Author: Trafficblast

Australia’s eccentric car culture is well documented. Falcons, Commodores, utes and fast four-doors. Brabham, Brock, and 351 Cleveland blocks. From Summernats and Mad Max, a love of everything from Bathurst cookouts to gender reveal burnouts runs deep down under.

It’s no surprise, then, that – despite its geographical isolation – Australia plays host to a variety of big ticket international motor racing events, from the F1 curtain-raiser at Albert Park to the final round of the WRC, as well as the iconic Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama, the World Time Attack Challenge at Sydney Motorsport Park, and the MotoGP at Phillip Island.

However, another international racing event came to Australia for the first time this month, drawing competitors from all over the globe. But the venue for this high speed showdown isn’t one of the renowned race circuits mentioned above. In fact, the venue isn’t a race circuit at all. This racing championship doesn’t require a race track. It doesn’t even require real roads.

Where these drivers are going, they don’t need roads.

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The Gran Turismo Championships (GTC) is a series of professional virtual racing tournaments that developer Polyphony Digital has been hosting in various cities around the world since 2018. Tokyo, Nürburg, Paris, New York, Monaco, and now Sydney are just some of the stopovers for the GTC World Tour events so far.

Certified by the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the organisation that governs F1, the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship, and more) the GTC are split into two series. There’s the Nations Cup, where drivers compete individually representing their home country, and there’s the Manufacturer Series, where drivers compete in teams of three on behalf of one of the participating manufacturers. Entrants are selected for the live World Tour events via rankings from a dedicated online series within GT Sport’s ‘Sport’ mode. There are five territories: North America, Europe/Middle East/Africa, Central and South America, Asia, and Oceania. Anyone over 18 can have a shot.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=It%E2%80%99s%20serious%20business%2C%20and%20Polyphony%20appear%20to%20spare%20little%20expense”]It’s serious business, too, and Polyphony appears to spare little expense. In addition to the live studio audience, races are broadcast live via YouTube simultaneously in seven languages, with bespoke, two-person commentary teams for each audience. There are partnerships with Toyota, TAG Heuer, and Michelin, the drivers are clad fingers to feet in Puma gear, and there are enough Thrustmaster T-GTs here to buy a real car. Legendary Japanese game developer and Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi is here to kick things off personally, and alongside him is the president of Motorsport Australia, Andrew Papadopoulos, and the FIA bigwig Stephane Fillastre.

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On top of this, the drivers who emerge as champions at the Gran Turismo Championships World Final are invited to join the FIA prize giving ceremony to be applauded alongside real world motorsport champions from a variety of disciplines. Polyphony even managed to get six-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton on deck at the 2019 GTC World Finals in Monaco and to participate in a Pro-Am. He came third.

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“I could never foresee jumping on a plane six times going to Europe, going to America, you know, through a video game,” says Australian driver Adam Wilk. The New South Welshman is here competing in the Nations Cup and the Manufacturer Series with Ford.

“I’ve been playing Gran Turismo for about 20 years, and when the online aspect started from about 2010 you could see that there were a lot of guys who are ultra-fast, ultra-competitive,” he continues. “And by that stage esports started to get a presence. So I always thought, ‘You know, racing could do that too.’”

“And then to see how far it’s come in such a short period of time? It’s quite phenomenal. I’m just blown away that here we are now hosting an event in Sydney. We’ve got fast guys from all over the world coming together. Just an awesome experience.”

Fellow local driver, Queenslander Kenny Conomos, regards the GT Academy as the origin of Gran Turismo esports, but is equally surprised at the rapid success of the GTC.

“I think it probably started with GT Academy, so that definitely gave a big spark to people; a bit of hope, you know?” says Conomos, competing in the Manufacturers Series with Jaguar. “You could get onto this reality TV show and become a racing driver; that was the prize.”

“So that was probably the first glimpse, but then that kind of fell off the radar. But yeah, [the GTC] has really been a big surprise: how big it is and how massive that they’ve done it. I mean, six trips in a year is no easy task and the cost of it, you know? Sending 50, 60 guys around the world to do it? it’s pretty crazy. So, yeah, definitely when I was young, I didn’t think it was possible. I wouldn’t have fathomed it being this big, for sure.

