This week on Pause Screen, the goatman is consuming Kaz’s life but she still managed to unlock flying in a old zone that doesn’t matter much, Kyle over-100%’d Slim-San and got noticed by the devs on twitter, and William didn’t get to play much -poor guy.  On the hype train we get excited for Soul Calibur, TWEWY and the Diablo 3 switch bundle. We also look at the success of CODBLOPSIIII, and Dragalia Lost. In the discussion section we dive deep into the over worked Dev controversy brought up by Dan Houser and the team of Red Dead 2.  We have a laugh over PS4s being soft bricked before diving into a discussion about the recent rise of Japanese game titles. Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Soul Calibur is out this week, and is getting good reviews
• Ditto with CODBLOPSIIII. Also, it’s already made $500mm, apparently.
• TWEWY Final Remix came out too, though I hear it’s not as good as its DS counterpart.
• Today is the first day you can legitimately get all the achievements in The Stanley Parable https://twitter.com/HelloCakebread/status/1052573700585869313?s=19
• Dragalia Lost, a new IP, has made more in its first two weeks than Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp did. Pretty crazy. https://sensortower.com/blog/dragalia-lost-revenue-first-two-weeks
• There’s a Diablo 3 Switch bundle that looks neat

• Pokémon: Let’s Go Could be the “Starting Point” for Pokémon’s Next 20 Years https://www.gamnesia.com/news/pokemon-lets-go-could-be-the-starting-point-for-pokemons-next-20-years

• No Diablo 4 at blizzcon 🙁 https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• 50 days to go!
• Also, I learned that Cloud’s limit expires after 15 seconds when it fills, which will make him suck a lot less to fight against.

Discussion:

There’s been a big kerfuffle over a Rockstar interview where Dan Houser (R* co-founder) mentioned his writing team had been pulling 100 hour weeks to finish Red Dead Redemption 2.

Is it time for game devs to unionize? Will crunch time ever go away? What about the children?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/328625/Red_Dead_Redemption_2_team_was_crunching_100hour_weeks_says_Dan_Houser.php

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/9ooo76/its_time_video_game_makers_unionize/

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-18-rockstar-allows-employees-to-speak-out-on-100-hour-week-controversy

People were getting their PS4s soft-bricked by messages for the past week, which is kind of funny.

Computers are hard.

https://kotaku.com/ps4-users-are-claiming-that-malicious-messages-are-brea-1829733128

https://twitter.com/glitchr_

Japan continues to see the popularity of its games increase—Yakuza 6 sold as much in the west as it did in good old Nippon. SEGA says it’s because of a good translation.

Think we’re back to the wonder days of th1 6 and 32 bit eras, or is this a flash in the pan? Why is Japan so big again?

https://www.videogamer.com/news/sonic-the-hedgehog-series-has-sold-800-million-units-to-date

This week on Pause Screen Kyle continues playing through platformers old and new, William inches further in Torna: The Golden Country, and Kaz is still stuck in the progression loop of WoW minutia. In our news, we talk about custom Soul Calibur VI characters, the Kingdom Hearts package on PSN, PSN username changes, Mel’Ganis coming to HoTS, wireless Gamecube controllers, and the future of Telltale’s final season of the Walking Dead. In our discussion section, we tackle Microsoft’s new streaming project, and their soon-to-be acquisition of Obsidian. After that, we talk a bit about remaking games, the pluses and minuses. Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Soul Calibur held a voting campaign to make a custom character. They came up with Wizard Lizard, and he’s amazing. https://twitter.com/soulcalibur/status/1048258557504704512
• Square is releasing every Kingdom Hearts ever on PS4 for $40. https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/501506/kingdom-hearts-the-story-so-far-ps4
• PSN is finally letting you change your username, albeit with some weird caveats https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/10/10/psn-online-id-change-feature-entering-playstation-preview-program-soon/
• Mal’Ganis is coming to HotS, and he looks pretty neat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd9aKlWu75k&t=10s

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• There might be brothers that you can smash. Unconfirmed, though.

MELANCHOLY, YET HOPEFUL TRAIN

• Skybound Games is partnering up with the skeleton of Telltale to finish and release episodes 3 and 4 of The Walking Dead’s final season. Apparently they’re looking to hire the old staff back, but good luck with that. https://twitter.com/skyboundgames/status/1048735364452634626

Discussion:

Microsoft is making an initial push into cloud streaming with a project called ‘xCloud’, with the goal of being able to ‘play Halo anywhere’.

