Author: Trafficblast

Following a controversial decision to ban a professional Hearthstone player who expressed support for Hong Kong protests on an official stream, Blizzard lost at least one advertiser. Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan ended its sponsorship of Blizzard esports events just two days after the decision was announced, reports The Daily Beast.

Hearthstone fans on Reddit first noticed that the Mitsubishi logo had disappeared from the signage in an official broadcast, and Mitsubishi spokesperson Erica Rasch has reportedly confirmed the move. The report also followed up with other notable sponsors, including Coca-Cola and ASUS, both of which did not respond. The streaming platform Twitch, which airs many esports events, says its relationship with the collegiate league has not been impacted.

The controversy began in early October, when competitive player Ng Wai Chung aka Blitzchung expressed support for Hong Kong protests during an official broadcast interview. Blizzard found this in violation of its rules, rescinded his prize winnings, and banned him for a full year.

The news sheds more light on the many types of pressure Blizzard faced immediately following its decision. The penalty determination led to widespread protests, long-time players swearing off the game, statements from US Senators, walkouts from employees, sharp criticism from high-profile players, and now we know, advertisers cutting ties. Shortly after, the company issued a statement partially rescinding its punishment, giving back Chung’s monetary winnings and reducing his ban to six months.

In the statement, Blizzard president J. AllenBrack denied that the decision was motivated in any way by its relationships with China, and said that an opposing message delivered in a similar way would also receive punishment.

Currently, Blizzard is preparing to show what’s next for Hearthstone, and many of its other games, at its annual BlizzCon event. But the controversy hasn’t ended entirely, as activists are planning to protest outside the convention.

Death Stranding has often been equal parts mysterious and inscrutable, but if there’s one aspect that was never in doubt, it’s that Hideo Kojima’s next game would be cinematic. The Metal Gear Solid producer has been known for his film-like presentations and performances featuring recognizable actors. The Death Stranding launch trailer is here, and unsurprisingly, it’s practically a movie trailer.

Clocking in at almost eight minutes, the trailer (above) features a ton of exposition and story content to whet your appetite for the game. We see the lead character, Sam (Norman Reedus) interacting with several characters and introducing details of the world.

That’s no surprise, given that Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller says he sees the makings of a great filmmaker in Kojima’s work. That usually includes heavy use of cutscenes, and given the length of this trailer, it seems likely we’ll see plenty in the full game.

Death Stranding launches on PS4 on November 8. If you’d rather wait for the PC version, Kojima recently announced it will be coming next summer. Meanwhile, reviews will begin dropping on November 1 at 12:01 AM PT, so you won’t have to wait much longer to learn more about it.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is off to a pretty explosive start. Activision announced that its first three days on the market have topped the same period’s sales of any other Call of Duty this generation and it has also become the top selling new game release of 2019.

The company also boasted that it has already brought in more than $600 million in worldwide sell-through and topped PS4 digital pre-orders and three-day digital sales records. It also beat the company’s internal digital sales records, as well as its records for biggest Call of Duty launch on PC. The company notes this is counting both retail and digital sales units, including sales of the charity Defender Pack. Sales of that DLC go to benefit the Call of Duty Endowment.

“Through the first three days, Modern Warfare has more total players and total hours played than any Call of Duty opening release in the last six years,” said Activision president Rob Kostich, in the announcement. “Congratulations to Infinity Ward and all our teams involved on an incredible game and its spectacular launch. We also want to thank the community for your incredible support. The launch of Modern Warfare is only the start. There’s much more to come.”

The reference to post-launch content alludes to a planned Battle Pass system that will be adding new cosmetic rewards on a regular schedule. The Battle Pass isn’t available yet but Activision says it will be live later in 2019. The first League season will kick off in 2020.

If you’re one of those early adopters, check out our tips to get you started, and a guide to every perk.

There won’t be an NBA Live 20, as EA Sports has announced that the company is looking to the future and planning ahead for a next-generation basketball experience instead. This news was delivered by EA CEO Andrew Wilson during a quarterly earnings call, as reported by IGN. NBA Live 20 had been scheduled as a Q4 2019 release, but that is no longer the plan.

Last year’s NBA Live 19 was a huge step forward for the series after a few rocky entries, but the NBA Live series has struggled to compete with the NBA 2K games for a long time now. The decision to not release an entry in the series this year.

The official Twitter account for NBA Live released a statement, explaining that while they were “excited by our progress”, a new title will not release in 2019. “Alongside the NBA and NBPA, we have our sights set on creating something fresh for the next generation of players and platforms,” the statement reads.

The series has had a tumultuous history: back in 2012, NBA Live 13 was cancelled just six days before it was due to be released. NBA Live 20 never actually surfaced, though – gameplay footage was never shown, so it’s unclear how far along development the title was.

During the same quarterly earnings call, EA announced that Apex Legends will be treated as an annual shooter going forward, as it and other live service games were performing above expectations.

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During its latest quarterly earnings call, EA revealed its intentions to treat Apex Legends as an “annual shooter.” Respawn’s battle royale game has been on a roll lately, with Season 3: Meltdown seeing Apex Legends reach a playerbase of 70 million, and its publisher has indicated it wants to build on that growth for years to come.

“We have heavily invested in live services the past 10 years,” EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said on the call. “Obviously [Apex Legends] is a new live service which we will invest heavily in to try to continue to grow that business. We view that as an annual shooter franchise effectively and we’re trying to build that as a 10-year business … We’re very excited about the roadmap that the Respawn team has put in place.”

No one at EA clarified what this new designation for Apex Legends means. As a live service game, it’s unlikely–though not impossible–that EA plans to make Apex Legends into its own franchise with new sequels every year as Activision does with Call of Duty and Ubisoft used to do with Assassin’s Creed. It could be that EA plans to have large-scale, meaningful content additions each year. Although this makes the most sense and is in line with trends for live service games, this is speculation on our part.

That said, Jorgensen did reveal what players can expect to see in Apex Legends in the near future. “The key with [Apex Legends]–as is the case with any live service–is test and learn, test and learn,” Jorgensen said. “We’re continuing to add new events in each season to try and understand spending patterns and what people like to spend money on and how much they’ll spend. And we’ll then tune those events over time, so there’s going to be holiday-themed events, like [Fight or Fright], competitive-style events, gameplay-style events, and events associated with new characters or–as you saw in this new season–a new map.”

With Apex Legends being treated as EA’s new annual shooter, the publisher is pushing DICE off of the annual Battlefield and Battlefront track that the studio has been on since 2013’s Battlefield 4. Instead of immediately transitioning to Battlefield 6 or Star Wars Battlefront III, DICE will instead spend the next year focusing on developing new content and providing additional support for Battlefield V and Star Wars Battlefront II.

Ahead of the call, EA released a press release detailing the studio’s success with live service games this past quarter. “Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations,” Jorgensen said. “Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises. We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

Though EA is pushing for more games that will keep players invested for longer periods of time, the publisher isn’t completely done with traditional, single-player games. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order–a single-player game with no loot box microtransactions–is EA’s next major release, scheduled to launch on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on November 15. Fallen Order’s release will also mark EA’s return to putting its PC games on Steam, not just Origin.

One more for @DCComics fans. In partnership w/ @GBerlanti we’re excited to bring to series the beloved Green Lantern AND intro audiences to Strange Adventures, about “man of two worlds” Adam Strange, an archaeologist-turned-intergalactic-hero when he’s zeta-beamed to planet Rann

— HBO Max (@hbomax) October 29, 2019