It was a big week for video game company financials: We heard from Blizzard, NCsoft, Nexon, Kakao, Square-Enix, and even Funcom, which says it’s already recouped its costs for Conan Exiles, so it’s smooth sailing (and good news for the studio) from here on out. Now, if only we could get some Secret World news…
Meanwhile, both Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 pushed out major content updates — the former introducing the wildly anticipated housing-themed Homestead patch, the latter rolling out Head of the Snake, episode four of its third season of living story.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Tamriel Infinium: Four reasons Elder Scrolls Online’s Homestead tops other MMO housing - [AL:ESO]Traditionally, in this Tamriel Infinium column, I have been extremely critical of The Elder Scrolls Online, and I promise you, I'm sure I'll lob criticism at the game in the future…
NCsoft 4Q 2016: Record sales, WildStar’s fate, Lineage Eternal launch - On the surface, fourth quarter 2016 financials for MMORPG giant NCsoft look solid. Yesterday, the company released its investor report, highlighting hefty year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth in sales and operating…
Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s The Head of the Snake - [AL:GW2]If you're reading this, then the poor ArenaNet team has finally managed to battle the crazy weather and pressed the big red button: The Living World season 3's fourth installment…
Working As Intended: Two decades of Elder Scrolls housing - Massively OP explores Elder Scrolls housing through the ages -- starting with Daggerfall, running through Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and ending with Elder Scrolls Online's Homestead patch, live today.
Elder Scrolls Online’s Homestead expansion is live on PC - [AL:ESO]You may have forgotten all about it in the wacky Morrowind hype whirlwind that was last week, but ZeniMax has officially rolled out the Homestead patch for Elder Scrolls Online PC…
Conan Exiles has already sold 320K copies, ‘all costs recouped’ - Funcom has just announced what appears to be excellent news for investors and gamers alike: Conan Exiles has sold 320,000 copies worldwide -- that's net sales, which excludes refunds and…
Five reasons behind the failure of Hero’s Song - In July of 2015, MMORPG fans were stunned to hear that John Smedley was stepping down from his post as president of Daybreak. After all, he had been in the…
Black Desert’s western launch helped Kakao’s games division have a great 2016 - Kakao is a major company in South Korea with over 5000 employees and its fingers in many pies, from a major instant messaging app and taxi service to online music…
Elder Scrolls Online fansite leaks epic Morrowind images and lore - [AL:ESO]If you were sad as I was that The Elder Scrolls Online's Homestead housing patch this past week didn't offer much for the provincial Morrowind fan, take heart: ZeniMax was…
Valve sunsets Steam Greenlight, proposes dev submission fees to ‘decrease the noise’ - Valve is determined to keep itself in the news this weekend, apparently: Yesterday, the company announced it's shutting down the Steam Greenlight platform. That's no big deal; Greenlight's been a…
Valve is working on three VR titles, feeling effects of travel ban - Valve's Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson have confirmed that the company is working on a trio of VR-centric games, not cheapie experiments but full-scale games built in Unity and its…
WoW Factor: Examining World of Warcraft’s 7.2 update - Patch 7.2 is the first real content patch that we've gotten for World of Warcraft post-Legion. Obviously, 7.1 wasn't devoid of content, but it was far more a patch about…
EverQuesting: Ten things to do in Landmark before it’s gone - T minus 11 days and counting. That's all the time Landmark has left. That's not a lot of time. If you haven't built all your intricate ideas yet, chances are…
FOnline: Reloaded brings classic Fallout gameplay to the online space - Do you have a hankering for classic Fallout gameplay, but with a whole lot of your friends hanging around at the same time? The good news is that you can…
Blizzard launcher beefs up Facebook integration - Blizzard really, really wants its game launcher to be best friends with your Facebook account. The studio has introduced a new version of the beta launcher that beefs up and adds…
Activision-Blizzard Q4 2016: Record quarter for Blizzard thanks to World of Warcraft and Overwatch - Activision-Blizzard's quarterly financial reports have gotten boring since the companies decided to stop reporting World of Warcraft subscribers in 2015, am I right? But in this case, boring is good.…
Perfect Ten: Ranking MMORPG combat pets, from best to worst - It's an objectively known fact that Warhammer Online's squigs were the peak of MMORPG pet design and functionality. Giant balls of attitude and appetite with a mouth to match, squigs…
Best Buy is pulling Oculus demo stations - The best hope for VR headsets to move units is indisputably in the field of demonstrations. That's really always been the hope that the technology has relied upon, that if…
Guild Wars 2 AMA: DPS meters, PAX East, raiding, and insider trading - [AL:GW2]Following the launch of Guild Wars 2's Head of the Snake episode yesterday -- a day late, but fully intact! -- 21 members of the ArenaNet live team sat for…
Choose My Adventure: LOTRO in hindsight, WildStar ahead - [AL:LOTRO]Writing about Lord of the Rings Online is an odd experience for me because the reality is pretty simple: I don't like the game very much. But it's not really…
Square-Enix saw MMO profits from FFXIV and FFXI dip in 2016 - [AL:FFXIV]Now is the time for all good companies to report profits and losses for the previous year, and at first glance Square-Enix's report looks pretty rosy. What looks less happy…
World of Warcraft devs on droughts, team size, and lessons learned - Gamespot has a new interview out with four members of the "300 strong" World of Warcraft live team this week, and while the quartet bring up micro-holidays -- kind of a…
Overwatch team lobbies against using a mouse and keyboard on its console versions - If everyone can't have it, no one should. That's the stance that Blizzard is taking when it comes to using a mouse and keyboard to play Overwatch on consoles, as…
WoW tokens are now redeemable for Battlenet cash - Blizzard is tweaking World of Warcraft's WoW Token currency in a big way. "Today, the goblins of Bilgewater Cartel are introducing a new way to use the WoW Token. Now,…
Star Wars: The Old Republic offers players more than a month of massive XP boosts - [AL:TOR]So you've got some alts in Star Wars: The Old Republic who haven't yet reached the level cap. You also have a lot more Galactic Command experience to farm, and…
Frontier hints at new game based off a movie franchise - Frontier Entertainment (Planet Coaster, Elite Dangerous) is brewing up something new in its game labs -- but what could it be? Gamasutra reports that the studio briefly announced to the…
Conan Exiles hits 50K concurrent players, switches hosting to GameServers - Last week, Funcom announced that it was parting ways with PingPerfect as the dedicated host for both official and player-run Conan Exiles servers, and indeed, the official servers stopped operating…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 103: Back to Morrowind
The Stream Team: ARK’s night is dark and full of dinos (to eat)
The Stream Team: Conan Exiles’ killer crocs and ferocious fowl
The Stream Team: Racing to see Landmark builds
The Stream Team: Checking out SMITE Tactics’ Chinese pantheon plus giveaway
The Stream Team: Heading to SWTOR’s Asylum
The Stream Team: The quest to find the perfect Elder Scrolls Online house
The Stream Team: So many Landmark builds…
The Stream Team: House hunting in Elder Scrolls Online Homestead
The Stream Team: Bringing out the Beast in Marvel Heroes
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Would you play Heroes of the Storm for a WoW mount?
WoW’s Love is in the Air: Farming the Big Love Rocket
Do WoW Tokens change how you play?
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