Is it the future, or a one-off curiosity? https://www.destructoid.com/microsoft-announces-huge-cloud-gaming-initiative-project-xcloud-so-people-can-play-halo-anywhere–526237.phtml

Microsoft is also reportedly buying Obsidian.

Makes sense, given their recent studio acquisitions and Obsidian’s financial troubles in the past. I think with a bit more of a guiding hand, Obsidian will be able to make some really compelling console RPGs.

https://kotaku.com/sources-microsoft-is-close-to-buying-obsidian-1829614135

Podcast THING OF THE WEEK

The current trend in disney movies is to ‘remake’ their animated classics in live action, current trend in games is to remaster. Do you think that any game could be a successful ‘remake’

This week on PauseScreen, Kaz gets sucked into Wow… but its into content that is three years old.  Wiliam is loving Torna and Kyle gives his review of Megaman 11 and more games no one has heard of.  In the news Kaz mourns Mike Morhaime’s departure, but is excited over blizzcon merch. In the odd combinations corner, Megaman is getting a live action movie and Skrillex is helping make Kingdom Hearts 3’s main theme. on the sad train, Telltale is completely dead.  In Discussions we talk about the rumors of an upgraded switch release, will they go Crazy like the DS/3DS? Then the crew gets excited about the leaked Harry Potter game! Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Mike Morhaime is officially stepping down as CEO of Blizzard, and being replaced by J. Allen Brack, a dude who was a big deal with WoW. https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/22549840/message-from-mike-morhaime-and-j-allen-brack
• Blizzcon merch will be unveiled Oct 11th, there’s a really cool Genn statue coming! https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8047-Get-a-Sneak-Peek-at-the-BlizzCon-2018-Online-Merchandise-Sale-on-October-11-Get-a-Sneak-Peek-at-the-BlizzCon-2018-Online-Merchandise-Sale-on-October-11
• Mega Man is getting a live action movie. They just nabbed a couple of directors! http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e181004.html
• Skrillex teamed up with Utada to make the Kingdom Hearts 3 main theme. It’s coming out on January 18th, a week before the game, and I BET IT’S AWESOME WUBWUBWUB https://twitter.com/KINGDOMHEARTS/status/1045523584440061952
• Anthem is going to have raid matchmaking! https://twitter.com/BioMarkDarrah/status/1045853509915074565
• Vivendi is selling all their shares of Ubisoft by March 2019 https://www.vivendi.com/en/press/press-releases/extension-of-the-ubisoft-forward-share-sale-deadline/
• Super Mario Party got pretty great reviews for a Mario Party game. Comes out tomorrow, looks pretty fun.
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is also out and also got good reviews. Looks fun!

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• Smash may or may not have hypnotic properties and be Nintendo’s way of taking over your brain

SAD TRAIN

• Telltale is now completely dead, they laid off their 25 person skeleton crew today. https://www.destructoid.com/telltale-just-laid-off-its-last-remaining-employees-525765.phtml

Discussion:

The Wall Street Journal says that Nintendo is going to release an upgraded Switch next year.

Will they go crazy like with the DS/3DS? Nintendo loooooves them some handheld form factors.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/4/17935982/new-nintendo-switch-hardware-2019 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nintendo-plans-new-version-of-switch-next-year-1538629322

Footage of an all-new Harry Potter game leaked to the internet, and it looks pretty great.

It’s set in the 1800s, has you as a fifth year, and is an open world RPG. Basically, everything people have wanted forever.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-02-no-rocksteady-isnt-making-the-leaked-harry-potter-game

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9kmudg/unannounced_harry_potter_rpg_has_killing_and/

This week on Pause Screen Kaz catches us up on some Battle For Azeroth, William battles the whales, and Kyle finishes up Spiderman and tries out some smaller games. In news, the Ace Attorney Trilogy is ported to the current console gen, Castlevania Requiem is announced, and we talk a bit about cloud saves, Warcraft classic, and the slowing down of Smash Ultimate character reveals. For discussion, we take a look at the sudden implosion of Telltale, the sleazy microtransactions in DMC5, and PlayStation finally joining the crossplay party. Then, to finish up, we talk about… terrible Deviantart submissions???  Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Ace Attorney Trilogy is coming to PS4/XBO/Switch/Steam!
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnYpTj_aUoA
• Castlevania Requiem (has SotN and Rondo of Blood) is coming to PS4 on October 28!
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEAJZwCOSig
• Nintendo holds on to your cloud saves for 6 months after your subscription expires. So that’s nice. http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/09/25/nintendo-will-let-you-recover-cloud-saves-up-to-6-months-after-your-switch-online-subscription-lapses
• Bowsette happened, and is probably the most internet thing to happen this year.
• Warcraft classic demo coming soon!

