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Roblox Developers Get Rich – For those who are unfamiliar, Roblox is a free-to-play mix of Minecraft and Lego, and has become incredibly popular. With their active user count jumping to 56 million recently, some of the game’s top developers are going to be getting a 2 million dollar payout! I’ll be curious to see if Minecraft ends up losing any of its playerbase to Roblox as their offerings continue to expand.
Pokémon GO Festival is a Disaster – Last weekend Niantic hosted the first in-person Pokémon GO Festival in Chicago and things did not go well. As it turns out, getting a lot of people in one spot trying to play a mobile game puts a lot of stress on servers, and in this particular instance, made Pokémon GOunplayable for most attendees. Niantic ended up refunding everyone’s tickets, but some fans are understandably still angry as many flew from around the world to participate. On the bright side, all players were still credited a free Lugia (the game’s first legendary Pokémon) and in-game currency.
Overwatch had a lot of updates this week, so they get their own section:
Revamping Report System – Toxicity in online games is a real problem and can lead to rapid drop in active players (unless you’re League of Legends). Overwatch has been seeing a rise in toxic behavior, especially amongst competitive players, and Blizzard is trying to take steps to alleviate that. Beginning with the patch yesterday, the reporting system will be getting overhauled, making it so that players can no longer report others for being unskilled, and offering tracking of report resolution. This means new players can learn without fear of being banned for not playing well, and users will be able to see the action taken based on their reports.
Doomfist Released – After months of speculation, and a lack of Terry Crewes, Overwatch’s latest character, Doomfist, has finally been released! Players have a week to check out Doomfist before he goes live in competitive, so time to get that practice in!
Overwatch League Salaries Revealed – We now know exactly how much being a professional Overwatch player will pay. Teams will be required to pay their players a minimum $50,000 a year, provide healthcare/retirement plans, and distribute 50% of the teams winnings directly to the players. Not a bad deal!