster of Wii’s best RPG. Nintendo unveiled the title at the end of its September Direct broadcast, and while it didn’t reveal much beyond a brief trailer, it was more than enough to get me hyped.

That Nintendo would choose to cap off its most recent Direct with the announcement of a Xenoblade remake illustrates just how far the series has come in the company’s eyes. The original Xenoblade Chronicles may have been greeted with critical acclaim when it first released, but the game is perhaps most famous for almost not releasing in the US at all.

Xenoblade Chronicles originally launched in Japan in 2010 and made its way to Europe the following year, but it wouldn’t arrive stateside until 2012, after much fan outcry. By that point, however, the Wii wasn’t so much showing its age as it was a shambling corpse, and Xenoblade Chronicles already looked hopelessly dated compared to contemporary releases on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. And yet despite this, it turned out to be one of the most absorbing games of that entire generation thanks to its breathtaking environments and expansive story, which more than masked its visual shortcomings.

From what little we’ve seen of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, it appears the visuals have received the most significant changes, but that’s the only area that really needed any touching up to begin with. Despite being nearly a decade old now, the game holds up remarkably well thanks to some forward-thinking ideas it had for its time–some of which its own follow-ups, Wii U’s Xenoblade Chronicles X and Switch’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, would curiously discard.

In particular, Xenoblade trimmed some archaic design conventions that turned me off of so many other JRPGs. For one, the game didn’t require you to return to quest givers to collect your rewards after completing many of its side-quests, which meant it never felt like I was wasting my time while playing. You could also quick-travel to any landmark you had previously visited effectively from the outset of your journey–a radical idea when other contemporary JRPGs, such as Ni No Kuni, forced you to wait dozens of hours before you could unlock a quick-travel option.

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These smart refinements are a big reason why Xenoblade felt so fresh when it first launched, but what gripped me most was the game’s sense of scale. Xenoblade presented a vast and varied world to explore, and it constantly rewarded your curiosity, doling out XP for discovering a new landmark and tucking away rare items in hard-to-reach areas. What a world it was, too; each new locale the game presented felt more stunning and imaginative than the last, enlivened by an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack that I still listen to regularly. In my mind, Xenoblade Chronicles’ setting rivals any open world in gaming today, and I can’t wait to explore it again after its HD facelift.

Even if Nintendo and developer Monolith Soft were strictly updating the game’s visuals and nothing more, I would eagerly take any chance to revisit Xenoblade Chronicles on Switch, but it appears the companies are going beyond that. The teaser trailer ended with a look at a location that never appeared in the original game, which suggests Monolith will be introducing some new content to the title as well–as if I needed any more convincing to pick it up. Nintendo hasn’t announced a release date for Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition yet, but it can’t come soon enough.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xenoblade-chronicles-definitive-edition-kevin-knez/1100-6472324/

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Release Date, Trailers, And Everything We Know So Far

Nintendo is keeping its 2020 lineup close to its vest as we head into the new year, but the company has given us a tantalizing peek at a handful of games on the way to Switch over the next few months. The biggest of these is undoubtedly Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the long-awaited new installment in the beloved life sim series.

New Horizons arrives nearly eight years after the last proper Animal Crossing game, New Leaf, released on 3DS, making it one of the year’s most hotly anticipated titles. We got our first real look at the game during Nintendo’s E3 2019 presentation, and since then, the company has gradually divulged new tidbits about it in the lead up to its March 2020 launch.

To help catch you up on all the details that have been revealed so far, we’ve rounded up everything we know about Animal Crossing: New Horizons below. We’ll continue to update this list as more information is revealed, so check back often for the latest on Nintendo’s new Animal Crossing game.

There are a ton of other great-looking titles lined up for next year. You can see some of the ones the GameSpot staff are most excited for in our Most Anticipated of 2020 hub. You can also catch up on our other end-of-year coverage in our Best of 2019 hub.

Announcement And Reveal Trailer

While it was long speculated that Nintendo was secretly working on a new Animal Crossing game, the next entry in the series wouldn’t be officially announced until the company’s September 2018 Direct presentation. After revealing that Isabelle was joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a playable fighter, Nintendo confirmed that a new Animal Crossing game was in development for Switch, although it shared no other details about it beyond a vague 2019 release window.

It would be another nine months before we heard more about the title. Nintendo waited until E3 2019 to finally share the first trailer for its new Animal Crossing game–now officially christened Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The video, which you can watch above, offered our first glimpse at how Animal Crossing’s familiar, laid-back gameplay would be translated to Switch. More interestingly, it also revealed this entry’s unique premise: rather than starting your domestic adventure by moving into a pre-existing town, as in every previous Animal Crossing game, New Horizons drops you on a deserted island and lets you build your own village from the ground up.

