Author: Trafficblast

It’s been a while since we’ve heard any updates about the John Wick spin-off TV series being developed by Starz. However, The Continental is still happening. At the TCA winter press tour, Starz president and CEO Jeffrey A. Hirsch provided an update on the project.

Hirsch said: “I came from the meeting season-pitch on that yesterday and it’s moving along. We like that with the group of writers and we’re just trying to get it to the right place so that it doesn’t interfere with the motion picture side of the house. But we’re excited about the progress that the team is making.”

He continued, explaining that The Continental likely won’t air until after the upcoming John Wick Chapter 4, which isn’t set for release until May 21, 2021.

First reported all the way back in 2017, The Continental will focus on the infamous hotel for assassins featured in the first three chapters of the John Wick franchise. It will “maintain the urgency of the action along with the dry humor of the movies” and include the franchise’s star, Keanu Reeves, as a producer. We know it will be a prequel to the film series, and that a cameo from Reeves himself isn’t necessarily off the table–but given how long the wait is shaping up to be, it’s probably best not to start counting any gun-toting, martial artist chickens before they hatch.

For more coverage from the TCA winter press tour, take a look about news on Syfy’s Peter Pan and Child’s Play shows, as well as more info about Amazon’s Wheel of Time series. Additionally, the executive producer Picard cleared up confusion about the timeline for Star Trek, and we learned a little more about Patrick Stewart’s costar in the upcoming series.

Pokemon Go‘s first Community Day of the new year is just around the corner. The monthly event returns on Sunday, January 19, and will give players a chance to catch another rare Pokemon, learn a special event-exclusive move, and take advantage of other in-game bonuses.

Most Pokemon Go Community Days only run for three hours, but the specifics of each event–such as what the featured Pokemon is and what other bonuses are available–vary month by month. To help you prepare for this month’s event, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about January’s Community Day below.

What Is January’s Featured Pokemon?

Each Community Day stars one “featured” Pokemon, which will appear much more frequently in the wild throughout the event. This month, the featured Pokemon is Piplup, the Water-type starter from Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. Throughout January’s Community Day, you’ll be more likely to encounter Piplup in the wild and in Raids, and you may even hatch it from eggs that you receive at PokeStops during the event.

On top of that, this month’s Community Day will give you your first chance to encounter a Shiny Piplup in Pokemon Go. Shiny Pokemon rarely appear in the game, but the increased Piplup spawns available during the event should make it more likely that you run into a few Shiny ones.

What Is January’s Community Day Move?

Another benefit of each Community Day is that it gives you a chance to get a Pokemon with a move that it can’t otherwise learn in Pokemon Go, and that holds true this month as well. If you can evolve Piplup’s evolved form, Prinplup, into Empoleon up to two hours after the event ends, the Pokemon will know a special event-exclusive move.

Niantic hasn’t announced what this month’s Community Day move is yet. However, other Water-type starters that have been featured in previous Community Days were all able to learn the Charged Water attack Hydro Cannon, so that will presumably be this month’s move as well. That remains unconfirmed for now, but we’ll know for sure closer to the Community Day.

What Time Does January’s Community Day Start?

Like previous Community Days, January’s event will run for three hours, but it will take place at different times depending on which hemisphere you live in. For players in the Northern Hemisphere, the event will run from 11 AM-2 PM local time; in the Southern Hemisphere, the Community Day takes place from 3-6 PM local time.

What Other Bonuses Are Available?

On top of increased Piplup spawns, Niantic is offering a few other in-game bonuses during January’s Community Day. As usual, any Lure Modules you use during the event will remain active for three hours, rather than the usual 30 minutes. Additionally, any eggs you place into incubators will hatch at a quarter of the distance they normally require during the Community Day.

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The PC gaming landscape welcomed a new entrant in 2019 with the launch of Fortnite developer Epic Games’ digital store, the Epic Games Store. Epic shared new insight today that speaks to the enormous success of the store, which was driven in part by exclusives.

Starting with the numbers, Epic said the Epic Games Store has grossed a total of $680 million so far, $251 million of which coming from third-party games (which is 60 percent ahead of Epic’s projections). More than 300 million Epic accounts have been registered on all platforms, while 108 million accounts have downloaded at least one title from the store (either free or paid).

The $680 million in revenue is ahead of expectations, Epic Games Store GM Steve Allison told GameDaily.

