MCV901 November 18th by Future PLC

MEET THE NEW MCV FIND OUT ALL ABOUT OUR NEW TEAM BY THE THAMES

ISSUE 901 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 18TH 2016

WHAT’S NEXT FOR

POKÉMON GO? Having looked for Pokémon and struck gold, Niantic talks about putting AR on the map and its plans for the mobile blockbuster

PRIME TIME STREAMING

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Convention coverage, streaming from within VR and even social eating, the Amazon-powered streamer keeps growing

Koch Media talks 2016, its global reshuffle, ambitions for the next year and how zombies are going mobile on Dead Island

WHAT’S NEXT FOR TWITCH?

PAGE 20

KUNDRATITZ AND NICHOLLS SPEAK

PAGE 16

PLUS WARGAMING’S SEGA ALLIANCE n WE CATCH UP WITH TAKE-TWO’S ZELNICK 01 MCV901 Cover_V2.indd 1

15/11/2016 17:11

NEWS

UK physical games market down 50% year-on-year Weaker release slate and lack of titles for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 cause dip in weekly sales figures by Alex Calvin LAST week, the UK boxed games market was down by more than 50 per cent year-on-year. The sales period for the week ending Saturday, November 12th 2016 saw 651,637 games sold, a 52 per cent dip when compared with the week ending Saturday, November 14th 2015. £25m was generated in revenue during the week – a 54 per cent drop on the 2015 figure. Year-to-date, the UK boxed games market for 2016 is down by 14.6 per cent in terms of units, compared with 2015, while revenue has taken a dip of 13.1 per cent. Retail sources speaking to MCV say that this is partially down to 2016’s arguably weaker line-up of software. Fallout 4 hit shelves in the second week of November 2015,

Fallout 4 sold 500,000 in its first week, boosting the boxed games market in November 2015

with Star Wars Battlefront launching the following week. Furthermore, the dip in Call of Duty unit sales yearon-year is said to be another factor. Looking at the 2014 figures, they are roughly inline with 2015 for units and revenue, so a bumper week last year isn’t solely to blame.

The head buyer at one retailer said: “It has been a tough year for software – this is mostly down to the strength of the release slate this year, versus last year’s. We do not have access to digital sales but I imagine some of the lost volume may be switched into digital sales.”

Save the date: MCV Awards return next March TIME to dust off your finery and get your dancing shoes ready – the MCV Awards are returning for 2017 to recognise the best and brightest the UK games industry has to offer. The UK games market’s most prestigious awards show returns on Thursday, March 9th at The Brewery in London.

IGN picking up the Media Team prize at last year’s MCV Awards

The categories for this year’s awards show are: Specialist Retailer Mainstream Retailer Independent Retailer New Game Brand Sales Triumph Buying Team Peripherals and Accessories Brand Marketing Team Digital Marketing Team Trade Marketing Team

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Store Manager of the Year Unsung Hero Person of the Year

PR Team Agency Team Community Team Distribution Team Events Team Export Team Media Team Sales Team Indie Games Label Game Campaign Games Publisher

A full lobbying guide for the awards will be in next week’s issue of MCV. A number of sponsorship opportunities are available for the night - to find out more, please contact Lesley McDiarmid at lmcdiarmid@nbmedia.com.

Another anonymous retail source said that the lack of PSVR hardware is also impacting the market. “If PSVR was in stock it would drive both hardware and software sales,” they said. “The same is true with the 2DS, which ahead of Pokémon is in very tight stock.” Another source has said that the lack of PS3 and Xbox 360 games is continuing to have a negative impact on the market. “This year there are no legacy titles to take up any slack, so the market is focused on PS4/Xbox One,” they said. Some of this is slack, however, is being picked up by the PS4 and Xbox One. Comparing these formats year-to-date, PS4 software sales are nine per cent up year-onyear, while Xbox One game sales have risen one per cent.

CentreSoft adds Steam games to DLCSoft system INDIE games retailers can now sell codes for Steam PC titles via CentreSoft’s DLCSoft system. The distributor added Steam support in October, with the goal of helping to establish PC as a format within the indie retail space. Warner Bros UK is one of the launch partners for this new range of content. CentreSoft launched DLCSoft in 2013 to let indie retail sell digital titles. Initially, only PlayStation content was available, but Nintendo stock was added in 2014. DLCSoft has been highly popular with indie retail and has been one factor in CentreSoft being voted best games distributor in the last three MCV Annual Retail Surveys.

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 17:10

THE TEAM

MEET THE TEAM THE MCV TEAM HAS MOVED TO NEW OFFICES, JUST BY THE TATE MODERN. LET US KNOW IF YOU’RE IN LONDON AND WOULD LIKE TO MEET UP!

SETH BARTON, EDITOR SBARTON@NBMEDIA.COM @SETHBARTON1 I’M delighted to be leading the new team. MCV needs to change with the times and better serve and support this industry. But I need your input to make it happen, so please get in touch with your thoughts by email or phone.

I spent the last ten years in tech on Computer Shopper magazine and then online at Expert Reviews - where I wrote about everything from PS4 to toasters. I missed my daughter’s birthday every year to cover CES in Vegas, so I’m basically a bad person.

Before that I was at BBC Worldwide in its game publishing heyday. I worked on Robot Wars for Xbox and GBA and was also partly responsible for BBC3’s FightBox - which was overambitious, a bit rubbish and cost a small fortune per viewer.

ALEX CALVIN, DEPUTY EDITOR ACALVIN@NBMEDIA.COM @_ALEXCALVIN MANY of you will already know me – I joined MCV three years ago as a staff writer just as the PS4 and Xbox One were launching and the new generation kicked off. Before that, I was studying at Cardiff University for a

Master’s degree in journalism, specialising in magazine journalism – something which I’m sure will surprise some, if not all, of you. Since joining I have been promoted to deputy editor, and like MCV, have moved away

from Hertford to the big city. I’m looking forward to being more involved in the local games scene, and will accept free beer at every turn. Contact me if you have an exciting feature or interview to pitch.

MARIE DEALESSANDRI, STAFF WRITER MDEALESSANDRI@NBMEDIA.COM @MARIEDEAL AS I’m about to celebrate my oneyear anniversary at MCV, I’m delighted with this step forward for the brand with a fantastic new team. Most of you might not know me, or only know me as ‘that

French girl working at MCV’, so you’ll be glad to learn that I studied journalism in Paris, wrote about my other passion - films - in France for a while, hosted a radio show in Canada and then came back to Paris to write for a dozen

magazines as a journalist for a news agency. I don’t intend to change country again, so I’m really looking forward to not being deported (I can see you Brexit!) and to spend another fantastic year (and many more) at MCV.

AND INTRODUCING... KATHARINE BYRNE, NEWS EDITOR @BYRNEINATOR KATHARINE will be joining us from the start of December, just in time for the Christmas party season - during which she will drink a moderate number of small glasses of white wine and absolutely nothing else.

Katharine also joins us from Expert Reviews, where she really did review every single smartphone in existence for too many years. Thankfully her real passion lies in games, having written for GamesMaster, Official Xbox Magazine, Official Nintendo

Magazine, Nintendo Gamer, Nintendo Life and Nintendojo. As you can tell, Katharine loves Nintendo more than anyone (yes, anyone). She also interviews cosplayers in her free time. She’ll be completing revamping MCV’s news output.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE US TO REPORT? Please get in contact with the team and let us know how MCV should change. We’re rethinking the brand from the ground up, so tell us what information, analysis and coverage would help you. Email, tweet, or phone 0203 889 4900. www.mcvuk.com

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November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:35

NEWS

Google demands high-quality for Daydream VR games Game makers say the tech giant is placing an emphasis on quality for its brand new virtual reality platform by Alex Calvin DEVELOPERS working on Google Daydream VR titles have said that the tech giant has put a huge focus on quality. Game makers for the VR platform say that the tech giant is working to ensure that VR experiences with Daydream are made to a high standard. In the past, Google’s Play Store has been something of a free-forall when it came to both apps and games. With VR, technical fidelity is very important as titles with poor frame rates and responsiveness can make users feel ill. “Google has been great at supporting the dev community in that sense,” Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm said. “It makes sense to curate content a little bit more on VR than you would on mobile phone as,

since you are in that world, if you have a bad experience you can become really nauseous. It makes sense to be a little bit more careful what consumers are exposwed to.” nDreams CEO Patrick O’Luanaigh added: “Google has had us running through hoops to ensure the quality of what we are doing is top-notch. It is really strongly focused on a

(Below, left to right): Bithell, nDreams’ O’Luanaigh and Resolution Games’ Palm

high quality bar with every product. Google is really raising the bar of what is being let through with Daydream.” Mike Bithell, who has developed EarthShape for the VR platform, says that studios themselves have also been the arbiters of quality for VR titles on Daydream. “I’d say that all of the developers who are launching games for Daydream are taking this stuff really seriously,” he said. “You’re not going to see choppy frame rates or nausea-inducing tracking out of the gate. Google is also taking this very seriously in its communications to us, and the devs themselves are proudly trying to do a good job with this and are making great introductory software for the platform.” You can read more about Google’s Daydream VR platform in the November 25th issue of MCV

