Scope out a few of the news stories from the game industry this week, hand-picked from across the world of games.
ChinaJoy on Schedule to Continue as Live Event in July
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
While most events, game industry-centered events included, are on hold for months, many until 2021, a few events are pushing forward as soon as this summer:
“The organisers of ChinaJoy, China’s major video games event, said this year’s show will go ahead as planned.
Local news publication Shine — formerly known as Shanghai Daily — reports that special measures will be introduced to account for the COVID-19 pandemic at this year’s ChinaJoy Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference.
Measures include the requirement for a real name and green health QR code during pre-registration, as well as temperature measurement throughout the show.
Exhibitors have also been told to stagger their displays to allow for more distance between attendees.
The show will once again be held at Shanghai New International Expo Center, running from July 31 to August 3.”
EVO Onine Fights on as Month-long July Online Event
Source: AltChar
“EVO’s 20 years of fighting tournaments will continue in 2020 but not physically in an arena. The event will be fully digital, which opened some doors and closed others.
Fans will get to enjoy five weekends of fighting games with EVO Online while the original lineup , although some games were dropped from it. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Marvel vs Capcom 2 were dropped. Well, SSBU was dropped while MvC 2 will have the Tournament of Champions.
The remaining seven games from the original roster are staying as it is, meaning Under Night In-Birth, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Tekken 7, Street Fighter V Champion Edition, Granblue Fantasy versus, Soul Calibur VI and Samurai Showdown events will proceed as planned.”
EGX Berlin Canceled for 2020
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
- EGX Berlin (image: EGX Berlin)
As governments adjust their policies for larger meetings, such as conferences, expos and conventions, event organizers have continued to adjust events into Q3 2020 and beyond. That list can now include EGX Berlin 2020.
“The organisers of EGX Berlin have announced this year’s show has been cancelled.
The consumer games show was due to be held from October 30 to November 1.
The news follows a recent ban on major events in Germany, originally prohibiting all trade shows, sports and cultural events, and other gatherings with more than 5,000 attendees.
This ban was originally due to lift on August 31, but this has since been extended to October 24.”
Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 Revealed
Source: Engadget
“Epic Games’ Unreal is already one of the most widely used game engines on the planet, utilized by game developers, advertisers and filmmakers alike. Fortnite wouldn’t be Fortnite without Unreal — nor would Epic be worth $15 billion. Indeed, successive versions of Unreal Engines have defined their respective gaming eras — UE3 dominated the PS3/XBox 360 era, UE4 drives the current PS4/XBox One generation. While Unreal 4 has been leveraged in recent blockbusters like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Final Fantasy VII Remake, the engine is now nearly six years old. During a demo on Tuesday, Engadget got a glimpse of its successor, the nearly-photorealistic Unreal Engine 5 (running on a PS5).”
Despite Downloading Issues, Grand Theft Auto 5 Free Before May 21
Source: The Verge
“After a more than eight-hour outage (on May 14th), the Epic Games Store appears to finally be back online, meaning you should finally be able to claim Rockstar’s smash hit Grand Theft Auto V for free until May 21st.
The Epic Games Store had been counting down to the launch of an unnamed free title at 11AM ET today, and we learned last night that game would be GTA V, thanks to an early tweet posted by Epic Games’ official Twitter account. However, when the time came for the deal for the game to go live, the Epic Games Store went down, presumably as people tried to refresh the site to claim the free title.”
AppLovin Acquires Machine Zone
Source: VentureBeat
“AppLovin will acquire Machine Zone, the maker of Game of War: Fire Age and Mobile Strike, as it doubles down on mobile games. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals. But the price will be very interesting to discover, as Machine Zone has generated $5 billion on more than 310 million downloads throughout its history, according to measurement firm Sensor Tower.
Machine Zone joins AppLovin’s global mobile gaming ecosystem of partner studios that includes Redemption Games, PeopleFun, Belka Games, Clipwire Games, Firecraft Studios, and Geewa, as well as its in-house studio Lion Games. Palo Alto, California-based AppLovin has been making strategic investments in gaming studios since 2018, but this is likely its biggest deal to date.”
Do you have interesting news to share, or something coming up that would also fit into this regular feature? Let us know!
