Key Note Gaming

As big budget video game development gets more costly, including TV and movie-style product placement could help make up the shortfall, BioWare's former Dragon Age boss Mark Darrah has said. In a lengthy video discussing the future of video game monetization, Darrah noted the rise of AAA games including live-service elements to ensure owners kept playing — and paying — long after release. Many video games rely on post-launch content or live-service elements to ensure projects earn back the huge sums of money spent developing them in the first place, with big budget games now regularly costing hundreds of millions to make. But not every game can succeed with these models, Darrah said, meaning that there needed to be other ways for developers to pay the bills. "My understanding is the live-action Smurfs movie paid for itself entirely through product placement," Darrah said, "so the movie was effectively made for zero dollars simply through the sale of product placemen...

Games Workshop just threw a grenade at the Warhammer 40,000 community with a stunning cinematic that shows the Emperor of the Imperium sitting on the Golden Throne — the first official look at the Master of Mankind in the current setting for years. The Warhammer 40,000 setting is built upon a galaxy-shaking civil war that took place 10,000 years earlier, called the Horus Heresy. It ended with the Emperor finally defeating his Chaos-fueled Primarch son, Horus Lupercal, and save the Imperium of Man from destruction, but at a terrible cost: the near-death Master of Mankind was interred upon the Golden Throne as a carrion Emperor sustained by the daily sacrifice of thousands of psykers. The iconic art of the God-Emperor by John Blanche, below, is seared into every Warhammer 40,000 lore fan’s mind. This is how the Emperor looks in the 41st millennium: grim, dark, and barely there at all. But is this actually how the Emperor looks? We rarely see official art of the Emperor in the current set...

Factorio is set for its last major update soon, developer Wube Software has announced in a blog post . The influential strategy game about building and creating automated factories launched on Steam in early access form in February 2016, before launching proper in August 2020. It is a huge hit for Wube, one of those eternal Steam games with addictive gameplay mechanics, complex systems, and near infinite replayability. Factorio, which has seen superb support over the years, is credited with popularising the factory-building and automation genre on PC, and retains an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ user review rating on Valve’s platform. "I can’t imagine how different Steam gaming landscape would have been if there was no Factorio," John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair, said in a post on social media . "Thank you for making an incredible game!" Managing expectations on the scope of the 2.1 update, Wube said...

Kohei 'Nakatsu' Ikeda, game director on Tekken 7 and 8, has left Bandai Namco after 20 years at the company. His exit comes hot on the heels of Tekken legend Katsuhiro Harada’s exit to form a new video game company . “There were joyful moments, and many difficult ones as well,” Ikeda said in a farewell message posted on social media . “There were times when we celebrated together, and times when I received passionate criticism and encouragement. Yet every one of those moments helped push both myself and the Tekken Project forward.” Ikeda didn’t say what he plans to do next, but most fans are speculating that he is set to rejoin Harada at his new venture, VS Studio, which has partnered with SNK Corporation. The Tekken community is now left wondering what’s in store for the fighting game franchise. Just last week Bandai Namco delighted fans by announcing Yujiro Hanma from the Baki manga and anime franchise as the guest character of the Tekken 8 Season 3 Pass, which ends early 202...