Release Date

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was originally slated to release for Switch in 2019; however, at this year’s E3, Nintendo confirmed that the game had been delayed by a few months and would now launch worldwide on March 20, 2020. According to the company, the reason for this delay was in part to ensure the development team maintains a healthy work-life balance–an important issue in the industry today, as many other studios have recently come under scrutiny for their excessive “crunch” practices.

“For us, one of our key tenets is that we bring smiles to people’s faces, and we talk about that all the time. It’s our vision. Or our mission, I should say. For us, that applies to our own employees,” Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser told IGN. “We need to make sure that our employees have good work-life balance. One of those examples is, we will not bring a game to market before it’s ready. We just talked about one example [New Horizons’ delay]. It’s really important that we have that balance in our world.”

What’s New In New Horizons?

At its core, New Horizons is very much a traditional Animal Crossing game, so your day-to-day experience will revolve primarily around interacting with neighbors and performing other familiar activities such as fishing, catching insects, discovering fossils, and decorating your home. However, the game builds on this foundation by incorporating some elements from the series’ mobile spin-off, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. In particular, you can now collect different materials like tree branches and stones and fashion those into tools and furniture at Tom Nook’s workbench. One new type of tool you can craft is a pole, which allows you to vault over the river and reach the other side more quickly.

New Horizons introduces a few other new elements to the series as well, many of which are facilitated by the NookPhone, a smartphone-like device that you receive shortly after settling down on your island. With the NookPhone, you can look up crafting recipes, invite a friend to play alongside you, access the game’s photo mode, and track your Nook Miles–points you accrue by completing certain tasks, such as picking weeds, learning new recipes, and more. These Nook Miles can be redeemed for special recipes and other in-game items.

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New Horizons also makes a swathe of quality-of-life improvements. While furniture could previously only be placed inside your house, you can now lay it down outside as well for some exterior decorating. The game, blessedly, also gives you the ability to dictate where your animal neighbors live. According to game director Aya Kyogoku, before a new villager moves in, they’ll first check with you about the spot they’ve chosen; if you disapprove, you can select a new spot for their house.

Other welcome tweaks that Nintendo has confirmed: you can shovel up an entire tree and replant it elsewhere rather than having to chop it down; you’ll be able to freely select your character’s skin tone, hairstyle, and facial features, and can swap between the different options at any point in the game; and you can move furniture in half-units, as you can in Happy Home Designer.

Which Characters Will Return?

Thus far, the only familiar characters we’ve seen in New Horizons are Tom Nook and his nephews, Timmy and Tommy, who will play a more pivotal role than they did in New Leaf. This time, the Nooks will run your island’s resident services building, providing a place for you to purchase and craft furniture, tools, and other island necessities. We’ve also gotten quick glimpses at a handful of fan-favorite villagers who’ll be returning in the game, including Angus, Fuchsia, and Goldie.

Beyond that, however, we don’t yet know what other recurring characters will show up in New Horizons or what role they’ll serve. Isabelle in particular has been conspicuously absent from any footage Nintendo has shared of the game, but director Aya Kyogoku teases that she may make an appearance. “One thing that I could definitely say about Isabelle is that as the island develops a little more and it needs a little bit more support, then Isabelle might see some sort of use on the island,” Kyogoku said.

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Another character that has been mentioned is the ever-irritable Mr. Resetti. In previous games, Mr. Resetti would pop up and berate players if they shut off the game without saving, but as New Horizons takes advantage of Switch’s auto-save feature, Resetti’s role has been made redundant. However, this doesn’t mean he won’t appear in a different capacity. “We also believe that Mr. Resetti is looking for a new job after his layoff. So please look forward to that,” Kyogoku told Mashable.

Will New Horizons Support Cloud Saves?

Like a handful of other Switch games, it appears Animal Crossing: New Horizons will not support cloud saves. Producer Higashi Nogami confirmed to French outlet Gamekult (via US Gamer) that the title will not allow players to back up their save data to the cloud in order to prevent them from manipulating time within the game and cheating. Previous entries in the series have similarly disallowed players from backing up their save files, so this isn’t entirely surprising, and it is hardly the only Switch title with this restriction.

Multiplayer

Like previous Animal Crossing games, New Horizons allows you to invite other players to visit your town. One island can host up to four players locally and up to eight in online sessions. However, you’ll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to take advantage of these online features. Memberships for the service run for $4 USD for one month, $8 USD for three months, $20 USD for 12 months, and $35 USD for an annual family plan.

In addition to local and online multiplayer, New Horizons also supports couch co-op. Using the Call Islander option in your NookPhone, you can summon another player who has a house on your island and play together by passing them one of your Joy-Cons. Director Aya Kyogoku demonstrated this feature during Nintendo’s E3 2019 Treehouse livestream (above) by playing alongside producer Higashi Nogami. During these co-op sessions, the lead player is denoted by a flag over their head. The camera will only follow this player, but you can swap who the leader is at any time while playing.

