Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma will retire from the company he cofounded on Monday, telling media outlets he plans ply his more than $40 billion fortune on philanthropic efforts in education.
EPA photo
Ma informed The New York Times of the surprise move on Friday, saying he will step down as Alibaba’s executive chairman effective Monday, when he turns 54. China’s richest man will stay on the company’s board of directors and intends to mentor upcoming management, the report said.
Ma founded Alibaba alongside 17 other people in 1999. Initially developed as a business-to-business e-commerce solution, Alibaba found its stride when it launched the consumer centric Taobao marketplace in 2003.
A behemoth in the Chinese internet shopping space, the company launched complementary services in online payments product Alipay, which was spun out to as subsidiary Ant Financial.
Apple was at one point rumored to partner with Alibaba through Ant in a bid to bring Apple Pay to the Chinese market. Those plans failed to materialize and Alibaba instead integrated with rival payments service Samsung Pay in 2016.
Beyond e-commerce and digital payments, Alibaba has its fingers in online banking, cloud computing digital media and entertainment, and other internet-based products and services.
Ma’s departure comes as a surprise to many, as Chinese tycoons rarely retire at such an early age. The move is unlikely to leave the $420 billion company in dire straits, as a number of co-founders and well-seasoned managers are ready to take the reins.
Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. It’s a slow week, thanks in part to The Elder Scrolls: Blades slinking away to December.
It’s been a slower week on the site as well, but hopefully we’ve given you some interesting reading none-the-less. We only had one review this week, Evergarden, but we also gave you our thoughts on what the best strategy games to play offline are as well. We also highlighted the (now finished) sale on Six Ages and wrote up a spot of news as well.
Out Now
The Elder Scrolls: Blades (iOS U- oh wait…nevermind)
We thought we were going to be able to talk about The Elder Scrolls: Blades this week, Bethesda Game Studio’s latest foray into mobile games. Blades is to be a first-person RPG based in the popular Elder Scrolls game world, but its App Store release date keeps moving. It was September 1st, then September 7th. Now it is December 1st. Bethesda said the prior dates were never the real release date and the game hasn’t slipped. Apparently, they looked at the September App Store dates as ‘placeholder’ dates used by Apple only.
SpellKeeper is a puzzle game where you become a Chosen One. Your job is to free butterflies trapped in magical cocoons using spells. You have limited spells at your disposal, so it’s all about their efficient use to free all the butterflies on each level. SpellKeeper is not particularly challenging, it’s going for more of a relaxing style puzzle game, which is supported by attractive graphics and sound.
Asmodee Digital secretly launched another game into their digital catalogue this week – Onitama is a strategy boardgame that resembles Chess. Each side as four warriors and one elder at their disposal, and the aim is to either capture the opponents elder or take their place in the temple arch. Unlike chess, movement is controlled by randomly drawn cards, with the players swapping cards between them as they use them. We haven’t had a chance to play this one, but it’s free-to-play with only a couple of IAPs right now, one of which being for the expansion.
It’s 3018 and humanity has taken to space. You are a captain of the space fleet and are in charge of finding a new world for our species to inhabit. It’s Reigns in space. Like any Reigns-like the gameplay in Final Frontier: A New Journey is very familiar so it all comes down to the narrative. While the narrative choices aren’t bad, they also aren’t particularly varied or compelling. I’d pass on this one unless you’re in the mood for more Reigns, but space.
The digital adaptation of Reiner Knizia’s card game Money, where you start with six different kinds of currency and try to concentrate your holdings into just two or three, is on sale for a buck…
…As is Kingdoms, a tile-laying strategy card game set in medieval times. Neither game features online multiplayer but are worth consideration if you enjoy solo board gaming on your device.
Dungeon Rushers isn’t a terribly deep dungeon crawler, but it is entertaining and worth a couple bucks if you’re looking for a new game. It’s got monsters, traps, treasure, loot, skills, crafting, and even an online arena system to battle other players.
Also just a buck or two, depending on your device, is Mi-Clos Studio’s fantastic sci-fi adventure game Out There: Ω Edition. It’s got a little of everything from interactive fiction, to RPG, to resource and crew management simulation game. If you haven’t played it, this one is worth a go.
Mi-Clos also has a discount on their interactive fiction games based in the Out There universe. You can pick up the first episode for a buck and the latest game, episode 2, for $1.99 (on iOS only at this point).
