The Biggest News In Gaming (Week Beginning 26/08/19)

It’s been a busy and emotional week for the games industry. We try to summarize each week’s events to make it easy to understand here, and that’s what we’ve tried to do. Apologies if some details or stories have been omitted.

Sexual Assault Allegations Engulf The Games Industry

A slew of sexual assault allegations have been made this week by many women in the games industry.

Twitter has been rife with members of the industry who have gone online to publish their stories. Accusations have been made about developers, designers, coders and composers who have emotionally and physically abused other members of the games industry.

Whilst many accusations have been made, there are far too many to be accounted and detailed here. Below is a summary of the week’s events.

On Monday, the developer behind Tetrageddon, Nathalie Lawhead published an account on Twitter that accused Skyrim composer, Jeremy Soule of rape.

The account was said to be made “so other women can be informed,” however, it motivated many other victims of similar cases to come forward with their stories.

Amid the allegations, Oculus co-founder Michael Antonov was accused of groping a marketing director while she was taking part in a VR demo in 2016.

Autumn Taylor, marketing director at Owlchemy Labs detailed, “The shock and fear of that happening while I was essentially blindfolded.”

“This person in a position of power when VR was new made me feel small. I shouldn’t discredit my experience. Michael Antonov was a fucking creep to me at an Oculus event. Men don’t get to keep doing this.”

Following this, Night in The Woods co-creator Alec Holowka was accused of emotional abuse and sexual assault by developer and writer Zoe Quinn.

Quinn, who has been a figure of controversy for many gamers and twitter-goers in the past, said that Holowka began “slowly [isolating] me from everyone else in my life while absolutely degrading me whenever we were alone.” Quinn’s testimony also includes a graphic description of Holowka’s physical assault against her.

This led to the other two co-founders of Owlchemy Labs “cutting ties” with Holowka and delaying their upcoming projects. In a statement they said:

“This week, allegations of past abuse have come to light regarding Alec Holowka, who was coder, composer, and co-designer on Night In The Woods.

“We take such allegations seriously as a team. As a result and after some agonizing consideration, we are cutting ties with Alec.

“We’ve received a lot of emails and messages in the past few days, often very hurt and angry. That’s also how we feel. This has been very, very tough.”

A few days later, Holowka’s sister Eileen Holowka took to twitter to announce that her brother had died.

No details of his death were given in his sister’s statement.

PS Plus and Games For Gold Free Games For September Revealed

The free games that members of PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games For Gold will have access to for the month of September have become known.

PS Plus members will be able to play the final chapter of WB’s Arkham Trilogy, Arkham Knight. They will also have access to Darksiders 3.

Both will become available to members of the subscription on September 3rd.

As for the Xbox equivalent, Gold members will be able to play Hitman: The Complete First Season from September 1–30th.

We Were Here from Total Mayhem Games will hit the service from September 16-October 15th.

Xbox 360 players will also gain access to Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Earth Defence Force 2025.

CD Projekt Red Sees Revenue Rise As They Split Focus

CD Projekt Red, the developer behind The Witcher series and the much anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, has seen its profits rise by 26% in the first six months of the year.

The polish developer published an earnings report which shows their profits have risen mostly due to the on-going success of The Witcher 3.

The 2015 game’s expansions have seen the company make a 26% rise in profits to €50 million.

The report also suggested the studio may be switching its model to focus on more than one franchise.

In a statement they said “Managing two separate major franchises (The Witcher and Cyberpunk), along with several independent development teams, enables the Company to conduct parallel work on several projects and smoothens its long-term release schedule.

“This migration towards a dual-franchise model supported by several independent product lines also permits optimization of manufacturing and financial activities, mitigates important risk factors and makes it easier for Company employees to seek professional fulfillment.” They said.

Telltale Games *Doesn’t* Return

A group of investors has made moves to revive the now closed Telltale Games.

While they have caused much confusion by announcing that the studio is back, they have revived it by name only.

Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle, two men who did not previously work at Telltale Games, told the press that they had acquired the rights to the company’s name and a few of its licenses. They also revealed plans to open a new studio under the Telltale Games name in Malibu, California.

They have also said that developers that worked at the original Telltale games will be offered freelance positions, with the possibility of full-time employment coming later.