Pre-Order

While no pre-order bonuses have been announced yet, you can already reserve a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons at several retailers, including Amazon and GameStop. You can learn more in our New Horizons pre-order guide.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/animal-crossing-new-horizons-release-date-trailers/1100-6472406/

Dead Cells’ Legacy Update Brings Back Previous Game Builds

Motion Twin has released a new Dead Cells patch that reintroduces all of the game’s old versions. The Legacy Update, available now on PC, brings back the glory days of Dead Cells for those feeling nostalgic.

The Legacy Update lets you play “every major iteration of the game from the first build of Early Access right up to [the] present,” Motion Twin wrote in a Steam blog post. “We will of course make sure that we stock all of our future major updates in there too.” The patch also does a few extra things, such as preventing cloud saves from getting deleted, adding new mutations and weapons, reworking “total crap” weapons, and more.

The headlining feature of the Legacy Update though, as the name suggests, is the replayability of all Dead Cells’ previous major updates. This includes Rise of the Giant, Hand of the King, and many others.

To access Dead Cells’ previous updates, right-click on the game in your Steam library and select “Properties.” Click the “Betas” tab and choose the version you’d like to play from the dropdown menu. Hit “Close,” wait for the download to complete, and enjoy your favorite version of Dead Cells. The Legacy Update is currently only available on PC, but Motion Twin said in a separate tweet that “the updates will come to all platforms ASAP.”

Motion Twin, in conjunction with the newly-established studio Evil Empire, has confirmed that Dead Cells will continue to receive new content well into 2020. Coming to the roguelike-Metroidvania in Q1 of next year is The Bad Seed, a new piece of DLC that “brings two new early game biomes and a big #$&%-off boss for you to bash your head against.” The Bad Seed will cost $5 USD when it goes live.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dead-cells-legacy-update-brings-back-previous-game/1100-6472428/

Pokemon Go Holiday Event Now Live, Adds New Gen 5 And Shiny Pokemon

Pokemon Go‘s annual holiday event is back for another year. This year’s event runs through January 1 and gives players around the world a chance to catch some holiday-themed Pokemon, complete exclusive Field Research tasks, and even add a few new Gen 5 monsters to their collections.

Throughout the holiday event, Ice-type Pokemon such as Sneasel, Delibird, and Snorunt will appear in the wild much more often than normal. You’ll also have your first chance to catch Cubchoo, the adorable polar bear cub from Pokemon Black and White, as well as a Shiny version of Snover.

Those aren’t the only special Pokemon available during the event. You may also run into holiday versions of Pichu, Pikachu, and Raichu. On top of that, you may encounter another new Gen 5 Pokemon, Cryogonal, when you use Glacial Lures, and you can hatch Alolan forms of Sandshrew and Vulpix from 7 km eggs.

On top of the increased Pokemon spawns, Niantic has rolled out a set of event-exclusive Field Research tasks. Team Rocket has also added a few new Shadow Pokemon to their teams, including Shadow Delibird. Finally, wintry avatar items like a Stantler sweater and headband are now available in the Style Shop. You can read more about the holiday event on the Pokemon Go website.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic recently rolled out a new Buddy Adventure feature for Pokemon Go. The Gen 5 Legendary Virizion is also still available in the game until January 7, and the first Community Day of 2020 is set for Sunday, January 19. You can catch up on more Pokemon Go developments below.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-go-holiday-event-now-live-adds-new-gen-5-a/1100-6472403/

Weed In Games: How Pot Stopped Being Video Games’ Bogeyman

Looking back at the past 35 years, cannabis has long had a strained relationship with the video game industry. Because games were often targeting youth, cannabis was seen as taboo, a drug not worth mentioning unless it was to warn kids to refrain from trying, as with the FBI’s messages of “Winners Don’t Do Drugs” running on screens of most arcade games of the era, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Wrestlefest.

But today, tolerance of cannabis is at an all-time high, and game developers have taken notice: An entirely new gaming segment has sprouted, such as running cannabis empires and becoming a fast-moving drug kingpin. From the early BBS days to the weed-tycoon games you can jump into today, this story of cannabis in video games has changed drastically over the years. We spoke to gaming experts and developers to reveal the history and challenges of bringing cannabis into video game culture.

When looking at drugs in video games as a whole, cannabis might seem unattractive to developers to include in gameplay, as video game theorist Jesper Juul said. “Big-budget video games tend to operate at two steps removed from the player’s life: you don’t just control a somewhat talented basketball player slightly better than yourself–you control the best basketball player in the world; you don’t just drive a car slightly better than the one you have, you drive a Ferrari,” he notes. “Cannabis is the most popular recreational drug, and generally perceived as somewhat harmless, so video games tend to refer to drugs that are less widespread, but more dangerous in order to show that the game world has been cranked to 11. For that reason, I think cannabis gets comparatively little exposure in video games.”