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• Sakurai says to expect character announcements to slow down between now and launch

Discussion:

Telltale Games has basically shut down. They fired all but 20-25 of their staff with no warning, and have ceased all development—including on the only partially completed Walking Dead final season.

They’re getting sued now. Sounds like their management is/was complete scum. http://gamasutra.com/view/news/327085/Report_The_Walking_Dead_developer_Telltale_Games_closing_down.php

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2018/9/25/17901106/telltale-layoffs-lawsuit-warn-act

Devil May Cry 5 is going to let you buy red orbs.

Sounds like it hopefully won’t be too bad, though. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/devil-may-cry-5-lets-you-spend-real-money-to-upgra/1100-6461972/

https://www.dualshockers.com/devil-may-cry-5-red-orbs-playing-normally/

Playstation finally gives us crossplay!

They did some hard backpedaling on things they’ve said, but at least we have it now!

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-26-playstation-4-gets-cross-play-with-nintendo-switch-and-xbox-one

We’re back for another week in gaming and Kaz has been diving headfirst into Battle for Azeroth, but she also has stumbled back into hearthstone somehow? At least she has something to do while Darksouls is kicking her butt.  Kyle gushes about Aaero, a rhythm, rail-shooter game that is under appreciated, as well as talks neutrally positively about more Spiderman. He also reports on his first week of Switch Online.  William is starting to be quite the arena champion in Fire Emblem Heroes, getting to rank 21 without spending one dime on the game, Impressive!  For the Hype train we talk about Sony’s PlayStation Classic and the new Pro controllers, Kingdom Hearts 3’s box art, Devil May Cry 5, and Tales of Vesperia.  Kaz gushes about the new BfA patch announcement for a while before the crew gets into a discussion about Spider-man’s success. Is it going to lead to more Marvel games? For the thing of the week we talk about our biggest gaming turn offs.  Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Sony announced the Playstation Classic, which will have 20 games including Final Fantasy 7, Wild Arms, Tekken 3, Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer Type 4, and 15 unannounced games. It’s going to be $100 retail, and the controllers are replicas of the originals—not dualshock. https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/09/18/introducing-playstation-classic-with-20-pre-loaded-games/
• Kingdom Hearts 3 has pretty box art! Xion and Namine are prominently featured, which is kind of surprising. https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1041917408670232576
• Devil May Cry 5 had a couple new trailers. That game looks real fun! Also, you can use the Mega Buster, though it appears to be locked behind a deluxe version or preorder bonus. Also, online multiplayer! https://www.destructoid.com/devil-may-cry-5-has-mega-busters-live-action-cutscenes-and-online-multiplayer-523574.phtml
• New ToV remaster footage from TGS, they’re using the same old audio when they can, but as for the new stuff… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpoKV-8kmA The youtube comments say that Grant George is the new Troy Baker
• Kaz – BfA patch 8.1 tides of Vengeance announced!
  • New story content, continuing story of voljin?!
  • New raid: siege of Zuldazar will have two paths, horde and alliance will have 3 unique bosses to each other, but you’ll still be able to experience the other side of the story

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• Armada is quitting Melee singles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpvqhzKSmxg
• New CoroCoro magazine scan says there will be a total of 108 stages in Ultimate https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77007598
• Source Gaming found that there’s gonna be a lot of cool skins in the game, like Meta Ridley, Pikachu Libre, Yoshi’s Crafted World, and Wedding/Mario Maker Mario. Hopefully alternate skins will be a big thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQGB7XnCQac&feature=youtu.be
• The rumor mill says Incineroar is gonna be in the game. I hope it’s right.

Discussion:

Spider-Man is selling like hotcakes, if hotcakes were still popular. 3.3 million copies so far, and it’s killing it in almost every territory.

Think we’ll get more Marvel games out of this? It’s even been outselling God of War, and has set the record as the fastest-selling title that Sony has ever published. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/09/20/marvels-spider-man-ps-4-sells-record-3-3-million-copies-opening/1346187002/

 Capcom Vancouver, the studio behind Dead Rising 2, 3, and 4, is now closed.