One element that makes the Epic Games Store attractive is free games. Epic has so far given away 73 titles, and users have claimed 200 million of these games. In total Epic estimated the value of the 73 games to be around $1,455. Looking ahead to 2020, Epic will continue to release free games on a weekly basis.

The most popular games on the Epic Games Store so far are The Division 2, World War Z, Satisfactory, Dauntless, Untitled Goose Game, The Outer Worlds, Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus, and Control. All of these titles were timed-exclusives for the Epic Game Store.

The strategy to pursue exclusives has been controversial, but highly successful for Epic. Allison noted that these exclusives have “driven the majority of revenue” thus far on the Epic Games Store, though he noted that non-exclusives have also performed well.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company plans to continue to pursue exclusives, saying they are “critical” to growing the store. “Securing exclusives for Epic means we can significantly assist developers with product funding and invest in marketing and awareness knowing that these efforts bring in new customers to our store, rather than just sending more business to the incumbent,” he said.

Some of the upcoming timed-exclusives for the Epic Games Store include Magic: The Gathering Arena, Predator: Hunting Grounds, Auto Chess, Rogue Company, and Godfall, with even more exclusives to be announced later.

The Epic Games Store is theoretically attractive to developers because Epic only takes 12 percent of game sales, giving 88 percent back to the studios. This percentage is much more favorable than than traditional 70/30 revenue split that exists on Steam and other PC and console platforms, as well as iOS.

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels have inspired two, action-packed movies grossing over $380 million worldwide. Now, it’s going to be a TV series, coming to Amazon Prime Video.

The newly greenlit series will be based on Child’s first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor, which was revealed at the TCA winter press tour. “Lee Child has created an incredible character and world; it will be the goal of every writer, producer, actor, executive and crew member to capture the essence of Mr. Child’s books–and luckily, Lee has been there, and will continue to be there, to help guide us along the way in this series. He is the pulse of Reacher,” said Nick Santora in a press release. Santora will serve as the writer, executive producer, and showrunner of the new series.

Both Jack Reacher movies starred Tom Cruise in the titular role, though he will not be reprising it for this new series. During Amazon’s TCA presentation, the company revealed that it knows that replacing Cruise is going to be a challenge. “We spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer] David Ellison about this, explained Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. “We really are determined to find somebody who can embody that character for Lee [Child] and for all of us. We think that is a great thing and that’s what we want to do. So you may see us take our time really making sure we find that person, whether they exist in our purview or they are a new discovery from somewhere. So we’re going to do an extensive exploration of who can step into those big big shoes.”

The first Jack Reacher book–which the show is based on–follows the titular character who is an ex-military police officer, drifting through life, before he is falsely accused of murder while passing through a town in Georgia. In other books in the series, Reacher takes odd jobs and constantly finds himself in trouble, which leads to dramatic action sequences.

For more on the TCA winter press tour, check out news about Syfy’s Peter Pan and Child’s Play series, as well as more info about Amazon’s Wheel of Time show. Additionally, Picard boss clears up confusion about the timeline for Star Trek, and we learned a little more about Patrick Stewart’s costar in the upcoming series.

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GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Amazon is currently working on two very big fantasy series. The first is Lord of the Rings–we recently learned new members of the cast–and the other is Wheel of Time. The latter is going to be a big series for the streaming service because there is a huge fantasy world that needs to be developed.

At the TCA winter press tour, Amazon discussed creating the show and the challenges it faces when bringing Robert Jordan’s books to life. “We’ve loved what we’ve seen so far,” said Amazon TV co-head Vernon Sander. “As you know these big world-building shows take some time to craft. So there’ll be more news as the year progresses on the series, but we feel incredibly optimistic about the show.”

Sanders wasn’t the only person excited about the new series, even though it’s early in the production process. Head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke was exceptionally optimistic about what they were producing. “Even though we haven’t even seen the first cut, the material coming out of the production looks incredible.”

The Wheel of Time series follows an ensemble cast of characters in a high fantasy world, set in both the past and future of our world. Someone is destined to destroy a malicious force named the Evil One in order to save the world. Jordan’s run on the series consists of 11 volumes. While working on the volumes 12-14 in 2007, Jordan passed away, and longtime fan of the series Brandon Sanderson came in to finish the uncompleted works and finish the series.

For more news from the TCA winter press tour, check out info about Syfy’s Peter Pan and Child’s Play series. Additionally, Picard boss clears up confusion about the timeline for Star Trek, and we learned a little more about Patrick Stewart’s costar in the upcoming series.