Drugwars focused on making as much money from narcotics as possible.

But most gamers would be surprised to learn cannabis gets mentioned in games as far back as 1984, when programmers were developing BBS door games and dial-up modems gave players this rudimentary software to share content. Slick graphics weren’t expected, but instead, users clamored for off-filter premises you couldn’t find at arcades or on Atari cartridges. A title of the era, Drugwars, is a game that lets you play a New York City drug dealer trying to unload cannabis, coke, speed, ludes, and much more, went viral quickly at the time. The goal of the game is to accumulate the most money you can from selling drugs in one month.

More mainstream titles took a, well, more mainstream approach. Four years later, one of the most popular arcade shoot-em-ups of the time also included a focus on drugs –but cast you not as a dealer, but as a police officer. Narc let you control a narcotics officer to arrest or shoot dealers and kingpins and even drug users. Like a lot of games that cast players as police, it painted drugs, including cannabis, and their users as villains and enemies.

The 1990s were largely devoid of any major marijuana references in games, perhaps due to the chilling effect of the War on Drugs and the threat of stringent ESRB ratings on a game that included any drug usage. While it was a lay-low period for cannabis in gaming, the 2000s were about to usher in a new era of drug-friendly gaming culture.

Some publishers saw value in bringing back the arcade classic with a 21st-century sheen. Narc’s 2005 remake wanted to amp up the drug use. Steve Allison, chief of marketing for Narc’s publisher, Midway, told the New York Times about its foray into depicting drugs such as cannabis, crack and cocaine: “This is something that nobody else has tackled.” In this iteration, the narcotics officers you play can not only confiscate drugs, but also smoke them. Puffing a joint will slow down the game’s action, while taking crack makes you a sharpshooter, for some reason.

Using drugs was a big part of Narc, turning their effects into game mechanics.

As depictions of cannabis in video games started to shift, they began to mirror opinions of weed in the rest of the world, as well. Back on terra firma, American policy-makers and cannabis enthusiasts saw a shift in how cannabis was viewed. In 2006, Colorado introduced Amendment 44 to legalize cannabis but the measure was defeated in the polls by a 60-40 margin. Still, that 40% figure gave hope to Americans who wanted to see the old drug laws shift hard left to reflect the rising acceptance of cannabis. That same year, Volition brought cannabis into its open-world game, Saints Row, letting you fill bong bowls or blunt papers with the bud. As you can see in this video of the joint-smoking in Saints Row, you cough and blow smoke, eventually clouding your vision momentarily.

As cannabis became less taboo and the smoke cleared from the hysteria sparked by the War on Drugs, more developers devoted entire games to running cannabis enterprises. In 2010, another iteration of the tycoon-type cannabis game launched. Pot Farm was a huge hit on Facebook, because it didn’t sway too far from the core appeal of the extremely popular Farmville–you were growing cannabis plants rather than corn. By finding such a massive and engaged audience on Facebook, cannabis-empire games slid into a new space they never occupied before: enjoying word-of-mouth marketing courtesy Facebook’s connected users, who loved to show off their latest fad with a quick post or “Share” click.

By some estimates, Pot Farm was raking in, at its height, $140,000 a month for its developer Brain Warp Studios. Most importantly, it laid the foundation for a new genre of cannabis-focused games devoted to running farms or dispensaries and cultivating strains for users to buy. Currently, it doesn’t seem to be available as a mobile or Facebook app.

As Pot Farm took off, American views of cannabis softened, most notably on the political level, state-by-state. Washington was the first state to legalize cannabis for recreational use in 2012, closely followed by Colorado. California, Michigan, Oregon, and Maine also legalized cannabis in that decade, and the country’s perception on the drug liberalized as the decade wore on: In 1988, only 24 percent of Americans supported legalization but by 2018, 66 percent of U.S. residents voiced their approval. Why? One theory floated by several sociologists and criminologists believe “support for legalization began to increase shortly after the news media began to frame marijuana as a medical issue.”

No longer viewing cannabis as dangerous and harmful as cocaine and heroin, despite its continued status as a Schedule 1 narcotic along with those drugs, Americans didn’t have a problem seeing cannabis in their movies and in their video games. The 2010s gave publishers the legroom to liberally throw in some cannabis references, devoting entire plotlines to the plant, such as in LA Noire‘s Reefer Madness case. Far Cry 3 has protagonist Jason setting fields of cannabis plants ablaze with a flamethrower, and Jason can also get high from the smoke. Call of Duty: Ghosts got in the game with cannabis-themed camouflage skins to lay over your weapons, which you could purchase with microtransactions. Infinity Ward couldn’t resist throwing a few puns in the product description: “Deliver chronic lethality when you customize with the new Blunt Force Personalization Pack.”