“I couldn’t even imagine what another three or five years would do. Who knows how big this is going to really be?”

“We’ve seen the numbers of the audience watching,” adds Wilk. “So it’s going to grow and grow.”

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%202019%20season%20of%20the%20GTC%20racked%20up%20just%20over%2047%20million%20views%20across%20all%20broadcast%20platforms”]Those numbers are impressive, too; the 2019 season of the GTC racked up just over 47 million views across all broadcast platforms. While the amount of content uploaded also doubled, that’s still an increase of nearly 300% from 2018. Engagement exploded too, up 300% also.

There’s a reason why associations like the FIA and Motorsports Australia are keen to be involved in the GTC, and its increasing popularity is obviously a huge part of it. The FIA is also excited about digital racing’s capacity to work in tandem with traditional racing, effectively creating a consistent, worldwide racing platform for everybody and democratising grassroots racing.

“The beauty of the video game platform is that we can propose to all countries the same system, with the same rules and cars and challenges,” says the FIA’s Stephane Fillastre, head of brand, licensing, and retail. “We can be extremely inclusive. For us it is a fantastic tool for us to effectively provide to all the countries in the world which normally wouldn’t have access to traditional motorsport a platform which is inclusive. So that’s definitely the value, and why we think there is a bright future.”

“I’ve just come back from Oman; we had a congress there for the Middle Eastern and North African region,” adds president of Motorsport Australia, Andrew Papadopoulos. “And digital motorsport is being embraced hugely. Because that’s the grass roots level; it’s getting into motorsport without spending the money.”

There’s no desire to replace traditional motorsport with digital motorsport; the plan is to have them work together.

“I’m not sure we want to replace normal motorsport with digital motorsport, but it goes in with it,” says Papadopoulos. “You’ve got digital cricket, you’ve got football. I mean, FIFA’s got a huge footprint with their game.”

“The legitimacy is coming from real motorsport – and the passion that goes behind it, and the professionalism that goes behind it, is because we have real motorsport,” explains Fillastre. “There’s no will to substitute and to drastically change motorsport – motorsport will remain what it is. We just have to ensure that, in everything we are doing, there’s a ‘racing with a purpose’ element.”

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Before its release in late 2017, IGN discussed with Yamauchi whether the ultimate goal of GT Sport was to bring esports racers to Gran Turismo or turn existing GT fans into esports racing fans.

“I think the latter is true,” said Yamauchi at the time. “And there’s one more aspect of that and it’s an important point; it’s the definition of sport itself.”

“Sport in GT Sports has two meanings. One of those is, of course, what you would imagine when you first hear ‘esport’. When you have a big stadium full of people, tens of thousands of spectators, with millions in prizes for the winners. And that will probably happen for GT Sport as well.

“But my focus is not only that. There’s another aspect of sport that’s actually more important. What that is, is rather than the NBA, it’s the street basketball. Rather than the MLB it’s your local baseball team. It’s the part of sport that enriches your life in some way by playing it every day. Even if you’re not at the top in that sport it’s something that really gives you something extra in your life, and that’s the aspect of sport that I want to place a focus on.

“I don’t want this to be something that only the best of the best can enjoy. I want it to be something that, by playing it every day, enriches your life in some way. And I think that’s a really important point.”

Looking at the figures it would appear Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony have succeeded; GT Sport has now amassed 8.2 million users who are nearing a billion races completed. Yamauchi is particularly pleased at the personalities GT Sport is helping create.

“I think it also has to do with how Gran Turismo Sport was designed, but after I created the Sport and I created the Championships, you really got to see the strength of people and the power of the drivers,” he says. “These extraordinary characters that arose and started participating. They’re the ones that created the drama, and they’re really the drivers that change the future.”

“We have these rare characters that are incredible people who I was able to meet through the [Gran Turismo] Championships, and I think that’s what’s special about what’s happening here.

“The drivers that come up to the top of the eight million players of the game are really interesting people. They’re people that really command respect. That was my biggest surprise; it really moved me.”

