Ahhhhh I’m so excited for Concrete Genie. (Couldn’t you tell? Haha)
Time Stamps: The Wrap starts at 1:50 / Concrete Genie Starts at 10:30
Links: @TheRandoCast on Twitter / Episode 1 / Episode 2 / @PixelOpus on Twitter
Also as promised, Concrete Genie’s 2017 Paris Games Week announce trailer:
8/15 Notes for The Wrap
Twitch King Becomes Mixer King!
In news that people are still talking about two whole weeks later, Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, the once king of Twitch, announced on August 1st he’d be moving to Mixer as his full time streaming platform. This has every aspect of a bad breakup.
Twitch wasted no time in taking away his verified partner badge for one thing, and then there was another incident that involved porn being recommended on his page, but that’s a whole other debacle. Blevins was rightfully pissed off about that, as he’s made a name for himself as a “family friendly” streamer. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear publicly apologized to Blevins and Twitch as a whole, promising they’ll do better. Will they? My bet is probably not.
All in all, it’s not surprising he made the move to Mixer. Mixer is owned and run by Microsoft, and Ninja made his name back in the day playing Halo, and with another Halo coming out, somebody at Microsoft was probably yelling about synergy.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/08/01/tyler-ninja-blevins-to-stream-exclusively-on-mixer
Gamescom: European E3?
It is August, so that means it’s time for Gamescom! And it’s time for Geoff Keighley to come out of his production closet. On Monday, August 19th, he and The Game Awards team are going to be putting on Opening Night Live, where more than 15 publishers will premiere new content and make announcements to kick off the event.
All the big names will seemingly be there; from Xbox Game Studios to Sony Interactive Entertainment, Square Enix, Epic Games, EA, Bungie and 2k. Infinity Ward will be there with a special announcement about Modern Warfare, EA will have the first gameplay from the newly announced Need For Speed Heat, The Coalition will be there with an exclusive look at Gears 5’s campaign, and Hideo Kojima will be there to confuse us all.
Probably not in attendance? Naughty Dog, because I’m not that lucky. Sad face.
No Longer Super Duper ☹
All the way back at e3 2017, Minecraft developer Mojang announced a whole bucket of new, cool sounding stuff for the game. The part that most everyone latched onto? Getting the same version of Minecraft on everything. Admirable goal, which they’ve been more or less successful on.
The other awesome thing? The Super Duper graphics pack! It was going to be an optional graphics pack that would bring in high resolution textures, better lighting, shadows, and 4k support. After hearing about all the power the Xbox one X was going to have at last years E3, I was chomping at the bit to get it.
And then it kept getting delayed, but I kept holding out hope, which Mojang recently quashed in a blog post on their website, writing “Super Duper was an ambitious initiative that brought a new look to Minecraft but, unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.”
https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/super-duper-graphics-pack-ceasing-development
Say It Isn’t So!
This industry is always one in flux, so when I read that Annapurna Pictures was exploring bankruptcy, I had a small panic attack. The motion picture company has a video game arm, Annapurna Interactive, that’s published some of my favorite titles; What Remains of Edith Finch, Flower on PC, Donut County, Gone Home on the Switch, Ashen, Outer Wilds, Journey on PC, and they’re in the works to publish a few that I’m looking forward to as well, like 12 Minutes and Solar Ash Kingdom.
Thankfully, it seems as though Annapurna Interactive isn’t afraid of the hard times their film parent company is going through, posting on Twitter that they’re “not going anywhere!” in response to someone tweeting about how their five year old loves Donut County.
They’ve even teased a big announcement for August 16th, so, it really seems like the wheels are turning there, and they’ll be with us for some time! (I say, knocking on wood.)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/megan-ellisons-annapurna-exploring-bankruptcy-1229245
Show Music:
♫Music By♫
●NYOR – Rainbow [Bass Rebels Release]
●Song – https://youtu.be/WhwM4jJbk1I
●Download/Stream – http://smarturl.it/rainbow-br