Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, a woman gets on the cover of FIFA, we celebrate Metal Gear 2’s 25th birthday, and Rocket League takes everyone by surprise.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
The DeanBeat: Batman: Arkham Knight will liven up your slow summer
Our latest slate of speakers for GamesBeat 2015
The Summer Games Done Quick speedruns we don’t want to miss
How to play Heroes of the Storm’s Skeleton King Leoric (video)
Diablo & beyond: State of the action-role-playing game
How YouTube and Twitch are changing the way developers should approach their media strategy
Watch us play Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for its 25th anniversary
E3, triple-A, virtual reality — and the real holder of the Throne of Games
Let’s forget our Kojima blues and celebrate Metal Gear 2’s 25th anniversary
Above: Street Fighter V.
Image Credit: Capcom
News
Street Fighter V beta goes offline for extended maintenance
MOBA Smite passes 10 million total players
Around 75% of Splatoon players use the gyroscope control method
London Venture Partners invests in developer Klang Games, vets of Eve Online
Nintendo and Facebook team up to promote Super Mario Maker
Outpost Games bags $6.2M to help games shine in the Twitch era
The madness approaches: ChinaJoy trade show will draw 250K gamers to Shanghai
Episodic adventure game Life is Strange passes 1 million sales
Nolan Bushnell talks educational games, the future of jobs, and Five Nights at Freddy’s
Party Hard, the award-winning game about mass killing, gets an August release date
Street Fighter V beta doesn’t support PlayStation 3 fighting sticks, Capcom confirms
Daybreak Game Company’s John Smedley steps down as chief executive officer
Super Smash Bros. pros at Evo ‘loved’ Hyperkin’s new GameCube-style Wii U controller
The Grand Tournament is Hearthstone’s next expansion with more than 130 new cards
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s multiplayer beta hits Xbox One, PC a week later than PS4
Former Ubisoft narrative director joins studio Certain Affinity as it goes triple-A
Twitch is ditching Flash for HTML5, just like YouTube
Gears of War Ultimate Edition will hit Windows after Xbox One
GameFly and Samsung bring PES 2015 to Brazil via game streaming
The Force is strong with this R2-D2-themed PlayStation 4 gaming laptop
Lead producer on making friends and war in Rising Tide expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth
Nintendo beats patent troll in 3DS technology case
Microsoft sold 1.4M Xbox systems last quarter
Xbox boss says keyboard-and-mouse support isn’t ‘far away’
Facebook opens registration for Oculus Connect 2 event in September
Rockstar patches Grand Theft Auto V to fix framerate bug
Fractured Space developer Edge Case Games secures $1.3 million in funding
Project Cars’ Wii U version is officially cancelled
Rocket League’s breakout success is a surprise for Psyonix
Itagaki’s Devil’s Third shooter game to debut on Wii U in Q4
Gamers lost their minds for the Evo fighting-game tournament on Twitter
FIFA 16 cover has U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan side-by-side with Messi
Microsoft’s new Xbox One Madden bundle also includes EA Access and a 1TB hard drive
Seth Killian is destroying fighting-game traditions with Rising Thunder
Rocket League has a cheating problem, but Psyonix is trying to fix it
Mobile and social
Xbox co-creator moves Dave & Buster’s from restaurant arcades to mobile games
NetEase puts up $500K to fund mobile game developers
Mathematical! Adventure Time is the latest property to get Puzzle Quest treatment
Cooking Fever simmers past 50 million downloads
Kamcord launches full mobile-game livestreaming
Tune confirms acquisition of mobile marketing automation vendor Artisan Mobile, says still open to all
Creators of Talking Tom app unveil multiplayer bubble shooter Mars Pop
Fallout Shelter was the No. 4 most downloaded iOS game in June
Mobile Success Landscape: 250 companies, $25B investment, and 15 billion-dollar startups
South Korea’s Netmarble sinks $130M into SGN, ‘fastest-growing major mobile studio in U.S.’
How to get Hearthstone’s new rare card back without spending $500 on a Samsung Galaxy phone
So long, Ashley Madison; hello, Tinder: VB App Engagement Index July 2015
Free Me is a card game based on that time you posted an Instagram with your fly down
DDM’s Jeff Hilbert shows how to take Western mobile games over the Great Wall
Japan’s Gree lays off 30% of Western staff [update]
SuperAwesome raises $7M for kid-safe advertising platform
RockYou acquires MavenHut’s solitaire games as it bets on social casino games
Super Evil Megacorp positions Vainglory to become a real mobile gaming esport
Microsoft launches Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 4.6 for ‘any developer working on any kind of application’
RockYou acquires MavenHut’s solitaire games as it bets on social casino games
Fresh from $275M funding round, fantasy sports firm FanDuel acquires app development firm Kotikan
srael’s IronSource reportedly in talks to merge with mobile monetization firm Supersonic
Galxyz founder discusses how educational games can help with global teacher shortages
Above: Taking on Imperials!
Image Credit: 17-Bit
Previews, reviews, and interviews
Galak-Z turns the cheesiness of Star Blazers and Battlestar Galactica into a roguelike
Surviving the watery dangers of Civilization: Beyond Earth — Rising Tide (hands-on)
Game of Thrones’ excellent Episode 5: A Nest of Vipers makes you risk everything
Seth Killian discusses Rising Thunder’s fighter heresy, online focus, and MOBA inspiration
Tembo the Badass Elephant has the best idea for a mascot in a long time
Gaming is in its golden age, and big and small players alike are maneuvering like kings and queens in A Game of Thrones. Register now for our GamesBeat 2015 event, Oct. 12-Oct.13, where we'll explore strategies in the new world of gaming.