Welcome back to another roundup of MMO – and MMO-adjacent – industry news!
Guild Wars 2: If you’ve been bummed about Guild Wars 2’s pandemic-times content episodes and their lack of voice recording, your troubles are soon coming to an end. ArenaNet announced last night that the “voice over actors are back in the studio,” presumably recording their old dialogue and hopefully new stuff too.
#GuildWars2 voice over actors are back in the studio. Thanks for the look behind the scenes, @Julie_Nathanson! pic.twitter.com/xZ6HIbYzjK
— Guild Wars 2 (@GuildWars2) September 10, 2020
EVE Online: CCP Games will join ArenaNet as one of the handful of MMORPG companies raising awareness for suicide prevention month. The studio has a timeline of events over the next week all aimed at discussing mental health.
“We are all currently experiencing turbulent times that demand changes to the way we each conduct our daily lives. Many are facing new and unexpected challenges, experiencing grief or self-isolation. It is more important than ever to let as many people as possible know that they are not alone. There are specialized hotlines around the world that operate 24/7, so if you are having suicidal thoughts, feeling overwhelmed with your life or just need somebody to talk to, then please dial the number for your country and share what’s on your mind with a professional. At CCP, we take all reports regarding intentions of self-harm very seriously and have internal procedures to ensure a lightning fast response, as well as swift contact with local law enforcement.”
Roblox: The studio behind Roblox has launched a new online class series dubbed “digital civility” that’s meant to teach participants about online safety tips, confronting cyberbullying, and coding. Yes, all of those things across six sessions. To be honest, it’s a helluva good idea.
PUBG: Remember last year when India banned PUBG and actually arrested some players of the game in one province under the faulty premise that the game was causing violent behavior? Fortunately, that ban was temporary. But the latest ban in India isn’t, as the country claims to be cracking down on games and apps flying the Chinese flag, including those under Tencent’s broad umbrella. PUBG Corp is making efforts to evade that ban by removing Tencent as the publisher and running the game itself. It’s not clear whether this will work, of course, since Tencent still owns a slice of PUBG Corp’s parent company (Krafton/Bluehole), but it’s certainly clever.
GG: It doesn’t look as if the creators of the new TV show called GG are going to be getting any good sportsmanship awards. The just-announced show will apparently follow a fictional lady who joins an esports team and tries to break into an unfriendly industry. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the exact premise of Good Game, the 2017 Michele Morrow and Jesse Cox comedy series that ran for one season before being canceled. You might laugh that off as a coincidence but for the fact that both Morrow and Cox called the show out on Twitter specifically because the showrunners met with Morrow and were plainly aware of the earlier show.
Fucked up.
To note: They called me & invited me to a dinner to “talk esports”, but when I told them about our show they said, “oh that’s YOUR show? Oh okay, well nvm about the dinner & we will call you once we’re further along in our story.”
They’ve seen it & are well aware 😒— Michele Morrow (@michelemorrow) September 10, 2020
This might just be most interesting thing that’s happened in esports all year. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
