event felt like it had never been away. Also still with us was Geoff Keighley, who
stepped in to host
another Opening Night Live trailer marathon, which this year was so crammed with blood-spattered brown walls for the opening 30 minutes that it felt like the 90s hadn’t gone away either. Thankfully, the absence of “booth babes” during the following few days proved they had. To add to the 50 or so bought since the start of the year (we think - it’s easy to lose count), Embracer Group acquired another seven companies, including the likes of Tripwire Interactive and Limited Run Games. They also picked up the exclusive rights to the Middle-Earth intellectual property to add to that of Tomb Raider, which has us waiting with baited breath for the inevitable crossover announcement.
SEPTEMBER
September saw Stadia admit defeat, with Google’s doomed service unable to compete with streaming rival Xbox Game Pass thanks to adopting a business model that had already seen cloud gaming forebears OnLive and Gaikai already stumble into the ethereal abyss. Impressively, Google has now refunded everyone, but Stadia players are still asking for help getting their (by all accounts decent) controllers to work with their computers to not cause any more unnecessary plastic waste. Also this month, Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar became the victims of a digital heist of the less fun variety, when a server hack meant that around an hour of GTA VI video footage was posted online. When gamers guffawed at the unfinished features and artwork of the not-quite- upcoming game, the industry came together to show off work-in-progress images and footage of their own since- released efforts, suggesting that the old mantra “ready when it’s ready” should probably be pressed back into active service.
OCTOBER Earlier this year
we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the machine that kickstarted the UK
games industry. Sinclair followed up the release of the Spectrum with the more serious Sinclair QL. It was an expensive misstep for a company keen to be taken more seriously, leading to it being acquired by UK competitor, Alan Sugar’s Amstrad.
October was the second anniversary of the release of the Quest 2, Meta’s VR headset that has kickstarted the VR games industry. It is estimated to have sold just as many units as the latest Xbox console in the same period. It’s also the month that Meta launched the more serious and expensive Quest Pro, knowing that Reality Labs had burned through $9.4 billion in 2022 and that layoffs were days away from being announced. Xbox Quest 3, anyone?
NOVEMBER Games industry professionals spent
much of the month packing their Twitter bags as they searched for an alternative social media platform not in thrall to someone who carries a bathroom sink into work on their first day and rashly implements policies
that alienate advertisers almost as much as loyal employees and users.
Much of the searching appears to have been in vain, however, after Mastodon confused and isolated newcomers, while Hive couldn’t run for more than three minutes without crashing in the middle of writing a new post. At time of writing, the great Twitter exodus is on hold, pending the outcome of further misguided updates from the Chief Twit.
DECEMBER As is often
the way of
things, the year appears to be ending much like it began, with Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard dominating the headlines. Everything has hinged, it seems, on whether Microsoft would continue to release Call of Duty on Sony hardware, despite Microsoft saying it kinda sorta maybe would, while Sony assumed it wouldn’t, because it kinda sorta maybe wouldn’t if roles were reversed. The bad news, for those that bought a PlayStation 5 this year hoping to be forever free of Call of Duty’s annual tyranny, is that after months of both companies’ legal whining in courts across the globe, Microsoft has signed up to releasing Call of Duty on Sony hardware for the next ten years, assuming of course that the deal to acquire Activision goes through. It will be kinda hilarious if it doesn’t. (It will.)
December 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 53
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