GENERAL BLIZZARD NEWS
NetEase Discusses Importance of Chinese Gaming Regulation, Anti-Addiction Measures
https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/netease-china-game-regulation-1203030537/
"Over the summer, Tencent noted that Chinese government regulators had mostly halted approval of new game releases in China starting in the spring, not allowing the release of paid games in the country. That evolved into a push for greater control of and limitations on games developed for children and concerns of addiction to video games. Tencent has since reduced its marketing budget but still saw a strong third quarter."
Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI) Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/11/08/activision-blizzard-inc-atvi-q3-2018-earnings-conf.aspx
"Last quarter, on average, 345 million people played our games each month and our players spent a record 52 minutes per day playing Activision Blizzard and King games. "
"Third, the expansion of our existing franchises on to mobile, the world's largest platform and the creation of new franchises. And fourth, new and growing franchise engagement revenue models such as esports leagues and digital advertising."
"Now, not all our franchises are experiencing the momentum we see in Call of Duty and Candy Crush and we have to improve the pace of innovation and the cadence of in-game content. "
"Mobile remains the largest and fastest growing platform for gaming in the world and while King is a clear leader in mobile, we're still investing in Activision and Blizzard franchises for mobile releases."
"These are just two of the many mobile initiatives under way across Activision and Blizzard. And King Mobile expertise is now being shared throughout the company, so our beloved PC and console franchises can expand their reach."
"Overwatch League is already well into planning its second season and we are actively advancing how the league model and infrastructure will be applied to Call of Duty and other franchises. "
"At Blizzard, monthly active users were 37 million consistent with the prior quarter. "
"Next year, Blizzard will celebrate World of Warcraft's 15th anniversary with events both in and out of the game."
"As I said earlier, some of our franchises are underperforming relative to the opportunity that we see including our live operations capabilities and we will continue to push innovation and new content to drive stronger engagement and in-game revenue generation."
"And we'll continue to invest in the reach of the different franchises that we have to acquire more players globally across all platforms including PC, console, and mobile. "
"We have some classic battlegrounds from World of Warcraft that we are remastering and we're going to add some seasonal content as well."
"Later planned updates are going to add new zones, dungeons, and raids for people to explore an additional PVP arena. "
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) 3rd Quarter Earnings: What to Expect
https://www.nasdaq.com/article/activision-blizzard-atvi-3rd-quarter-earnings-what-to-expect-cm1052454
Activision props up World of Warcraft and Call of Duty as top-earners
https://www.destructoid.com/activision-props-up-world-of-warcraft-and-call-of-duty-as-top-earners-530618.phtml
Activision Blizzard Hits Q3 Goals Thanks to WoW and Candy Crush, Destiny 2 Disappoints
https://wccftech.com/activision-blizzard-q3-2018-earnings/
WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Check out World of Warcraft recreated as a Google Map
https://www.pcgamesn.com/world-of-warcraft/wow-google-maps
http://worldofmapcraft.com/
Blizzard’s Mobile WARCRAFT Spin-Off Is Reportedly Heavily Influenced By POKÉMON GO
https://gamefragger.com/pc/massively_multiplayer/world_of_warcraft/blizzards-mobile-warcraft-spin-off-is-reportedly-heavily-influenced-by-pokmon-go-a12221
https://www.pcgamesn.com/warcraft-mobile-pokemon-go
Blizzard has officially announced that WarCraft 4 is not happening anytime soon, but as the company is instead working on a "Warcraft version of Pokémon Go, which is in development for smartphones now.
This information comes from a report published earlier this week by Kotaku.
Blizzard Working on Possible Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm Mobile Games
https://segmentnext.com/2018/11/08/blizzard-new-mobile-games/
Blizzard is rewriting bits of Warcraft III to better mesh with World of Warcraft
https://www.destructoid.com/blizzard-is-rewriting-bits-of-warcraft-iii-to-better-mesh-with-world-of-warcraft-529818.phtml
https://esportsobserver.com/method-raid-races-blizzard/
STARCRAFT
SUMMARY
Starcraft This Week: World Electronic Sports Games Qualifiers are ramping up at the national and Regional level, to compete in the Global Finals in China in March for a huge payout. Hearthstone, CS:GO and 3 other games will all compete there.
The AIIDE Starcraft AI Tournament was won by SAIDA, the Starcraft AI programmed by a team at Samsung in South Korea. 2nd and 3rd place went to the FaceBook team's AI and a group of Chinese researchers. SAIDA is currently leading in the long running SSCAIT tournament.
TESPA Collegiate Starcraft Tournament completed its 8 week ladder series. Playoffs begin Dec. 1st, noon Pacific, Saturday and Sunday.
The Starcraft 1 KSL tournament has revved back up post BlizzCon with the Round of 8 next week.
Blizzard's long awaited 20th anniversary tournament in Russia was won by the top 3 Koreans, Sharp, Shine and Miso, to noone's surprise, and lastly HomeStory Cup in Germany begins in 1 week.
