When Cory Burdette awoke recently to learn that Winter Storm Gia had caused a two-hour school delay in Reston, Va., he seized the chance to do a little family bonding.
Plopping down in front of the TV, Burdette and his 5-year-old daughter spent the morning together playing “Minecraft,” the Lego-like adventure game in which players construct buildings out of virtual blocks.
“We play all our games together on the Xbox,” he said. “In ‘Minecraft,’ we both get to build a house together, find monsters and explore.”
The first time he fired up the game, Burdette had to wait for “Minecraft” to download and install on his Xbox before launching it. But by the time his daughter is old enough to play more adult games, that wait could be a thing of the past.
Major companies such as Microsoft and Verizon are exploring how to replace game downloads with Internet-based game services, hoping to do for video gaming what Netflix and Spotify have done with TV and music. Instead of being run directly from a device, high-quality games of the future could be streamed from a data center, with most of the computations and image rendering being performed by powerful servers many miles away before being piped online to players’ phones, PCs and consoles.
Unlike passive forms of media such as movies and music, playing games over the Internet calls for highly responsive technology that can interpret a player’s actions from afar, process them within milliseconds and relay the results back to players and their opponents instantaneously.
The challenge has stymied gamers and game companies for years. But with advances in computing power, the adoption of high-speed broadband and fresh investments by tech behemoths, what was once a lofty technological and cultural goal for the game industry now seems closer at hand than at any point in the past decade.
“Game streaming services will be the ultimate driver of a rapid transition from the sale of games in boxes to digital consumption,” Yosuke Matsuda, president of the game company Square Enix, declared in a New Year’s letter to the public. “Streaming also lends itself to new subscription-based business models, so we believe deciding how to engage with these forthcoming trends will be key to future growth.”
As more Americans turn to mobile and online entertainment, executives across the media landscape have recognized that they are competing for the same, quickly diminishing resource: consumer attention. Even Netflix last month acknowledged that it views the hit game “Fortnite” as an even bigger competitor in some respects than HBO.
In the war for consumer attention, cloud-based gaming represents tens of billions of dollars in additional profit for game publishers alone, analysts say. Beyond the simple convenience of playing games off a central server, what makes the idea so attractive is the capability to turn even the weakest laptop into a fully functional gaming rig.
That could make it far easier for people to play video games on whatever device they have, wherever they may be, according to Brian Nowak, an industry analyst at Morgan Stanley. “As a base case, this new technology has the opportunity to expand the addressable player base by lowering barriers to entry around AAA games,” Nowak wrote in a research note last month.
Recent high-profile experiments with cloud-based gaming include Google’s Project Stream, which wrapped up a beta trial last month that allowed testers to play “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey” online for free; Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which promises to enable game streaming over mobile data connections; and Verizon Gaming, leaks of which emerged earlier last month.
Recent reports suggested that Apple may be planning a cloud-based games service, and e-commerce giant Amazon is also said to be doing the same. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
The jolt of interest in cloud-based gaming reflects how quickly the landscape for video games has shifted in recent years. The popularity of mobile gaming has some publishers such as Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite,” moving to build its own app marketplace for games, circumventing the traditional app store middlemen such as Google. But in Project Stream, Google may be hinting at one possible strategy for outmaneuvering Epic in return: by eliminating app downloads altogether.
The last major attempt to build a cloud-based games service was known as OnLive, which launched in 2010 with five data centers scattered across the country. The service showed promise, but many gamers discovered that their own experiences differed drastically from those of professional reviewers. In particular, players said, OnLive was marred by input lag, or a significant delay between user actions and results on the screen.
“The latency between you controlling the game and it reacting was really bad on OnLive,” said Ethan Hawkes, a lifelong gamer who lives in Irvine, Calif. But times are different now, said Hawkes, who tested Google’s Project Stream. “The tech has finally caught up.”
Other gamers say that although the technology has come a long way, it still isn’t seamless.
