The events of the year

The events of the year

It's time to go through the most significant events of 2018 and recall everything that left its mark in the world of video games.

Gambling summarizes the results of the year: the best games of 2018!

The invasion of royal battles

In 2017, royal battles pretty shook the game industry. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds It seemed like out of nowhere and immediately began to set a record behind the record, which we talked about in past results. But, as it turned out, this was only the first wave. The second hit in 2018 and covered everyone with her head.

Fortnite: Battle Royale , which fans and even the creators of PUBG accused of plagiarism, already in February overtook her inspirer in monthly revenue. In March, the game had forty -five million registered users, and a month later Fortnite jumped Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds for money, and by the number of accounts. According to analysts SuperData , By July, the project earned more than a billion dollars. In November, the number of users reached two hundred millions, and the cost of the company Epic Games , According to estimates Bloomberg , at the moment is about eight and a half billion dollars.

Fortnite in 2018 was everywhere and everywhere. She became the most popular game on Twitch, even overtaking League of Legends , I received seven awards, including two “golden joysticks” and two figurines The Game Awards. In love for her, sport and show business stars were recognized-for example, the directors of the film "Avengers: Infinity War" Rousseau brothers. By the way, it was according to their recommendations that Tanos appeared in the game along with his glove. Sometimes it comes to the point of absurdity: in the States, especially caring parents hire their children of Fortnite tutors so that the offspring can boast of the familiar high skill.

The influence of the brainchild of Epic Games on the industry is difficult to overestimate. Large companies made sure that the Battleroils, if not the future, then the next couple of years, and now the Royal Battle of Royal’s Battle of Games has been introducing. Mode Blackout already working in full swing in Red Dead Redemption 2 And Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 , And very soon his analogues will appear in Battlefield v.

As always, not everyone has time to jump on the outgoing train. For example, Vostok Games , The creators of the multiplayer action movie Survarium , They released a shooter almost nowhere Fear The Wolves. And the failure of the royal battle Radical Heights finally finished off the studio Boss Key Productions , The authors are unhappy Lawbreakers. In this regard, its founder Cliff Blazinski announced that he was leaving the game industry.

How long will the dominance of the battles and to what scale it will reach, it is not easy to predict. But now this is the main trend, and you need to reckon with it.

New competitors Steam

And the incredible success of Fortnite has pretty much helped Epic Games in the implementation of a long -standing idea – launching its own store Epic Games Store. It opened recently, in early December, but has already managed to get quite remarkable exclusives nearby: Hades From the studio Supergiant Games , Super Meat Boy Forever , Ashen From the publisher Annapurna Interactive and the coming PC port of the famous Journey. And in September he launched his store and Discord. There is a high chance that in the near future more and more independent developers will prefer these sites.

Firstly, with many studios, Epic Games has already managed to establish a relationship thanks to its engine Unreal Engine , which she provides on fairly favorable conditions. As for Discord, a huge base of users plays a decisive role – about two hundred million accounts.

Secondly, as a fee for the publication, Epic Games Store requests twelve percent of sales, and Discord Store is only ten. And this is against the Stemovsky thirty!

Well, thirdly, herself Valve obviously gives preference to large companies, not indie developers. More recently, she significantly reduced the fee for successful projects. Filling five percent begins with earnings of ten million dollars, another five percent can not be paid after fifty million. Obviously, small teams cannot count on such results. In addition, a long -standing problem with overpopulation Steam it will not be decided in any way, so new sites will be very useful to developers.

Does this mean that Steam in the coming years will lose its influence? Of course, no. But the competition among gaming stores oriented on a PC will increase. And for the industry, competition is always useful.

Sony against everyone

And a little more about Fortnite: Battle Royale. In June, a large scandal erupted because of it, which could have long-term consequences. When the game went to Switch , All users who have switched to a portable from a version for PS4 , It was surprised to find that they need to create a new account. It turned out that Sony The only one did not want to introduce the full support of cross -platform gameplay. The company claimed that this is not technically, but this statement was quickly refuted by experts.

The players began to press on Sony Interactive Entertainment on social networks, and the news of the scandal quickly scattered through the media, and not only by profile. All this went on for several months, until at the end of September the corporation still surrendered and entered the crossplane into Fortnite, promising to introduce it for other online games, like Rocket League. For the company that is famous for love for exclusivity and isolation, this is a big and serious step.