Starcraft is back now that everyone is home and semi recovered and the new season starts on November 20th. The new maps have been posted as well on Team Liquid.
WESG qualifiers continue world wide throughout November including tomorrow the USA finals in California. Tickets are free. WESG is a super huge annual event in China handing out a ton of cash.
Blizzard's ANZ ProLeague team tournament Down Under began today.
Blizzard's long awaited 20th anniversary tournament in Russia is finally about to begin and HomeStory Cup begins in 1 week.
The Pylon Show On The Blizzard Launcher!
IEM Katowice 2019
https://twitter.com/IEM/status/1067855648979861505?s=19
We’re excited to announce that StarCraft II will once again be featured at Intel® Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice Grand Finals on March 3, players will be battling it out for their share of a prize pool worth over USD $250,000.
There will be a series of online qualifiers in January, as well as an on-site qualifier at the ESL studio in Katowice on February 25–26. Keep an eye on the official IEM website.
2018 World Championship Series champion Joona “Serral” Sotala has accepted his invitation to compete and will be seeded directly into the Round of 24.
HomeStory Cup Memories with the StarCraft Team
https://wcs.starcraft2.com/en-us/news/22792660/HomeStory-Cup-Memories-with-the-StarCraft-Team/
Exclusive First Look at 'Starcraft: Soldiers' #2
https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/11/20/starcraft-soldiers-exclusive-first-look/
An old-fashioned AI has won a Starcraft shootout
https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/612438/an-old-fashioned-ai-has-won-a-starcraft-shootout/
A History of Starcraft AI Competitions (and UAlbertaBot)
http://www.cs.mun.ca/~dchurchill/starcraftaicomp/history.shtml
History of SAIDA
https://github.com/TeamSAIDA/SAIDA
INTERVIEW: SERRAL DISCUSSES HIS HISTORIC STARCRAFT II VICTORY
https://www.gamecrate.com/interview-serral-discusses-his-historic-starcraft-ii-victory/21290
sOs: 'Being an underdog is not too bad'
http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/page/blizzcon7/blizzcon-2018-starcraft-ii-sos-being-underdog-not-too-bad
The One Word to Sum Up MMA’s SC2 Career is Heart
https://www.vpesports.com/more-esports/starcraft/the-one-word-to-sum-up-mmas-sc2-career-is-heart/
The Pylon Show Episode 27, a Starcraft Podcast
https://www.twitch.tv/incontroltv
With Artosis and iNcontroL every Wednesday! Also available on YouTube and as a podcast.
This week's guests, Nathanias, Catz and Neuro!
ESPORTS
Esports is an official medal event at the Southeast Asian Games
https://www.pcgamer.com/esports-is-an-official-medal-event-at-the-southeast-asian-games/
Hearthstone is sure to be one of the 6. It was in both trials, its nonviolent, its popular, and I think it has girls playing at high level. The IOC liked that when Scarlett won Pyeongchang, that it wasnt a white male.
Redeye (@PaulChaloner)
In other news I read a private report today that showed that less than 3% of under 20's watch traditional sports on TV. In comparison, more than 38% watched esports online.
https://twitter.com/PaulChaloner/status/1068063438658813952?s=19
Shanghai releases guidelines over eSports athlete registration and management
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414f7955544f30457a6333566d54/share_p.html
WESG Continues working its way through Nationals and Regionals to World Finals
Starcraft II and Hearthstone players have been competing for months in over 40 nations to qualify. The Global Finals will be in Shanghai China in March 2019. JustSaiyan is the US Hearthstone winner. Canada Qualifier Finals play Live at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto on December 2.
Hangzhou Opens Esports Town, LGD Gaming and Allied Esports Debut Venue
https://esportsobserver.com/hangzhou-opens-esports-town/
Hangzhou’s government plans to invest up to $1.26B across 14 esports projects by 2022, including an esports academy, hotel, office park, and hospital.
After a demonstration event at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) director general Husain Al-Musallam said esports still requires a single international federation before it can be fully included.
Time to end prejudice against esports
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201811/05/WS5bdfa44fa310eff303286832.html
Legendary Game Universes and Esports Superstars Take Center Stage at BlizzCon® 2018
https://www.apnews.com/676266208ddb45e986245ef157e3155a
WARCRAFT III
NetEase Revealed Esports Plan With Blizzard For Next Year, $720K Prize Pool For WarCraft III Series
https://esportsobserver.com/china-esports-recap-nov29/
The Chinese city of Hangzhou opened its “esports town”, which currently spans 3.94M square feet (17K square meter). The initial cost for the complex is ¥2B RMB ($280M), though Hangzhou’s government plans to spend up to ¥15.45B RMB ($2.22B) on the project through 2022, according to the Chinese government-run website People.cn. Some of the planned facilities for the town include an esports academy, esports-themed hotel, theme park, a business center, and even a hospital designed for esports players.
