Update Patch | November 2022

November 2022. A month in which many things happened in the world. Most of it is pretty terrible. However, the gamers were fed with bountiful gifts. PlayStation users had God of War: Ragnarok to appease them. Sonic Frontiers had fans rejoicing at a good game, a sentence I refuse to let be edited out. Even Microsoft with their troubled year had another hit released by Obsidian in the form of Pentiment. Plenty happened outside of good releases though, so here’s our usual news update, this month sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends. (Disclaimer: We are not sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends).

1. Balan Wonderworld Creator Arrested

Perhaps the most shocking news of the month came out of Japan, as a number of individuals have been arrested amidst allegations of insider trading, with one being co-creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, Yuji Naka.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?!

According to Nippon, initial arrests were made on Thursday 17th November by an investigative squad in the Tokyo District Public Prosecution Office. Those arrested were Taisuke Sazaki & Fumiaki Suzuki, a 38-year-old former Square Enix employee and his 40-year-old acquaintance. 

The scandal is focused around a studio called Aiming Inc. who announced in 2020 they would be working with Square Enix to produce a mobile game called Dragon Quest Tact. Allegedly, Sazaki became aware of this deal in 2019, and would go on to purchase substantial shares in Aiming Inc. ahead of the release and announcement. Sazaki is further alleged to have shared the information with Suzuki, who would also go on to purchase similar shares. Since, Naka has been arrested under the same offences, with allegations he also found out the information and purchased about 10,000 shares in Aiming Inc. All have been arrested under Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

The investigation is still ongoing and no comment has been made from the parties involved.

2. Blizzard Pulls Its Games From The Chinese Market

Activision Blizzard’s woes continue with news that NetEase, the company that ABK liaises with to licence its games in China, will not be renewing its existing licences. In a press release, NetEase detailed these licences would expire on January 23rd of next year and would see World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Diablo III and entries in Starcraft all affected and potentially disappearing from sale in the country.

At least this months ABK controversy was in a different region so we could use different images.

In the statement, NetEase put the issues down to “material differences on key terms and we could not reach an agreement.” The company does not seem concerned with the lose of the deal however, stating: 

“The net revenues and net income contribution from these licensed Blizzard games represented low single digits as a percentage of NetEase's total net revenues and net income in 2021 and in the first nine months of 2022. The expiration of such licences will have no material impact on NetEase's financial results.”

On the other side, Activision Blizzard had their own statement to investors, saying “The two parties have not reached a deal to renew the agreements that is consistent with Blizzard’s operating principles and commitments to players and employees”. The company will suspend sales of the affected games but has said upcoming updates such as season 2 of Overwatch 2. 

Whilst little else has been said by both parties, NetEase’s president of global investment and partnership Simon Zhu was less diplomatic on LinkedIn, saying “One day… developers and gamers will have a whole new level (of) understanding of how much damage a jerk can make.” Make of that what you will.

3. The Game Awards Nominees Means Everyone Gets To Be Angry

We are in November and that means the Game Awards nominations are in, with the event due to take place on 8th December. The nominees are available in full here, but to sum up the biggest news:

Tunic is the real game of the year… Just saying.

God of War: Ragnarok has nabbed the most nominations with ten, including Game of the Year. Elden Ring and Horizon: Forbidden West were tied for the next most nominations with seven each. Those three games join Stray, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and A Plague Tale: Requiem in the big Game of the Year prize and also receive many nominations. A whole host of other games have multiple nominations including Immortality, Neon White, Sifu, Tunic and more.

The ceremony will be streaming live on The Game Awards website, as well as on Twitch & YouTube on December 8th at 7:30 pm ET, or 4:30 pm PT, or very late in the U.K. so we’ll all be busy getting that precious sleep we all desire. 

Those who have seen The Game Awards in previous years will be used to the enormous amount of game trailers, reveals and adverts and the far more enjoyable performances of the Game Awards Orchestra will once again be conducted by Lorne Balfe. However, one new addition sees the award for Best Adaptation, with nominees including Arcane: League of Legends, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, The Cuphead Show!, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and apparently Uncharted.

Voting is done with a blended system. 90% of the vote comes from the jury, which can be read about here and the remaining 10% is down to public fan voting. The public vote is available on the Game Awards website here.

4. The Golden Joysticks

Of course, the Keighleys are not the only awards to be kicking around. The Golden Joystick Awards also took place on the 22nd with the awards all being publicly voted for. 

Oh Stray… that is also a video game… of the year 2022.

Unsurprisingly, Elden Ring was the big winner as it was graced with 5 awards including the Ultimate Game of the Year, as well as awards for visual design, critic's choice, Studio of the Year for FromSoftware and multiplayer. 