Another Project Stream tester, Chris Cantrell, said Google did a good job showcasing how its servers could faithfully reproduce the high-fidelity graphics of a single-player game like “Assassin’s Creed.” But that game notably does not come with fast-twitch, competitive multiplayer, a staple of modern gaming culture and a data-intensive hurdle that tech companies must still address as many households are already streaming multiple services at once.
“Assassin’s Creed” is “a slower game, and so you don’t have to be as precise. But you can’t play ‘Call of Duty’ on this connection,” Cantrell said.
Could Microsoft be teasing an appearance by Steve from Minecraft on Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Some fans think this could be the case after an intriguing tweet on Xbox Game Pass.
A recent post on the Xbox Game Pass verified Twitter account has some fans of the Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. series very excited, as it could suggest that a character from Microsoft’s popular sandbox game could be joining the roster of Nintendo’s crossover fighting game.
The speculation began on the 24th of January, during national compliment day, when the Xbox Game Pass Twitter account complimented Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the latest entry in the acclaimed long-running crossover fighting series.
While the tweet itself isn’t very telling, it’s the choice of words that has Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. fans believing this is a tease that would point to either Steve or Alex from the Minecraft series; all of this because they used the word “dig” in the tweet.
Fans of the Super Smash Bros. series know that every time a new character is introduced, it’s followed by a play on words that fits the character like “Bayonetta Gets Wicked”, “Cloud Storms Into Battle”, or “Ken Turns Up the Heat” — to name but a few. So Xbox Game Pass using the word “dig” could well be Microsoft actually teasing Minecraft characters joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
This is only but a rumour, but one that could well end up becoming a reality. All fans of Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. have to do now is keep their fingers crossed and hope for this to be more than just a tease
Legendary game worlds and fighters collide in the ultimate showdown—a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series for the Nintendo Switch system! New fighters, like Inkling from the Splatoon series and Ridley from the Metroid series, make their Super Smash Bros. series debut alongside every Super Smash Bros. fighter in the series…EVER! Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is currently available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
While parents enjoyed watching Tom Cruise kick butt in his latest action extravaganza, children enjoyed reading about a wimpy kid.
Some youngsters learned how to build cities with Legos, others learned to build worlds in “Minecraft.”
Clearview and High Plains library districts released their top adult and children’s books and movies checked out from their respective branches in 2018. The children have spoken: They want to learn about “Minecraft.”
Six of the top 15 children’s nonfiction books checked out at Clearview Library District were handbooks, guides and even an encyclopedia related to the mega-popular game. A few Lego books were also on the list.
“Maybe we are raising a new generation of engineers and builders,” library director Ann Kling said.
As for children’s fictional books in Clearview, it was all about the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” saga. Seven of the 10 children’s books checked out at Clearview were from the author Jeff Kinney’s book saga that has inspired merchandise and movies. But the district’s top children’s book in 2018 was not the wimpy kid, but the boy wizard’s second year at Hogwarts in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”
The most-checked-out movie for adults at Clearview was “Molly’s Game,” starring Jessica Chastain as Olympic skier-turned-illegal poker player Molly Bloom and directed by Aaron Sorkin. “The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature” was the most popular children’s movie.
John Grisham’s “Camino Island” was the top adult fiction title of the year at Clearview, and Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography “When Breath Becomes Air” was the top nonfiction title among adults.
At High Plains Library District, the sixth installment in Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” was the top adult film checked out, and the TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants” was the top children’s video checked out. The most popular adult fiction title was “A Delicate Touch” and the most popular nonfiction title was Michelle Obama’s “Becoming.”
But people weren’t only checking out books and movies in 2018. Clearview Library District also allows patrons to rent “explore kits” that allow people to test out pieces of technology before spending money on it to own.
Explore kits are divided into two categories: The more popular ones can be checked out for a week, and the rest can be checked out for a couple weeks.
A Sphero Mini, an app-controlled robotic ball, was the most checked-out kit among the seven-day options, and the Electronic Snap Circuits electronic toy was the most popular among the other category.
