News

Paladins’ Controversial ‘Cards Unbound’ System To Be Removed

Published

6 years ago

February 26, 2018

Anthony DiMoro

Paladins‘ ‘Cards Unbound’ system is only a few months old, but it is already on tap to be removed from the game in the coming future.

Paladins’ partially pay-to-win system of Cards Unbound came under an intense fire of criticism from the Paladins’ player base and also staff members within Hi-Rez Studios.

The game’s new Executive Producer HiRezChris has announced that the system is soon to be a thing of the past.

“We know this system has angered many of our most loyal fans and become a point of continuous contention in the Paladins community (and even inside of Hi-Rez). Your voice has been heard loud and clear.

Our team will be working over the next major release cycle to remove Cards Unbound from the game. We will be replacing it with a new system that I believe the community will be really excited about — including the re-introduction of the deck building point system, and a method for obtaining cards that will be way less grindy.

We want the focal point of the card system in Paladins to be about fun ways to customize your champion to your favored playstyle. We also want to unify the COMPETITIVE and CASUAL experiences with the card system so that we use the same system for both (no more separation of bound vs unbound).

We are still working out the details of the new system, but the rough outline of our current thinking is as follows (NOTE: Subject to some change, but hopefully this communicates the general direction we want to head):

Legendary Cards will now be called Talents.

Talents will only have a single level.

Talents will be unlocked for free by earning XP and gaining Champion levels (for example; level 1,5,10,15).

All Champion Cards will now be free (No cost or grind).

Deck creation will return to a point system where players can distribute 15 points across the five cards they select for their loadout. Each Champion Card will have five ranks to choose from.

Talents will not have ranks, and are not included in the loadout point cap.

Talents and Decks will continue to be chosen at match start to allow players to tailor their playstyles based on their opponents.

New Talents will be added over time and give further varied playstyles.

Champion Mastery will no longer be capped at level 25. Instead, it will work similarly to Player Account leveling (which has no cap).

Card chests will be removed from the game.

We are evaluating the best options to compensate players for their previously earned cards, and hope to share details soon.

The release plan is to start testing this new system as soon as we can on PTS (hopefully, next week). Your analysis and participation will be very important over the next few weeks as we work the kinks out of this design and deliver the best possible product to you in the next update.”

Business

Patreon Hires Twitch’s Adiya Taylor as New Corporate Communications Lead

Published

1 month ago

March 16, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Content creation platform Patreon has officially tabbed Adiya Taylor as their new corporate communications lead, effective in February, according to an official announcement.

Taylor worked for Amazon’s video game streaming platform Twitch for three years in a variety of roles, most recently serving as the company’s senior monetization communications manager prior to her departure.

Taylor’s hiring comes after Patreon brought on Brielle Villablanca as Vice President of communications and creator advocacy back in November 2023.

“I’m thrilled to begin crafting and implementing a communications strategy around policy, trust and safety, product and more,” Taylor said during an official post on the networking platform LinkedIn, adding that she believes Patreon is a “true advocate” for creators.

“I’m looking forward to more storytelling around how we’re fostering fandom so that creators own long-lasting businesses built around their artistry,” Taylor added.

Business

Microsoft Bringing Four Games to Rival Consoles

Published

2 months ago

February 15, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Microsoft has responded to recent reports that there will be changes to it’s first-party strategy and has confirmed that four game titles will be released on rival consoles.

More specifically, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that ‘Starfield’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ will not be among the four titles heading to other platforms. Both games had a number of candidate platforms, per reports, adding that this is “not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.”

“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, according to GamesIndustry.biz. “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”

Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added on March 28th.

Additionally, Bond said that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future and that their focus regarding the future is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”

Business

Sega’s Revenue See Rise to $27 Billion

Published

3 months ago

February 9, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.

That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.

Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.

Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales

You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.