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Of course, all the glitz and pomp of the GTC production itself would be for naught if the on-screen product was incapable of delivering real racing drama, but it’s excellent viewing. Indeed, one of digital racing’s key strengths is just how closely it resembles the real thing. At the GTC virtual cameras track the action on screen, transitioning between trackside views and first-person shots. The driving is blisteringly quick and the passing clinical and calculated. English commentator Jimmy Broadbent calls the action with an irresistible level of enthusiasm. Attend or stream a GTC event and you’ll see racing is racing, regardless of whether it happens on real asphalt or within the bellies of a dozen PlayStations.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Racing%20is%20racing%2C%20regardless%20of%20whether%20it%20happens%20on%20real%20asphalt%20or%20within%20the%20bellies%20of%20a%20dozen%20PlayStations”]After a wild weekend of racing it’s Team BMW who secure the win in the Manufacturer Series, and Japan’s Takuma Miyazono who wins the Nations Cup in the closest ever finish at the GTC to date. Just three hundredths of a second ultimately separate Miyazono from Australian driver Cody Nikola Latkovski in a drag race to the line out of the final corner that whips the crowd into a frenzy. As far as advertisements go for the GTC, the Sydney Nations Cup final is just about as good as racing gets, virtual or otherwise.

Last lap drama like that is absolute catnip for motorsport fans, and the very real pressure on Miyazono and Latkovski here must have been monumental. And yet, despite widespread acceptance of esports, virtual racers do still face some derision on account of their chosen specialty – sometimes even from real, professional race drivers.

Fillastre, for his part, isn’t having it.

“At the end, when you are getting the top 60 out of a community of eight million players, then those guys probably do have a certain talent,” he says. “There’s the credibility of the fact that they’re coming from a pyramid where they had to fight against eight million; those 60 have value.”

“We just have to let the other real racing drivers know that the set of skills are different, even if certain ones are common with real racing. But they also have to respect the fact that they are part of it, too.”

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Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office and came third in a GT Pro-Am with the help of Cody Nikola Latkovski, equalling Lewis Hamilton’s record and fulfilling his lifelong dream of meeting the Michelin Man. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.

I’m not sure how long it will take for the words “Amazon Game Studios” to stop sounding weird when put together as a proper noun. Yet despite the on-paper oddness that is the world’s largest online retailer entering the gaming market, Amazon has quietly amassed a formidable team of industry veterans that have all been hard at work on New World, a big-budget MMORPG that could rival the genre’s biggest powerhouses.

That the company means business was evident from the moment I set foot in Amazon Game Studios for a small New World preview session with a handful of other journalists. We had to turn in our IDs, sign NDAs, and get scanned through entry doors before we even saw an elevator, let alone an actual employee. The walls were lined with portraits of influential developers like Shigeru Miyamoto, waist-high cubicle walls were ordained with nerdy bric-a-brac, and there was a general buzz of excitement one would expect from a studio facing an impending launch.

It felt like the real deal, in other words. People may not associate Amazon with the creation of games just yet, but that might change soon with the power of the underlying tech it has built.

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Most online games are primarily powered and run locally on a user’s computer, known as client-based processing. But in the case of Amazon, due to its significant server resources via the AWS (Amazon Web Services) branch, most of its simulations are server-based. This frees up a lot of resources and computing power in terms of enabling New World’s real-time physics-based combat, as well as the sheer size of its battles.

“A tremendous amount of our simulation is server-based, instead of client-based,” says Richard Lawrence, Director of Game Technology at Amazon Game Studios on New World. “In a lot of games, the client makes suggestions to the server and the server verifies. For us, the server actually does the action. The server says, ‘Oh, you’re swinging your sword, I’ll do that for you and I’ll figure out what happens in terms of intersection with another player and causing damage.’ That’s pretty expensive computationally, but it turns out Amazon has a few servers, so we felt like that’s something that might be solvable long term.”

However, the name of the game in the MMO scene is finding a unique angle to stand out in a saturated market. Every MMO has thousands of players, most modern MMOs have player-controlled cities and territories, PvP-focus has been a marketing line for over a decade now, and large-scale PvP warfare is no longer a novel concept. Only a few holdovers from yesteryear even use tab-targeting as the core of its combat system anymore. But where New World has an opportunity is in how it combines these ideas, polishes them, and wraps them all up into an accessible – yet deep – package.

