Going All Gamescom
ESA reportedly looking to add celebrites, influencers and 10,000 consumers for E3 2020 in major overhaul
"'Queuetainment", industry-only day and a new floor plan
Staff
Alex Forbes-Calvin
Job Title
PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor
Contact editorial@steelmedia.co.uk
About Alex Forbes-Calvin is a freelance writer and photographer, mostly operating within the games industry. Over his career, he has written for the likes of MCV, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, The Observer, VGC and Esquire. That's on top of writing books for Dark Horse on RuneScape, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island 2 and more.
Articles by Alex Forbes-Calvin
Loot Boxing
PEGI, TIGA and ESA weigh in on DCMS loot box recommendation
UK trade bodies are keeping it cool
Job News
Bossa Studios hires Jagex and Mind Candy vet Daniel Clough
Hired as studio GM
Job News
UK games industry veteran Stuart Dinsey takes UKIE chair role
He replaces Revolution's Noirin Carmody
Third Time Lucky?
Starbreeze applies for third extension to reconstruction period
Follows acting CEO Mikael Nermark saying that his No.1 priority is "securing the long-term financing for the company"
#metoo
Members of the games industry come forward with allegations of sexual assault
Now survivors from all over the industry are detailing alleged harassment, assault and abuse
Telling New Tales
It looks like Telltale Games is coming back from the dead
“There is still a huge fanbase of Telltale players and that’s one of the main reasons we decided to make this investment"
Head In The Clouds?
Razer and Tencent collaborate for cloud gaming standards
"We are delighted that this relationship has gone from strength to strength with a shared commitment to bringing the best experience to the gamer community"
$$$$
GPU revenue down 20% year-on-year at Nvidia
While games revenue saw a 27 per cent drop from 12 months ago
$$$$$
Investor bails Loot Crate out after company goes bankrupt
Money Chest chips in up to $10m to keep the firm afloat
Gun Violence
Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick says it's "disrespectful" to blame entertainment for US gun violence
Games exec says that mass shootings are "uniquely American"
M&a
THQ Nordic acquires Milestone, Gunfire Games and Goodbye Kansas Game Invest
Racing specialist Milestone, Darksiders maker Gunfire and investment firm Goodbye Kansas Game join the European publisher firm's portfolio
Cool
Epic to disclose loot box odds following ESA pledge
Meanwhile, THQ Nordic refuses to put name to list of publishers as it says it has no plans to use this business model
Devcom 2019
What's new at Devcom 2019?
Ahead of the Cologne show's third year, we caught up with managing director Stephan Reichart to find out more
Fair!
"Blaming video games distracts from the broader issues at hand": IGDA and IGDAF react to Trump mass shooting statement
Meanwhile, US trade body the Entertainment Retailers Association remains silent
Data Leak
E3 organiser ESA leaks contact details of journalists, influencers and analysts
US trade body has apologised for the, er, "inconvenience" that this has caused attendees
Back Of The Net
Football Manager 19 shifts record two million copies
First release to do so, sales across all platforms
Job News
Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce stepping down
"Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to have been involved with Blizzard, our games, our employees, and most importantly our community"
Job News
Ex-Visceral GM Steve Papoutsis headlines new recruits at PUBG Corp's Striking Distance studio
Former Sledgehammer, Visceral and Crystal Dynamics vets join the new developer
All Time High
Increase in subscription revenue offsets Fortnite decline for Microsoft as Xbox Live hits 65 million MAUs
Games cash drops 10 per cent year-on-year
Auto Success?
Why Dragonest partnered up with Tencent to publish Drodo Auto Chess in China
"A good product needs to be known by as many people as possible"
Job News
PlayStation vet John Drake heads to Disney to lead games biz dev and licensing
Follows five years at Sony
For Sale?