XCOM-like, turn-based tactics gem Templar Battleforce is a must-have for fans of the genre. It’s currently half off and is worth it, so much so that’s on our guide to the best offline strategy games on mobile.
Seen anything else you like? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
3 PS4 Game Sales Are Now Live On The US PlayStation Store
It's a good week to be a frugal PS4 owner. That's because you get not one, not two, but three game sales on the PlayStation Store between now and September 10. If you enjoy the Assassin's Creed series or games made by Rockstar or Bandai Namco, there's a good chance you'll find something worth buying this week. As usual, PS Plus members will get additional discounts on some of the games. Read on for the details.
Fans of historical bloodshed can pick up most of the Assassin's Creed series at a discount right now. Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection, which contains remasters of Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations, is on sale for $20. The seafaring Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is down to $10, while Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered is on sale for $18. And if you haven't picked up Assassin's Creed Origins yet, you can do it now for $24, before Odyssey lands in October. Additionally, a hefty amount of Assassin's Creed DLC and expansions is also on sale.
That's a lot of deals, and we only really scratched the surface of what's available on the PSN. You can find the full listings for all of the sales right here.
Create your own player and rise to legend status in THE ONE. Play on different courts across the world, Build Your Squad, and challenge others for global dominance in THE LEAGUE and on THE STREETS. With new ways to develop your player and play the game, experience the most authentic feel NBA LIVE has ever had.
Play online or with friends as SNK's iconic heroines in the brand-new 2 vs 2 fighting game, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy! Activate Special Moves with a single button, and make use of special items to change the tide of battle! However, the fight isn't over the moment you've chipped enough health away. Once your opponent is on the ropes, utilize your Dream Finish technique to win the match! Spectate on other battles online, and wage on who you think will win using in-game points. Use your winnings to buy voice clips and accessories in an all-new costume system, and customize your favorite heroine to your heart's content!
FEATURES:
* Assemble Your Heroines and Battle Head-to-Head -- A brand new tag battle action fighting game is here! Players can participate in a four-multiplayer frenzy online or with friends!
* An Iconic Cast of SNK's Female Characters! -- Choose from a generous roster of female heroines from the SNK universe!
* Defeat Foes With Style and Elegance -- Coordination is key, as players can choose from up to 100 different accessories for their characters. Accessories including cat ears, glasses, face paint, and new sound effects.
Famed game designer Hideo Kojima has shared little about his new project, Death Stranding, since the game's showing at E3 earlier this summer, but fans may get another look at the enigmatic title soon. Kojima Productions has announced Death Stranding will have a presence at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which is scheduled to kick off in Japan later this month.
According to the official Kojima Productions Twitter account (via Siliconera), the studio will host a Death Stranding stage event during TGS on September 23. No timing details have been announced yet, but the presentation will feature appearances from director Hideo Kojima himself, as well as "several" voice actors from the game. Additional information and guests will be announced at a later date.
Development on Death Stranding began following Kojima's departure from Konami in 2015. The title was first revealed during Sony's E3 2016 press conference, although aside from being an open-world action game, it is still very much shrouded in mystery. It stars a number famous actors, including The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus, Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen, and Lea Seydoux and Lindsay Wagner, both of whom were revealed during the game's E3 2018 trailer.
The extended trailer also provided fans their first glimpse at Death Stranding's gameplay. In it, Norman Reedus's character can be seen traversing a variety of environments, including rivers, expansive plains, mountainsides, and Martian-like landscapes. Later in the video, he encounters a woman who helps him avoid detection by invisible monsters.
Death Stranding is in development for PS4. A release date for the game has not yet been announced. Despite this, the title is already available for pre-order from a number of retailers. You can learn more in our Death Stranding pre-order guide.
Video: How Supercell challenges traditional studio conventions
In this GDC 2018 talk, Supercell’s (Clash of Clans) Ilkka Paananen dives into the management lessons he’s learned as a company founder, sharing his experience of building an unconventional organizational structure for Supercell.
Paananen shares his observations after years of leading companies that were structured like most games companies.
Management owned the vision and had creative control, while he wanted to create a structure that would allow talented, creative developers to flourish instead.
He discusses how Supercell challenges tradition and give teams the independence and full autonomy to design games, lead projects and have the final say on whether the company launches or kills a game.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.
Games intelligence firm SuperData acquired by analytics company Nielsen
Nielsen Holdings announced in a press release today its acquisition of games market intelligence firm SuperData Research, known for collecting and interpreting data from customers.
