If you wanted an even more convenient way to gamble while strolling the floors of casinos, MGM Resorts has the answer. Today, they announced a new mobile platform that lets users bet money on classic games so long as they're within the confines of the company's Las Vegas locations.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: MGM Resorts International
Blizzard wants to put a stop to inappropriate behavior in World of Warcraft. The company is rolling out a new silence penalty that will limit abusive players from engaging with the game in a few major ways.
Source: Battle.net
Dr. John Grohol is an expert in technology's impact on human behavior and mental health, and for the past 20 years he's studied how people operate online. He's the founder of mental health network Psych Central, and he knows all about the latest tools aimed at helping people deal with anxiety, depression and a host of other issues.
And Dr. Grohol has never seen anything like Pokemon Go.
"In terms of the phenomena of people expressing the benefits of playing the game to their real-world mental health status, I think that's very unique and it's the first time I've ever seen anything like that," he says.
Pokémon Go's biggest strength is that it's tied to the real world. Players are encouraged to explore their surroundings in order to capture new Pokémon and build out their Pokédex. But unlike the fantasy worlds of Kanto and Johto, planet Earth can be a dangerous place, especially for younger players. In the week since its launch, users have been encouraged to visit some inadvisable places, like a Hells Angels clubhouse. Crooks have also used the lure feature, which attracts Pokemon, to pull in players and rob them for real. They're rare, but nevertheless alarming cases.
Some people lose the desire to play the games they watch on Twitch. But according to research conducted by one of the company's science team members, those who feel the opposite are plenty enough to boost sales and retention rates. The study, authored by Danny Hernandez, says Hearthstone's success after it exploded on Twitch "raised the line of inquiry" he was only able to explore recently after getting the data he needed. Hernandez listed a few examples to illustrate his point, including Tom Clancy's The Division. He believes the website was responsible for around 18 percent of its sales.
Source: Twitch
While you're trying to catch 'em all with Pokémon Go, the developers are figuring out how to make (more) money from the white hot augmented reality (AR) game. Along with the existing in-app purchases from "PokéCoins," developer Niantic says it will use sponsored locations as another way to cash in, according to the Financial Times. "There is a second component to our business model at Niantic, which is this concept of sponsored locations," Chief Executive John Hanke told the FT.
If you want to use the Xbox Live network to tell followers you're streaming Xbox One games on Twitch, there's just one way: Stream from the console's Twitch app. The problem is that the quality and options are very limited, since the Xbox One isn't exactly a TV production studio. However, Microsoft and Twitch have teamed up to make it possible to use Xbox Live when you're streaming from a PC using a capture card -- all you need to do is link your Xbox Live and Twitch accounts.
Source: Xbox (Major Nelson)
For years, the NPD Group has tracked and reported video game sales figures. Every month, the company issues an email to the media detailing the top ten selling games for the month prior, total amount spent on games, hardware and accessories and year-over-year and generation-over-generation growth or decline. The glaring hole in those reports is that they didn't account for digital game sales from places like Steam, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. But that's changing and with this month's data, we'll finally have steps toward a true, comprehensive picture of how much a particular title has sold, both from retailers and digital distribution.
Whereas Fallout Shelter has become more like Fallout 4 in recent months, come July 26th those actions will swap. The "Vault-Tec Workshop" expansion hits PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One that day according to a post on Bethesda.net. What's this add-on bring to the table? Creating a vault of your very own (like you did in Fallout Shelter on mobile) where you can attract folks to your custom-built domain, play dress-up with them and then put 'em to work. The company is sending out early beta access to folks on PC this week.
Source: Bethesda.net