Monthly Recap - July Edition

For this month’s recap we have once again prepared for you a few interesting news stories in gaming to have a look at and we are sure that they would spark your attention, so let’s just dive right in to it and begin with a story regarding a petition that addresses a matter that has lately been going rampant across the gaming industry:

The Petition Urging Publishers to “Stop Killing Games” Gains Momentum and has Exceeded Initial Goal

The recent Stop Killing Gamespetition has managed to gain a significant amount of attention, getting to a total of more than 1.4 million signatures, exceeding by quite far its original goal of 1 million signs. This widely spread international support across the whole of Europe has been strengthened even more by some notable political figures, such as the Vice President of the European Parliament for example, who has already expressed their position about the matter on official social media platforms.

However, the movement has also faced harsh criticism from the industry veterans, including officials at Ubisoft like the co-founder and reigning CEO, Yves Guillemot. Guillemot's comments have mostly focused around the idea that publishers should not be expected to maintain a service indefinitely and forever, suggesting that there may be discontinued services at some point. The European publisher group Video Games Europe has also expressed a similar position and sentiments, highlighting their perspective that publishers cannot be held responsible regarding the maintenance of access to games indefinitely.

Despite these high-profile criticisms, the Stop Killing Games petition continued to gain momentum, with its authors surpassing the set goal of signatures to address the issue of potentially invalidated services for support of gaming titles. The deadline for the petition was for July 31, and gamers across the European Union were encouraged to sign it for quite a bit.

The massive success of the Stop Killing Games petition throws direct light on the ever-growing concern among gaming fans in Europe: namely, the practice performed by multiple publishers to delist game titles from major platforms and stores, rendering them in practice - unplayable. This issue has been fueled up by companies such as Entergram, who recently has delisted more than 100 games from the PlayStation Store.

If the petition manages to succeed in its goal of convincing the European Parliament to take urgent action and measures, it could lead to new laws and regulations being introduced across the European Union that would prevent gaming publishers from abruptly delisting or turning games unplayable, ensuring that players would be able to continue having access to and enjoy their already purchased titles and multimedia content. But let’s now have a look on the other side of things and learn more about the possible ROI prognosis for one of the most anticipated titles in gaming history!

A Staggering Prediction About the Possible ROI for GTA 6

Analysts are predicting that Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) is possibly going to generate a total of $7.6 billion of returning revenue in just the first two months it is available on the market. Even though it may sound like a totally mad guess, such a figure could actually be possible, having in mind the franchise's overall past success and the increasing number of fans eagerly anticipating the next sequel in the franchise.

The predecessors of GTA 6, GTA 5 in particular, have been successful when it comes to reaching sales numbers in the hundreds of millions copies sold, which only further cements and proves the franchise's enduring popularity even further. It has already been a decade since GTA 5 got its initial release and the audience is quite hyped for a new installment, which in turn could potentially drive GTA 6 to unprecedented levels of success for Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive.

Experts such as Josh Chapman from Konvoy predict that GTA 6 may cost somewhere around $80 for the standard edition base game, but there could be premium packages also available, as well as pointing out that in such a scenario Take-Two may very well achieve a complete return on its $2 billion investment within just a month alone.

Even though the game would probably be primarily focused on the main campaign mode, an online component of GTA 6 might also be able to play a more significant role in its potential earnings, with larger lobbies for up to 200 players, higher risk/reward dynamics and events and a major component or game mechanic for the creation of user-generated content. With the proper approaches applied which would seriously increase the interest of fans and make them engage deeper and longer with the upcomingGTA 6 game.

The outstanding hype surrounding GTA 6 is definitely quite real, as evidenced by the record-breaking number of YouTube views for the trailer. As we all know well, when it comes to Rockstar games the amount of effort, content and craftsmanship is incredibly high and this further supports the prediction of its massive earnings potential, despite the higher than average price point, it should be worth it for every cent. Enough about GTA 6 for now though, it is time to get our attention shifted towards the return to gaming for one of the classic franchises in horror and how it plans on disturbing the fans’ minds! 

The Gaming Revival to Clive Barker's Hellraiser is Coming

The teams at Saber Interactive and Boss Team Games are working together on a new collaboration project with the idea to develop Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, an iconic survival horror, single-player game based of course on the dark, supernatural world and creatures in the Hellraiser film series. The game is going to be released and available on the PC via Steam, just like the major consoles such as PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Some fans could already be familiar with games developed by the companies, as Saber Interactive's previous work on other popular horror game adaptations in their portfolio is quite impressive, it includes the likes of Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered, Evil Dead: The Game, and A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. While Boss Team Games has previously collaborated with Saber Interactive on the Evil Dead title and has also worked with WayForward Technologies on two RetroRealms titles that are based on the Halloween franchise and Ash vs Evil Dead, so both companies are quite familiar with the ropes when it comes to the horror genre.

Clive Barker, the original creator of the Hellraiser movie series and franchise, is also going to be actively involved with the project; he has already openly expressed his position regarding the project, praising the dedication demonstrated by the two studios in capturing the core essence of the series and characters. The game's first official teaser trailer has already been released to the public and actor Doug Bradley is going to reprise his role as Pinhead for the first time in what is roughly two whole decades.

From what we have gathered so far, in Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, players are going to take on the role of Aidan, a young man who must find a way to unlock the dark powers of the Genesis Configuration puzzle box in order to save his girlfriend from eternal oblivion and somehow manage to survive a deadly pact with Pinhead. The gameplay would blend story-driven action and events typical for the best of survival horror video games, and it would all happen in a first-person perspective, so that you could be able to get the best view over the terrors of Hell.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival has an aim to introduce gaming fans to an iconic legacy of fear invoking projects, joining the increasing resurgence of horror gaming with upcoming hit remakes and highly-anticipated sequels. Fans would be able to choose between the standard edition and two Collector's Editions, which are said to include a Hellraiser Puzzle Box, a Hellraiser statue, and other officially licensed collectibles that are already available for pre-purchase at Boss Team Games.

Will There Be a Playable Demo for Hollow Knight: Silksong at Gamescom this Year?

Latest rumors suggest that we are finally getting a playable DEMO version for the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong at this year’s Gamescom, which is taking place in Cologne between 20 - 24th of August. Fans should be able to locate it at the Microsoft Xbox booth (typically in hall 7) at the convention and enjoy a brief experience of the gameplay and storyline for the game. 

Hollow Knight: Silksong is fan-favorite upcoming Metroidvania type of video game that continues upon the original game from 2017 and is developed and published by the Australian independent developer Team Cherry. The title should be expected to launch some time before the end of the year, but no official Hollow Knight: Silksong release date has yet been announced. 

The game would include intense battles and acrobatic moves such as slashes and dashes, in a similar visual style to the previous entry of the story but with many improvements and enhancements brought in the mix. Initially, it was all planned to be a DLC to the original game, but it quickly grew in its volume and the team decided to make it into a separate game of its own, as it is stated that there would be new friendly allies but also more than 150 new enemies and stronger boss characters included, thus making the action much more varied and demanding of your full attention.

The title has been announced for multiple platforms such as Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, Linux and MacOS.

This year Gamescom is certainly going to offer a lot of new games and we should definitely do a separate YUPLAY blog post about when it happens, so expect this and a lot more during the rest of the summer! Until next time as we continue to keep you informed about all that is interesting in g