The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 30

Capcom has suffered another serious information breach, as details of its upcoming game release schedule up to the end of 2024 have been posted online.

It follows a cache of documents posted earlier this week which revealed details on more imminently-available games due within the next few months, as well as source code and plans for handling relationships with streamers. Nine items of employee personal data were also included.

As before, this new information comes from a ransomware attack which breached Capcom's servers and obtained an enormous amount of sensitive information. Capcom has acknowledged the attack and is now working with law enforcement agencies.

The widely-reported list of upcoming games includes numerous unannounced projects, and a Resident Evil game in some form or another each year until 2024. Capcom fans have excitedly pointed to a Dragon's Dogma sequel being on the release list, as well as plans for remakes of classic games such as Final Fight and Power Stone. And, less surprisingly, there's mention of Street Fighter 6.

It's worth remembering this list may already be outdated (it comes from a document dated to earlier this year), and that future game projects reliably change/get delayed/disappear entirely long before they're ever ready to be announced to the public.

Regardless, it's another disastrous moment for Capcom and an incredibly worrying sight for current and former employees who remain concerned their own personal details might be posted online next.

Capcom previously said it feared up to 350,000 items of personal information could be held by the ransomware attackers, including addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and photos.

The company has said it is now "contacting individuals whose information it has verified to have been compromised to explain the background of this incident and current situation", though an IGN report last night included comments from staff at one former studio - Capcom Vancouver - who believed their details are at risk but who said they had not been contacted so far.

"Capcom would once again like to reiterate its deepest apologies for any complications or concerns caused by this incident," the company said in a statement earlier this week. "As a company that handles digital content, it is regarding this incident with the utmost seriousness. In order to prevent the reoccurrence of such an event, it will endeavour to further strengthen its management structure while pursuing legal options regarding criminal acts such as unauthorised access of its networks."

The fate of Marvel’s Avengers remains somewhat uncertain as Square Enix is being rather forthright with how disappointing the game has been from a sales perspective so far.

In a recently translated investor briefing (via IGN), Square Enix president Yosuke Matsude makes no bones about it, and says that had Avengers not been released in the quarter, the company would have made a profit. And past that, he confirms that in addition to being responsible for a loss for the company, the game has not even made back its development costs:

"In addition to the amortization of that game’s development costs," Matsuda said, "another significant factor associated with the title was the fact that we undertook a major advertising campaign at the time of its launch to make up for delays in our marketing efforts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a certain amount of development costs still to be amortized in 3Q, but we want to recoup it by growing our sales going forward."

The idea now, Matsude says, is to essentially pull a No Man’s Sky by releasing “ample additional content” for free. That begins with a new hero, Kate Bishop, who arrives December 8 along with new missions and a new villain. There are announced plans for Hawkeye to arrive in early 2021 along with Maestro, and unannounced plans for many, many more heroes including Black Panther, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Winter Soldier, War Machine and more, according to datamines.

The question is…can Avengers pull this off? And how much time and money will Square Enix continue to devote to it in order to make this happen? A key difference between what happened with No Man’s Sky was that it was a small studio without investors to answer to, so Hello Games simply went heads down and pumped out huge content updates for years. But Square Enix may not have as much patience, and Marvel may not enjoy its license being used for a “failed” game, so it seems possible the plug may be pulled well before the “years” of content Avengers has planned can come to fruition.

I do not think it was the best idea to have the first post-launch hero be Kate Bishop. Though I believe the initial plan was supposed to be for Bishop, Hawkeye and Black Panther all to be out this year before the game had to be fixed after launch and everything was pushed back in part due to COVID and California wildfire evacuations. But Bishop is a relatively unknown name, and while I agree Avengers needs another female hero, it’s easy to see how someone more known like Captain Marvel or She-Hulk would have been a better pick. Or at the very least, launch Hawkeye before Kate.

I am not giving up on Avengers, even if I am one of the last people saying that. I am genuinely excited to play with Kate because Crystal Dynamics has done such a good job with these character kits that I have to imagine she’s going to be a lot of fun.