Game Director Scot Lane sees three core features in New World that will help it stand out from the pack: its art style, its combat, and its wars and invasions. “I think those three features put us in this other bracket of MMO that really hasn’t been done yet.”

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From what I played at the New World preview event, Lane has the right to be confident, but it’s all going to come down to execution. Thankfully, combat, which relies heavily on Dark Souls-style precise timing and methodical rhythm,  is fast and fluid. One moment you’re side-stepping a sword swipe from an enemy player that’s trying to breach a wall, then you’re ducking and dodging a musket blast from across the field before a ball of fire crashes down and obliterates the group in front of you. It’s all in real-time, too, without automatic targeting or lock-on abilities. It feels wild and ambitious.

This skill-based action combat system is the most crucial moving part at the core of what makes New World tick. In a lot of MMOs when you say it has “action” combat that just means effects are flashier and you have a bit of mobility during fights. But at the end of the day, you still end up targeting enemies and clicking abilities. New World isn’t really like that at all.

Instead, you’ve got to actually think about positioning, how your weapon is swinging, where your arrows are going in real-time, and so on. This means dodging an arrow is possible, or ducking behind cover. Just because an enemy sees you doesn’t mean they can hit you. It truly changes the way you approach every single combat encounter in both PvE and PvP and seeing all of that manifest itself in epic 100-player battles is certainly special.

Ensuring that something as intricate as New World’s combat – which flips a genre’s typical style on its head – is accessible without sacrificing complexity is difficult. Scaling back the hardcore PvP focus was an important first step. Back in alpha from October 2018 until June 2019, New World was a fully open-PvP game. This meant you could be attacked and murdered pretty much anywhere and would lose the gear on your corpse, similar to Ultima Online or Darkfall. This resulted in lots of griefing and player-killing, which drove off players out of annoyance and fear. But if you pay attention to the vocal groups of fans that wanted open PvP at all times, like it was in the alpha, many are extremely unhappy with the new direction.

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According to Lane, Amazon Game Studios isn’t resigned to the new model, and would consider bringing features back. “We will always consider bringing things back. We are set on launching our alphas and betas this way and seeing what happens.” [poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Amazon%20Game%20Studios%20isn’t%20resigned%20to%20the%20new%20model%2C%20and%20would%20consider%20bringing%20features%20back.”]

An important lesson the team learned from the beta is a lot of players would quit out of the game after visiting PVP areas they didn’t want to enter, or upon discovering full loot drops. “What we want is a world where they [PvP players and PvE players] could co-exist,” says Lane. “We want everyone to play. We think it’s a really special world and really fun. So we’re trying to create a way we can do that. We have options. We could do servers, like we said we could do PVP areas…but what I don’t want to do is exclude people from content.”

New World also sets itself apart with its “War” PvP system. During the game groups of players, called Companies, can take control of entire territories. While controlling a territory, a governor is appointed to control things like taxes on property owners, which community initiatives are focused on (such as improving defenses or installing new work stations) and so on. Owning territory is essentially the end game in New World, which naturally means company rivalry and conflict is the ultimate end game.

To take control of a territory that another company owns, you must engage in a War. These are battles by appointment in which each side drafts 50 players into the War for a specific date and time. When the time arrives, so too does the battle with attackers capturing control points and breaching walls while defenders hold them off by any means necessary. It’s incredibly tense and exciting.

Since Wars are asymmetrical by design, that means that Attackers and Defenders have very different objectives and resources at their disposal. For example, Attackers are required to capture three control points outside the keep’s walls, then breach the doors through force, and finally capture a single point at the center of the keep. But as a Defender, all you have to actually do is hold out until the timer runs out.

“The defenders build siege weaponry through the town projects, upgrade it, and have a set number of siege weapons at the start of the War. Whereas the attackers, they start out with fewer  siege weapons” says David Verfaillie, Creative Director on New World. “But they can build them over time. So it’s sort of like a battle of attrition, even on the siege warfare front where the defenders have a set amount that’s more, but they can’t increase that base, whereas the attackers increase it gradually. ”

To encourage typically PvE-only minded players to engage in the big PvP battles, Amazon Game Studios has designed ‘Invasion’ scenarios, which are entirely PvE. They work a lot like Wars, with enemies attacking a keep at a predefined time, but instead of facing other actual players you’ll defend the keep from ‘The Corruption’ instead. The Corruption is a twisted, dark force that’s hellbent on abusing the powerful substance found within Aeternum, Azoth, and using it for nefarious means.

