Nearly 250 people in 26 states have contracted salmonella poisoning, the USDA says.
Fortnite Dev Challenges Steam With Competitive Marketplace
Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, has announced its own marketplace to compete directly with Steam. The Epic Games Store will roll out soon for PC and Mac, with plans to expand to open platforms and Android in 2019. It’s already detailing some developer-friendly moves.
The most significant part, for devs, is that they’ll earn 88% of their revenue. According to the announcement there are no tiers to the profit-sharing: it’s just an 88/12 split between developers and Epic for listing on their marketplace. This is the most striking challenge to Steam, which now takes 20-30% based on a tiered earning structure. If a developer is using the Unreal engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty out of its own 12% cut. Though Epic is encouraging use of its own Unreal engine with profit incentives, it says games developed on any engine are welcome.
Purchasing a game on the Epic store will automatically subscribe players to the game’s newsfeed for easy communication, and developers are in charge of their own game page on the news feed. It promises no store ads or cross-marketing on a game page, and no paid ads in the search results.
Epic is also encouraging developers to work with streamers and bloggers, letting them set a revenue share for referrals. Epic says it will cover the first 5% of creator revenue sharing for the first 24 months to help get the ball rolling.
The company promises more details to come at The Game Awards on Thursday.
Epic Games Announces Store Launch, 88% Revenue Share with Developers
Epic Games announced Tuesday the launch of their new online store, which will have an 88 to 12 percent split for developers.
A date for the store opening has not been released, but a statement from Epic said it will launch soon and will include, “a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac and will open up more broadly to additional games and other open platforms throughout 2019.”
Games developed with any game engine are allowed in the store, but the first releases include Unreal, Unity and others.
Epic has stated they will not take a profit from any of the games made with Unreal Engine.
“As a developer ourselves, we have always wanted a platform with great economics that connects us directly with our players,” Epic Games founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney, said. “Thanks to the success of Fortnite, we now have this and are ready to share it with other developers.”
How Stan Lee Revolutionized Fandom
When discussing Stan Lee‘s legacy, it’s easy to get distracted by the flourishes and flares. After all, as the man who co-created heavy hitters like Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four, it’s not hard to see why — there’s no small amount of glitz and glamor to be had. But buried beneath Lee’s massive roster of creative contributions to Marvel’s pantheon is a detail that may be considerably less flashy than the Bang! Zoom! Pow! of his costumed heroes, but is no less monumental in scale. By crafting himself into a bombastic, over the top editorial voice — “Stan The Man” or “Smilin’ Stan” — that featured heavily in every Marvel publication, Lee was leading a quiet revolution in not only the comic book industry’s business practices, but the world of superhero fandom as a whole.
Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Will Add Maori Civilisation
Civilization VI’s upcoming Gathering Storm expansion will add a new Maori civilisation led by the legendary figure Kupe. According to Maori mythology, Kupe was responsible for the Polynesian discovery of New Zealand in the 10th century after setting sail from his home of Hawaiki.
In line with the history of Kupe and his status as a navigator, the Maori civilisation will start at sea and earn Science and Culture for every turn prior to settling its first city. The unique Leader Ability “Kupe’s Voyage” will also reward the Maori a free Builder, extra population in the capital, and additional Housing and Amenities once settled. Another unique ability “Mana” unlocks Sailing and Shipbuilding from turn one.
Xbox One Games On Sale This Week On Xbox Live
Each Monday, Microsoft refreshes its weekly sale on digital Xbox One and 360 games on Xbox Live. This week’s sale is up on the site, so let’s take a look at some of the best games you can get for low prices. Note that some of the discounts are reserved for Xbox Live Gold members, while others are available to everyone.
There aren’t a lot of big games on sale this week, but if you don’t mind picking up racing games that aren’t the latest in the series, you can save some serious cash. Need for Speed and Need for Speed Rivals are on sale for $5 each. A bundle containing Forza Horizon 3 and Forza Motorsport 6 is down to just $32–significantly less than if you wanted to pick up racers of a more recent vintage.
All episodes of the mystery adventure game The Council are on sale, but if you’re in for a penny, why not go for the whole pound and grab the complete season for $20? And for those whose interests span both football and fantasy (the Tolkien kind), Blood Bowl 2 will be right up your alley; it’s on sale for $5.
But not every game needs to last dozens of hours. It’s always nice to have a few smaller games you can play for 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there. A number of those are on sale right now, including Clustertruck for $7.50, Coffin Dodgers for $4.80, and the king of them all, Peggle 2, which is on sale for just $2.40. Do yourself a favor and pick that one up if you don’t have it.
You’ll find more games on sale this week below, or you can view the whole list on Major Nelson’s blog.
- Aces of the Luftwaffe – Squadron — $12 / £9.59
- Blood Bowl 2 — $5 / £4
- Brawlout — $10 / £8
- Clustertruck — $7.50 / £6
- Coffin Dodgers — $4.80 / £3.84
- The Council: Complete Season — $20 / £16
- Forza Horizon 3 and Forza Motorsport 6 Bundle — $32 / £28
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes — $11.24 / £9.36
- Need for Speed — $5 / £6.25
- Need for Speed Rivals — $5 / £3.75
- Overcooked — $4.25 / £3.20
- Peggle 2 — $2.40 / £2
- Treadnauts — $7.50 / £6
- Tricky Towers — $6 / £4.79
Joe Biden Says He’s ‘The Most Qualified Person In The Country To Be President’
The former vice president hasn’t decided whether he’s running in 2020.
Mueller’s prosecutors are reportedly “tying up loose ends.”
Pokemon Go PVP Doesn’t Reinvent Battles, But Adds Some New Twists
After two full years and tease after tease, Pokemon Go finally has competitive Trainer Battles on the way.
While this new PVP mode isn’t the full battle system rework some people were hoping for, it also isn’t entirely identical to the Raid and Gym battles players are already used to. Niantic has started with some simple changes that are a potential foundation for some much bigger ones, and also introduced new reasons to maintain your friendship levels and battle regularly.
Becoming Captain Marvel: How Brie Larson Crafted the MCU’s Most Powerful Hero
With Captain Marvel joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a solo feature hitting theaters in March of 2019, IGN is finally able to break the seal on our visit to the film’s set earlier this year and share what actress Brie Larson told us about playing the title role. We’ve already heard Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige say how Captain Marvel will be the most powerful hero in the MCU, and given that Nick Fury paged her for help at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, it’s led fans to speculate that the high-flying hero will be key to toppling Thanos in Avengers 4. That’s a lot of pressure for one hero, no matter how much cosmic energy she can blast out of her hands. But before we see how the Avengers saga pans out, the Captain Marvel movie will take us back to the ‘90s to see Captain Marvel’s beginnings as Air Force pilot Carol Danvers.