TOP TEN EVENTS OF 2021
The pandemic has not ended, so many events are still canceled, and publishers’ plans are constantly changing. But the past 12 months will still be remembered by several events, which I propose to recall in this article.
A series of transfers
This year, choosing the best game is not easy – not because of the number of candidates for this title, but because of the lack of clear leaders. This is largely due to the pandemic and widespread quarantine, which led to numerous transfers. Because of this, the list of releases in 2022 seems absurd – even if a third of the planned games do not release on time, a fierce battle will still break out in the final vote.
Top ten events of 2021
If everything went according to plan, this year we would get Hogwarts Legacy, Gran Turismo 7, Gotham Knights, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, God of War Ragnarök, SIFU, GhostWire: Tokyo, Horizon Forbidden West, Total War: Warhammer III, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, Shadow Warrior 3, Scorn and more. Even the version of GTAV for new consoles was not finished in time!
Top ten events of 2021
Some transfers occurred for other reasons. The announcement of the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was received so negatively that Ubisoft has already postponed the release several times. The fate of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is generally incomprehensible – the development of the game was transferred to another studio, and there has been no news about the project for a long time. Well, one cannot fail to mention CD Projekt RED – and the free DLC for Cyberpunk 2077 was very late, and the version of the game for the new generation consoles has not yet been released. And at the same time, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt update for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series was also postponed.
Consoles are still hard to buy
Speaking of new consoles, it’s hard not to get them. It’s impossible to say exactly who’s winning this generation since both Sony and Microsoft sell as many consoles as they ship to stores. This is partly to blame for dealers who purchase large quantities of popular equipment and sell them to desperate gamers at inflated prices.
Top ten events of 2021
At first, Russian stores tried to deal with “outbidding” by the obvious method – to sell one console in one hand. This did not help – those who wanted to cash in found ways to deceive the system. Then they decided to complicate the task, and now the consoles are primarily sold to those who often bought gaming goods in stores. This approach has a clear disadvantage – not everyone buys accessories in the same places, and part of the audience prefers to buy games in digital form.
Top ten events of 2021
The shortage of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series is due to a shortage of components, and this was due to supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic. For the same reason, it is difficult to find modern video cards – at least at reasonable prices. Experts and chip manufacturers believe that next year the situation is unlikely to improve. Therefore, publishers are trying to release new items not only on the “nextgen” but also on old consoles – Sony, for example, will allow PS4 owners to play God of War Ragnarök, Gran Turismo 7, and Horizon Forbidden West.
Shopping-purchases
In March, the acquisition of ZeniMax Media by Microsoft closed, which became known last year. Now all the new releases published by Bethesda Softworks will be Xbox exclusives – except for the Deathloop released in the summer and the upcoming GhostWire: Tokyo. For example, Starfield on PS5 will not be released – this was confirmed by Bethesda’s vice president of marketing Pete Hines.
Top ten events of 2021
There were no such high-profile acquisitions this year. In February, there was a fight between Electronic Arts and Take-Two for the Codemasters studio – the publisher Need for Speed came out the winner, offering $ 1.2 billion. Epic Games took Mediatonic ( Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout ) and Harmonix ( Fuser ) under its wing, and Focus Entertainment acquired the DotEmu collective ( Streets of Rage 4 ). Chinese giants also bought: NetEase got Grasshopper Manufacture andGungHo Online Entertainment and Tencent with Turtle Rock Studios. Well, where without the Embracer Group – now it owns Gearbox Software, Aspyr Media, 3D Realms, Perfect World Entertainment, and many other studios.
Top ten events of 2021
Microsoft did not announce any deals this year, and Sony bought Housemarque the corporation was satisfied with the press and player reviews, as well as the sales of Returnal. A couple of days later, she acquired Nixxes Software, a studio primarily known for successful ports of games from consoles to PC. Then – the Firesprite team, including games for PlayStation VR. Well, everything ended with the expected purchase of Bluepoint Studios, the authors of the brilliant remakes of Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls.
Rebirth of Lucasfilm Games
At the very beginning of the year, Lucasfilm Corporation announced the resurrection of the Lucasfilm Games brand. This title will appear in all games based on the film company’s franchises. At the same time, several major projects were announced over the past year.
Top ten events of 2021
First, it became known about the game based on “Indiana Jones”, which is being developed by the MachineGames team (the latest Wolfenstein ). Todd Howard will be the executive producer and Bethesda will be the publisher, so don’t count on a PlayStation release. Later, the Massive Entertainment game (the dilogy The Division ) was announced – an open-world action game based on the Star Wars universe.
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Aspyr Studios is busy remaking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which will be a temporary exclusive PC and PS5. And Quantic Dream showed the debut trailer for Star Wars Eclipse, an action-adventure game with multiple playable characters and a branching storyline. However, the project is at a very early stage of development.
epic vs. Apple
Last year, I wrote about the ongoing litigation between Epic Games and Apple. And this summer, the first results appeared. Both companies did not come out as absolute winners, but Apple was more fortunate.
Top ten events of 2021
The court agreed to fulfill only one requirement of Epic. As you know, Apple takes a percentage of all transactions passing through its services, so monthly subscriptions and even donations in games are more expensive on Apple devices than, for example, on computers. Previously, Apple forbade informing the audience about other payment methods, but now they cannot restrict developers in any way – they have the right to post links in applications and leave all kinds of calls.
This is a win for the industry, but not for Epic. Apple was not recognized as a monopolist, and Fortnite was never returned to the App Store – the platform owner claims that he will do this only after considering all appeals, which can take up to five years. Judging by the popularity of the game, in five years it will continue to exist, but it is not clear whether Epic will be able to achieve something else in this time.
