TGO Daily | February 9, 2021 | E3 Returning
February 9, 2021
In The News
E3 Goes Digital
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is returning this year, after cancelling both the in-person and digital events last year. According to VGC, they are currently planning on a three-day livestream from June 15-17:
The ESA’s intention is to hold multiple two-hour keynote sessions from games partners, an awards show, a June 14 preview night and other smaller streams from games publishers, influencers and media partners.
The broadcast event would be supplemented by media previews the week before, as well as demos released on consumer platforms, according to the ESA’s proposal.
E3 was already struggling before the pandemic — multiple publishers and key figures have stopped participating in the event, often opting for their own event in a similar timeframe. Not to mention that time they leaked the personal information of hundreds of journalists, and did very little to solve the issue.
The E3 creators have also frequently mentioned changing the direction of the show from the previous format they had, though we’ll know more about that down the line.
Various Epic updates
Three updates from Epic today!
1. The Epic Games Store is planning a new sale, starting this Thursday and going for two weeks. They are kicking it off with a Twitch live-stream which will have some news. (Apparently Steam is planning a Lunar New Year sale on this day as well). They usually have some good deals — so PC players should definitely keep their eye on it.
2. Turns out that the exclusivity strategy has no plans on slowing down, and they will actually have more exclusives in the next two years than they have had in previous years. The article linked above also lists some of the exclusives that have already been announced
3. There has been some speculation that the company was going to go public — they have since shut this down. “Epic is always monitoring the market and is prepared to consider opportunities as they arise, but right now we are focused on investing in our business, executing against our opportunities, and delivering value to our investors.”
Blood Bowl 3 Announced
Cyanide Studio have announced the third game in the Blood Bowl series, which is a mix between American football and Warhammer. These are the 12 teams that will be available, per their Steam post:
By all accounts, the game won’t be innovating that much, but I know that I love of people have loved this series. It’ll be on all the usual platforms in August of this year.
The Grab-Bag
Rust gets new “softcore” mode. It allows people to play the game without losing all of their items when they die, and adds some safe zones. I’m happy to see this — the more accessible that games can be, the better.
Minecraft Dungeons getting new DLC called “Flames of the Nether.” Arrives on February 24th.
Forza Horizon 4 launching on Steam March 9th — first in the franchise to do so.
Take-Two quarterly financials. They made a lot of money.
The Sonic the Hedgehog voice actors are mostly getting replaced, including Sonic himself (played by Roger Craig Smith). Dr. Eggman survived.