Open world events where The Corruption starts to slowly take over the environment are other good places for players to dabble in more intense, non-quest focused areas of the game without excluding or hampering enjoyment elsewhere.

“In the War whatever you went into the War with, you’re in that exact same state [after] unless you’re a governor and you lose your control over your territory,” says Lane. “But that’s very few people. The rest just get to go experience it and the invasion will teach you that and then you’ll learn that in War.”

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Amazon Game Studios has a tall order at hand here with New World. They’re targeting one of the most opinionated audiences out there in the form of PvP-minded MMO players. New World is a big-budget project with a large team built on the foundation of what could be the future of gaming with its cloud-computing AWS platform. The future of Amazon as a whole may not ride on New World’s shoulders, but a significant portion of its goodwill in the gaming market as a developer by the name of “Amazon Game Studios” certainly does.

Keep an eye on New World at IGN by reading our in-depth hands-on impressions and this round-up of everything you need to know right here.

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David Jagneaux is a freelance writer for IGN. Talk RPGs with him on Twitter at @David_Jagneaux.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon, the seventh mainline game in the Yakuza series, is getting an update that will make the game harder on a second playthrough. The new DLC will only usable for players who have beaten the game once, and will allow them to go through again, but with the difficulty turned up.

The “Additional Challenge Expansion Pack” is paid DLC, and was announced on the game’s Japanese Twitter page. The details of the announcement have been translated by Gematsu. It will add a New Game Plus option, as well as a “High Difficulty Mode” for players who want to tackle the game more than once.

The cost of this DLC has not been announced, but details will come at a later date.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon does not have a western release date set yet, but is expected to release in 2020 for PlayStation 4. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming title, which replaces series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu with Kasuga Ichiban, and switches the series’ martial arts combat for a turn-based RPG-style system.

Meanwhile, some of the Yakuza series is coming to Xbox Game Pass, with Yakuza 0 dropping onto the service on February 26, 2020.

Pokemon Go‘s Pokemon Day event is now live. Not only can you find special party hat-wearing versions of Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, and other Pokemon for a limited time, but Armored Mewtwo has returned to Raids as well, and this time it knows the Psychic-type Charged attack Psystrike.

Until the Pokemon Day event ends on March 2, Armored Mewtwo will appear in five-star Raids, making this your first chance to catch it since July 2019. If you need help adding one to your collection, we’ve put together some tips on how to battle and capture Armored Mewtwo below.

What’s Different About Armored Mewtwo

The most obvious difference between Mewtwo and this new Armored form is its appearance. This version of the Legendary Psychic Pokemon is wearing the same power-suppressing armor that it dons in the Pokemon movie Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution. As a result, it has lower attack power than a standard Mewtwo, but it compensates by having higher defense.

As previously mentioned, this Armored Mewtwo is also different from the one that appeared back in July. This time, the Pokemon knows Psystrike, a powerful Psychic-type Charged attack. Since Armored Mewtwo typically can’t learn this move, it’s a good idea to catch it while it’s still available, even if you already have one from its previous appearance.

How To Find Armored Mewtwo

Throughout the Pokemon Day event, Armored Mewtwo will appear as a Raid boss in five-star Raid Battles. These Raids can happen at any time, but you’ll be able to tell when one is about to begin. Prior to the Raid, a giant egg and countdown timer will appear over a Gym. The color of the egg signifies what level the Raid will be; if the egg is blue, the Raid boss will be Armored Mewtwo. You’ll also be notified in-game when a nearby Raid is about to occur.

Once you find an Armored Mewtwo Raid, you’ll need to travel to the Gym that’s hosting the Raid and exchange a Raid Pass to participate. You can get one free Raid Pass when you spin the Photo Disc at a Gym, but you can only hold one of these free passes at a time. (You can also purchase Raid Passes from Pokemon Go’s in-game store.) After joining a Raid, you and your teammates will have a limited amount of time to battle Armored Mewtwo. If you can successfully defeat it, everyone who participated in the Raid will earn a chance to catch the Legendary.