Games as art
The question of whether games are art is often discussed in the industry. Although they often raise difficult topics, and in terms of gameplay they sometimes amaze even experienced gamers (not to mention the layman), there is no definitive answer. Especially among the overage “boomers”, who, apart from books, cinema, theater, musicals, and music, do not recognize anything.
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This year the situation began to change for the better – two games at once attracted the attention of the oldest organizations that issue annual awards to works of art. The first is Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. Especially for the project, Respawn and Oculus Studios produced a series of short films on the theme of World War II. One of them was called “Colette” and was a documentary about a member of the French resistance. It won an Oscar in the Best Documentary Short Film category.
Top ten events of 2021
And at the end of the year, the indie hit Hades won the Hugo Literary Award for Best Video Game. The award was presented for the first time in 79 years due to how popular video games have become in connection with the pandemic. It is noteworthy that the organizers can make this an exceptional case – they are not yet sure that they will award video games permanently. Still, first of all, this is a literary award, and writers, editors, and illustrators compete there.
Everything is mixed up in Activision Blizzard
In July, the most high-profile event of the year in the industry took place – the Activision Blizzard scandal. The California Department of California has sued the corporation, citing a host of nasty allegations, from the company’s dorky atmosphere to unequal pay, harassment, and even incitement to suicide. The investigation leading up to the lawsuit lasted about two years.
Top ten events of 2021
Representatives of Activision Blizzard denied – they said that the descriptions of events are distorted, and some of the above is generally a lie. However, the company nevertheless began to take measures – since the accusations mainly concerned Blizzard, the developers began to leave from there one by one. Someone left on his own, someone was fired after an internal investigation. One of these people was Jesse McCree, after whom the hero Overwatch was named – so that there would be no associations in the future, the character was renamed, Cassidy.
Top ten events of 2021
In the fall of the investigation of The Wall Street Journal, it became known that the head of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick (Bobby Kotick) knew about cases of inappropriate behavior, but did nothing and even hid these appeals from the board of directors. It seems that everything went to the fact that Kotik will leave the post, but so far he is holding on tightly to him. And colleagues in management (and investors) do not want to let him go. The story is not over yet – most likely, in the results of next year, several more paragraphs will be devoted to this topic.
Triumph at The International
This year, the tenth anniversary of The International Dota 2 tournament took place. Ten years ago, the Ukrainian team Natus Vincere became the victors, and this time the cup was taken by the Russian Team Spirit. It consists of three Russian players and two Ukrainian ones. They managed to defeat the Chinese team PSG.LGD and earn a record $18.2 million (about 1.3 billion rubles).
Top ten events of 2021
Such an event could not pass by famous Russians, who reacted to it differently. Someone, like the former football player Alexander Mostovoy, considered such a prize absurd – they say, cyber sportsmen “do not have to do anything”, just sit and play. Olympic champion Svetlana Zhurova congratulated the guys, but she is concerned that they will become examples for young people – everyone will try to repeat the success of their idols, and not engage in ordinary sports.
But President Vladimir Putin did not add any buts, but simply praised the team for “bright leadership qualities and solidarity.” “They proved that our cyber sportsmen are always focused on results and can conquer any heights,” he added. Well, we are waiting for new reasons to include the performances of Russian teams in the lists of the main events of the year!
Steam in your pocket
Portable gaming computers have been around for a long time – Chinese companies have been churning them out for years. However, they never became the object of heated discussions – most likely, many did not even know about their existence. But attention was drawn to Valve’s Steam Deck, a gadget similar to the Nintendo Switch that will support the entire Steam library.
Top ten events of 2021
You can study the detailed characteristics of the device in our July news. In short, inside the Steam Deck, there is a quad-core processor from AMD, 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a graphics accelerator with eight RDNA 2 compute units. Three versions will go on sale: with 64 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB of memory – in the last two cases There will be SSDs. The price depends on the volume (in the case of 64 GB it is $ 299), but it is worth noting that all models have a slot for a microSD card.
Top ten events of 2021
Steam Deck offers the usual gamepad elements (two sticks, D-pad, and face buttons), but also has two trackpads with tactile feedback. The screen diagonal is 7 inches, the refresh rate is 60 Hz, and the resolution is 1200 x 800. They say that the charge is enough for 8 hours of play. Residents of some countries will be able to test the device in action at the beginning of next year, and Russia is not included in this list – neither the release date nor the prices of models for our region have been announced.
NFT to every home
Saying that there are no microtransactions in your game and thus becoming a folk hero is no longer fashionable. Now it’s much more relevant to say that you will not add NFTs to your games. For a considerable part of the audience, this abbreviation remains an incomprehensible set of letters, and its decoding (“non-fungible tokens”) does not bring clarity. But for major publishers, this is the future of the industry.
Top ten events of 2021
So, for example, says the head of Electronic Arts Andrew Wilson (Andrew Wilson) – in EA vacancies you can find references to both NFT and blockchain. SEGA and Square Enix have already made timid attempts to capitalize on NFTs, and they have been successful, so the companies will continue to explore this area. They were joined by Ubisoft, who added unique cosmetic items to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. However, the results of this initiative so far are so-so.
Top ten events of 2021
A considerable part of gamers cannot stand NFT and, at any mention of these letters, anathematize the creators. So, for example, it happened to the developers of STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl – they didn’t have time to announce their metaverse (the owner of NFT could become the hero of the game with a unique appearance) when a few hours later the idea was completely abandoned. Ubisoft, meanwhile, stands its ground – even though the trailer dedicated to this topic was showered with dislikes, the company is confident that the newfangled technology has a great future.
Seeing the list of releases planned for next year, I want to believe that there will be more bright events in 2022. In the meantime, I propose to write in the comments what you remember about the outgoing year.