Breath of the Wild 2 remains on track, there might be a new Bully game in the works, and Stadia bites the dust.
There was a lot about rumored video game releases in the news today. We heard for example that Rockstar still has plans for the Bully franchise and that Nintendo remains on track with Breath of the Wild 2. But that of course wasn’t everything. We also found out that Brie Larson is into NFTs for some reason, we heard that esports are on the rise in Asia, and we discovered that Google might just be giving up on Stadia. Never a dull day in the news.
Google released a platform called Stadia to much fanfare a couple of years ago. The company claimed to have created the next big thing in the world of gaming. The idea was to stream video games to players over the cloud. As you might expect, players didn’t want any of this. Google has recently been backtracking on its commitment to the platform. Reports indicate that Google plans to “deprioritize” the streaming system. The company has apparently been showing “reduced interest” in bringing new games to its formerly big ticket item.
The actor Brie Larson came out today in support of NFTs with a post on Twitter that has everybody riled up. She apparently bought a Flower Girls NFT. The backlash was pretty much immediate. The top replies to her tweet include "friendship ended with Brie" and "Damnit Brie, this sucks." Some commenters even tried to explain why NFTs are so broadly frowned upon. Pacifickrill for example noted that "NFTs are bad for the environment, bad for artists, promote a culture that creates unnecessary scarcity and monetization of everything for no reason, and takes advantage of even the people who engage with it." Well said.
Esports have always been popular in Asia, but the last few years have been particularly strong. The group known as the Asian Electronic Sports Federation revealed some data today which indicates a “significant rise in popularity” over the last couple of years. The trade organization for example noted a 21% increase in viewership in 2019. Revenue from esports in Asia seems to have grown by 4.9% between 2019 and 2020, generating over $540 million. This even despite the challenges of a global pandemic. The future is definitely bright for esports.
The news broke a while back that we’re going to be getting Grand Theft Auto 6, but this might not bode so badly for the Bully franchise. There happens to be “something going on” in this particular department over at Rockstar according to an industry insider. The person in question, Tom Henderson, is well known for his reliable information about these kinds of things. "They said GTA 6 is in development,” he noted. “I still stand that there's something going on with the Bully series." I guess we just have to keep our fingers crossed for this one.
Breath of the Wild captured millions of imaginations when it came out a couple of years ago and fans have been anxiously awaiting news about a sequel to the game ever since. Nintendo on the other hand has been incredibly quiet on the topic. We don’t even have a real title yet. Players can however be reasonably sure that Breath of the Wild 2 or whatever it might be called will be coming out at some point in 2022. This comes right from a financial report that was recently published by Nintendo.
Your drying pan won’t protect you from the wrath of societal cancellation, Brock.
Justin is an archaeologist specializing in architecture, urbanism and spatial theory. He also happens to be a pilot. But you probably know him as a columnist at Unwinnable and an editor at TheGamer where he writes articles and publishes news about games. You can find some of his work in EGM, Vice, Heterotopias and more.