Sucks for them, but it makes some sense given the success of Capcom’s in-house projects lately. https://kotaku.com/dead-rising-studio-capcom-vancouver-shuts-down-1829143863

William’s Podcast THING OF THE WEEK

Gaming red flags. What turns you off from a game?

Kaz returns this week with epic tales of cornfields and Battlechasers, but she’s a little bummed to be missing raid already! Willam played more Portrait of Ruin and Fire Emblem Heroes. Please forgive Kyles poor internet for dropping every once in a while, but he did manage to play a ton of games with week, most notably Spider-man and Mega Man 11.  In the New we were excited to go over the happenings of the Nintendo Direct, we also dig into the issue with backending in cloud saves.  For the rest of the discussion we dive into the legal issues EA continues to have with loot boxes in Belgium.  For something fun we talk about the 5 games that would best embody the types of games we like.  Come Pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• • Nintendo Direct

• Luigi’s Mansion 3

• • 3ds ports: Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn, Bowser’s Inside story
  • Switch ports: SMBU, Katamari, Civ 6, Cities Skylines (out now!)
  • Capcom Beat ‘em up bundle
  • Switch online details. It’s basically what we already knew, but you can also spend even more money on NES controllers for $60. Hooray, I guess.
  • Town is a new RPG from Gamefreak that seems kind of interesting
  • Yoshi’s Crafted World!
  • Board games! Carcassonne, Pandemic, LotR LCG, Catan, Munchkin. Really interesting concept, it’s cool to see Asmodee have a digital division.
  • Starlink looks great. I love Wolf’s new voice actor/model
  • FFVII, XI, X/X-2 HD Remaster, XIIZA, XV Pocket, WoFF, CD
  • I need the Smash dock. I hope they release it separately.
  • Also, we got more dad Bowser, which is adorable
  • Isabelle in Smash https://78.media.tumblr.com/e6392ce863f5b02b7e5816b1c82dc874/tumblr_ozf1h3GiCa1tpri36o1_400.gif
  • Animal Crossing 2019!

• Shadow of the Tomb Raider came out to pretty solid reviews
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is getting an HD remaster with online play!
• Vesperia has a release date, 1/11/19, with a teaser of a… dog? special edition? https://twitter.com/BandaiNamcoUS/status/1039191897292472323

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• No Codex calls this time, according to David Hayter

Discussion:

EA is taking loot boxes to Belgian court.

Think they’ll win? Seems like they’re trying to control the situation before it spreads across the rest of the EU.

https://hexus.net/gaming/news/industry/122051-belgian-govt-opens-criminal-investigation-ea/

Some Switch games won’t support cloud saves.

Seems like it’s due to backend design, since the feature wasn’t built in to the system from day one. It’ll supposedly stop people from cheating.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/09/07/multiple-switch-games-including-pokemon-splatoon-and-dark-souls-do-not-support-cloud

Podcast THING OF THE WEEK

If you had to recommend someone play 5 games to really get a feel for you/your tastes, what five would you pick?

Kaz 

1. Warcraft 3
2. Bloodborne
3. Zoo Tycoon
4. Skyrim
5. Heroes of the Storm

Kyle

1. Parappa the Rapper
2. Mega Man 5/6/10
3. Dark Souls
4. Earthbound
5. DJ Hero 2

William (yes he cheated)

Without Me

1. FF6
2. LttP
3. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
4. Muramasa: The Demon Blade
5. Metroid Zero Mission

With Me

1. Skyward Sword
2. Fire Emblem 7
3. Majora’s Mask
4. Xenoblade Chronicles
5. Tales of Vesperia

Welcome back to Pause Screen, this week Kaz is out, so Kyle and William are on their own, so all bets are off. William takes the opportunity to talk about the scandalous Catherine and a bit more of Portrait of Ruin. Kyle is still stuck on Dead Cells, though he took a bit of time to try out Tekken 7. In news, Spider-Man comes out tomorrow, Destiny 2 is still getting expansions, Nintendo cancels a Direct, leaving Megaman 11’s demo out in the cold, and the Xbox Adaptive Controller is out! For discussions this week, we tackle microtransactions and the business model that is making them an unfortunate reality in gaming. We also take a look at the beautiful disaster that is Riot games attempting to change the public perception of their work culture. To finish up, we talk about some of our guilty pleasures in gaming, and speculate about what Kaz’s would be. Come pause with us!