The night was also a good one for smaller games that made up the bulk of this year with Cult of the Lamb picking up the Best Indie prize, Vampire Survivors winning the best breakthrough game and the excellent Metal: Hellsinger taking home Best Sound.

The ceremony also saw awards for each major platform's game of the year. Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Return to Monkey Island, Stray, and Grounded each picked up awards in each category of their respective platforms.

GamesRadar's yearly celebration can be rewatched here and the full list of winners is provided by them here! 

5. Mick Gordon And Bethesda Dispute

Early in the month, the composer of Doom Eternal, Mick Gordon, posted a lengthy statement of his experiences working on the soundtrack for the game. The full statement was in response to a Reddit post written by id Software Studio Director Marty Stratton, in which Stratton depicted a fractious relationship between the studio & composer.

Gordon in his statement details a large number of allegations. These range from pay being withheld for 11 months and crunching to the point of “sleeping in the studio away from home”, to other claims. One of the biggest claims is that when the company announced the Collectors Edition in 2019 which would come along with a standalone OST, Gordon had not been informed of plans to create an OST and claims it wasn’t in production. 

This whole things is mess.

Gordon goes on to claim that following constant battles over the OST with Stratton in which it is alleged Stratton “flatly denied me the contract and refused to do anything about the OST” tensions continued to sour, particularly after the delay of the game in 2020. Whilst Gordon was eventually paid after the 11 months, he claims he found out when the game was released that id Software “used nearly all the music I produced throughout development — almost five hours worth — while only paying for half of it.”

Additionally, Gordon claims the Reddit post by Stratton came just a few days following an hour-long call about the negative reception of the released OST which had work from audio designer Chad Mossholder along with Gordon’s original recordings. Gordon claims that following the call, it was agreed that a joint statement would be published by the pair and Stratton would send him a draft. Gordon said of the Reddit post that he was “horrified” and that he felt “manipulated”. This apparently led to a protracted battle of an alleged settlement that at one point was due to be a “six-figure sum” with both sides arguing what they wanted. 

Obviously, there are a number of claims here, which we do recommend reading Gordon’s full post as he put it up to “prevent vague statements from turning into rumours and speculation.”

Bethesda responded to the statement strongly, stating Gordon’s allegations to have “mischaracterized and misrepresented the team” and that the company “reject the distortion of the truth and selective presentation of incomplete “‘facts’”. Furthermore, the company claimed to “stand ready with full and complete documented evidence to disclose in “an appropriate venue”. The studio also claimed the statement by Gordon “incited harassment and threats against Marty (Stratton), Chad (Mossholder) and the id Software team”. 

6. All Netflix Wants To Adapt Everything

Netflix has made a couple of big announcements regarding adaptations of games for the small screen. 

Also David Bautista really, really, really wants to be in this movie.

Firstly, the company showed a new trailer with a release date and cast for Dragon Age: Absolution unveiled. The show will be a short one, with six episodes running 30 minutes in the length based around a heist gone wrong in Tevinter. A set of prolific voice actors have been assembled with the likes of Kimberly Brooks, Matt Mercer, Ashly Burch & Phil Lamarr. The show will debut via Netflix on December 9th. 

The biggest announcement was the news that the company would be partnering with The Coalition to produce both “a live-action feature film, followed by an adult animated series” based around the Gears of War franchise. The series has never had any film or TV adaptation previously, despite previous attempts that never got off the ground from New Line Cinema and Universal.

These are part of a number of announcements from Netflix as the streaming giant continues to invest in gaming, not just with numerous adaptations but with the company’s gaming wing making moves on the development front. Its new L.A. studio is currently recruiting for a number of roles for a Triple-A PC game, with the game looking to be made in Unreal Engine and wanting a narrative that is “worthy of a Netflix film/TV series”. 

This direction certainly will have been buoyed by the large success of recent efforts in videogame adaptation, with the enthralling Arcane: League of Legends show receiving critical and commercial acclaim & the similar recent success of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

7. Embracer Group Hands Volition For To The Gearbox Machine

Volition Games has had a tricky year following the below-average critical & commercial response for its Saints Row reboot, and the controlling Embracer Group has announced that the studio will be switching controlling groups with Gearbox Entertainment taking them over. 

Sometimes I still miss… them.

In a statement as part of a financial report, CEO Lars Wingefors explained that “The reception of Saints Row did not meet the full expectations… Volition will transition to become part of Gearbox which has all the tools, including an experienced management team in the US, to create future success at Volition.”