In a perfect world, a year from now we would have six new Avengers to play with and the game doubles its sales as players hear the game is good now and it reignites interest. But we do not live in a perfect world and as such, I remain very fearful for the overall fate of this game.

In 2015, Osaka-based game company SNK was acquired by Chinese investors. Now, it seems, the company has new investors.

Eikichi Kawasaki originally founded the company in 1978 as Shin Nihon Kikaku. Famous for its hardware and fighting games, the company became a giant in the Japanese gaming industry. At Esaka Station in Osaka, where the SNK headquarters used to be, there were signs in its heyday announcing that the location was the home of SNK.

However, in 2000, the company was acquired by a pachinko company and then found its iconic characters farmed out to pachinko machines. By 2015, a Chinese joint venture had acquired SNK, hoping to turn the company into a multimedia juggernaut. The acquisition made sense as SNK games had long been popular in China.

During the period, a NeoGeo Mini and a massive NeoGeo stick were released as well as a new entry in the Samurai Shodown series and a CG animated King of Fighters movie. Plus, Terry Bogard came to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, while a 1992 Neo Geo game also had “Taiwan” removed.

Now according to South Korean news sites EDaily and Bloter (via tipster Sang), a Saudi Arabian company called Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC) has now acquired a stake in SNK. This news has not been confirmed by SNK, and Kotaku has reached out for comment.

Electronic Gaming Development Company, reports Bloter, is own wholly owned by the MiSK Foundation, which was founded by Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. In the past few years, the Crown Prince has become highly controversial because, as NPR reports, he acknowledged responsibility for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi as it happened under his watch. According to a United Nations report, Saudi officials killed and dismembered Khashoggi, a critic of the country’s government, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Previously, the majority stake in SNK was owned by Hong Kong-based Zuikaku Co., Limited, which owned 33.16 percent of SNK’s shares. Perfect World, China’s third-largest game company, owns 18.23 percent, while, while yet another Hong Kong entity owns the remaining 6.6 percent.

Electronic Gaming Development Company will purchase 28.8 percent of Zuikaku’s stake, a total of 6.06 million shares. After three months, the Saudi Arabian company has the option to purchase more shares, including Perfect World’s stake.

The reason why these reports broke through Korean sources is that even though SNK is based in Osaka and the company’s owners are in China, the game maker is listed on the Kosdaq, South Korea’s stock trading exchange.

On November 27 2020 04:29 Manit0u wrote:
I don't even know what they were expecting with this title. It looks like run of the mill mobile game, which is not very encouraging, but the worst part of it is the timing - after the End Game the superhero genre hype has died down quite a bit. I guess it wasn't really possible and everyone is smart in retrospect but to me for this game to have any chance of being a big success (even if for a bit) it would have to be released before A:EG and have some story ties to it as that would generate a lot of buzz in and of itself and drive initial sales.

Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most highly anticipated video games of the past decade, has already been delayed three times. Employees at CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind the game, have reportedly been required to work long hours, including six-day weeks, for more than a year. The practice is called “crunch” in the video game industry, and it is sadly all too common.

It’s also something that the leadership at CD Projekt Red said wasn’t going to happen to the people making Cyberpunk 2077.

Video game developers rarely speak openly with the press about their labor practices, but that’s just what CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiński did in May 2019. In a conversation with Kotaku, he said that his company thought of itself as more humane than its competitors. While long hours would be permitted for those interested in working them, crunch would not be made “mandatory.” He called it a “non-obligatory crunch policy” and said it was something to be proud of.

“We are known for treating gamers with respect,” Iwiński told Kotaku last year. “And I actually would [like] for us to also be known for treating developers with respect.” One month later he doubled down, all-but promising during a podcast that mandatory crunch would not be forced on his employees.

Shortly thereafter, signs began to emerge that the Cyberpunk 2077 project was in trouble.

In January 2020, CD Projekt announced the game’s first delay. The release date was moved from April to September. The multiplayer component was also pushed into at least 2022.