And in Battlefield Hardline, a massive underground cannabis grow-up made its way into one of the game’s multiplayer maps.

Smoking might mostly be a joke in Grand Theft Auto V, but its depictions might have helped games on the path of normalizing cannabis.

One of the most well-known games to feature cannabis is Grand Theft Auto V. While San Andreas mentioned cannabis in missions, in V, player characters Michael and Franklin can hit the bong like they’re in a Cypress Hill music video. We’re also introduced to Smoke on the Water, a medical marijuana pharmacy that Franklin can buy.

In Grand Theft Auto Online, you can smoke so much cannabis you eventually die. In an update to Online, you also have the chance to buy a cannabis farm to get you more leaf to sell.

“Thing is, with GTA, I’m not sure if they spoke to the cannabis community in a real way,” said Solon Bucholtz, creator of the Hempire tycoon-genre game. “But it definitely did push the boundaries of what’s acceptable in gaming.”

It only seems fitting that the past two years have created a boom in cannabis-focused games, perhaps inspired by the middle finger Rockstar threw up in the air any chance they got. But centering a game’s premise around cannabis probably has more to do with the political tides shifting: Today, 11 states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis for recreational use and 33 states have legalized medical cannabis.

With more Americans interested in the beneficial effects of cannabis, more Americans, especially in areas such as Humboldt County in California, began to grow cannabis crops. A new job sector opened up, as well as a now-legal gardening hobby in states where personal grow-ops were allowed. Economic incentives and new technologies in cannabis grows opened the door to other peripheral companies excited to ride this green wave.

In the late 2010s, more cannabis business-sim games popped up, such as Hempire, Weed Farm, and Weed Shop 2, each trying to sway gamers away from other sims and get them breaking bad and winning the weed wars.

Bucholtz said Hempire has just surpassed 10 million installs after celebrating its two-year anniversary on the market. Cultivating strains, learning about the science of THC, and entering your bud into the “Hempire Cup” are some of the ways the game corrals this budding community of players.

“One of the reasons why the gaming and cannabis scenes work so well together is because both are social activities,” Bucholtz said, “and a lot of us grew up enjoying cannabis and playing games like Goldeneye with friends.”

After Hempire came Wiz Khalifa’s Weed Farm mobile game, where the rapper stays on-brand by showing you how to grow and sell cannabis. And Weed Shop 2 made a bigger splash than its predecessor with a premise as on-the-nose as its name.

Another sim called Weedcraft Inc. arrived in early 2019, bearing similarities to Hempire, but also featuring a mode where you can play a middle-aged man who has just been released from prison and needs to start to build his cannabusiness from scratch.

While public sentiment over cannabis has softened over the past few decades, the tight regulations surrounding cannabis-focused games remained unyielding. The challenges Weedcraft faced made global headlines just months after its launch.

“Marketing the game turned out to be problematic due to platforms’ rules and perception of ethics,” Vile Monarch Studios game director Grzegorz Mazur said. “This included Facebook temporarily blocking our ads, which they lifted once the situation got covered in media, and YouTube demonetized videos featuring the game, which discouraged some YouTubers from featuring Weedcraft.”

Weedcraft Inc. is all about growing your cannabusiness, something that’s happening in the real world–but its developers still had a tough time advertising it to potential players.

On the minds of many developers adding cannabis to gameplay is what rating their game will get from the ESRB, which could determine how accessible that game can be for youth. ESRB spokesperson Max Jay clarified how the board makes its ruling on games featuring cannabis. “The mere presence of cannabis as a crop may not result in a more restrictive rating assignment, but if it is actively being smoked or consumed, it’s possible that the game in question could receive a more restrictive rating,” Jay said.

“Growing cannabis on an industrial scale shifts with the legislation, from being an absurd hypothetical (like fighting aliens) to being something that one might actually do under the right circumstances,” said game theorist Jesper Juul, the author of the upcoming book on indie games Handmade Pixels. “For example, it’s no longer a fantasy, but a somewhat achievable daydream. Paradoxically, this probably makes the actual video game less exciting for most.”

If you want your cannabis game to join Apple’s platform, you might face the kind of headache Justin Woodward of Interrobang is enduring. He’s the lead developer on the Kevin Smith-licensed Jay & Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch, a Double Dragon-esque beat-’em-up starring the two stoner mainstays of Smith’s iconic films. Only available to those who pledged to the project on Kickstarter, the game hasn’t yet made it through Apple’s gates.

“Because Apple is trying to launch Apple Arcade to a wide family-friendly audience, Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch was denied for being on the platform at launch. due to the rated-R nature of the content, as well as cannabis usage,” Woodward said.