The troubled production of Minecraft: The Movie appears to have gained some forward momentum with the hiring of Jim Berney as visual effects supervisor according to a report by Discussing Film. Berney has previously worked on films such as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Polar Express, and Aquaman.View image on Twitter
Steve Carell was thought by many to be involved back in 2016 but little has been said on his connection to the film since then. Little is known about Minecraft: The Movie at this stage and it’s even unclear if it will be animated, live-action, or a mix of the two.
Microsoft purchased the popular Minecraft video game franchise in late-2014 and has since continued to develop the brand with continued updates to the base game, support for crossplay between most version of it, loads more Minecraft merchandise, a Telltale Games video game, and even Minecraft-themed Xbox One consoles and controllers.
Over the weekend, popular online game Minecraft successfully pulled off a virtual music festival featuring performances by over 50 up-and-coming artists and producers. Fire Festivaldrew in thousands of users over two days, and created a one of a kind multi-platformexperience fit for the digital era.
Outside of being a free virtual festival users could engage with from the comfort of their own home, Fire Festival gave users the additional flexibility of “attending” from three unique digital platforms. The event’s website allowed users to stream to the performances online. Fire Festival’s Discord chat allowed users to listen to the music and engage in conversation with fellow users. Meanwhile, their virtual grounds hosted in Minecraft gave attendees the ability to navigate a robust virtual landscape, see and hear each performance, and engage with fellow attendees in a digital setting.
Despite being a seven-year-old game, Minecraft and its community continue to push innovation. The Microsoft-owned brand continues to support over 91 million active monthly users on its platform. With such an enormous user base, brands such as Fire Festival arguably have the potential to disrupt a key revenue stream of the music business in the future.
One of the festival’s organizers, SLEEPYCATT (real name Max Schramp), has shared recordings of each Fire Festival set via SoundCloud. Listen to the performances from the largest virtual music festival to date below.
KENNETT SQUARE, Pa., Jan. 28, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via OTC PR WIRE — Good Gaming Inc. (OTCQB: GMER) (The “Company”) is pleased to announce their relationship and agreement with esports team Forknife as they look to increase their Minecraft exposure.
Esports team Forknife is comprised of team members MrTop5, Bodil40, Shadical, Zeph, and Deadlox. Collectively, the team boasts a following of five million YouTube subscribers who are passionate about their esport gameplay.
Good Gaming Inc. is currently revamping their Minecade server in preparation for team Forknife’s launch into the Good Gaming Inc. server, which is anticipated to begin during the first week of February. The Company also plans to work with team Forknife on a social media campaign to promote the Good Gaming Minecraft Minecade server.
Eric Brown, Good Gaming Inc. COO, stated, “We are very pleased to have members of the esport team Forknife on board as our latest Minecraft influencers to utilize our Minecade server for gameplay. After careful consideration and several discussions, we realize they truly understand the importance of cross marketing (through various social media platforms) and our goal of making Good Gaming’s Minecraft servers the number one Minecraft servers in the world. We look forward to working with them as they promote their gameplay on our servers and work with our talented team to create the latest and most exciting Minecraft gameplay available anywhere in the world.”
Good Gaming Inc. is a leading competitive gaming and social network platform targeting over 250 million esports players and participants worldwide who want to communicate with each other, develop strategies, and compete at novice, competitive and professional levels. Good Gaming Inc. has taken a strategic multifaceted approach in the esports industry with products and services ranging from multiple Minecraft servers, a proprietary tournament platform, high school esports leagues and soon-to-come virtual reality centers. The esports industry continues to experience exponential growth going from $500 million to $1.2 billion over the last two years while industry analysts forecast a $5 billion global industry by 2020. Good Gaming Inc. seeks to create and exploit opportunities as the industry allows.
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This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements appear in a number of places in this release and include all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Good Gaming Inc., its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) financing plans; (ii) trends affecting its financial condition or results of operations; (iii) growth strategy and operating strategy. The words “may,” “would,” “will,” “expect,” “estimate,” “can,” “believe,” “potential” and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Good Gaming Inc.’s ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. More information about the potential factors that could affect the business and financial results is and will be included in Good Gaming Inc.’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