Deep Silver: ‘We released Homefront: The Revolution too early’ by Alex Calvin THE publisher of Homefront: The Revolution, Deep Silver, has said that it should have waited to release the shooter. Speaking to MCV, the firm admitted that the title was ‘less of a success’ than it had hoped, and said that it had learnt a lot from Homefront’s release. The shooter hit shelves in May to less-than-stellar reviews. It currently has a Metacritic rating of 48 on PS4, 49 on Xbox One and 54 on PC. But since release, Deep Silver says that its developer has improved the quality of the title. “We have learnt some big lessons from Homefront,” Deep Silver global brand and marketing director Paul Nicholls said. November 18th 2016

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“You can see in the market at the moment, quality is absolutely king and some big IPs have struggling figures at the moment. We learnt a lot of lessons about what to do going forward. Not just the quality of the product, but when we launch as well.” He continued: “The team at [developer] Dambuster did a fantastic job, With what the team there has done, getting the product patched and so on, the sentiment with consumers has really turned around. “We’re getting a lot of positive feedback compared to when we launched, so timing was probably the biggest lesson we have learnt there.” You can read more from Koch Media on page 16

Deep Silver’s Nicholls says that consumer feedback to Homefront is much more positive now

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 17:10

NEWS

FIFA 17 tops SuperData’s October digital charts The new entry in EA’s football franchise made another £9m, while Battlefield 1 debuted in second place by Marie Dealessandri EA was the big winner this October, with four games in SuperData’s Top Ten for digital games, representing over £18.5m in revenue. FIFA 17 kept its No.1 spot with digital revenue hitting £8.85m for the month. This is roughly what the title made after just two days in the September charts (£9.1m). That means that the game had digital revenue of nearly £18m in just one month and two days. This is a combination of full game digital sales, as well as micro transactions from the game’s lucrative Ultimate Team mode. The football blockbuster was significantly ahead of its competitors in October. Battlefield 1 debuted at No.2

with £5.48m in revenue after launching on October 21st. Other EA titles in the list include FIFA 16, which managed to remain in the charts at No.4 despite the new entry in the series, and franchise-behemoth Star Wars Battlefront at No.10. The third place was taken by a new entry, 2K’s Mafia III, which made £4.29m for its first month in the digital charts. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Gears of War 4 generated £2.34m in digital revenue and entered the charts at No.7. The new edition of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim made £1.96m and debuted at No.9. Call of Duty Black Ops III charted in fifth place - 12 months after its initial launch thanks to Activision’s continued support of the shooter with map packs and other DLC.

TITLE

PUBLISHER

TOTAL DIGITAL REVENUE (GBP MILLIONS)

FIFA 17

£8.85

Battlefield 1

£5.45

Mafia III

2K Games

£4.29

FIFA 16

£3.24

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Activision Blizzard

£2.94

Grand Theft Auto V

Rockstar Games

£2.52

Gears of War 4

Microsoft Studios

£2.34

Destiny

Activision Blizzard

£2.02

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda

Star Wars Battlefront

£1.96 £0.96

Sega Europe’s David Walker joins Sold Out as sales boss THE UK sales director of Sega Europe, David Walker, has been hired by Sold Out. Industry vet Walker (pictured) has held roles at the likes of Virgin Interactive Entertainment, MTV and cDV before joining Sega Europe. He joins Sold Out as sales director for UK and international. “I’m absolutely thrilled to have joined such a vibrant and forward-thinking publisher,” said Walker. “Sold Out has a solid track record in choosing products

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that sell extremely well – both in boxed and digital format – so I’m looking forward to help grow the business further.” Sold Out boss Garry Williams added: “We’re delighted to welcome David to Sold Out. He brings with him a wealth of industry experience, particularly in dealing with supermarket buyers, which sits extremely well with that fact that we have an exciting roster of new titles coming out over the coming months.”

SPONSORED BY

PRE-ORDER TOP 10

FINAL FANTASY XV DAY 1 EDITION (PS4)

The Last Guardian - Exclusive Launch Edition (PS4)

Sony

Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)

Sony

Pokémon Sun (3DS)

Persona 5: Collectors Edition (PS4)

Pokémon Moon (3DS)

Nintendo

Nintendo Switch Console (Switch)

Nintendo

SQUARE ENIX

Nintendo Deep Silver

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4)

Square Enix

Mass Effect Andromeda (PS4)

The Last Guardian: Collectors Edition (PS4)

Sony

November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 17:10

CHEAT SHEET

UP & DOWN

Market Data

Revenue was down 35 per cent last week, due to a 23 per cent dip in game sales £40m £15m

CALL OF DUTY: Infinite Warfare has seen a 55 per cent dip in sales but managed to remain at No.1

£39m 844,523 units

£30m £20m

£25m 651,196 units

£25m 708,805 units

Week Ending October 29th

Week Ending November 5th

WITH AN impressive 556 per cent rise in sales, LEGO Dimensions climbed from No.37 to No.9

Week Ending November 12th

EVENT CALENDAR NOVEMBER 2016

DECEMBER 2016

...........................................................................

GOLDEN JOYSTICKS 2016 Indig02 Friday, November 18th The 34th edition of the Golden Joystick Awards will be open to the public for the first time ever The Golden Joystick Awards are being organised by Future’s GamesRadar+ and the winners are voted for by the public.

GAMES INDUSTRY CHRISTMAS PARTY Sway Bar, London Tuesday, December 6th MCV’s Games Industry Christmas Party is back on December 6th. Like last year, the party will take place on at the Sway Bar in Holborn and will run from 7.30pm. The tickets cost just £10 and include entrance, free drinks and food. All ticket proceeds go to our charity partner, Games Aid.

ESPORTS INDUSTRY AWARDS The Brewery, London Monday, November 21st The first eSports Industry Awards will take place in London this November Media personality Julia Hardy and the Gadget Show’s Jason Bradbury will host 18 prizes up for grabs FUTURE GAMES SUMMIT Millennium Mayfair Hotel, London Wednesday, November 23rd – Thursday, November 24th A brand new conference that will examine the opportunities and challenges facing the games industry in the UK and beyond

November 18th 2016

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JANUARY 2017 ........................................................................... POCKET GAMER CONNECTS 2017 The Brewery, London Monday, January 16th – Tuesday, January 17th Steel Media’s annual conference is back next January at the Brewery. Indie Survival, Monetisation & User Acquisition, Industry Trends, Global Publishing; Funding & Investment, Local Talent & Success Stories and Practical Development Advice will be amongst the subjects covered during this edition.

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:43

CHEAT SHEET

PRESENTS

5 SECOND FACTS

THE NEWS IN 140 CHARACTERS The Tweets you might have missed in the last seven days

Your shortcut to sounding clever in the pub, we take you around the industry in under 30 seconds

SWITCH WILL LAUNCH AT £200, REPORTS SAY

£200

The recently revealed Nintendo Switch will be priced at £199.99, sources have told Let’s Play Video Games. There could also be a bundled version, with more internal storage, launching at £249.99, while the Switch Pro Controllers will have a £39.99 price point. The Switch is due to launch in March 2017, with Nintendo to announce more details in January.

With the £50 NES Classic Mini sold out, prices for the retro console have gone through the roof on Amazon, up to £200

204%

@ODDERZinnit Wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo was selling the entry-level Switch to break even, and the version with a pack-in is sold at small profit.

@combinehunter Switch at £200 makes a lot of sense, I’m just surprised that Nintendo would make that choice.

Dave Aubrey, WCCFtech.com Monday, November 14th

MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA GETS £280 COLLECTOR’S EDITION EA has released a new trailer for Mass Effect Andromeda and revealed there will be a collector’s edition, priced at £279.99, exclusive to GAME in the UK.

Sales of the PlayStation 4 saw a 204 per cent increase weekon-week in the UK as the PS4 Pro hit shelves

150,000

Joshua Garrity, Sold Out Monday, November 14th

The Sega Mega Drive is still selling about 150,000 units every year in Brazil, leading to its re-release in the country

VIVENDI INCREASES UBISOFT STAKE Media giant Vivendi now owns 24.06 per cent of French publisher Ubisoft, giving it voting rights of 21.3 per cent. Vivendi had already increased its share to 20 per cent last June.

@thenerdtheword £279.99 for the Mass Effect Andromeda Collector’s Edition - what a time we live in eh?

@WobblyOnion I have met number of people who work at Ubisoft, and it’s a cool company with a lot of soul. I would be gutted if Vivendi manages a takeover. Geoffrey Tim, Lazygamer Thursday, November 10th

Callum Langstroth, Sony London Studio Tuesday, November 8th @tauriqmoosa Sad to see BioWare went for generic brown hair slightly bearded male character [in the Mass Effect Andromeda trailer].

@RichStanton Apropo of nothing: fuck Vivendi to hell, Ubisoft forever. A really great dev/pub, yeah we can all moan, but Ubi does tonnes of amazing shit.