When the smoke clears on this cannabis games scene surging in the past few years, it’s clear to see two types of genres: the ones that take themselves seriously, like Weedcraft, and games veering into more tongue-in-cheek territory, such as Stone. In this indie game, you play a joint-loving koala detective named Stone who needs to find his missing boyfriend, but he’s also jonesing for spliffs every few minutes. It feels like an Australian gamer’s fever dream, with a large set of mysteries that unbraid themselves along each step.

As you’d expect from a country that legalized medical cannabis in 2002, Canada is home to several cannabis-focused publishers, including LBC Studios, who created Hempire. If you’ve played a Bud Farm or Pot Farm game, you’ve likely played an East Side Games title, based out of Vancouver. “ESG has always made their mark by doing something different and that’s where the idea for cannabis-themed games was born. We wanted to build this community out of nothing. It was a great business opportunity because there wasn’t a market for it, and very few other games in that space,” a company rep told Canadian media recently.

So what makes an engaging cannabis video game? Weedcraft’s Mazur said, “I think it generally needs honesty, a sense that it’s portraying not only the plant but the culture around it. It needs to feel like it’s part of their [cannabis users’] world, not just a heartless product trying to monetize an emerging trend.”

He also recognized a game’s limitation in how it can incorporate cannabis into gameplay. “I hope there will be more games portraying different aspects of cannabis and the culture around it, but I don’t expect it to be a huge wave,” he said. “There’s only so many ways you can use it that will be appealing to players. But I do think that the rapid law changes and general increase of public acceptance will make it featured more often in games that are not primarily focused on cannabis.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/weed-in-games-how-pot-stopped-being-video-games-bo/1100-6472423/

Path Of Exile 2 Dev Responds To Diablo 4, Talks Microtransactions, And Explains Why Crunch Is Bad

It’s been a big year for Path of Exile. Developer Grinding Gear Games held the first-ever fan convention, ExileCon, in the developer’s home city of Auckland, New Zealand in November. At the show, the company made a series of big announcements, perhaps the most notable of which was the reveal of Path of Exile 2. Some of the other announcements included a Path of Exile mobile game, a 3.9.0 expansion for the base game, a Mac version and more. In a new interview, Grinding Gear founder Chris Wilson speaks to GameSpot about how the show went, if it will return for 2020, and lots more.

“I almost cried on the stage, it was such a strong set of emotions,” Wilson tells GameSpot about his reaction to announcing Path of Exile 2 to a crowd of millions of people on-site and online.

ExileCon may not return for 2020, Wilson says. The main driving decision will be if Grinding Gear has enough to show, and it’s too early to say.

Also in the interview, Wilson speaks about how Path of Exile 2 isn’t afraid to compete with Blizzard’s Diablo IV, a game that presumably has a bigger budget. He also discusses hot-button topics like cross-play, microtransactions, and how the studio has gone about avoiding crunch. Grinding Gear has been one of the most outspoken developers in the world regarding crunch, with Wilson saying in the past that he refuses to make his teams crunch. Wilson also talks about how he believes Grinding Gear has retained its identity in the past year following its acquisition by Chinese internet behemoth Tencent.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability. Minor spoilers for Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2.

GameSpot: Now that it’s been a couple of weeks since ExileCon, when you look back and reflect, how do you think it all went and what were some of your personal highlights?

Chris Wilson: It went so much better than we ever hoped. There were a hundred moving pieces and everything came together perfectly. There was so much energy and engagement between players and developers. It was a really special weekend for our team, and they’re still buzzing from it a few weeks later.

There were many highlights for me, but the one that stands out is the feeling of announcing Path of Exile 2 to millions of people. I almost cried on the stage, it was such a strong set of emotions. Another big highlight of the convention was getting to meet so many fans and hear their stories. It was so cool to meet people who like Path of Exile enough to fly all the way out to New Zealand!

Do you think ExileCon will be back in 2020; what might you want to do differently?

We haven’t decided which year to bring the convention back, but it’s unlikely to be every single year. We’re thinking about whether 2021 or 2022 makes more sense for another event, and this honestly depends on when we’ll next have a big enough set of compelling announcements to make. Maybe there’s some scope for a smaller-scale fan meetup in the meantime?

In terms of what to do differently, there are some internal processes we could improve (an extra setup day for example) but otherwise we were really pleased with how the event itself went!

A lot has been said over the years about the approachability of Path of Exile. You’re obviously having a lot of success with the way things are, but do you have anything in mind to help improve the onboarding experience for new players?

We’re constantly trying to improve the onboarding experience for Path of Exile. The new campaign and skill system in Path of Exile 2 are both designed to remove early frustrations and to improve retention for new players. Having said that, though, in our experience, every change we have made in the past to improve onboarding has had little or no impact on overall player retention. This is something we have seen echoed by other free-to-play developers as well.