Discussion topics

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Spider-Man comes out tomorrow, and reviews are really good!
• The Forsaken Destiny 2 expansion came out, and is apparently pretty okay
• Rayman is going to be in Brawlhalla. RIP Smash dreams
• The Xbox Adaptive Controller launched on Tuesday!
• Hot off the heels of buying Timesplitters back, THQ Nordic has bought Kingdoms of Amalur.
• TWEWY Final Mix is priced at $50 https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-world-ends-with-you-final-remix-switch
• Megaman 11 demo is now live on Switch, and starts on Xbox and PS tomorrow https://twitter.com/MegaMan/status/1037837854112530433
• Anti-hype: Nintendo cancelled their direct for today on account of a 6.7 earthquake in Japan.

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• There are going to be characters in this game

Discussion:

The producer of 2K’s NBA 2K19 called microtransactions an ‘unfortunate reality’ of gaming.

The sad part is, I think I agree with him. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/9cz8n4/2k_says_microtransactions_are_an_unfortunate/

The Riot Games drama marches on: they held a few career seminars (complete with 1-on-1 resume reviews), but only allowed women and non-binary people to attend.

Is promotion the answer to discrimination, or is it just more discrimination? Reddit seems to think the latter. https://www.dailyesports.gg/reddit-vs-riot-drama-over-female-only-league-of-legends-pax-seminars/

Podcast THING OF THE WEEK

 Gaming guilty pleasures

Kyle has returned from the magical land of Disney and played a bunch of games.  William started playing Portrait of Ruin again and Kaz has been neck deep in Goatman work and Warcraft. In the news we talk about CD projekt Red’s unexpected Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay stream, A new IP coming out from Nintendo, the International and a Netflix Diablo series.  On a more serious note we mourn the loss of life at the Madden qualifier tournament event in Jacksonville. We also can’t believe a Pirate site is taunting Nintendo and hosting ROMS and also discuss EA’s move to delay Battlefield 5. Come Pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• CD Projekt Red released some Cyberpunk 2077 footage. Looks pretty good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfW1WcuEI8Y
• Nintendo showed off its upcoming original IP mobile game, Dragalia Lost. It actually looks okay? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4wz7Mb8Kqw
• Nintendo also highlighted a bunch of indies this week. A highlight of the highlights is that Into the Breach is out on Switch! Also, Hyper Light Drifter is coming too.
• Streets of Rage 4 is going to be a thing, courtesy of DotEmu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_bgPefCyfA&feature=youtu.be
• Spelunky 2 had its big reveal. It certainly looks like more Spelunky! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6JVT2Sp8aQ
• Huge congrats to OG for winning The International! Also, 2 new heroes in Dota—Grimstroke (out now!) and Mars, coming later this winter. Grimstroke looks rad. http://www.dota2.com/grimstroke
• Onimusha is getting ported(remastered) to modern systems?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTScT8UucHw \
• Blizzard and Netflix reportedly working on a Diablo series https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/08/30/diablo-netflix-series-hellboy-writer/

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• It’s going to have brothers that you can smash
• There’s a limited edition coming to the US! Also, a Switch bundle with special joy cons and a special pro controller.

Discussion:

 EA’s Madden qualifier tournament event in Jacksonville, FL had a mass shooting.

Pretty terrible. 3 dead including shooter, 9 more wounded. EA is donating $1mm to the victims’ families and has cancelled the rest of the tourney. What does this mean for future gaming events?

Random pirate site is trying to call out Nintendo in the battle for ROM hosting https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-site-taunts-nintendo-with-a-new-retro-games-section-180830/

Battlefield 5 delayed it’s release until November

Is it enough to help them remarket themselves? https://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-5-release-date-delayed-to-november/