Tauriq Moosa, freelance writer Monday, November 7th

PC-only title Civilization VI has sold 1m copies in two weeks, developer Firaxis has revealed

Richard Stanton, Kotaku UK Tuesday, November 8th

$15m

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has donated $15m in order to protect North Carolina wilderness LVL 5 Afterglow Headset – PDP Design and manufacture the LVL 5 Afterglow Headset for PlayStation 4

europesales@pdp.com

www.pdp.com

GAMESAID THIS WEEK BECOME A GAMESAID MEMBER ..................

.................................................... PLAY YOUR PART BECOME A MEMBER AMBASSADOR TRUSTEE WWW.GAMESAID.ORG

www.mcvuk.com

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If you work in the industry, you can become a GamesAid member. Simply register on the site (address left) and you’ll get the events newsletter and become part of the GamesAid democracy - helping the organisation choose the charities it supports each year.

GOLDEN JOYSTICKS GAMESAID TENNER ..................

GamesAid will be collecting money at the Golden Joystick Awards. Envelopes will be left on tables, with attendees being asked to donate £10 each. The 34th Golden Joysticks take place on Friday, November 18th at the Indigo2. 07

GAMESAID RAISES £954,000 FOR CHARITY ..................

UK games industry charity GamesAid raised a massive £954,000 in the last year. This was shared between ten different organisations, who each walked away with £95,400. Over nine years, GamesAid has raised £2.7m. November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:43

MARKET MOVES

APPOINTMENTS

Craig Fletcher takes on new eSports role at GAME Multiplay CEO to head up pro-gaming strategy ● Bagg moves to Capcom ● Koch Media reorganises UK office GAME | Multiplay founder and CEO CRAIG FLETCHER has taken a new role as SVP eSports and local competitive gaming strategy at Multiplay’s parent company GAME. Fletcher will focus on the group’s eSports strategy, as well as partnerships between publishers and developers to support GAME’s growth in this sector. He will still report to GAME’s CEO MARTYN GIBBS. Fletcher has spent the last 19 years as CEO at Multiplay, which was acquired by GAME in March 2015 for £20m. CAPCOM | The Resident Evil and Street Fighter publisher

has hired GARETH BAGG as associate PR manager. He joins from Bandai Namco where he has been PR executive for the past year and a half. Before that, Bagg was PR and marking assistant at publisher Kalypso Media for nearly two years and also contributed to the likes of cultural websites Pop Bucket and The 405. PR manager LAURA SKELLY stated: “Gareth joins us just in time to support the upcoming launch of Resident Evil 7 and with his established UK media relationships and PR experience I’m looking forward to seeing what he brings to the PR campaign.”

Clockwise from top left: Nicholls, Fisher, Richardson, Beynon, Pace and Panter KOCH MEDIA | The German firm has announced several changes amongst its teams, as the UK branch is now looking after the company’s publishing arm, Deep Silver. UK sales and marketing director PAUL NICHOLLS has

been promoted to global brand and marketing director, while former head of UK marketing MARK FISHER is becoming head of global marketing. MIKE RICHARDSON has taken over the role of global community strategist after spending over three years as digital marketing manager. UK PR manager SUZANNE PANTER is promoted to senior global communications and event manager. While former senior graphic designer ROB PACE is now global creative manager. Finally, global brand manager HUW BEYNON will now be working out of the UK office in Reading.

Distributed by IT World Services TEL: +44 (0)17538 21122 EMAIL: sales@itworldservices.co.uk

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www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:35

Includes:

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08/11/2016 16:52 08/11/2016 12:16:37

WEEKLY SALES CHARTS

WEEKLY CHARTS INFINITE WARFARE managed to keep its No.1 spot in its second week in the charts, despite a 55 per cent dip in sales. This decrease was similar to what Call of Duty: Black Ops III experienced last year: Activision’s 2015 title had a 57 per cent dip in sales for its second week in the charts. Meanwhile, FIFA 17 was back at No.2, while Battlefield 1 charted at No.3, with its sales falling 39 per cent. Dishonored 2 debuted at No.4. Sales for Bethesda’s new entry in the franchise were down a surprising 38 per cent compared to the 2012 original. The fact that strong reviews for Dishonored 2 were only available after launch might have influenced this performance and could lead to stronger sales during its second week. The title did well digitally, with preordered sales topping Steam’s chart, while post-release sales charted at No.5 as well Meanwhile, some older titles managed to re-enter the UK charts’ Top 10 last week, due to retailer promotions. Blizzard’s Overwatch took No.7 with sales increasing 144 per cent . Even more impressive,

Warner Bros’ LEGO Dimensions climbed from No.37 to No.9 thanks to a 556 per cent rise in sales. Xbox One exclusive Forza Horizon 3 also saw its sales increase 60 per cent, most likely thanks to discounted Xbox One hardware, which rose 85 per cent. Other new entries last week included Bandai Namco’s Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, which entered the charts at No.33, and Ubisoft’s VR Eagle Flight, which debuted at No.39. The latter was the only VR title in the Top 40 last week, as PlayStation VR Worlds has been pushed out of the charts. Elsewhere, Obsidian’s new RPG Tyranny debuted at No.3 on Steam and sim title Transport Fever entered that chart at No.7. Over on mobile, Sega’s Sonic CD topped the iPad free games charts, after re-entering the list the week before. Sega provided an update for the 2011’s mobile game at the end of October and made it free, hence the chart comeback, Meanwhile, Gameloft’s new racing title, Asphalt Xtreme, debuted at No.3 on iPad and No.10 on iPhone.

TOP 40 UK PHYSICAL RETAIL 02

TW 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

LW 01 03 01 NEW 04 10 18 05 37 12 09 11 07 14 06 13 08 16 19 32 15 23 17 25 26 22 29 29 33 34 30 20 NEW RE 27 RE 40 24 NEW 36

Title Format Publisher Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare PS4, XO, PC Activision FIFA 17 PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC EA Battlefield 1 PS4, XO, PC EA Dishonored 2 PS4, XO, PC Bethesda The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition PS4, XO Bethesda Forza Horizon 3 XO Microsoft Overwatch PS4, XO, PC Blizzard Titanfall 2 PS4, XO, PC EA LEGO Dimensions PS4, XO, Wii U, PS3, 360 Warner Bros Star Wars Battlefront PS4, XO, PC EA Grand Theft Auto V PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Rockstar Gears of War 4 XO Microsoft Skylanders Imaginators PS4, XO, Wii U, PS3, 360 Activision Minecraft: Xbox Edition XO, 360 Microsoft Football Manager 2017 PC Sega WWE 2K17 PS4, XO, PS3, 360 2K Games Mafia III PS4, XO, PC 2K Games Rocket League PS4, XO 505 Games Fallout 4 PS4, XO, PC Bethesda Tom Clancy’s The Division PS4, XO, PC Ubisoft Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration PS4, PC Square Enix LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens PS4, XO, PS3, 360, Wii U, 3DS, Vita Warner Bros Farming Simulator 17 PS4, XO, PC Focus Home Interactive Minecraft: Story Mode - Complete Adventure PS4, XO, PS3, 360 Telltale LEGO Marvel’s Avengers PS4, XO, Wii U, PS3, 360, 3DS, Vita Warner Bros Minecraft: PlayStation Edition PS4, PS3, Vita Sony LEGO Jurassic World PS4, XO, Wii U, PS3, 360, 3DS, Vita Warner Bros Batman: Return to Arkham PS4, XO Warner Bros Just Dance 2017 PS4, XO, PS3, 360, Wii U, Wii, PC Ubisoft Mario Kart 7 3DS Call of Duty: Black Ops III PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Activision Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 PS4, XO, PC Bandai Namco Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization PS4, Vita Bandai Namco Tomodachi Life 3DS Nintendo Destiny: The Collection PS4, XO Activision New Super Mario Bros 2 3DS Nintendo BioShock: The Collection PS4, XO 2K Games Guitar Hero Live PS4, XO, Wii U, PS3, 360 Activision Eagle Flight PSVR Ubisoft Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Konami

Source: UKIE/GfK Entertainment, Period: Week ending November 12th November 18th 2016

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15/11/2016 16:36

WEEKLY SALES CHARTS GLOBAL STEAM CHARTS (UNITS)

01 TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

LW 01 NEW 03 NEW 04 NEW 06 RE

DISHONORED 2 (P) DEVELOPER: ARKANE PUBLISHER: BETHESDA

Title Sid Meier’s Civilization VI Tyranny Football Manager 2017 Dishonored 2 Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Transport Fever Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Publisher 2K Games Paradox Interactive Sega Bethesda Activision Gambitious Digital Entertainment Valve Ubisoft

Source: Steam, Period: November 7th – November 13th

UK IPAD PAID

01 TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

LW RE 09 07 06 NEW NEW 08 03 05

UK IPHONE PAID

(UNITS)

MINECRAFT: POCKET EDITION DEVELOPER: MOJANG

Title Oh...Sir! The Insult Simulator Goat Simulator The Chase Tipping Point Phantasmat: Behind the Mask Football Manager Touch 2017 Fear for Sale: The House on Black River Pixelmon Silver Mni Game Terraria

TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Developer Gambitious Digital Entertainment Coffee Stain Studios Barnstorm Games Barnstorm Games Big Fish Sega Big Fish Joseph Karl 505 Games

LW 02 04 08 RE 03 05 09 06 RE

(UNITS)

MINECRAFT: POCKET EDITION DEVELOPER: MOJANG

Title Heads Up! The Chase Tipping Point Oh...Sir! The Insult Simulator Plague Inc. Bloons TD 5 Monopoly Game Construction Simulator Pro 2017 Goat Simulator

UK IPAD GROSSING (REVENUE)

UK IPHONE GROSSING (REVENUE)

TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

LW 04 02 03 05 07 06 RE 10 08

CANDY CRUSH SAGA DEVELOPER: KING

Title Mobile Strike Game of War - Fire Age Clash of Clans Candy Crush Soda Saga Clash Royale Gardenscapes - New Acres Hay Day Gummy Drop! Roblox

TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Developer Epic War Machine Zone Supercell King Supercell Playrix Supercell Big Fish Roblox Corporation

LW 03 02 04 06 05 RE 07 08 09

POKÉMON GO DEVELOPER: NIANTIC

Title Clash Royale Mobile Strike Candy Crush Saga Game of War - Fire Age Clash of Clans Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle Candy Crush Soda Saga Episode - Choose Your Story, feat. Mean Girls 8 Ball Pool

UK IPAD FREE (UNITS)

UK IPHONE FREE (UNITS)

TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

LW 03 NEW RE 06 RE RE RE RE NEW

SONIC CD DEVELOPER: SEGA

Title Gear Club Asphalt Xtreme PinOut! Block! Hexa Puzzle DC Legends SkillTwins Football Game Tap to RIches Fit in the Hole Keepy Ducky

TW 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Developer Eden Games Mobile Gameloft Mediocre AB BitMango Warner Bros Hello There Game Circus Ketchapp iBallisticSquid

LW RE RE RE 05 RE 06 RE 07 NEW

Developer Warner Bros Barnstorm Games Barnstorm Games Gambitious Digital Entertainment Ndemic Creations Ninja Kiwi EA Mageeks Apps & Games Coffee Stain Studios

Developer Supercell Epic War King Machine Zone Supercell Bandai Namco King Episode Interactive Miniclip.com

FIT IN THE HOLE DEVELOPER: KETCHAPP

Title PinOut! Taps to Riches Gear.Club Block! Hexa Puzzle EatMe.io Pineapple Pen Bottle Flip 2k16 Rolling Sky Asphalt Xtreme

Developer Mediocre AB Game Circus Eden Games BitMango Junglee Games Ketchapp Aiden Sabourin Cheetah Technology Gameloft

Source: UKIE/Refl ection, Period: October 31st – November 6th www.mcvuk.com

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November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:36

INTERVIEW NIANTIC

Go Go Niantic In 2016, Niantic briefly changed how society functioned with Pokémon Go. Alex Calvin speaks to marketing chief Mike Quigley about its blockbuster year, augmented reality and what is next for its tech platform

o say that Niantic’s first year as an independent company was special would be massively underselling it. In October 2015, the firm spun itself out from tech giant Google, where it had been run as one of the company’s start-ups. The following July, Niantic released Pokémon Go. The title brought the muchloved Pokémon franchise to mobile devices, owned by most people these days. It was freeto-play and therefore meant that everyone could play it. Pokémon Go went on to have roughly 44m active users at its peak, and helped Nintendo shares soar – before the company told shareholders it wasn’t responsible for the game. It dominated headlines and popular culture and, for a brief time, changed how society functioned. Its effects were felt further than Pokémon Go itself. The game helped UK sales of Nintendo’s 3DS console rise by over 200 per cent in its first week. But even Niantic couldn’t predict how big Pokémon Go would be. “We had some really good early indicators of demand, or the appeal, of the game when we did the announcement in September 2015 in Tokyo with our CEO John Hanke, Mr Ishihara from The Pokémon Company, Miyamotosan from Nintendo and Masudasan from Game Freak,” Niantic CMO Mike Quigley says. “We saw the initial reaction to that, which was quite positive. We also released the concept trailer. The fan reaction to that, from both the active Pokémon player, the lapsed Pokémon fan, the Ingress

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like the Daily Bonus that hopefully will continue over time to improve the game. The combination of that early feedback plus the field test made us think that the response to Pokémon Go could be pretty big. I’d be completely lying if I said we anticipated the success it had and that we thought it would explode in the way that it did.”

Niantic learnt a lot from Ingress that was applied to Pokémon Go, Mike Quigley says

players and broader gamers at large was quite positive, so that was one early initial sign that we thought we might have something special here. More importantly, we started to do our field test, a closed beta in classic gaming terms, in March in Japan, so we started getting learnings there from a sub-set of our community in Japan. We rolled that out to New Zealand and Australia in April. It wasn’t just the classic bug fixes, but also feedback on the core game loops. “Fast forward to now and there have been a lot of polishes and things we have done, and some new features we have introduced

I’d be completely lying if I said we anticipated the success it had and that we thought it would explode in the way that it did. Mike Quigley, Niantic

NEW REALITY As well as being a massive deal for Niantic and The Pokémon Company, Pokémon Go was also – arguably – the first demonstration of augmented reality to the general population. The title was also buoyed by the success of Niantic’s previous title, Ingress, which launched four years ago and has been installed 20m times. “We always think of Ingress as a four-year R&D project,” Quiley says. “We had a lot of learning from it on the technical and operations side, things like customer support, marketing, community etc. We learnt a lot of things that we applied here. Pokémon Go is probably the first at-scale example of what the potential of AR technology is. We would still call it ourselves AR-light, there’s so much more that can be done and there’s obviously some big investments by some big companies around AR. We’re just pleased with the computing power we have on these amazing devices, both iOS and Android-based phones, that we are able to bring some of that to life today without having to have expensive head gear, highend systems or being tethered. “That’s never going to work for us. We do not want people indoors on sofas. We want

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:40

NIANTIC INTERVIEW Pokémon Go had about 44m users at its peak - a success Niantic did not expect

OTHER PLACES ONE of the other massive moves in augmented reality is Microsoft’s HoloLens device, which was shown off on at E3 2015 with a frankly stunning Minecraft demo. And while Niantic isn’t in a position to announce anything, CMO Mike Quigley says the firm is interested in teaming up with other companies, as it has Apple, in the future. “Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap... there’s a lot of amazing teams working on some cool tech,” he says. “We’re just looking forward to seeing what comes from that and what’s possible. Like a lot of those technologies, we have to see what will emerge and how accessible they are. “We announced that we are going to be doing integration on to the Apple Watch, so that would be our first foray in partnering with a thirdparty. What we do with other partners beyond Apple is to be announced, but it’s a signal that we are going to continue to talk to those partners and if it makes sense to work with them, we’ll certainly entertain those conversations.”

www.mcvuk.com

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them out and about in their neighbourhoods exploring. We’re thankful for the computing power of the mobile device that can at least bring that initial experience to life. There’s a lot more that can be done and so we’re excited about the potential. It was a good proof point for what AR can be. There’s more to come.” Pokémon Go’s user base has predictably dropped off from its 44m player height. Headlines in August said that the title had dropped 35 per cent to 29m, with some coming to conclusion that the game was in trouble – yet 35 per cent dip for a mobile game’s user base in the months after launch is actually impressive. “There was a lot of noise about the drop-off in user base,” Quigley says. “Some of it was bound to happen – things like kids going back to school in the Northern Hemisphere. There are all sorts of things as you go from summer to autumn. It is what it is, people are going to say what they’re going to say. We just need to stay focused on our strategy which is to continue to add new features, continue to listen to the community, what are the things that they really want us to get to

There was a lot of noise about the dropoff in user base. We just need to stay focused on our strategy, which is to continue to add new features. Mike Quigley, Niantic

and try to get to them as early as we can with a high quality bar. “The Pokémon Company is a fantastic partner. We work very closely with them and we want to do right by the brand and what Niantic’s expectations are, because we have our own very high quality bar as well. Sometimes I’ll admit it’s painful to read some of those headlines, but you honestly have to not get distracted. We have now mastered the art of not getting distracted by negative headlines and sentiment because we’re really confident in what we are doing. “This is where the four-year history of Ingress and the company gives us a lot of confidence. We’re excited and very humbled by what happened over the summer, but we have a longer term plan so we’re trying not to be distracted by anything else. “We’re pleased with the average daily users we saw