“We need more time to finish playtesting, fixing and polishing,” said Iwiński and head of studio Adam Badowski. “We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for this generation and postponing launch will give us the precious months we need to make the game perfect.”

That same day, during a public call with investors, CD Projekt revealed that crunch would ultimately be needed to get the game done on time. It would also be mandatory for at least some employees.

“Is the development team required to put in crunch hours?” asked an investor, to which CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński answered, “To some degree, yes, to be honest.”

“We try to limit crunch as much as possible,” Kiciński continued, “but it is the final stage. We try to be reasonable in this regard, but yes. Unfortunately.”

Six months later, the game was delayed for a second time — from September to November. Once again, Iwiński and Badowski said that more time needed to be spent on polishing the final game. The COVID-19 pandemic was at least partly to blame.

“The final few months are always the biggest hurdle, so these are always the most crucial months,” they wrote, “and we know that from our past experience. We’ve been there a couple of times in the past and of course this is the first time we’re doing that remotely, so we learn as we go — but that’s as much as I can say.”

In September, Bloomberg reiterated what CD Projekt’s leaders said to investors months before. A leaked email mandated six-day work weeks. Crunch had become a requirement, and according to anonymous employees, some developers had been working nights and weekends “for more than a year.”

In other words, delays do not mean relief for workers. Oftentimes, it simply means working at the same exhausting pace for additional weeks or months.

But the story doesn’t stop there. In October, CD Projekt announced that Cyberpunk 2077 had “gone gold,” meaning that the near-final game code had been sent to the major console manufacturers for certification to run on their devices. Then — a little more than three weeks later — the game was delayed again. Instead of Nov. 19, the game will instead launch on Dec. 10.

The move undoubtedly stretched the period of crunch required of CD Projekt’s workers even further.

Let there be no mistake that the practice of crunch is destructive. It’s a fact that those inside and outside the industry have acknowledged for decades. Human beings weren’t made to work these kinds of hours, and the true cost of crunch can be measured in the physical and the mental health of those it is forced upon — and also their families. CD Projekt claims to be a progressive company, and it maintains that employees will benefit from the success of the game that they’re helping to make. Badowski says that employees will share in the profits CD Projekt makes in 2020.

But let’s not sugarcoat it: Crunch is cruel. It is the result of poor management, and evidence of a disregard for the people working to make the games that we love to play. Crunch at this scale, and for this duration, casts a shadow over Cyberpunk 2077 — and actively undermines some of the progressive and cautionary themes no doubt present in the game itself.

Sky News has learnt that EA has tabled a potentially knockout bid for Codemasters, trumping an offer agreed last month with Take-Two Interactive Software, maker of the Red Dead franchise.

A gaming industry source said this weekend that EA was working with bankers at UBS on its offer.

The interest from EA, which has a market value of almost $40bn (£30bn), is likely to be disclosed to the stock market on Monday morning.

EA is among the world's biggest computer games developers, and is best-known for its FIFA-licensed football titles, as well as games based on the Harry Potter books and Star Wars films.

It is not certain whether Take-Two, whose market capitalisation is roughly half the size of EA's, will respond with a counterbid.

Take-Two's offer was a combination of cash and shares, meaning that the precise value of the proposals fluctuates according to changes in its own stock price in New York.

Some fund managers who own Codemasters shares have reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with the Take-Two deal because of its equity component and the comparatively modest premium it represented to the British company's undisturbed share price.

A Codemasters spokesman declined to comment, while EA could not be reached for comment.

On December 07 2020 07:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
But let’s not sugarcoat it: Crunch is cruel. It is the result of poor management, and evidence of a disregard for the people...

On December 15 2020 00:31 Silvanel wrote:
Actually in Poland on STANDARD contract (as mandated by "Kodeks Pracy") You cant be forced to work two consecutive days for 16 hours a day (You need to have 11 consecutive hours off each day) and 35 hour break between work weeks.

However in IT people often do that of their own free will as they feel responsible for product and want to help colegues. Also crunch doesnt necessary include 16 days a day. 10-12 for a long time is enough to suck everything out of You.