The best year PS4

However, the rest for PlayStation it was an extremely successful year. The console received the most powerful line of exclusives in the entire history of the current generation. I went out in April God of War , which received 94 points for Metacritic And in the first three days she parted three million and one hundred thousand copies. For five months, the slasher wore the title of the most rapidly -issued exclusive Sony until the release took place Marvel’s Spider-Man From the studio Insomniac Games. He took a bar of three million and three hundred thousand copies in three days and was also very warmly met by critics.

And do not forget about Detroit: Become Human from Quantic Dream. Let me get to at least two million, it took her as much as six months, it is still success.

Microsoft buys studios

Microsoft has not yet been able to boast of such indicators. However, in the coming years, many successful games may come out of its wing. At the exhibition E3 Phil Spencer announced that the company to the maximum strengthened its game unit and takes patronage over a number of studios. In its composition Ninja Theory , Famous by DMC: Devil May Cry , Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and last year Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice , Creators We Happy Few – Compulsion Games , Authors State of Decay – Undead Labs , PlayGround Games , Responsible for Forza Horizon , as well as masters of old -time role -playing games – Inxile Entertainment And Obsidian Entertainment. The selection is very impressive, so we are waiting for fresh announcements.

Cyberpunk 2077 show

And it is at Microsoft conference CD Projekt Red showed the first video in five years Cyberpunk 2077 – one of the most anticipated games next year. Unless, of course, the Poles have time to finish it for 2019. And at the end of August, the developers even presented almost an hour of gameplay. In just two days, the video collected more than six million views on YouTube, and at the moment this figure exceeds twelve million.

At the exhibition Gamescom 2018 It became known that at least the main storyline of Cyberpunk 2077 can already go from beginning to end. But the Poles still have a lot of work ahead, and it would be better for them not to rush. According to financial analysts, the fate of CD Projekt depends on the success of the project. Too much time and money spent on it. If Cyberpunk 2077 does not surpass or at least not repeat the results of the third "Witcher" , For the company, this will be a serious blow. So we hold fists for the Poles and are waiting for new details about the game.

Closing TELLTALE Games

The most sad event of 2018 was the unexpected closure of the studio Telltale Games. Of course, an alarming calls were heard for a long time: last year, information about bad conditions, reduction and regular delays in the company was received in the company. However, few expected that in September, right in the middle of the final season The Walking Dead , She will simply cease to exist. Of course, there was something to criticize the studio games: a boring visual style, the monotony of gameplay, linear plots with the illusion of choice. But at the same time, they had their own devoted audience, and such projects as Tales from the borderlands And The Wolf Among Us , were very loved by critics.

However, in good sales, this, apparently, was not converted. One day two hundred Telltale employees lost their jobs. The remaining twenty -five for a couple of months fined a simplified version Minecraft: Story Mode For stream service Netflix , After which the studio finally ceased its existence.

Although ultimately it ended not so bad. Immediately after the key to closing, many large companies – for example, Sony Santa Monica And Ubisoft – They announced that they would be happy to accept former Telltale employees in their ranks. And the developers will finish the last two episodes of The Walking Dead already under the wing Skybound Entertainment. But we still have a damn insulting that the era of interactive series from Telltale studio was so inglorious ..

Diablo Immortal announcement on BlizzCon

And we are also offended for Blizzard , Which after the recent BlizzCon became the object of real popular hatred. At the exhibition, the company announced Remaster Warcraft III , as well as many updates for their projects, but another game was in the center of universal https://sister-site.org/richprize-casino/ attention – Diablo Immortal , Mobile spin-off series from the Chinese studio Netease Games. And it seems that nothing seditious in the trailer was shown. Well, yes, Hack_nʼslash for smartphones, yes, according to a well -known license and from a third -party developer. Eka Nonvidal.

But the time for the announcement was chosen, perhaps, extremely unsuccessful. The project was presented in the very final of the opening ceremony, and besides, a separate hall was allocated for it. Fans were waiting Diablo IV , Remaster Diablo II or at least an addition for Diablo III , but definitely not a mobile game! The disappointment was so great that the developers were boiled right in the hall, and during the session of questions and answers they asked them whether this was not a rally. Currently, Diablo Immortal’s cinematic and gameplay trailers in a combination of less than fifty thousand likes and more.

