Month: March 2020

Pokemon Go is a game that thrives on people going outside, so you might not expect it to do well during a pandemic when players are stuck indoors. And yet, despite COVID-19 forcing people worldwide to self-isolate, Pokemon Go’s revenue has gone up recently, according to a report from gamesindustry.biz.

For the week ending March 16, according to data taken from Sensor Tower, Pokemon Go’s gross revenue hit $23 million–a 67% increase on the week before. In fact, 13% of revenue earned by the game so far in 2020 was earned during that week, despite people not being able to play as they usually would.

It was by far the biggest week of in-game spending the game has had in 2020, and it indicates that the game will continue to turn a profit as the way it is played necessarily changes.

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One enduringly controversial topic for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is that, despite the game using a skill-based matchmaking system, there is no ranked mode. Call of Duty professional player Nadeshot stoked the flames of this debate recently when he spoke openly about his frustration with the lack of a ranked mode. And now, former Call of Duty executive Michael Condrey has responded, saying he, too, was frustrated by some of the decisions about Call of Duty that were made outside of his control.

“I’ll never understand why Call of Duty goes through all the trouble to implement skill-based matchmaking but won’t add a ranking system,” Nadeshot said. “If you’re going to match me up against better players, why can’t I have a rank to be proud of and work towards?”

For his part, Condrey said it was never his decision to not include a ranked mode. Instead, decisions about analytics, skill-based matchmaking, monetization, and dedicated servers, came down from Activision corporate. Condrey said he had “frustratingly little influence” on those decisions, “despite their impact on our games and the Call of Duty community.”

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Total War: Three Kingdoms has a new patch, and hotfix 1.5.1 is available in beta right now. The update, which is not live in the full game yet, introduces several changes and fixes, including displaying titles correctly and allowing players to seek confederation once they’ve been declared King of Emperor.

To access the beta, you can right-click on the game in your Steam library, click on Properties and then the Beta tab, and select the 5.1 option in there. This will update your build to 1.5.1, and allow you to test out the update.

Here’s the full update notes, which are also available in simplified Chinese and Korean through the Total War website.

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Fortnite has another update coming as Chapter 2, Season 2 continues on into its second half. While Epic Games is holding with their tradition of not releasing patch notes, there is some speculation about what update v12.30 will contain.

Last week’s 12.21 update added new challenges and rewards, as well as bug fixes. It’s likely that v12.30, being a more major update, will add more in the way of new content.

Fortnite’s community Trello board also gives us an idea of what bugs are being addressed in the new update. Cards marked as ‘fixed in next update’ include issues with the Harpoon Gun catching loot inconsistently, as well as problems with Auto Pick Up. Also marked for this update is a bug with Spy Games where players would get stuck at the “Select Tech” screen. An issue with tournament scores displaying incorrectly in the lobby and in-match will also be addressed, as well as a number of minor issues with Creative Mode, Save the World and mobile versions of the game.

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The cast of the movie Contagion–a film about a virus that starts in China and then moves across the world–has released a series of PSA videos urging people to stay home to help stem the spread of the real-world coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.

Five members of the cast–including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, and Jennifer Ehle–have teamed up with the Columbia Universal Mailman School of Public Health to tell the public critical information about COVID-19 and how to stay safe and recognize misinfornation. Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns are also featured in the videos.

Winslet plays an epidemiologist in the movie Contagion, and she said in her PSA that she prepared for her role by speaking to some of the best public health experts in the world. “One of the most important things they told me: Wash your hands like your life depends on it. Because right now, in particular, it might,” she said in her video, which also includes a tutorial for how to best wash your hands.

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CD Projekt Red have released a shiny new Cyberpunk 2077 wallpaper featuring protagonist V chilling on the Night City metro, as a riot unfolds on the station outside. Aside from giving fans a tantalizing taste of a game that’s still almost six months out from release, the poster is full of tiny world-building details just waiting to be discovered in high resolution.

The new wallpaper gives us a better look at the metro, the city-wide transport system that players will be able to use to travel around the city’s districts.

The main details of the picture are immediately obvious–V, sitting nonchalant with his gun out, a sleepy businessman beside him. Behind him the people of Night City clash with heavily armored Arasaka employees. As one fan on Reddit pointed out, the helmets on the police look like a callback to the Nilfgaardians of CD Projekt Red’s Witcher series.

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For most people, working from home means swapping an office desk and clean clothes for a home desk and the same pajamas five days in a row. For Conan, it means swapping all the comforts of Warner Bros Studios for a stool in his house, a single camera, and technologically questionable webcam interviews.

The late night host had to pause his show early in March due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) update, but quickly vowed to continue to make the show happen using an iPhone and Skype interviews. The at-home show was developed both out of O’Brien’s desire to keep doing his show, and the need to keep the show’s staff paid and in jobs.

Conan is leaning into the lo-fi nature of home broadcast, swapping the slick opening sequence for a montage of webcam stills from all the people working from home to still make the show happen. In contrast to a lot of PSA-heavy programming, Conan also promised that the at-home show would contain no useful information at all, which could be a great move while everyone is in need of mindless distraction.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic forces cinemas to close worldwide, Sony has announced that numerous upcoming titles have been delayed to later dates, with most of their upcoming slate now scheduled for 2021. Deadline is reporting new release dates for several upcoming films, including much anticipated titles like Morbius and Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Morbius, the Jared Leto-starring Spider-Man spin-off about the titular “living vampire,” will now release on March 19, 2021. It was originally scheduled for a July 31, 2020 release. Meanwhile, Ghostbusters: Afterlife has been knocked back to March 5, 2021; it was originally due on July 10.

Other films delayed include Greyhound, starring Tom Hanks, which was scheduled for a June 12 release but does not have a new date set. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway will now release on January 15, 2021, pushed back from August 7. Even films previously due in 2021 already are getting delayed–Kevin Hart vehicle Fatherhood will now release October 23, 2021, instead of its original date of January 15.

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