As part of the acquisition (the details were not disclosed), SuperData will help strengthen Nielsen’s games and eSports research sectors, which offer publishers, developers, console manufacturers, media platforms, eSports brands, and industry stakeholders data from customer research.
While SuperData and Nielsen share numbers publicly, it’s worth noting that research pulled from either company should be taken with a grain of salt.
It’s not entirely clear how they interpret and collect data and the language surrounding their methodology seems vague.
Damage to Thaviks is preserved when Thaviks switches weapons
Daily Heroic Story Missions
Daily Heroic story missions now available
Crucible
General
Fixed an issue that sometimes triggered the Quitter Penalty after completed Competitive Crucible matches
Starting in Season 4, Iron Banner will be updated to enable Power level advantages, beginning on September 18
Removed Mayhem temporarily from the weekly featured playlist until a future update
Trials of the Nine is now on hiatus
Trials of the Nine reputation tokens cannot be redeemed until the activity returns
Maps
Retribution and Wormhaven are now available on all platforms
Retribution has been reworked and enlarged to support 6v6 matches
Rumble
Earning a place in the Top 3 in Rumble will now count as a win
The correct number of Valor Rank Points will be granted
Competitive
Glory
Retuned Glory Rank Points gained and lost have to reduce the overall climb to higher ranks
Fixed the weekly award and doubled its gains
Fixed and returned weekly Glory decay
Players who competed in Season 3 will earn bonus rank points for completing their first match in Season 4
Removed loss streaks
Valor
Losses in the Competitive playlist no longer reset your Valor win streak
Game Modes
Control and Clash modes have been added to the Competitive playlist
Rewards
Pinnacle Crucible rewards are now awarded via quests
These quests will not be removed at the end of the season
Redrix’s Claymore has been retired in Season 4 as a seasonal reward
Players who earned Redrix’s Claymore in Season 3 will receive additional bonuses
Private Matches
Added the option to adjust the respawn timers for Survival
Score-to-win options have been updated for several modes
Control
Added 25 and 150, removed 10 and 20
150 is the new default
Clash
Added 25 and 150, removed 10 and 20
100 is the new default
Supremacy
Added 25 and 150, removed 10 and 20
150 is the new default
Gambit
General
The Gambit playlist is unlocked
Requires Forsaken
Requires completion of mission “Spark”
Infamy ranks now available
Tower
Vendors
Zavala
The Season 4 vendor progression system has been updated with two separate progressions
Vanguard Rank
Like in previous seasons, Vanguard rank can be increased by turning in Vanguard tokens to Zavala
Increasing your Vanguard rank will provide Vanguard engrams, containing new Year 2 weapons and armor with random rolls
You can continue to acquire items found in Vanguard engrams beyond the season end boundary
Seasonal exclusive items that are purchased via Vanguard rank have been moved to their own row for clarity, and will only be attainable until the end of Season 4
Nightfall Rank
Increased by attaining score on various Nightfall strikes
Items are now available for purchase from Zavala by increasing in Nightfall Rank
Shaxx
Updated reputation reward packages for Season 4
Updated bounties for Season 4
Added pursuits to Shaxx’s inventory
Added new rewards for Valor ranks
Gunsmith
No longer exchanges Year 1 mods; these can be safely dismantled
Now sells two mods (one armor, one weapon) a day.