November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:40

INTERVIEW NIANTIC

Niantic intends to support Pokémon Go with events similar to what it has done for Ingress

from the Halloween promotion. And we’re just getting started on those things – that’s probably an indicator of things to come in terms of holiday and promotions.” POKÉMON GO’S EVOLUTION Promotions and player events are just two of the ways that Niantic plans to retain users long-term for Pokémon Go, much as it has with Ingress. This is a promising strategy, too, as the firm’s recent Halloween promotion for Pokémon Go saw daily active users rise 13.2 per cent week-onweek globally. “We’ll have more details on those in the weeks ahead, but that was a core part of our strategy for Ingress,” Quigley says. “We have core attributes of Niantic as a company - the first being around exploration and discovery, the second being around health and fitness and getting people active, and the third is real world social. Social networks have had a major impact on our lives, we know a lot of things happen digitally among fans and family that live miles away. It sounds really basic, maybe a little old school to some, especially younger demographics,

November 18th 2016

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but getting people together and having a positive shared experience is one of the attributes that Niantic really believes in. We think real world events are going to be part of that strategy, but nothing to share yet. We have been excited about things that have been happening organically without us putting a hand on it. “One of our favourite examples is in San Franciso there was a community-led Poké Walk that attracted 9,500 over the course of three days through a Facebook invite. Those are the kinds of things we want to enable through our events strategy.” Pokémon Go has been a huge deal for Niantic’s growth too, with the firm set to double its number of employees within the next year. “We were very careful in terms of the pace in which we grow. We have around 70 employees now, we have shared publicly that we intend to double in size over the course of the next year,” Quigley says. “There are things we are able to do very efficiently to scale the business so our investors are pretty pleased with the first year of the company, are really bullish on our road map and what

We’re focused on Pokémon Go. That is a marathon, not a sprint for us. We are just getting started, we have a lot of new features coming to the title. Mike Quigley, Niantic

we intend to do in the future. Business is off to a good start for our first year as an independent company and we have high expectations going forwards.” He continues: “We said early on that our intention is to basically be the tech provider for those kinds of experiences, ‘platform aspirations’ if you will is the best way to say it. Pokémon Go is the first of our own non-home grown apps. That’s still the strategy of the company. Our investors, not just Google after we spun out, but the lead investors, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, are aware of that strategy and supportive of it. “That said, we’re heads down focused very much on Pokémon Go. That is a marathon, not a sprint for us. We are just getting started. We have a lot of new features coming to the title. We’re pretty focused on that. Long term, that is the intention. “We’re just focused on making sure that Ingress continues to be viable and engage with folks like we are doing with our events. “We are going to continue to invest in Pokémon Go and there will be future games on the Niantic platform, but nothing to announce today.”

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:40

The Games Guide is a hard copy catalogue that will feature the best names in Games Development, Publishing, QA & Localisation, Design, Recruitment, Accessories, Merchandise, Distribution, Events and more. Including details on who they are, what they do and how to get in touch with them. This comprehensive guide to the games industry will be distributed within the full print run of both MCV and Develop; also it will be distributed at leading industry events during 2017, including GDC, E3, Gamescom, Develop Brighton, Future Games Summit, and more. As well as the hard copy, the directory listings will feature within every single issue of both magazines all year, along with being available to view as a digital copy under the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Games Guideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tab via www.mcvuk.com and www.develop-online.net

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Untitled-2 1

14/11/2016 12:56

INTERVIEW KOCH MEDIA

The German connection Koch Media’s UK branch is now heading up its Deep Silver publishing arm. Alex Calvin catches up with the firm’s CEO Klemens Kundratitz and global brand and marketing chief Paul Nicholls about this strategy, how 2016 has been and what lessons the firm took from Homefront: The Revolution’s sub-par performance

How would you assess 2016 for Koch Media and Deep Silver? Klemens Kundratitz, CEO, Koch Media: This is an interesting year for us. On the Koch side of things, it’s been a year of big products such as Total War: Warhammer for Sega, Deus Ex and Tomb Raider for Square Enix, and F1 and Dirt Rally for Codemasters. Working with these companies on a global or European-wide scale keeps us very busy, as you can imagine. It’s a year of growth for us. On the Deep Silver side, we launched titles like Dead Island: Definitive Edition, which was a good result for us. We also had Homefront: The Revolution, which was less of a success as I’m sure you are aware. We also announced Agents of Mayhem at E3, which will come next year and is a big focus for us.

Paul Nicholls, global brand and marketing director, Deep Silver: With Homefront, we have learnt some big lessons. You can see in the market at the moment, quality is absolutely king and some big IPs have been struggling for figures. We learnt a lot of lessons about what to do going forward. Not just the quality of the product, but when we launch the product as well. What lessons did you take away from Homefront? Nicholls: The team at [developer] Dambuster did a fantastic job, and as you know the history of that product was quite complicated. When we choose to launch a project would be one of the major lessons. With the work Dambuster has done, getting the product

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set-up and nine local offices. We are really integrated as a publisher with a global reach now. That led us to the decision to keep our German HQ in Munich, but are adding the UK office to that international set-up.

Koch says that Dead Island 2 is progessing well at Sumo Digital

patched and so on, the sentiment with consumers has really turned around. We’re getting a lot of positive feedback compared to when we launched, so timing was probably the biggest lesson we have learnt there. Last week you announced some massive changes to your company structure. The UK office is now heading up Deep Silver publishing, while your German office in Munich is handling partner products. What was the thinking behind this? Kundratitz: Koch has come a long way over our 23-year existence. To start, we were a very Germanic company, before we became a firm with many territories working alongside each other. Now, we are a truly global company with a very European

We have a much higher headcount and greater experience. Paul Nicholls, Deep Silver

Nicholls: The first steps were to start setting up the management of the new marketing-publishing set-up. Of course, my own team here in the UK has a lot of history. Together we have launched Metro: Last Light, Saints Row IV, Gat out of Hell and Dead Island Riptide. From that perspective, there’s already a lot of experience. That’s without going into the fact that a lot of the team also came from THQ in that transition. From a management perspective, there’s been a big change in the global publishing scene. We have a much higher headcount and greater experience in the team. We are also investing into brand assistance, we are bolstering the community team and we are also bringing in an analyst. With the UK office now leading Deep Silver, alongside your own Dambuster studio in Nottingham and working with partners like Sumo Digital on Dead Island 2, Koch Media is making a sizeable investment in the UK. Is this something you are looking to grow moving forwards? Kundratitz: We are growing our investment now. Are there further opportunities out there? It’s certainly possible. But I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a UK-specific consideration. As

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:36

KOCH MEDIA INTERVIEW BREXIT WOES SINCE the EU Referendum in June, the British economy has been in a state of flux with the value of the pound tanking following the nation voting to leave the European Union. But has this affected Koch’s business? “It has not affected our business so far,” CEO Klemens Kundratitz says. “We don’t have full visibility of how it is going to be implemented at the end of the day. We hope that the leaders will find a way to keep the free movement of our creative and development talent available because that would be my first worry for the UK if recruiting is somewhat hindered. But I am optimistic there will be a way found. Other than that, the market is still strong and inflation is in check, so I would say there isn’t much to worry about for the time being.”

a publisher, we are always on the look out for a great product and great teams. We do see that, in the UK, there is a very vibrant development scene. There’s lots of great creative talent. Being a European publisher, that very much appeals to us. It doesn’t mean we are not looking in other places where there is good talent as well. Speaking of Sumo, the last time we talked, you revealed that the studio was handling development of Dead Island 2. How is that project progressing? Kundratitz: Dead Island is a very key IP for us. It put us on the map in the first place. We have big plans for the franchise with several projects in development. Dead Island 2 is obviously announced and is making fantastic progress at Sumo. We’re looking forward to showing off the game to our fans when it is ready. On top of that, I can tell you we are also working on a mobile game under the IP, which we will have more to say about in a little while. That’s just two things that are

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Deep Silver has admitted it released Homefront: The Revolution too early

happening on the IP. As I said, the franchise has our full attention.

role in entertainment in the future. Having said that, we as an industry are at the beginning of a long and certainly very interesting journey into VR entertainment. At the start, you normally see the platform holders or first-parties and their studios steering the way. For us, as an independent publisher, we are absolutely interested and internally active in that field. We are gauging the opportunities for our IP, but it is right now a work in progress.

Deep Silver recently announced a publishing deal for a number of Atlus titles, including Persona 5. Why make this move? Kundratitz: Deep Silver is a leading global publisher of games. It’s a brand for gamers. Whilst we are very proud of our own IP, which we develop, we also are proud of our partner products, which we are publishing. One of the examples is Persona 5, another is Kingdom Come Deliverance from our partners at Warhorse Studios in the Czech Republic. There are more products coming along. This has always been part of our philosophy, to mix partner products with our own IP. It’s strategically absolutely the right thing to do for us.

We are basically running Deep Silver out of two offices in two of the biggest markets in Europe.

One of the big talking points of 2016 has been the roll-out of virtual reality. Is this something you are interested in? Kundratitz: VR is absolutely of interest and will play an important

Klemens Kundratitz, Koch Media

What is your ambition for 2017? Kundratitz: Don’t expect any major strategic changes from us. We are in a fantastic console life cycle and the products are becoming more exciting every year. We just have to make sure to keep that excitement going with our gamers and blow them away with more and more immersive experiences. We will have some very big launches next year including the next title from Volition, Agents of Mayhem. Now with the UK base of global publishing, you can be sure that we will make a great step forward.