Armored Mewtwo Weaknesses And Counters

Despite its appearance, Armored Mewtwo is still a pure Psychic type, which means it’s vulnerable to the same kinds of Pokemon as a regular Mewtwo. Ghost, Bug, and Dark types in particular have an advantage over it in battle, so you’ll want to fill your team with Pokemon of those types before heading into the Raid.

Your best choices when facing Armored Mewtwo will be other Legendary Pokemon such as Darkrai and Origin Forme Giratina. Hydregion, Weavile, and Gengar can all dish out super-effective damage against Armored Mewtwo as well. However, Gengar will take super-effective damage in return due to its Poison typing, so it may not last very long. Scizor is another solid choice; it can deal super-effective damage with Bug moves, while its Steel typing will help insulate it from Mewtwo’s Psychic attacks.

Two types of Pokemon you’ll want to avoid using, however, are Poison and Fighting. Each type is vulnerable to Psychic attacks, so they’ll get knocked out fairly quickly by Psystrike. You can see more tips for facing Armored Mewtwo on the official Pokemon website.

PAX East continues to lose high-level attendees. Following the news that Sony has completely backed out of the show, with Capcom and Square Enix scaling back their plans, two more major companies have announced plans to skip the show over concerns about the coronavirus.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red will no longer attend PAX East, communications lead Stephanie Bayer said on Twitter. CD Projekt Red did not plan to demo Cyberpunk 2077 at the event, but some staff was headed to the show, Bayer added.

Bayer said CD Projekt Red won’t travel to Boston for PAX due to concerns about the coronavirus. “Corona, man. We’re mitigating travel risks for folks,” Bayer said. “Trying to keep the team healthy.”

In addition to CD Projekt Red, PUBG developer PUBG Corp. has announced it’s canceling all of its plans for PAX East and the Game Developers Conference due to the “continued spread” of the virus.

PUBG Corp. planned to hold a happy hour event for fans at a local bar in Boston on Friday, but it’s now been postponed to a later date. “We will be rescheduling this plan for an upcoming event, once the coronavirus is under control and travel returns to normal,” PUBG Corp. said.

PAX impacts the local Boston economy in a big way as thousands flock to the city and spend money on hotels, restaurants, and other entertainment, so anything that could impact attendance is tough news for the city. Boston’s Mayor, Marty Walsh, has urged Sony to reconsider its decision to pull out, but with the show beginning very soon, that seems extremely unlikely.

PAX East runs February 27-March 1. Even with the drop-outs, the show is expected to be a big one that draws thousands of people. Gearbox will be on hand to discuss the upcoming Borderlands movie from Eli Roth, in addition to other announcements.

The organizers of PAX have announced there will be increased health and safety measures in place during the show.

A new survey has revealed that nearly 50% of surveyed Americans are spending less time at the movies and more at home on streaming services.

Piplsay, a crowd-sourcing company, recently surveyed around 50,000 Americans to take a look at new trends in the entertainment industry. As a result, it found that 46% of moviegoers are spending a “reduced” amount of time at the movie theater or have “stopped going” completely. Further, the survey revealed that 40% of the sample group spends at least two hours a day on streaming services.

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While some may speculate that Americans are spending less time at the movies due to the convenience of streaming services, Piplsay has found that this isn’t the sole reason. Around “35% of Americans seem to prefer streaming movies at their own convenience over buying expensive movie tickets,” reports Piplsay.

The price of going to a movie theater has certainly increased over the past few years, with some showings costing a minimum of $10. Further, if moviegoers plan to get popcorn and a drink for the show, this can easily add another $10-20 to the price in some instances.

While the theaters may not be experiencing the same type of crowds it used to, there are still a handful of Americans willing to spend their money at the theater. Just last year, Avengers: Endgame passed Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie of all time, pulling in an impressive $2.79 billion in worldwide box offices.

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Further, earlier this year, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker crossed $1 billion in earnings at the global box offices.

While it remains to be seen what the future holds for the world of movie theaters, for now, it seems they’re still doing just fine.

Do you still enjoy going to the movies, or do you prefer to watch them at home? Let us know in the comments below.

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Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.