TGO Daily | November 25, 2020 | Fortnite Launches Monthly Subscription
Hey! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. To be honest I don’t always have something philosophical to throw into these preambles, so forgive me if they come across as same-y. If you have ideas of what to throw up here, feel free to let me know!
That being said, I did want to make a non-gaming recommendation to you. There’s a cool podcast called Reply All (it’s pretty famous, you may have heard of it). I just started listening, and I got hooked because of episodes 102 and 103, in which the host replies to and engages with a scam telephone caller, and goes on a wild ride that he wasn’t expecting afterward. It’s a fascinating listen.
Okay, back to video games. Until tomorrow,
Adrian
In The News
Fortnite gets a monthly subscription
Epic Games is introducing a paid monthly subscription to Fortnite, which they’re dubbing “Fortnite Crew.” Purchasing it for $12 USD will include the current Battle Pass (~$10 released every couple of months), 1000 V-Bucks (in-game currency costing ~$8), as well as an exclusive cosmetics pack which will never be sold elsewhere.
All things considered, if you’re already invested in the Fortnite ecosystem, that’s not a bad offer. Unlike the Call of Duty’s of the world, which tries to get your money in 12 different ways, this feels like a legitimate attempt to provide value to their consistent customers.
Fortnite Crew will be available starting in December, coinciding with the start of Chapter 2: Season 5.
Warriors sets records
In just 4 days, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity has become the best-selling game in the Warriors franchise, shipping 3 million units so far. This includes the Dynasty Warriors titles, which first emerged in 1997 until Dynasty Warriors 9 in 2018.
According to Silconera, other Warriors cross-overs (like Persona 5 Scramble or Fire Emblem Warriors) have sold more than 1 million units, but have taken weeks or months to do it.
I would imagine the allure of this game in particular has to do with the fact that it’s a prequel to Breath of the Wild, which is the best selling Zelda game in the franchise’s history by far.
RDR 2 multiplayer goes solo
Rockstar have announced that they will be releasing a stand-alone version of Red Dead Online, which is the multiplayer component of Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s coming out next week, will cost around $20, and runs on all the platforms that RDR 2 does. They’re also running a 2 month 75% discount to incentivize people to pick it up. It will take 123GB of storage space.
Looks like this is their new strategy. GTA V is getting similar treatment, and is being given away for free on PS5 for a few months. I do wonder about the end goal though — having a stand-alone version would likely open up a lot more possibilities, but they still have to accommodate the people who have the original releases. We’ll see how it plays out.
Bossa Studios
The developers behind Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, Bossa Studios, are going to be undergoing some changes after reports of crunch, layoffs, and the underperforming release of Surgeon Simulator 2.
Management at Bossa spoke to Eurogamer (a great article, do give it a read), saying that they attempted to apologize for the recent crunch their employees faced, and took action to prevent it in the future. They also ran into some creative conflicts:
“One person at Bossa…described tension over recent decisions as well as management's involvement in day-to-day production…
“'We are a small-ish studio - not tiny, right?' Olifiers said. 'We're not indie any more. 85 people is considerable. We've always been involved with game production. All our game ideas come from a game jam, and every single person in the studio takes part in those game jams that generate those game ideas. So from day one, management is involved. I am a game designer, not a business guy. I have been a producer, a coder, a game designer and so on. And so has everybody else in the team. So we are involved in the day-to-day. Of course at times there are creative differences, and we solve that in the best possible way, as far as I can tell.'”
They now say that they are looking for a fresh start in 2021, with some change in management and a repurposing of some divisions. They are currently developing I Am Fish, and will be releasing Surgeon Simulator 2 onto other platforms.
Also In The News
Something You Might Be Interested In
Hey! If you are interested in voice technology (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, etc.) and how it intersects with gaming, you should check out this totally free event happening on December 2:
It’s called the Voice of Gaming, and it has some pretty interesting talks you might want to check out!
Disclosure: The organizer Bradley Metrock has previously invited me to speak at a few other events, and has done a lot for TGO in terms of exposure.
Say Hello!
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