November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:36

INTERVIEW TAKE-TWO, STRAUSS ZELNICK

It Takes Two to make a thing go right Alex Calvin catches up with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to talk about Red Dead Redemption 2’s reveal, the firm’s investment in VR and its impressive digital revenue

SEEING RED

BREAKING THE CYCLE

PERHAPS the biggest item of news to come out of TakeTwo in the last year was the announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2. The title was initially teased by Rockstar on Twitter, before the firm unveiled its debut trailer, which has been viewed 8.4m times on Rockstar’s YouTube account alone. “We always have exceedingly high hopes for our titles because our strategy is always to deliver the most creative entertainment products in the industry,” CEO Strauss Zelnick says. “More often than not we are able to achieve it. Unquestionably, the number of trailer views did exceed our expectations and our expectations were high.”

THE traditional console cycle is no more – Sony has released its updated PS4 Pro, while Microsoft’s superpowered Project Scorpio is set to release next year. This new strategy of upgrading consoles midway through the traditional generation is something Zelnick is a fan of. “We have seen this strategy before. It’s an opportunity to bring higher power technology to consumers a few years after initial launch,” he says. “Certainly anything that’s good for the consumer is good for us. We will be developing products that are consistent with the technology.”

UNDER THE SEA ONE of the titles called out for strong sales in Take-Two’s last financial report was BioShock: The Collection, which collated remastered versions of the three BioShock games. This isn’t the first time TakeTwo has brought titles from the last generation to current consoles (see also Borderlands: The Handsome Collection), or the last. “We have an open mind about that sort of thing,” TakeTwo boss Strauss Zelnick says. “It is something we have done before. It is our nature to remaster, res-up and bring catalogue titles to the market when it makes sense to do so.”

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Zelnick says Take-Two will be developing titles that are consistent with mid-generation hardware upgrades

CASUAL REALITY WHEN MCV spoke to Zelnick in June, we asked the exec about whether Take-Two would be supporting VR. He said that the firm would be keeping an eye on it as it develops. It has since announced that Carnival Games – a highly popular family franchise from the Wii era would be making the leap to VR. “[Virtual reality] is still a small market,” Zelnick says. “We do believe in innovating - it’s one of the tenants of our company. And we thought that Carnival Games was a great title. It had been super successful for the Wii, it is a family-orientated title and it’s well suited to VR because the

nature of the gameplay doesn’t cause you to move through the environment. Players can stand in a fixed area. That addresses some of the discomfort issues that have been observed with VR. We thought it was a great place to start – it’s family friendly, a well-known and big selling title on Wii, it works for virtual reality and we think it’s a lot of fun. It’s easily accessible.” Bringing a casual game to VR seems strange on the surface because most virtual reality experiences are being geared towards core gamers. “That was a conscious decision to appeal to a broad audience,” Zelnick answers.

THE LONG GAME EVERYTIME we see TakeTwo’s financials, one of the figures that jumps out at us is the company’s digital revenue. Titles such as Grand Theft Auto Online have become a massive boon for the company, and is an indication of just how long consumers are engaging with Take-Two products. “Our digital revenue is extraordinary,” CEO Strauss Zelnick says. “52 per cent of our digital delivered bookings and 24 per cent of our total bookings come from recurrent consumer spending [virtual currency, DLC and online games). We continue to see our company move in a direction of giving consumers an opportunity to engage in an on-going basis with our brands.”

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:36

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INTERVIEW TWITCH

Prime Time Streaming Twitch just keeps on growing with Amazon Prime benefits boosting the service further still. Seth Barton asks Jason Fletcher about VR, eSports and the upcoming Future Games Summit

amers love to watch other gamers play games. Five years ago that would have been seen as a pretty odd statement but today it’s an undeniable truth, with Twitch leading the way. With close to 10m users every day and more than 2m streamers providing content to watch, the service is continuing to expand. It’s a huge business and one that’s part of another huge business since its acquisition by Amazon in 2014. That relationship recently became far stronger with last month’s launch of Twitch Prime, which brings a host of benefits for Twitch into the Amazon Prime line-up – including ad-free streaming and a free channel subscription for your favourite streamer. Twitch is also the live streaming partner at the upcoming Future Games Summit, allowing anyone the opportunity to watch the speakers, panels and events, as top industry professionals discuss the future of the games industry. That’s part of comprehensive coverage of the biggest gaming events around, alongside its own

November 18th 2016

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TwitchCon, which this year drew 41,000 attendees and 2.2m viewers online. We talk to Jason Fletcher, director of marketing for EMEA about how Twitch continues to expands its range of content, how VR is working with streaming and where the company is going next. What attracted you to streaming the Future Games Summit? Conventions all over the world use Twitch for live streaming panels, press conferences, stage shows, and show floor activities. This type of content is important to our community since some events are industry only, some sell out in minutes, and others’ cost is prohibitive given that they are based overseas. Because Twitch removes all of these barriers to entry, we have become the primary destination for the biggest game conventions around the globe, such as E3, PAX, Gamescom, Paris Games Week, EGX, NY Comic Con, MInecon, Tokyo Game Show, EGS, Taipei Game Show, and our own TwitchCon, to name a few. The Future Games Summit complements these other great events on our platform.

We have become the primary destination for the biggest game conventions around the globe. Jason Fletcher, Twitch

Is Twitch keen to expand beyond its perception as a ‘games streaming’ service? We have already expanded beyond gaming with our Twitch Creative and Social Eating categories. While both of those categories were surfaced from our gaming community, they do not require a game component to use. Born from our gamers who were doing game-related fan art, Twitch Creative is a destination for artists to showcase the creative process, whether it’s painting, drawing, sculpting, building, sewing, composing, cooking or one of seemingly infinite other projects. Social Eating is the act of sharing a meal with your viewers that first surfaced among our South Korean gaming community, where social eating is huge trend that has been a big part of their online culture for years. They inspired us to experiment with this beta category. In addition to benefiting our Asian community, it allows all broadcasters to take a meal break during their streams without having to abandon their community. Since we understand not everyone understands the

www.mcvuk.com

15/11/2016 16:40

TWITCH INTERVIEW

Twitch’s relationship with Amazon became tangible last month with the launch of Twitch Prime.

or may not be on our roadmap, but if it’s something our community is passionate about, then it’s something we are thinking about. Does virtual reality represent a challenge for Twitch? While VR is still a very nascent field in the gaming space, and even more so when it comes to live streaming, it is definitely a category growing on Twitch. Members in the community have created tools for broadcasters to allow them to interact in the virtual world. This includes developers bringing chat into their games, such as with Fantastic Contraption by Northway Games, to people finding methods to strap the chat window to the back of their controller in a virtual space. Since Twitch also celebrates the development process, that is another area where cool VR things are happening. We partnered with Oculus to enable viewing Twitch in VR, where you can sit in a room with four other people in avatar form and watch a stream together and interact with each other. Another example is how the developers of Hover Junkers, an upcoming VR title, are streaming their whole development process on Twitch and have an in-game dashboard for Twitch broadcasting that allows them to read chat and see viewership numbers. Beyond these experiments, broadcasters regularly stream VR titles and use the split screen so you can see both the broadcaster with their VR goggles on, as well as the game they are playing from their perspective.

Above: Northway Games’ Fantastic Contraption combines a VR sandbox and streaming into a single environment.

Eastern culture surrounding social eating, we have very robust rules of conduct to help guide our community to the proper way to use the category. With the likes of YouTube Gaming, Dingit and Hitbox entering the streaming market, how does Twitch retain its dominance? There are definitely more players on the scene than there were a couple years ago. While we are aware of what other platforms are doing and appreciate that they help validate game video as an important part of the entertainment industry, the direction of our brand is influenced primarily by what our community wants. Is the move to 4K consoles and increasingly powerful PCs something that Twitch will respond to technically? The features we focus on are primarily dictated by our community. For example, video upload and migrating to HTML5 were the two most requested features this year and both have been implemented. Unfortunately, we can’t comment about what may

www.mcvuk.com

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This year, we put a major focus on social features, since it’s the social and community element that has really defined Twitch. Jason Fletcher, Twitch

Do you think that Twitch has more work to do in the console space? Do people use the app casually, or is it still mainly streamers with dedicated capture kit? Since 30 per cent of our broadcasters stream from a console, they are still very relevant to our platform. The ease of use of streaming from a console has enabled a lot of casual gamers to see why it is such a fun thing to do. Twitch is the Live Streaming Partner for the Future Games Summit, watch at www.twitch.tv on the 23rd and 24th of November.