Wingefors also indicated that this strategic move could be a possibility in the future, saying “This is the first internal group transfer where we transfer a major studio between operative groups, but it is not necessarily the last.” 

The report also showcases Embracer Group’s enormous portfolio, with a note on future games saying “The project pipeline consists of 234 PC/Console projects, including 25 triple-A titles to be released by the end of March 2026”. Certainly a large amount of work ahead.

8. CMA Responses From Microsoft & Sony

Finally, Microsoft & Sony continue to battle over whose turn it is to play Call of Duty before everyone is sent to bed without dessert. As part of the Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) investigation into the attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft & Sony have both issued statements on the deal as evidence of their side with 111-page & 22-page responses respectively.

Jim Ryan and Phil Spencer seen here showing up at the CMA’s office.

Microsoft published a response itself detailing its position that Sony could still compete, citing its competitor’s superior market position. In this, the Xbox manufacturer states “Sony’s PlayStation has been the largest console platform for over 20 years, with an installed base of consoles and market share more than double the size of Xbox.” Additionally, the company cites Sony’s own first-class first-party products, stating “Sony is roughly equivalent in size to Activision and nearly double the size of Microsoft’s game publishing business. Sony publishes iconic first-party franchises… There were over 280 exclusive first- and third-party titles on PlayStation in 2021, nearly five times as many as on Xbox”. 

Bizarrely, Microsoft has argued that Call of Duty isn’t really that big a deal. In point 1.6 of its CMA response, they claim the FPS series isn’t “unique, as compared to the many other games which are loved by gamers worldwide”, with the company citing PlayStation user polls, Metacritic scores and “industry reviews of the top games”. 

Sony’s case was built around the potential control Microsoft could exert by owning Call of Duty and Activision Blizzard. The PlayStation manufacturer claims Microsoft could “exclude or restrict rivals, including PlayStation and PlayStation Plus, from having access to Call of Duty”. Sony also says “Faced with weaker competition, Microsoft would be able to: increase console and game prices for Xbox users (including those that switched from PlayStation); increase the price of Game Pass; and reduce innovation and quality”. The company also claims it would “lock in” Xbox consumers and “prevent SIE from competing for the business of a large portion of console gamers, reducing its incentives to invest.” 

As with Microsoft’s own response, one or two points certainly seem odd, particularly regarding Microsoft’s rebuttal that Nintendo is competitive without Call of Duty or FPS games and that Sony can do something similar. In response, Sony said “But this reveals Microsoft's true strategy. Microsoft wants PlayStation to become like Nintendo, so that it would be a less close and less effective competitor to Xbox."

The responses by both sides can actually be read in full here.

Patch Notes:

Don’t lie. You’re going to play it again.

• In our first patch note, the aforementioned CMA has also launched a separate investigation into "cloud gaming and mobile browsers". The investigation will look at Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" and claims this allows them to "exercise a stranglehold over operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices."

• Nvidia has been served with a class-action lawsuit in the US following reports of components melting in the RTX 4090 graphics cards.

• Microsoft’s long-teased Keystone Project, a streaming-only version of their current consoles, has been shelved as Phil Spencer said that it was “more expensive than we wanted it to be”. 

• Director of Nintendo Shigeru Miyamoto recently discussed the possibility of offering further backwards compatibility options for Nintendo consoles going forward in a Q&A session regarding its recent financial results. VGC noted that Miyamoto acknowledged that modern technology made it “more (easy) than ever before”, but did note the numerous difficulties that don’t guarantee backward compatibility, including issues around licensing and publishing rights, and the modifications needed from development teams.

• CD Projekt Red has revealed a next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be released on 14th December, with numerous technical enhancements and improvements and will be free for those who own the game on previous console generations and PC.

• Crystal Dynamics say they have received over 100,000 responses to a survey regarding the Legacy of Kain IP and in response say “Rest assured, we hear you loudly and clearly, and we will continue to update you on the what-if possibilities ahead for Legacy of Kain in the future.”

• Following reports in South Korean press that Team Ninja’s president had confirmed the studio would be producing reboots of Ninja Gaiden & Dead or Alive, the studio has clarified that there are “no details or information to share” on this currently.

• Splinter Cell is back everyone… as an eight-part BBC radio drama to be released on the 2nd of December. Cast members include Andonis Anthony (The Archers), Sacha Dhawan (Doctor Who) and Will Poulter (Detroit, We're The Millers, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch).

• Sega is continuing its film adaptations with a film based around Streets of Rage with the rights picked up by Lionsgate Studios. The film will be written and produced by Derek Kolstad, who has been a writer on all three John Wick films and was credited as the writer & executive producer of 2021’s Nobody.