Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Grand Theft Auto V keeps making money, we reviewed the anticipated The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, and World of Warcraft’s Leeroy Jenkins video turned 10 years old.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
The DeanBeat: Has the next generation of mobile games arrived?
Let’s all watch that YouTube video that Konami tried — and failed — to ban
IGDA’s Kate Edwards confronts Gamergate and diversity in gaming head-on
Rock Band developer helps fan give a GameStop employee his comeuppance
Unity’s John Riccitiello is bored with Clash of Clans clones — but not platform wars and virtual reality
Gaming’s veterans tell how to break into the business (part 2)
Portable games should take back some of the spotlight from mobile
10 YEARRRSSSS LATERRRRR: Iconic World of Warcraft hero Leeroy Jenkins makes us feel old
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell is still gaming’s showman at 72
Gaming’s veterans tell how to break into the business
Above: Here we go again.
Image Credit: Ubisoft
News
Diablo III celebrates 3rd anniversary with cows and their secret level
Epic Games hands out another $18K Unreal Dev Grant — total is almost $500K so far
Ready for Divinity: Original Sin couch co-op? Enhanced edition coming for PS4, Xbox One, and PC
Outlook keeps looking up for Nintendo as Wii U and 3DS sales improve
April 2015 NPD: Xbox One outsells PS4; Mortal Kombat X tops software chart
Xbox One outsold PlayStation 4 in April, according to research firm NPD
How the Wizarding World of Harry Potter convinced Nintendo to work with Universal
World of Warcraft’s 3M subscriber drop is not a problem, one analyst says
While Valve backtracks, Space Engineers developer sets up $100K fund for modders
Grand Theft Auto V leads April’s $1.1B digital games market in the U.S.
Nintendo: NX is not a simple replacement for Wii U or 3DS
Silver Mario Amiibo coming on May 29
Beware the dark: H1Z1 players switch off when night falls on the zombie apocalypse
Roller Coaster Tycoon World is still in development — but it’s under a new studio
Blizzard’s Battle.net is down and causing problems for Hearthstone, World of Warcraft players
Japanese role-playing game studio Imageepoch has gone bankrupt — but its latest game is still coming out
After Sony spinout, H1Z1 developer Daybreak Game Company is free to publish on new platforms
Ratchet & Clank animated movie gets its Hollywood cast
Fewer venture capitalists are betting on game companies
Nintendo is bringing back its World Championships for E3
Dragon Quest VIII is coming to 3DS (at least in Japan)
The ‘new CCP’ in Iceland is making a browser strategy game with 1.5M hexagons
Day-one patch will fix The Witcher 3’s framerate issues on PlayStation 4
Microsoft stokes Killer Instinct engagement with $100K for tournaments
Ubisoft: ‘Digital distribution was the main driver’ of our fiscal 2015 growth
Prey developer Human Head Studios joins Shinra Technologies’ cloud gaming accelerator program
Eve Online exhibit to become a permanent fixture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate goes to London and ditches multiplayer
Ubisoft’s revenues up despite concerns about Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs
Ubisoft plans for The Division to hit in early 2016
Sega Dreamcast classic Grandia II is getting a remastered version on Steam
Blizzard’s gifting two free Hearthstone card packs to its European players
Final Fantasy maker Square Enix ekes out a profit for the fiscal year
Castlevania creator kickstarts Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (and bursts into bats in crazy pitch)
Sega readies 46 free-to-play digital and one big console game before March 2016
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt passes 1 million preorders
Xbox One’s May update improves party chat and voice messages
Sega disappointed with Alien: Isolation and Sonic Boom sales
Nintendo ‘optimistic’ about making the NX region-free
Mobile and social
King chief Riccardo Zacconi dishes on his strategy for going beyond Candy Crush Saga
King is launching new games and expanding to new territories this year
King hits a new record with 550M active players, but fewer spenders still makes it look weak
Candy Crush Saga maker King reports strong Q1 with $569M in adjusted revenue and 61 cents-a-share profit
Space Ape’s Rival Kingdoms hits 1M mobile downloads in less than a week
Square Enix takes another top franchise to mobile with Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ
King is planning to bring its games to Windows 10, starting with Candy Crush Saga
Nintendo won’t obsess over mobile trends to avoid ‘imitating’ other games
Skillz enables developers to add livestreaming to their mobile games
Directive Games raises $3.5M for new mobile game studio
Fuel Powered adds competitive multiplayer to mobile games
Asia’s Nexon sees Q1 game revenues rise 9% and profit grow 15%
Tencent widens its position as the world’s largest game company
Mobile studio Pocket Gems gets a minority investment from Tencent to move into China
Gree shuts down its Vancouver studio & refocuses on its biggest brands
Monster Strike makes $3.8 million daily — and could be Japan’s second billion-dollar mobile game
Adenda launches apps and games on your smartphone’s lock screen
Millennial Media announces 100% viewability guarantee for in-app mobile ads
London’s Playhubs game startup accelerator goes free-to-play
New mobile-game publishing platform is a ‘simple’ alternative for free-to-play developers
Above: There’s nothing quite like establishing your first colony.
Image Credit: Stardock Entertainment
Previews and interviews
World of Warcraft lead designer on why 7M players stuck around — and why 3M left
Galactic Civilizations III reminds 4X strategy fans what it truly means to go beyond Earth
Reviews
Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains is a giant disaster
Puzzle & Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition is much more than a mobile game port
Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker’s additions make this 3DS port a delightful grind
Color Guardians’ dizzying amount of challenges are a blessing and a curse
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a bleakly human play at the heart of a dark fantasy