This week with Pause Screen, Kyle is on vacation, William hasn’t played anything besides Fire Emblem: Heroes, and Kaz is enjoying Battle for Azeroth and a little bit of Battle Chasers. In news, we talk about the ongoing Gamescom and all that’s happened there. Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 5, Sekiro, Devil May Cry 5, and more. We also mention Amazon Prime dropping thier preorder discount, and the legendary Windjammers 2 trailer. For discussion topics, we have the newly debuted steam.tv, and to wrap up, we talk Battlefield 5 and the web of controversy surrounding it. Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Windjammers 2 coming in 2019
• Gamescom is going on in Germany RIGHT NOW
  • Cyberpunk 2077 -45 mins of gameplay
    • They’re going for a similar scope as the witcher 3
  • Battlefield 5 open beta date Sept 4
  • Resident evil 2 screenshots and gameplay of Claire
  • Assasin’s Creed cinematic trailers and dev walkthrough
  • Sekiro gets a release date and collectors edition march 22, 2019
  • Blizzard reveals a new overwatch map and short featuring D.Va
  • Spyro reignited showed off more gameplay and has been delayed to November 13th from September 1. Sorry Kyle https://www.gamnesia.com/news/the-spyro-reignited-trilogy-is-delayed-to-november
  • Devil May Cry 5 has a new trailer and a release date, March 8th, 2019
  • For Honor went FTP and is seeing some comeback https://www.pcgamer.com/for-honor-starter-edition-goes-free-draws-over-225000-concurrent-players-on-steam/
• Amazon Prime is getting rid of it’s 20% off preorder discount https://www.gamnesia.com/news/amazon-prime-is-dropping-its-20-pre-order-discount
• Battle for azeroth is blizzard’s fastest selling expansion ever https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/battle-for-azeroth-fastest-selling-expansion-1202915379/

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• Gameplay of new smash characters at gamescom

Discussion:

Valve’s streaming service, Steam.tv, has launched.  Is this the end of youtube gaming? Will it be a real competitor to twitch? https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-streaming-platform-steamtv-is-officially-live-now/

Battlefield 5 preorders are ‘weak’ and chief design officer Patrick sunderlund is going to step down from EA  Will it flop because of the political controversy around it, or are they releasing it too close to RD2 and COD, or is an overall dissatisfaction with EA (or all of the above)?  https://www.vgr.com/battlefield-5-pre-order-sales-weak/

https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/14/17688052/electronic-arts-patrick-soderlund-leaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ry5Lu9g1nk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pGjb5MvuUE

We’re back after a week break and have a LOT to talk about! Kyle played the most with a bunch of old games. Good news is that he finally beat Enter the Gungeon, but is somewhat slogging through the Megaman X Collection 1.  William is revisiting portal to achievement hunt and played some Fire Emblem Fates Conquest.  Laura battled a giant skeletal man in Dark Souls 3, and it tearing it up in the new WoW expansion!  In our quick news we talk about Diablo 3 for Switch, DS remastered release date,  DOOM Eternal, Evo and more.  In our Discussion we talk about former IGN editor Filip Miucin and his Plagiarism, Bethesda’s litigious moves on games re-sellers and Riot’s Sexism and discrimination culture.  Come pause with us!

HYPE TRAIN *toot toot*

• Diablo 3 Eternal Collection is coming to Switch!
• Dark Souls Remastered (and the Solaire amiibo) are coming out on October 19th
• THQ Nordic acquired Timesplitters (and Second Sight), and says they’re gonna bring it back! http://news.cision.com/thq-nordic-ab/r/thq-nordic-acquires-timesplitters,c2592484
• Doom Eternal got some gameplay footage, and it looks fantastic
• Shovel Knight is in Rivals of Aether, which is neat
• Torchlight Frontiers got announced. I’m cautiously optimistic, even with the MMO angle
• EVO
• The International 8 Group Stages are happening
• TWEWY coming out on October 12 https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1026830324850937857
• Square’s thoughts on Octopath and Bravely https://twitter.com/mochi_wsj/status/1026737884168998912?s=09
• Switch VR https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/hackers-discover-buried-vrmode-support-in-switch-firmware/

SMASH BROS RUMOR OF THE WEEK

• We’re incredibly late to the party, but Luigi is dead (super dead), and Smash has everything in it now
• LITERALLY
• EVERYTHING

Discussion:

IGN’s Nintendo editor, Filip Miucin, was caught plagiarizing a small Youtube reviewer’s review of Dead Cells.

Since then, it’s gone from bad to worse. He had a bad apology video (monetized, of course), challenged people to find more plagiarism (which they promptly did), and IGN is now considering removing all of his content he’s ever done entirely. What a tool.

Bethesda sent eBay sellers cease and desist letters for selling ‘new’ games.

Man, they like to sue people.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/11/17661254/bethesda-sell-used-games-amazon-block

Kotaku ran a really interesting piece on sexism and discrimination at Riot Games.

Not sure if we want/need to tackle it, but it’s an interesting read.

https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483