Gunsmith packages now require 100 Gunsmith Materials
Updated repuation reward packages for Season 4
Events & Rituals
Challenges
General
Between levels 20 and 50 challenges provide a source of Legendary items and experience
When you reach level 50, an entirely new set of challenges activates and the leveling ones are no longer available
After you reach level 50, these are the main avenue into the powerful rewards that previously lived within milestones
Level 20 challenges with progression will be converted to a new challenges at level 50
Daily challenges now available
Specific challenges offered each day
Individual daily challenges reset on a four day cadence
Weekly challenges now available
Reset each Tuesday
Items & Economy
General
Increased experience rewards for completing strikes and nightfall
Reduced experience rewards for completing normal and heroic public events
Iron Banner, Vanguard, and Crucible tokens earned in Season 3 may be redeemed with their respective vendors in Season 4
Players are no longer able to delete mods or shaders from an items details screen
Masterworks
Masterwork reward chances are being reduced in some activities
Pre-Forsaken raids will still offer a higher chance for Masterwork acquisition, but that chance has been lowered from 50% to 10% to be in line with Masterwork drops in Forsaken
Year 1 armor will always dismantle to one Masterwork Core
Year 1 weapons can dismantle to one or two cores, but no longer three
Power
Activity rewards now respect your Power
If you complete an activity while severely under-leveled, rewards will offer a larger Power upgrade
If you complete an activity while heavily over-leveled, rewards will be a lower Power level
Shaders
Forsaken shaders do not drop in the wild; instead, they come from dismantling gear with that shader applied
Rare-quality shaders are often applied to drops, but have a low chance of being granted by dismantling
Legendary-quality shaders appear much less frequently on gear, but have a high chance of being granted by dismantling
It no longer costs anything to apply shaders to gear
Infusion
Infusion for all pre-Forsaken and Forsaken gear is capped at 600 Power
Weapon infusion is now slot-based rather than archetype-based
Example: Any Kinetic weapon can be infused into any other Kinetic weapon, but you can no longer infuse an Energy Hand Cannon into a Kinetic Hand Cannon
Infusing duplicates of the same item is much less expensive than using two different items
Destination Materials
Reduced drop rates of destination materials from some destination activities
Collections
Includes any weapon, armor piece, Ghost Shell, ship, Sparrow, emblem, or shader players have earned since Warmind’s release on May 8
Except for Year 2 legendary armor and weapons with random rolls, all items can be reacquired through Collections, for a fee
The cost to reacquire an item scales based on what the item dismantles into
Three of Coins
Three of Coins have been deprecated
Converted into “Faded Cards”
Can be safely discarded for Legendary Shards
Eververse
Prismatic Matrix Schedule
The Prismatic Matrix is now scheduled out for the full season
The Prismatic Facet (free weekly account roll) is now obtained via a special Tier 1 Eververse bounty, rather than being tied to leveling, which can be acquired for 250 Glimmer and that does not require an Eververse Bounty Note
This permits players at all levels to obtain their free weekly roll
Eververse Bounties
Each Seasonal Bright Engram now grants one Bounty Note
These Bounty Notes can be exchanged for a variety of weekly Eververse Bounties, which come in three tiers:
Players can acquire as many Eververse bounties as they have Bounty Notes
Eververse bounties expire seven days after acquisition
Bright Dust Dismantle Yields
Bright Dust, which you gained from dismantling types of Eververse items, is now a fixed amount
Example: Shaders will always yield 10 Bright Dust
Bright Engram Updates
Reward probabilities are now displayed on bungie.net
Added new Legendary weapon ornaments to the Bright Engram
Added new Ghost Projection category to the Bright Engram
Weapon and armor mods are no longer available in Bright Engrams
Eververse Armor and Perks
With the addition of random perk rolls on armor, we have made some changes to how perks are applied to Eververse armor
Eververse armor acquired from non-deterministic sources (i.e., the Bright Engram) will include random perks
Eververse armor acquired from deterministic sources (i.e., the Prismatic Matrix or Bright Dust storefront) will have fixed perks
Leveling Rewards in Forsaken
Starting in Forsaken, you will no longer earn Bright Engrams each level until you reach the level cap
Players progressing through the campaigns will receive an Eververse gift at the end of each campaign once per class with a variety of items and some Bright Engrams included
This includes players who use a Character Boost
Once you reach the level cap, Bright Engrams will once again be awarded at the same rate as they are in the current game
General
Silver transaction history is now displayed on bungie.net
Bundles that have not been opened can be refunded for seven days after purchase
Gleaming Boons of the Vanguard and Crucible have been updated to drop the current season’s items
To make room for bounties, Bright Dust offerings have been moved to the second page of Eververse
Clans
General
The Season 3 Clan Staff reward has been granted to all clans who hit max rank this season
Gambit now offers a clan engram when a fireteam from your clan wins a Gambit match
Season 4 Clan Progression
Clan experience is now earned by completing clan bounties available from Hawthorne
When a player reaches level 50, three new clan bounties become available
Guided Games
General
Players have the option reconnect to Guided Game activities if they encounter a disconnection from an active Guided Game
Technical
Audio
Adjusted ambient audio in the Tower
UI
Fixed an issue where having a certain number of unique items in the vault was causing items to not load
Fixed an issue where text would hitch on multiple screens when players are playing on a PlayStation Pro
