The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
Daniel Griffiths
Editor – PocketGamer.biz
Daniel Griffiths is a veteran journalist who has worked on some of the biggest entertainment media brands in the world. He’s interviewed countless big names, and covered countless new releases in the fields of videogames, music, movies, tech, gadgets, home improvement, self build, interiors and garden design. Yup, he said garden design… He’s the ex-Editor of PSM2, PSM3, GamesMaster and Future Music, ex-Deputy Editor of The Official PlayStation Magazine and ex-Group Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Musician, Guitarist, Guitar World, Rhythm, Computer Music and more.
Netflix plans to win “The Big Prize” of gaming
I’ve got to hand it to Netflix. Just when you want them to fumble the ball and admit that they’d rather that George R R Martin knocked them up a fresh Game of Thrones than dominate the world of video games, they go and straight-face ace it again.
Yes, they’re the former DVD rental company that invented subscription-based movie streaming, but, man, are they serious about games.
Netflix’s latest quarterly results – announced on video, obviously – kept coming back to the subject and it’s clear that we, on the outside world, are only seeing a glimmer of their future intentions and what’s really possible. These are the guys that put an app on everything but your toaster and made a monthly digital subscription service as ubiquitous as the phone bill.
I’m convinced that Netflix’s mobile play is just the beginning and with streaming trials in progress now and the power of the processing in TVs shooting up directly in line with their cost coming down I genuinely question whether – in ten year time – you’ll need anything else to play great games other than the phone in your pocket and the panel hanging on your wall.
Paige Cook
Features Editor
Paige is the features editor on PG.biz who, in the past, has worked in games journalism covering new releases, reviews and news. Coming from a multimedia background, she has dabbled in video editing, photography, graphic and web design! If she’s not writing about the games industry, she can probably be found working through her ever-growing game backlog or buried in a good book.
Fallout TV series gets April 2024 release date
I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. Movie and TV adaptations of video games are nothing new, but recent years have seen a dramatic increase in video games having live-action counterparts. There is an abundance of brilliant stories being told in video games, so why not?
I was recently watching the series of Silo, based on the book series by Hugh Howey and the entire time, I was getting major Fallout vibes and thinking Fallout would make a great show. And now here we are!
Interestingly, the show will follow Vault 33, which will also feature in the franchise’s multiplayer game entry, Fallout 76, in a future update. I wonder when we’ll see another stab at a TV show with a video game counterpart that simultaneously updates as the show progresses, similar to how Defiance attempted to have events from the show impact the game. Mobile gaming could be a front-runner for pulling this off as they often feature continuous streams of regular updates.
Lewis Rees
Staff Writer
Lewis Rees is a journalist, author, and escape room enthusiast based in South Wales. He got his degree in Film and Video from the University of Glamorgan. He’s been a gamer all his life.
Square Enix drops Kingdom Hearts Missing Link tease after nine-month silence
Kingdom Hearts is a favourite franchise of mine, but I’m reluctant to say it‘s a franchise I understand. Quite frankly, if someone told me a game starring Donald and Goofy would be confusing I would have laughed in their face.
One aspect of the franchise that does stand out is its historical use of multiple platforms. Prior to the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 – and the preceding 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 collections, which were released on multiple platforms – each of the games in the franchise was released specifically on a different platform, meaning players hoping to get the whole story needed to explore outside just one console.
It appears that Square Enix have no signs of slowing down with this strategy, offering mobile-first players a unique entry in the franchise. However, the fact remains that Square Enix has thus far had mixed success in its mobile efforts. As such, it remains to be seen whether Kingdom Hearts Missing Link will be a success, or just the latest failure to meet expectations.