And this is despite the fact that game journalists who managed to feel the project on BlizzCon, almost in the same way, claim that it is felt as a full -fledged one – well, maybe slightly simplified – version of Diablo. That is, he is any better than some mobile craft. But the audience is no longer convinced. Well, we will wait for the release and see how the players will meet it.

Meanwhile in Russia

But for our game and near -play industry, 2018 will most likely be remembered by a clumsy quantity, excuse me, game. Absurd and ridiculous stories were plenty of, one is more delightful than the other.

In April, Roskomnadzor tried to block the messenger Telegram. This attempt was not only unsuccessful, but also destructive: due to the general blocking of IP addresses, users lost access to servers for several days Gran Turismo Sport , Pubg, Fortnite, Guild Wars 2 , Vainglory , Splatoon 2 , Battlefield 1 , Total War: Arena , For Honor , The Division , And also PlayStation Network. The work of almost all games and services was restored quite quickly (although individual users are still complaining about failures), however, many law-abiding companies have suffered damage in the amount of two billion dollars due to interruptions. Is it worth it to remind you that Telegram itself in Russia is still working properly?

Then, in October, the next day after the tragedy in Kerch, State Duma deputy Yevgeny Marchenko, as well as the Vesti FM radio station, tried to dump responsibility for the pernicious influence of the video game. In particular, the “Internet Expert” Philip Gross Gross Dneprov on the show on the show of Vladimir Solovyov talked about a certain “Dock 2” – an ultra -bore game that Russian teenagers are allegedly carried away, and in which there is a weapon, which allows “to pull out the guts for ten ten minutes”. The non -existent (of course) project immediately became a meme, and the Dnieper itself turned into an object of ridicule in social networks.

Well, in November, a rather loud scandal erupted, which was the defendant of the Nintendo Russia CEO Yasha Haddazh. The fourteenth day on the SaveninTendo YouTube channel appeared with fragments of broadcasting the LEVEL Up Days event, which took place in Moscow in the summer of 2017. In the video, Haddazhi right during Stream screams at the employee, threatens to dismiss him, and also insults him in Russian and English. A petition was applied to the video with a demand to remove the head of Nintendo Russia from the post due to his unprofessionalism and regular humiliation of subordinates. At the moment it was signed by more than seven thousand people. The history was immediately picked up by the media, both Russian and foreign, and not only game. Already on November seventeen, the main office of Nintendo said that he would conduct an internal investigation against Yasha Haddazhi. Its results are still unknown, but we hope that ultimately the atmosphere in the Russian branch of Big N will not become as toxic as rumors go.

Fallout 76 failure

However, the leading of the number of negativity this year unequivocally holds Bethesda With your first loud failure – Fallout 76. That's who angered almost all the gamers of the world!

At the announcement stage, everything did not look so bad: a multi -user Fallout with construction mechanics from a fourth part, a full -fledged PVP and many quests that can be performed with friends and complete loneliness. On E3, Todd Howard said that all employees of the main and third -party Bethesda studios participate in the development, that the technical performance will be on top, and the old engine will play with new colors. In the end, Howard promised that he would have fun. But no.

Issue Fallout 76 turned into a full disaster. The game slowed down and flew out on all systems, the number of bugs was incredible even by the standards of Bethesda, and muddy textures and crooked lighting were cut the eye. At the same time, the game itself turned out to be frankly bad. For MMO there are too few functionality in it, there are almost no group activities and any incentive to work in the team. And as a full -fledged Fallout, it should not even be considered – there is neither a plot, nor fascinating quests, nor an explanatory role system.

And in order to completely ruin the reputation, Bethesda also refused to return money for the game dissatisfied users, reacted terribly to error messages and even deceived the buyers of an expensive collectible publication – instead of the military bags of a military model, they got plastic bags. All this, of course, was reflected in the sales of the game. According to analysts NPD Group , They are significantly lagging behind the indicators and Fallout 4 , And Fallout: New Vegas.

Alas, the failure of Fallout 76 We will not forget for a long time, no matter how hard we try. This is definitely one of the main events of the year. We only hope that ultimately on the game industry in general and the Bethesda company in particular it will have a positive effect.

That's all the events that stirred the game industry over the past twelve months. And what do you remember 2018?

Gambling summarizes the results of the year: the best games of 2018!