Welcome back to another roundup of business stories relating to MMOs – or adjacent to them. Adjacentness!
Funcom: The Norwegian MMO company will be participating in the newly announced Guerilla Collective, a “new online digital games festival to reveal fresh announcements, trailers, gameplay and more from some of the hottest developers and publishers around the world.” The event runs June 6th through 8th.
XLGAMES: MMO Culture has a brief report up on XLGAMES, which is apparently hiring for a new MMORPG project based in UE4 and localized in English. Despite claims on another site that shall remain nameless, we have absolutely no proof whatsoever that ArcheAge 2 is the game, though that sure would be awesome.
Elder Scrolls 6: Get comfy in Elder Scrolls Online, folks, because Bethsoft’s Pete Hines has said outright that Elder Scrolls 6 is queued up behind Starfield, which isn’t even close to ready. “It’s after Starfield, which you pretty much know nothing about,” he tweeted. “So if you’re coming at me for details now and not years from now, I’m failing to properly manage your expectations.”
PlayStation 5: No, the PS5 isn’t launching in October. The rumor got started when a job ad for Sony said it would, but Sony Japan has since said that was a “mistake in the recruitment site,” not the real date.
PlayStation Studios: This’d be the rather unimaginative but wholly accurate new name for Sony’s PlayStation games brand.
Ubisoft Forward: Ubisoft is moving ahead with its own “E3-style showcase” in digital format, on the evening of July 12th. The press release doesn’t mention any specific games, however.
Tokyo Game Show: The September run for the Tokyo Game Show has now been officially called off by organizers CESA and Nikkei, one more canceled event to lay at the feet of the COVID-19 pandemic. A digital event will replace the physical one.
ChinaJoy: At least one gaming con will go on, as Chinese industry reps have announced that ChinaJoy in Shanghai won’t be canceled and will indeed run in its planned July/August slot. ChinaJoy is basically the Gamescom of China, for those not aware, though this year’s will come with a slew of pandemic-inspired changes, including spaced-out booths and temperature checks. We’ll see whether that holds up.
Politics in games, literally: Politicians are apparently looking once again to online games as campaign spaces. Politico reports that Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s advisors have contemplated using something like the concerts in Fortnite for the convention or other campaign events.
Sportsball: Remember that time a few years back when we realized NCsoft has a baseball team in South Korea? It’s still true. This week, NCwest itself tweeted about the NC Dinos, which is being shown on ESPN here in the US in light of the pandemic’s impact on local sports. The fans, you guys. The fans are my favorite part of this. They said the pandemic would change life forever, but nobody ever mentioned gigantic cardboard sports fans.
Take me out to the ball game as our very own baseball team, the NC Dinos, barrel it up on @ESPN. Catch the next game on ESPN2 at 2:30 AM PT or the rebroadcast at 11:30 AM PT! @NCdinos_fan pic.twitter.com/dnHB9AYPxR
— NCSOFT (@NCSOFT_West) May 11, 2020
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