You’ve said from the beginning that Path of Exile is a hardcore game for hardcore gamers–but would you ever consider efforts to appeal to a broader player base?

If we can achieve to a broader player base without in any way hurting what makes Path of Exile great for hardcore players, then that’d be great. Path of Exile 2 is a good opportunity for this, but we certainly have to be careful to not water down any systems that players currently enjoy. Ideally we’d want Path of Exile to be more approachable while also being deeper than it currently is.

What is your response to Blizzard’s recent Diablo 4 reveal? How do you feel Path of Exile 2 stacks up against what Blizzard is trying to do with their game?

When other companies make a new Action RPG, they’re taking a gamble. The game design decisions they make could be great for their game, or could detract from it. Does simplifying itemisation help or hinder long-term player enjoyment? Does an open world solve more problems than it causes? It’s very hard to know the answers to these questions without playing the released game.

To me, Path of Exile is a solid 90%. The ongoing popularity of the game is a testament to this, as evidenced by the millions of people watching ExileCon coverage, and the 1400+ die-hard fans who flew to New Zealand see it in person. The changes we are making for Path of Exile 2 are very carefully made, with the goal of only increasing that number. I know the new campaign is far better than the old one.

I know the new skill system allows everything that was possible before, while being far easier to understand and solving many confusing problems. Therefore, I believe that Path of Exile 2 will be at least a 90% game as well, if not slightly more. We’re only changing stuff that makes the game better. Maybe our competitors will release a 100% game, but there are so many new and untested-on-a-global-scale decisions that it’s entirely possible that some may be the wrong call.

On a more positive note, I’m rooting for everyone to make great Action RPGs. A genre with popular games in it is good for everyone, and if someone can bring an extra 20 million players to this genre, everyone benefits.

A big theme today is cross-play and connecting communities–do you plan to offer cross-platform or cross-progression for content in Path of Exile 2?

We would like to. There’s still quite a lot of work needed to work out what that means and to what extent the different platforms are integrated (for example how to handle compatibility with updates deploying at different times on different platforms as that’s often out of our control), but we’re optimistic that we can work something out in 2020.

Being a free-to-play game that uses microtransactions, I think many would say that Path of Exile is an example of free-to-play done right. What is your approach to MTX and how do you avoid its pitfalls like pay-to-win and other icky situations?

Our philosophy is to not allow microtransactions to affect game systems. That way, there are never any game design considerations related to them, so the game development team don’t really need to think about the business case for how the game is monetised and can focus on just making it fun.

To this end, we only sell cosmetic microtransactions that let you dress your character up, and long-term stash storage space that doesn’t benefit you in the field and is equivalent to (but more convenient than) just registering more free accounts to mule the items over to.

The mobile version of Path of Exile that was announced at ExileCon was described as being “experimental.” How are you going to go about gathering feedback and what will you need to see or learn to decide to go forward with the project officially?

Our mobile team spent a lot of ExileCon chatting with players while they were playing the mobile project, and solicited feedback as people finished their sessions. This has yielded heaps of feedback on the current version that we’re still processing and making changes as a result of. We haven’t yet announced how we’re going to get the next iteration into the hands of players, but their feedback is really important to our process so we’ll certainly do more rounds of community playtesting.

In terms of going ahead with the project officially, we’ll release it if it’s a great game. So far it’s looking promising, but we have no financial requirement to rely on income from the mobile project so we’re able to take our time and make sure it’s what we need it to be before we release it.

Streaming seems like it could finally be taking off with Google Stadia and xCloud and other similar services; would you want to make Path of Exile available for streaming?

Certainly, it seems harmless to offer it as an alternative way to play and might help us bring the game to users whose PCs aren’t powerful enough to play the game. There’s just the question of manpower in terms of being able to commit to a project like that.

In 2018, Tencent came aboard as a majority investor. Now that it’s been about a year, can you reflect on that acquisition and how things have changed or stayed the same since then?

My goal was for things to stay the same, both for our staff and for our players. After a year and a half now, I feel that I can confidently say that we have achieved this. I do not believe that anything has changed either internally or externally at the studio as a result of the acquisition, other than a little more CEO work on my plate.

You’ve been very open and passionate about avoiding crunch at the studio. How have you been able to achieve this while still being active in releasing new content all the time, especially now as you take on more projects like Path of Exile 2 and the mobile game?

We have been actively expanding our studio over the last few years so that we have the capacity to deliver both our regular thirteen-week cycle and also work on other projects such as Path of Exile 2 and the mobile game. As we continue to ramp up the team size, we’ll be able to make even faster work on these side projects. Our core developers working on our regular expansions have a good idea of what they can achieve in thirteen weeks and unless some big design aspects of the expansion need to change, it’s usually quite comfortable.