China's Shanghai Fukong hasn't sold Jagex just yet
Reported sale was just one option that was being explored by the Chinese entertainment giant
Develop: Brighton 2019
More than 4,000 developers have applied to be part of Google's Stadia Partners programme
According to technical account manager Sam Corcoran
No Sale
Update: South Korea's Nexon no longer up for sale following lack of buyers
CEO Jungju Kim apparently wasn't impressed by the list of companies who stepped forward
New Classification
Chinese companies including Tencent want new age-rating system in the region
Follows frustration with the country's approval process
Brexit Shenanigans
UKIE says UK government needs to support industry as France launches campaign to attract companies
'Our reputation can be eroded in a globally competitive industry. The emergence of a programme designed to poach talent and businesses from the UK should remind policymakers of this fact'
Latest Hires
Jagex recruits new VP of studio, technical director and QA boss
Mark Faulkner returns to head up firm's publishing platform and Ben Alton is promoted to IT director
Adult Gaming
Nutaku fronts $5m investment pot for LGBTQ+ games
Adult games firm says it'll be supporting titles from queer creators for three years with this fund
Job News
Sumo Group plans to increase headcount by 15% over next 12 months
Sheffield-based firm will employ around 750 people by July 2020
Fair Share?
Paradox CEO says 70/30 revenue share status quo is "outrageous"
Firm's executive chairman says that this business model is based in the 1970s VHS market
Yas Queen!
InfluencerUpdate.biz editor Danielle Partis takes Journalist of the Year accolade at Women in Games Awards
"It's incredible to be recognised among such a group of talented journalists"
Investigation
Games industry only "paying lip service" to addiction, says DCMS committee chair
Companies aren't taking the issue seriously enough according to MP Damian Collins
Work Conditions
UK media and entertainment union BECTU investigating working conditions in games
"We know there are also challenges that people face in their working lives, whether to do with stress, pay, long hours, or harassment"
That's Bananas
Devolver Digital's My Friend Pedro sells 250,000 copies in first week
Title launched on Nintendo Switch and PC
Breakout Success
Prison Architect surpasses four million players globally
Console developer Double Eleven taking over the project following Paradox sale
Stock Sold
India's Reliance Entertainment reduces ownership to 14.2 per cent of Codemasters
Racing firm's CEO Frank Sagnier says that OnRush has been played by 2.5m people as of March 2019
Roundup
Games industry roundup: GAME Digital board pushes for Sports Direct sale, Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, and FTC investigating YouTube
15 articles from PocketGamer.biz, InfluencerUpdate.biz and BlockchainGamer.biz
Streaming
Streaming services not likely to take over the games industry as a whole, says WBIE president
"I don’t believe that it will automatically come together"
Job News
Blizzard's global esports director Kim Phan has left the company
Less than a month after Overwatch League commissioner Nate Nanzer departed the firm for Epic Games.
Dcms
What we learned from EA and Epic Games' time at the DCMS select committee
How much money is Fortnite making, how much is FIFA actually played and what EA likes to call loot boxes
Unionisation Platform
US president hopeful Bernie Sanders backs game developer unionisation
Democratic Senator says workers should be reaping the rewards games brought in in the US last year
Up In The Cloud
Microsoft's Azure cloud tech venture set up shop in the Middle East
Big M beats both Amazon and Google to the region
Engine Trouble
Report: Amazon is letting its dev teams use game engines other than Lumberyard
Developers say firm is struggling with maintaining the middleware
Communication
E3 2019: EA held an event about tackling harassment and bullying in games
Research from anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label, 57 per cent of users have been bullied in an online title
£££
Jagex subscription sales up 22.9 per cent in 2018
Offsets declines in microtransaction and advertising revenue
Head In The Clouds
E3 2019: Ubisoft's Guillemot on why the firm is early on Google's Stadia games streaming platform
"People are open to new technologies, and so you can try new things"
E3 2019
E3 2019: Livestream schedule for the biggest press conferences
Days and times for this year's keynotes
Job News
SuperData co-founder Janelle Benjamin departs
"You were the one who brought the discipline and structure to this whole operation that allowed us to grow," said fellow co-founder van Dreunen
Cloudy Skies
Ex-Playdead boss Dino Patti working on cloud-based platform Coherence
"Democratising the creation of connected games is an amazing opportunity that I relish taking on'