Twitch is a key platform for eSports, what’s the one thing that could improve eSports?

eSports continues to show progress with one area that can be strengthened being consistency. A lot of events get announced only a few months in advance which makes attendance and marketing tough. What are the big growth games for streaming this year, in eSports particularly? Rocket League and Vainglory have both seen huge growth in eSports. Rocket League because it offers an easier to pick up and play experience compared to many of the other top eSports games and Vainglory for tapping into the large mobile market with a solid MOBA. How has Amazon ownership changed the company? We agreed to be acquired by Amazon with the understanding that they would let us retain our leadership and culture which has proven to be true. Right now, their goal is to help us continue to do the things we want to do for our community, but faster. We are also exploring ways to work together and create new compelling experiences for our community, such as our recent collaboration on Twitch Prime. Twitch has been a huge success for our partners since it drove massive amounts of subscriptions to their channels. What’s the future for Twitch? We are constantly iterating on our platform based on feedback from our community, as well as ensuring the quality of service and our overall presence is constantly improving around the world. This year we put a major focus on social features, since it’s the social and community element that has really defined Twitch. We also added the features our community has been most vocal about, including migrating to HTML5, enabling video uploads and making more transcodes available which allow streamers to offer different video quality settings. We will be continuing to focus on social elements with some announcements on the horizon that will make the platform more inclusive.

November 18th 2016

15/11/2016 16:40

INTERVIEW TOTAL WAR: ARENA

Total Wargaming Sega and Creative Assembly are the first to strike a deal with the new Wargaming Alliance, bringing the World of Tanks firm’s huge free-to-play expertise to Total War: Arena. Alex Calvin reports

t GDC 2013, Sega and Creative Assembly revealed a brand new entry in the Total War series, dubbed Arena. In order to make the most of this free-to-play title, the firm has just announced a collaboration with Wargaming Alliance, a new publishing label set up by the World of Tanks creator. “We realised around a year ago that there was huge potential for Total War: Arena and that we needed to come up with a new and innovative approach to publishing it,” says Sega Europe president and COO Jurgen Post. “Wargaming had shown a keen interest in the game after playing it, also around a year ago, and we started discussions from there. Their expertise in the free=to-play market will prove an invaluable resource with regards to the success of Total War: Arena, so the thinking was quite simply, with their experience in free-to-play and their huge community of over 100m gamers, that Total War: Arena would have the best chance for success under their stewardship.” He continues: “They’ve obviously got a lot of exciting plans for the title and their aforementioned expertise should undoubtedly be beneficial to the game. They’re experts in monetisation, CRM, community handling, all within the free=to-play space, so their learnings will prove a great help.” Post says that the free-to-play market remains a tough nut to crack - but there is potential for firms like Sega. “The free-to-play market remains extremely polarised and we see that only well crafted and polished games can really take

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Total War Arena is the first title involved in Wargaming’s new Alliance label

address the missing part with external studios and that’s how we get there with Total War: Arena. Creative Assembly and the Total War franchise fit exactly in this segment for our players.” He continues: “We aim to bring Wargaming expertise, knowledge and platforms to help them enter the free-to-play market.”

advantage of this model, so we believe there is a opportunity for high quality newcomers like us, proposing a new experience with the right content,” he says. “Players may be tempted to try something built on familiar foundations, but with layers of innovation. In the end free-to-play is just a model, but the quality of your title is central to keep your community engaged and happy.” Wargaming’s new Alliance publishing label, looks to help third-party firms looking to break into the free-to-play space. “The main idea behind the launch of Wargaming Alliance is to make our players happy,” Wargaming marketing director Rahim Attaba explains. “Our goal is to give them access to a new gaming experience and new game content. This is something we can partially address internally with Wargaming games. In addition, we can

Sega’s Post (top) and Wargaming’s Attaba (above)

FUTURE ALLIANCES Wargaming Alliance’s first collaboration is with Sega, but the firm is looking to partner up with other companies going forwards. “Since we aren’t actively looking for a specific genre and really focusing on bringing a quality experience, we are happy to talk with any studios and publishers from any regions,” Attaba says. “We are bringing triple-A expertise to a very crowded market and this is going to be the main driver to any future publishing partnerships.”

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15/11/2016 16:41

THE #1 RETRO GAMING LICENSES ON THE PLANET

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08/11/2016 11:00

INTERVIEW FENIX FIRE

INDIE INTERVIEW Burn, baby, burn After being stung by the global recession, Brian McRae set up Fenix Fire. The two-person studio launched its first PC title, Osiris: New Dawn, in September. Alex Calvin asks about the changing indie scene and No Man’s Sky

ollowing a career in triple-A games such as Hunter: The Reckoning, Mortal Kombat: Deception and the cancelled StarCraft Ghost, Brian McRae decided to set up his own company. The business was working on cinematics and ended up handling projects for the likes of Sony – Uncharted 2 – and Disney – Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron. But the recession of 2008 soon ended that dream, with McRae and his wife, Anna, setting up Fenix Fire in 2010. Initially, the two-person company worked on Roboto for the iPhone, a title that shot into the iTunes Top Ten. Work for hire projects for the likes of Red Bull followed, with Fenix Fire accruing money it wanted to spend on its next big project. “There was a window in the industry. It really opened up when Thatgamecompany released Journey for PS3 – we thought you could make a game that approaches a triple-A standard as a downloadable title,” McRae says. “Up until then, Xbox and PlayStation didn’t really want indies and digital download projects to resemble triple-A projects. They wanted a clean separation. That’s why you had stuff like Braid and N+ and Castle Crashers, really 2D, really separating themselves from the triple-A stuff because they didn’t want to cannibalise sales. So all the pitches we were giving Microsoft and Sony kept getting turned down because we were looking too much like a triple-A title due to our experience. “So we were stuck. We couldn’t go down to a 2D game – we tried, it just didn’t work for us – and then we couldn’t make a triple-A game because we were a team of a few people. So as soon as Journey came out, we were like: ‘Wait a minute, you can have a character and a 3D environment and it could look really, really nice’. That cemented it for us. We put the pitch together and showed it to Microsoft and Sony and they approved the project on the spot at GDC. That process used to take months.”

Back in the day, Xbox and PlayStation didn’t really want indies and digital download games to resemble triple-A projects. Brian McRae, Fenix Fire

INDEPENDENT’S DAY Of course, indies – especially bigger indie projects - are now a large part of the platform holders’ strategy. McRae says: ”The vision

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that they had and shared with us is the downloadable title was something you played while you are waiting for your friends to jump in to play Halo.” “It has completely shifted. Now there’s this big middle class in games. It’s a good thing, everybody wins. If anyone loses, it’s the triple-A companies. I was pinching myself when we did launch Osiris onto Steam and we were No.1 in front of games like Doom and CoD. Those are companies that spent $30m to develop a game. We made our game with a team of two. Here we are outselling them. It was a great ‘we have arrived’ moment.” Fenix Fire’s latest project, sci-fi survival title Osiris: New Dawn, launched onto Early Access in September. Though the survival genre has become popular in the years following Minecraft’s success, McRae says that the decision to adopt this style of gameplay was not intentional. “We weren’t really thinking of making a survival game,” he says. “We were focusing on the subject matter. It was a case of: ‘What if in the near future you did crash land on a distant world – what would that be like?’ I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movies: Aliens, Prometheus and The Martian. What I like about what he conveyed in his sci-fi is the gritty realism and the fact that things could be bizarre and strange. “We knew there were other survival games out there. We kind of put the blinders on, so to speak, and just focused on the subject matter and try to find a way to make a game with limited resources. “We don’t have a giant budget and team that could just generate a lot of art. We knew that we couldn’t make the traditional ten or 20 level cinematic adventure. In a lot of ways, that would have been easier because you could plan things like where the camera was going to be at this point and how many enemies can spawn in a certain location. “I had made that game before, and we wanted to do something different. We wanted to find the balance between proceduralism and hand crafted design.

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15/11/2016 16:42

FENIX FIRE INTERVIEW

The survival elements of Osiris: New Dawn were inspired by realistic science fiction from film maker Ridley Scott

We wanted to play to our strengths as a company and challenge ourselves and do something that potentially hasn’t been done before. The fact we decided to go first and third-person, the fact that we decided to have a bunch of vehicles... Let’s build it with multiplayer from the ground up and have a single-player adventure. Let’s start getting some story elements in there – how can we tell a story when it’s not a linear experience? These are all things we were looking to do.” ANOTHER MAN’S SKY Of course, with its sci-fi survival-themed gameplay, comparisons have been drawn between Osiris and Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky. “I have mixed feelings about No Man’s Sky,” McRae says. “Obviously, we kept a close eye on that game and we were watching the interviews Hello did and a lot of questions came through. The team kept dodging and being ambiguous, which I don’t agree with. I feel they let people read what they wanted into it for their own benefit. It also goes back to how Microsoft and Sony didn’t want digital games to resemble triple-A. When users see adverts and footage of games

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that have spaceships flying, creatures running around and different locations, they have been conditioned from other games to have extremely rich experiences. “When they see a space ship, they assume they can get into it and fly around, it’s going to be multiplayer, they can shoot things, they can land on things and so on. Here is a creature – I know that it’s probably an AI creature, they can shoot it, it can attack them, they can tame it and ride it. Here’s a ship, maybe they can change it, alter it, modify it, customise it. “They were very deliberate about what they were showing in their marketing materials. When you have them doing that, an audience who has been conditioned to see these elements and expect the game have these features, it allowed the developers from No Man’s Sky to go along with all of that. “All they had to do – and I’m not trying to solve their problems – was to say it was a different kind of game, you just fly from planet to planet, pick up some stuff along the way, price it at $20 and it would have gone just fine.” Despite Fenix Fire starting with mobile, and seeing huge success there, McRae isn’t

interested in going back to developing for the platform. “The sun has set on mobile,” he explains. “You really do need a lot of money and user acquisition to make that work. You also need to have a big backend system in place which requires a lot of programmers and data miners. It all just comes down to the funnel of that. “On Early Access, the way that we see it is that we have some users that are playing the game, we are going to put out updates and see what they like and it’s a very honest exchange. They respond to us with forum feedback or in reviews and we answer with new content. We keep building hand-in-hand, that’s how we intend to move forward on that. Hopefully through word of mouth, then we could sell more copies and keep the party going. “On mobile, because it’s so saturated, the only way to get more users is to pay for them, or get into the top ranking. You then look at those users, data mine, update, pay for another round of user acquisition and so on. It’s almost like design by data as opposed to designing by feel. I like to design by feel. That’s why I decided to stay away from mobile.”

