“Minecraft” creator Marcus “Notch” Persson, who sold the title to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, won’t be part of 10-year anniversary plans for the game because of his “comments and opinions,” Microsoft tells Variety. “His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of ‘Minecraft,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Variety.

The Nintendo Switch’s latest major update, Switch Firmware 8.0.0, was released last week and it included a ton of additions like a software sorting function and Save Data transferring to another system function. There was another addition however that Nintendo didn’t mention in the patch notes – “boost mode”.

Tonight in New York, on stage with his Death Stranding star Norman Reedus, Hideo Kojima threw the audience a few tantalizing scraps of information about his new game, including how all players will be connected, how Reedus shapes the hero Sam, and about a secret area of the game where the player can take control of a camera.

Epic has finally addressed Fortnite’s controversial 8.20 patch, which removed a popular mechanic from the main game by which players would get health and shields when they eliminated opponents. According to Epic, the mechanic, called “siphoning,” made players avoid the main battle royale mode.

Hey, have you ever heard of Sony? Probably not, they’re just a small company. Still trying to pave their in the industry; nothing, you know? Yeah, well they just released their 2018 fiscal year earnings and what do you know? Turns out that small company Sony that everyone has definitely never heard of had the most successful and profitable year ever.

The video game industry is hugely profitable, but it has a dirty little secret: Crunch. For years, many workers have toiled for incredibly long hours to meet game release deadlines, often with no overtime pay. It takes a toll on their health. Now, some in the industry are demanding change.

A developer of a popular Skyrim multiplayer mod says that the team “doesn’t owe the community anything.” Maxgriot, one of the mod team behind Skyrim Together, posted a comment on Reddit earlier this month suggesting that the developers have considered giving up on the project due to the reaction from players. Maxgriot’s comments were made in response to a post on the mod’s subreddit. The content of the post – titled “Is something going to happen?” – has now been deleted, but the development team seems to have been upset by its overall message.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been making some bold claims on Twitter, which is always fun for spectators and perhaps terrifying for investors. Once again, the subject is the Epic Games Store's divisive exclusivity strategy, which has ruffled feathers while taking a fair number of prominent games off Steam. Sweeney claims all of that will end if Steam commits to an 88 percent revenue share for developers.

Sources reveal long hours and intense pressure while working on hit game

Yesterday was the Red Wedding of news for Anthem. While an update brought some quality of life changes, some buffs and a new Stronghold, BioWare finally said what we all knew what was coming, but perhaps didn’t want to believe. The entire Anthem roadmap is now delayed. BioWare delivered on practically nothing that was supposed to get here in April other than yesterday’s Stronghold and a live event or two, but now everything else that fans assumed would not be crammed into the final week of the month has indeed been delayed.

It is no secret, that loot box practices have saturated the lifeblood of the video games industry. What was once a flash in the pan concept, is now a proliferating issue set to spiral out of hand. In truth, most, if not all triple-A releases, contain in some form or another, exclusive, purchasable content. Be that cosmetic or otherwise. Despite annoyance over pay-to-play content, which has quickly become a cause for concern in the industry, much of the controversy derives from loot boxes.

Saber Interactive’s cooperative take on World War Z, published by Mad Dog Games, debuted at No.1 in the UK physical weekly charts. Sales went massively in favour of the PS4, with 62 per cent of the copies shifted going to Sony’s console, versus 38 per cent for the Xbox One. There was another new entry in the Top Ten this week, Maximum Games’ Snooker 19, which debuted at No.9. Again, the PS4 took 64 per cent of the sales, against only 36 per cent for the Xbox One.

An interview with series creator Ed Boon

The allure of EVE Online has never been found in its style or sheen or thrilling gameplay. Ask CCP Games CEO Hilmar Petursson what keeps the 16 year-old MMO going, and he will only ever give you one answer: the community. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz at Reboot Develop earlier this month, Petursson attempted to communicate the experience of making and maintaining EVE Online to running a city.

Telltale’s take on Stranger Things vanished when the studio collapsed. After years of turbulence at Telltale from problematic management and constant crunch, the company closed its doors suddenly in September 2018. It left 250 people with no jobs, no severance, and only days left on their health insurance. In-progress projects, like Stranger Things and a second season of The Wolf Among Us, were killed. The popular Netflix show exists as a video game adaptations with other developers, but Telltale’s game wasn’t the only project that died with the studio.

Nintendo’s latest update of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate includes a stage builder, allowing players to build and share their own creations. This got a lot of attention last week because, as should have been expected, a ton of players were quick to put as many dicks into the game as possible.

We enjoyed creating our last bar chart race about phone sales so much, we couldn’t resist doing another. So, this time round we’ve looked at something close to all our hearts: the console wars. Yep, in the animated graph below, you’ll find a visualization of the best-selling games consoles from 1977 all the way through to 2017. That’s a full 40 years of data for you! Aren’t you lucky?

At this point, we're actually a little tired of stories about "review bombing," where various put-upon groups of gamers gather together to leave a flood a negative user reviews, often for issues that have nothing to do with the game itself. But this week's flood of positive reviews for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Unity on Steam is a different (and much rarer) story altogether.

The first video game console I ever loved was a hand-me-down Game Boy from my sister who rebelliously outgrew video games to chase her dreams of starting a cool garage band. The handheld taught me a lot about video games, but it wasn’t until I stole a copy of my friend’s Pokémon Blue and secretly played it in the backseat of my parents’ car that I fell in love with gaming.

We're talking about new hardware from all of the biggest players in the console space this week -- but what different stories we're telling. Sony undoubtedly stole most of the thunder with its unveiling of selected details of the next-generation PlayStation in a Wired interview with Mark Cerny, but new hardware from both Microsoft and Nintendo is in the spotlight as well; a cheaper Xbox One S that drops the Blu-Ray drive from the former, and a few more hints at a pair of forthcoming Switch revisions from the latter.