Fast Travel, a Weekly Gaming Recap – February 16th Edition

by Jordan Love | Feb 16, 2018 | News, News Section, Videogames, weekly

Fast Travel, a Weekly Gaming Recap – February 16th Edition

by Jordan Love | Feb 16, 2018 | News, News Section, Videogames, weekly

The Fast Travel weekly gaming recap is your resource for staying caught up on everything going on in the gaming industry. We start by highlighting a few of the week’s biggest news pieces. Then it’s on to a dollop of indie news. Followed by a helping of “The Best Thing on the Internet, This Week.” And finally, we gather up all the week’s headlines and smash them into a TL;DR pie for you to enjoy.

This Weeks Headlines

Activision Blizzard Made More Money from Microtransactions Than Games in 2017

Why are microtransactions so prevalent in the gaming industry? Because they’re insanely profitable.

According to a recent financial report from Activision Blizzard, the company made more money from microtransactions in 2017 than they did by actually selling games, or anything else for that matter. A whopping 55.9% of Activision Blizzard’s revenue from last year came purely from “in-game net bookings,” which covers everything from loot boxes to in-app purchases.

Twitch Updates Take Aim at Harassment and Overly Sexual Content

Following several lawsuits in the past year against bot makers as well as legal action against trolls, Twitch has been looking for new ways to improve their community and make it a safer place. A few days ago, Twitch announced a series of new guideline updates, many of which will target streamers and their communities alike.

The biggest changes to roll through are in regards to harassment and hateful conduct, but Twitch is also cracking down on sexuality in streams, especially as the IRL section of Twitch continues to climb in popularity and is always among the top 5 most popular topics on Twitch.

THQ Nordic Acquires Saints Row Publisher Koch Media

Saints Row is home once again.

In case you forgot, THQ was the original publisher of the Saints Row series. Then the company went bankrupt and their assets were auctioned off. Nordic Games eventually acquired the old company’s branding and THQ Nordic was born, but still many of the old THQ titles belonged to other companies.

The Saints Row series landed with a European entertainment company called Koch Media. This morning, THQ Nordic announced that they’d acquired Koch Media for just under $150 million.

Biomutant, Darksiders III and Fade to Silence Will Be DRM-Free on Release

THQ Nordic just can’t seem to stay out of the news this week. Everyday it seems there’s another bit of good press about them to report on. This time it’s the fact that four of their games, This is the Police II, Biomutant, Darksiders III and Fade to Silence, will be launching on GOG as DRM-Free titles on launch day.

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Esports Spotlight

How FlyQuest Nearly Beat Cloud9, the Best in NA

No one could have guessed that the most exciting match going into Week 4 would be Cloud9 versus FlyQuest. Cloud9 are currently sharing the title of best in NA, but that didn’t stop them from barely squeaking out a win against one of the worst ranked teams in the brackets.

What a difference a mid-laner can make. We’ve seen teams throughout the years orbit around mid-laners like Faker, Bjergsen, and Jensen, but FlyQuest are an entirely different team with Fly at the helm. Previously unable to play due to visa issues, Week 4 was Fly’s first official games with his team, and he did not disappoint.

The Best Thing on the Internet, This Week

This Insane Minecraft Map That Took 8 Months to Create

User octovonmc posted this unbelievable Minecraft map to Reddit earlier this week and we’ve been marveling about it ever since. According to octovonmc, the map isn’t just a facade. Nearly every building has a customized interior.

In order to create the map, octovonmc and their team “Imported a custome (sic) terrain using a program, from there we planned out the roads and started creating the structures mostly by hand but with the help of other programs such as voxelsniper and world edit. After the buildings are placed, we go around the map adding in details such as interiors, trees, benches etc…”