The WGL Winter Grand Finals are underway
http://dz.blizzard.cn/article/news/2521
The Warcraft III Golden League Winter Tournament will start at 16:30 on November 28. This is the first Golden League offline match after the 1.30 version is launched. The top 24 players from Europe, America, South Korea and China will compete for the championship and rich prizes from November 28th to December 8th.
The Warcraft Gold League 2018 Winter Season is the second part of the most important individual tournament in 2018. With one the biggest prize pool of the year ($21,655) and the obligation to earn his place via a qualifier tournament, this is the most prestigious event in the scene.
It is organized by Blizzard Entertainment's Chinese partner : NetEase, played at Shanghai, offline. During November, the very best players of the world will fight in a double elimination groupstage before going into the single elimination playoffs.
Warcraft 3: Classic Has Vanished from the Battle.net Store
https://twinfinite.net/2018/11/warcraft-3-classic-has-vanished-from-the-battle-net-store/
There will be a Warcraft 3: Reforged beta – probably “early next year”
https://www.pcgamesn.com/warcraft-iii/warcraft-3-reforged-beta
Warcraft 3: Reforged requires “orders of magnitude” more work than Starcraft Remastered
https://www.pcgamesn.com/warcraft-iii/warcraft-3-reforged-more-work-starcraft-remastered
https://comicbook.com/2018/11/07/warcraft-iii-reforged-world-of-warcraft-references/
Daily and Weekly Tournaments here
https://www.twitch.tv/back2warcraft
DIABLO
Blizzard Confirms New ‘Diablo’ Products Will Be Revealed in 2019
https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/blizzard-diablo-reveal-2019-1203066945/
Pre-Release party for Rastakhan's Rumble
Open your packs, hang out with Hearthstone Creative Director Ben Thompson & more at Australia's only Pre-Release party for Rastakhan's Rumble - 1 December at Good Games Top Ryde City. Reserve your ticket here, strictly limited spots available!
Diablo III's Next Patch and Season 16 Aims to Be 'Game-Changing'
https://www.ausgamers.com/news/read/3611511/diablo-iiis-next-patch-and-season-16-aims-to-be-game-changing
The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo
https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-diablo-1830593195
Blizzard Co-Founder Says The Company "Tried" To Showcase DIABLO 4 At BlizzCon 2018 After All
https://gamefragger.com/mobile_gaming/blizzard-co-founder-says-the-company-tried-to-showcase-diablo-4-at-blizzcon-2018-after-all-a12150
Domino's Pizza in Malaysia has a dig at Blizzard and Diablo Immortal
https://www.altchar.com/games-news/581284/dominos-has-a-dig-at-diablo-immortal-shots-fired
Blizzard acknowledges the mobile reality
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-11-09-blizzard-acknowledges-the-mobile-reality
If this is true, and it probably is, its probably going to be other Blizzard games coming next.
24 Diablo Immortal Memes For People Who Are Pissed At Blizzard
http://gaming.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/24-diablo-immortal-memes-that-you-can-view-on-your-pc/85807069/
HEROES OF THE STORM
Heroes of the Storm Mobile Wouldn't Be a 'Simple Port': Blizzard
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/features/heroes-of-the-storm-mobile-overwatch-orphea-characters-tier-list-blizzard-1948416
Blizzard Working on Possible Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm Mobile Games
https://segmentnext.com/2018/11/08/blizzard-new-mobile-games/
HEROES OF THE DORM https://heroesofthedorm.com/
HEARTHSTONE
Esports is an official medal event at the Southeast Asian Games
https://www.pcgamer.com/esports-is-an-official-medal-event-at-the-southeast-asian-games/
Hearthstone is sure to be one of the 6. It was in both trials, its nonviolent, its popular, and I think it has girls playing at high level. The IOC liked that when Scarlett won Pyeongchang, that it wasnt a white male.
WESG Continues working its way through Nationals and Regionals to World Finals
Starcraft II and Hearthstone players have been competing for months in over 40 nations to qualify. The Global Finals will be in Shanghai China in March 2019. JustSaiyan is the US Hearthstone winner. Canada Qualifier Finals play Live at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto on December 2.
Activision Blizzard Hits Q3 Goals Thanks to WoW and Candy Crush, Destiny 2 Disappoints
https://wccftech.com/activision-blizzard-q3-2018-earnings/
OVERWATCH
Overwatch Director Says Blizzard Is "Very Open-Minded" About Switch Release
"We would love to do it"
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/overwatch_director_says_blizzard_is_very_open-minded_about_switch_release
WARCRAFT CLASSIC
Back2Warcraft @Back2Warcraft
We interviewed Pete Stilwell, Senior Producer of @Warcraft3 and discussed the current progress, design philosophies, esports, mapmaking and more.
Also, as a B2W exclusive, Pete reveals a new feature for the game!
OTHER BLIZZARD RELATED STUFF
Sources for these news bits include:
www.google.com
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us
http://www.teamliquid.net/
And others.
.