Having said that, we completely underestimated the amount of effort required to arrange ExileCon, so I will be forever grateful for the hard work that many team members put in making sure that the convention went amazingly. We may have developed expertise in scheduling game development, but organising conventions was an area that was very new to us.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/path-of-exile-2-dev-responds-to-diablo-4-talks-mic/1100-6472018/

Iconoclasts Publisher Says Devs Are “Free To Reconsider Contracts” Following Controversy

Following the swift removal of Dangen Entertainment CEO Ben Judd, the Japanese indie publisher is now offering its developers the option of reconsidering their contracts with the company.

Dan Stern, the current CEO of Dangen, said in a statement that “all developers will be free to reconsider contracts and decide whether or not they would like to continue forward with Dangen under its new management.” According to Stern, Dangen has reached out to its developers–including those working on Devil Engine and Fight Knight–and hopes to resolve these matters as quickly as possible.

This news follows Stern stepping into Ben Judd’s shoes as CEO earlier this month. Judd, who co-founded Dangen in 2017, was accused of mismanagement and sexual harassment by multiple individuals who have worked with him in the past. The allegations led to Judd stepping down as CEO, saying in a statement, “For the foreseeable future, I will be focusing on fixing some of the issues that have come to light as well as spending time with my family. They believe in me and I want to work hard to grow in a way that justifies that faith. I am truly sorry.”

Regarding the studios working on Devil Engine and Fight Knight, Stern said he has “reached out to [those] developers with a clear path toward mutually agreed separation.” He also specified that if any studio wishes to part ways with the publisher, all of Dangen’s marketing materials will be removed from those projects, ownership of store pages will be given back to the developers, and final payments (especially to the Devil Engine team) will be resolved when invoices are received.

Dangen Entertainment is the publisher of many indie games, including 2D fighter Pocket Rumble, action-platformer Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, upcoming beat-em-up The TakeOver, and more. The company is perhaps best known for the 2018 critically acclaimed indie action-puzzler Iconoclasts, which received a 9/10 in our review.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/iconoclasts-publisher-says-devs-are-free-to-recons/1100-6472424/

Unpacking – Chloi Rad’s Most Anticipated Game Of 2020

2020 is almost here, so we’ve asked GameSpot’s staff to share which games they’re looking forward to most in the new year. New consoles are going to dominate the headlines, but at the end of the day it’s all about the games, and there are a ton of exciting ones to look forward to. When you’re done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2019 hub and our Most Anticipated of 2020 hub.

2019 was a weird year for me. I quit the job I’d had since 2015 and moved out of the apartment I spent six years in to travel for three months around Japan. In 12 weeks, I lived in three apartments and two capsule hotels from Hiroshima to Osaka to Kyoto to Tokyo. I’ve split my time between two temporary living situations back in the United States and I’m getting ready to move again, for the second or third time this year, depending on how you want to count it. In early 2020, I’ll be moving yet again, hopefully somewhere I can finally call home again. I’ve done a lot of packing and unpacking. Through it all, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time thinking about the things I own and the things I don’t, cutting down my belongings, trying to be less wasteful and more resourceful. The act of minimizing my possessions, putting them in boxes, then taking them out again and trying to figure out where and how they fit in an unfamiliar space has become a strangely comforting routine. In a time where I don’t really have a place to call mine, the things I own and choose to take with me are what makes whatever space I’m in a home. I guess that’s what I find so appealing about Unpacking.

Unpacking is an upcoming “zen puzzle game” from the studio Witch Beam. In each level, you pull items out of a box and arrange them in a room, empty except for basic furnishings. It’s like a simplified, domestic take on Tetris. You pick your piece–a book, an action figure, a frying pan–clicking around to rotate it and find a place for it in the confines of its assigned room. In the demo build I’ve played, there were only a few, unspoken restrictions on what can go where. After decorating a kid’s bedroom, the locked diary I had set on the desk began to glow red. It required a more private location, so I slipped it into the desk drawer. Victory music ensued.

There’s a meditative quality to putting things away in Unpacking. I can only compare it to a less busy version of sorting and categorizing in Wilmot’s Warehouse (a personal favorite from this year) or detailing a room in The Sims using decorative mods–books, dishes, even random clutter, elevating those uncannily basic Sim houses into something resembling a real, lived-in space.

For a lot of people in my generation, owning a home feels like a privilege and a fantasy, rather than a given–something that would be nice to have, but also tied to a certain lifestyle, at least in American culture, that doesn’t quite appeal to our changing ideals. Playing around with the concept in a game space like Unpacking, using it to reflect on and develop new ways of thinking about what a home is and can be, and what kind of emotional attachments we put on the things that fill it, feels comforting. Maybe this is just the grownup version of a doll house. Whatever it is, I want more of it.

Unpacking is currently on Steam with a projected release date of late 2020.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/unpacking-chloi-rads-most-anticipated-game-of-2020/1100-6472383/