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15/11/2016 16:42

MARKETPLACE

SHELF LIFE

Cool Spot Gaming’s founder Rob Proietti talks about what led him to launch an online retailer, why he chose to specialise in retro titles and consoles, and how Pokémon Go has affected his business How has business been lately? Truth be told, business has been quite slow in these autumn months. That’s due to catering for more of a specialised audience on a relatively new platform, alongside the challenge of not having the traditional bricks-andmortar store. Hopefully traffic will grow around Christmas. Why focus on retro gaming? Retro gaming has been a passion since I was young. To relive these

PRE-ORDER CHARTS

varied and extensive so there’s always going to be something for everyone. This, coupled with the recent popularity surge of fan-made releases created by the community, have revived the interest. Especially after the news that Sega had added official mod support for Mega Drive games on Steam, which is really cool.

experiences brings back so much nostalgia and I imagine many feel the same way upon stumbling across old video games they hadn’t seen or played since they were kids. I want to help keep the retro community alive by providing games and merchandise of these earlier console generations. What games have you been selling particularly well? Mega Drive and Genesis games. The library for this console is very

What about hardware? Who are the best sellers? I don’t often sell hardware so

PRICE CHECK: LIVINGSTON

TOP 10 PRE-ORDERS 1. FINAL FANTASY XV DAY 1 EDITION Square Enix, PS4 2. Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System Nintendo.................................................................N/A

SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION

BATTLEFIELD 1 CALL OF DUTY: INFINITE WARFARE

3. Horizon Zero Dawn Sony.........................................................................PS4

EA, PS4

FIFA 17

Bethesda, XO

EA, XO

£54.99

£49.99

£34.99

6. The Last Guardian Sony.........................................................................PS4

£44.99

£45.99

£37.99

£48.99

£41.99

£44.99

£34.99

£43.65

£41.99

£42

£34

£50.96

£47.56

£41.31

7. Pokemon Sun Nintendo............................................................... 3DS 8. Pokemon Moon Nintendo............................................................... 3DS 9. Nintendo Switch Console Nintendo.................................................................N/A 10. Mass Effect Andromeda EA ................................................................................ EA

UPLOADING The latest digital releases coming to market

THE LITTLE ACRE

I EXPECT YOU TO DIE

WEREWOLVES WITHIN

The hand-drawn point-and-click is due to hit PS4, Xbox One and PC

Schell Games’ VR title launches in December for PSVR and Oculus Rift

Ubisoft’s family VR title will be available on PSVR, Rift and Vive

OUT: NOVEMBER 22ND

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ONLINE

Activision Blizzard, PS4

5. Persona 5: Collectors Deep Silver...........................................................PS4

IN STORE

4. Watch Dogs 2 Ubisoft ....................................................................PS4

OUT: DECEMBER

OUT: DECEMBER 6TH

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MARKETPLACE

Cool Spot Gaming Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire

Website: www.coolspotgaming.co.uk Email: info@coolspotgaming.co.uk Facebook: /coolspotgaming Twitter: @CoolSpotGaming

much, but when I do, it’s definitely got to be the handhelds such as Game Boys. Some people say the demand is much lower since the popularity for tablets has grown over recent years. But there’s always demand for such classic consoles; especially since Pokémon has been storming the media lately. What are your expectations for the end of the year?

For the end of the year, I would like to increase my customer base and continue to meet great people along the way. I’d love to hear people’s ideas or requests. I’m constantly tweaking, fine-tuning and making improvements as each day goes by. As well as this, I hope to build upon my new exciting and original product ideas I have in the pipeline. It’s all such an interesting journey.

INCOMING TITLE

WANT TO FEATURE YOUR OUTLET IN MCV? Contact mdealessandri@nbmedia.com or call 02038 894900

Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations make the leap to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the form of The Ezio Collection FORMAT

GENRE

PUBLISHER

TELEPHONE

DISTRIBUTOR

Assassins Creed The Ezio Collection

PS4/XO

Action adventure

Ubisoft

01279 822 822

Exertis

Killing Floor 2

PS4

FPS

Deep Silver

01256 385 200

Koch Media

November 18th

LEGO Dimensions Gremlins Team Pack

Toys-to-life

Warner Bros

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

LEGO Dimensions Sonic Level Pack

Toys-to-life

Warner Bros

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

LEGO Dimensions Fantastic Beasts Pack

Toys-to-life

Warner Bros

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

LEGO Dimensions ET Fun Pack

Toys-to-life

Warner Bros

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

PS4/XO/PC

RPG

PQube

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition

PS4/XO

Action adventure

THQ Nordic

01279 822 822

Exertis

We Sing

PS4/XO

Karaoke

We Sing Productions 01216 253 388

CentreSoft

3DS

RPG

Nintendo

Open

Yesterday Origins November 22nd

November 23rd Pokémon Sun & Moon

01753 483700

November 25th Rugby Union Team Manager 2017

Management sim

Alternative

01977 555 000

Open

Steins;Gate 0

PS4/Vita

Visual novel

PQube

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

Theme Park Studio (VR)

Simulation

Soedesco

01902 861 527

Pavillion

PS4/XO

RPG

Square Enix

01216 253 388

CentreSoft

November 29th Final Fantasy XV December 2nd 7th Dragon III

3DS

RPG

Deep Silver

01256 385 200

Koch Media

Steep

PS4/XO/PC

Sports

Ubisoft

01279 822 822

Exertis

Super Mario Maker

3DS

Family

Nintendo

01753 483700

Open

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15/11/2016 16:45

ASSASSIN’S CREED

ASSASSIN’S CREED As The Ezio Collection hits shelves and fans eagerly await the Assassin’s Creed movie, Marie Dealessandri checks out the best merchandise from Ubisoft’s most popular IP

FOR the first time since 2009’s Assassin’s Creed 2, a new entry in the series is not part of Ubisoft’s end of year line-up. Instead, Watch Dogs 2 will be released in this slot in the schedule. Speaking to MCV last week, sales director Darren Bowen said: “Assassin’s Creed has been a fantastic seller for Ubisoft, and really important to the market every year, but make no mistake, Watch Dogs 2 will certainly fill the gap this year. We are very

Assassin’s Creed has been a fantastic seller for Ubisoft and really important to the market every year.

fortunate to have such a strong and varied line-up so we don’t have to rely on just one franchise.” But fans shouldn’t worry too much, as there will still be plenty of Assassin’s Creed to enjoy in the coming months. Bowen continued: “For those who need Assassin’s Creed every year – and there are a huge number of people – they will still be able to purchase a great triple pack which covers the most-loved period of Assassin’s Creed.”

ASSASSIN’S CREED THE EZIO COLLECTION - COLLECTOR’S CASE The Ezio Collection has its own collector’s edition, which treat fans with an exclusive bust of Ezio in his black Master Assassin outfit. It also includes three prints, the soundtrack, a collector’s box and, well, the games: Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed Revelations. SRP: £64.99 Manufacturer: Ubisoft Distributor: Exertis Contact: 01279 822 822

ASSASSIN’S CREED MONOPOLY

ASSASSIN’S CREED – A WALK THROUGH HISTORY (1189-1868)

POP! GAMES: ASSASSIN’S CREED – EZIO

Play as Altaïr, Ezio, Aveline, Connor or Edward in this Monopoly special edition.

Written for teen readers, this book is a guide to the historical periods depicted in the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Altaïr, Arno, Jacob and Evie Frye are also available in Funko Pop figures form.

SRP: £29.99 Manufacturer: Winning Moves Distributor: Winning Moves Contact: 02072989507

SRP: $9.09 (£7) Manufacturer: Scholastic Distributor: Scholastic UK Contact: 020 7756 7756

SRP: £12.99 Manufacturer: Funko Distributor: Underground Toys Contact: kenny@underground-toys.com

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ASSASSIN’S CREED