2014
Latest
LG's phone sales are way up, but killing plasma TVs had a cost
LG is still trailing Samsung and Apple in total smartphone sales (and profits from them), but the company just revealed its financial data for the last year and has plenty to be happy about. It sold 59.1 million smartphones last year, up nearly a quarter from what it moved in 2013. The report didn't explain when we can expect the G Flex 2 in the US or leak what's in the next big G series phone, but said the company will "concentrate on improving its brand power, operating more efficiently, and focusing on selective key markets." Its TV business is doing well too, where profits grew 31 percent from last year to $482 million. Still, the company had a net loss in the last quarter of 2014 because of write-offs related to shutting down its plasma TV business as it ramps up Ultra HD and OLED.
Samsung looks for a boost as its smartphone sales keep slipping
Samsung's profits have been on an upward swing driven by several popular versions of its Galaxy smartphones, but 2014 is going into the books as an off year. It still posted a $4.88 billion profit in Q4, but for the year it was down 32 percent from 2013 and had the lowest profit since 2011, which can be traced to a drop in smartphone shipments. So what's the plan for 2015? Other than shipping more of those curved SUHD TVs we saw, it's focusing on phone sales in India and China, planning a "diversified portfolio with unique designs" of wearable devices and launching more new phones like the Galaxy A series. It's also focusing on its processor building business, and it seems more likely than ever that the next round of Galaxy phones will have Samsung CPUs inside instead of Qualcomm. That might not be enough to keep up with the Joneses Apple for the coming year, but it will have to do.
Activision takes victory lap, Destiny biggest new game franchise launch
Let us be colloquial: Activision makin' mad bank, yo. Like, all the cheddar. The publisher took a victory lap this morning, reiterating the top placement of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare during yesterday's NPD, the success of Skylanders among children and making a pertinent addendum to Destiny's sales in 2014. Last night, US retail tracking group NPD released its year-end data, with Destiny ranked third behind Call of Duty and Madden NFL 15. Activision noted this morning that Destiny was in second place "among all titles in the U.S. in 2014, based on revenue." This would reflect the significant digital distribution push Destiny had, as well as the special editions and expansion bundles.
Ask Massively: The most popular Massively posts of 2014
Like MMOs themselves, the MMO-related stories we like aren't always the most popular across the internet. And sometimes the articles that go viral are unassuming duds with our actual commenters, not the most controversial and heated. That's what we're going to look at today in this edition of Ask Massively: the 10 most popular posts of 2014, weighted by pageviews, though we'll talk a bit about comment count as well. Enjoy this trek into the year gone by.
TERA puts the wraps on 2014
Even though we're well into the new year, there are some who have yet to finish saying goodbye to the old one. One of these people is TERA Community Manager Tonka, who introduces a two-minute video tribute to 2014 in the game. And the above picture is misleading, by the way: He doesn't want to punch the year in the face so much as praise it. You can get Tonka and a musical tribute to TERA's previous year after the break!
Top stories from 2014, Google talks Title II and other stories you might've missed
Happy New Year, folks! To celebrate the start of 2015, we rounded up all stories that helped make the past 365 days so memorable -- and they're just a click away. Head on down to the gallery below for the stories that defined 2014 and more, including The Interview's aftermath, why sitting will kill you and Google's plan for Fiber under Title II. You know you want to.
2014 was the worst year for movie attendance since 1995
If you noticed a little more elbow room while you were at the movies last year, it probably wasn't the result of recliner chairs at your cineplex. As The Hollywood Reporter tells it, only about 1.26 billion folks bought movie tickets between New Year's Day and New Year's Eve in 2014 -- the lowest ticket sales figures have been since 1995 (1.21 billion sold). It's a six percent decrease compared to 2013, as well, when the number of tickets sold amounted to 1.34 billion butts in seats. THR also reports that in terms of dollars, sales dropped compared to last year too, seeing a five percent decline, which apparently is the biggest year-to-year fall in almost a decade.
Engadget Daily: the year's defining stories, the dangers of sitting, and more!
We're just about through with 2014, so it's the perfect time to take a look back at the defining moments of the past year. To help, we've rounded up some of the biggest stories of 2014. Click on the gallery below to find out what made the list, along with other stories that made headlines in the past 24 hours.
Facebook says it 'can do better' with its 'Year in Review' slideshows
Facebook inadvertently opened a lot of old wounds with its automated "Year in Review" slideshow feature. While it was meant to highlight people's favorite moments, it also reminded many of deaths, divorces and other tragedies that they tried to leave in the past. The company is clearly ready to own up to its mistake, though. Product manager Jonathan Gheller has apologized to Eric Meyer (whose story about his daughter's death drew attention to the problem) for the insensitivity and declared that the "Year in Review" team "can do better" in the future. While it's not clear what those changes will involve, The Guardian notes that Facebook has already changed the ending of the slideshow from "it's been a great year" to "see you next year" to avoid making presumptions.
The year in Big Pictures: 17 thought-provoking images from 2014
Whatever you were doing in 2014, there's a good chance you took a picture or two while you were doing it. Thanks to the ever-increasing quality of cameras in our phones, and the popularity of sites like Instagram and Pinterest, images are the de facto currency when it comes to immediate, lucid story telling. We all know the old adage about how many words one picture is worth. As such, we're pleased to bring you 17,000 words' worth of them right here, from some of the more unusual technological happenings that occurred in 2014.
Facebook's 'Year In Review' shows tragic side of software's shortcomings
Facebook's automated 'year in review' slideshows are meant to surface highlights from the year that was, but for some the virtual scrapbook simply brings back bad memories. In the case of web designer Eric Meyer, a photo of his recently deceased daughter appeared, surrounded by confetti, illustrations of party goers dancing and the exclamation "Eric, here's what your year looked like!" In response, Eric wrote a blog post about what he refers to as that app's "Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty," and pointing to the shortcomings of modern software design. While many have complained of the relentless onslaught of ads for automated journals like these, for people like Meyer, the persistence isn't just an annoyance.
Ask Massively: The one where we talk about our 2014 awards
Massively's 2014 awards series is over, but we like to go back and take a look at the reader polls and some of the big questions and neat comments that arose during the course of our rollout because many of our awards were contentious, as they are every year. It'd be no fun if they weren't, I suppose. Allow us to pontificate, and in the course of the review, we'll try to answer some frequently asked questions as well.
My favorite apps of 2014: Mike Wehner
I don't know about you, but 2014 sure sped by for me. It seems like just yesterday I was putting together my list of best apps of 2013, and here I am writing the next chapter now. But when I went back through my pages of iOS apps I realized that it's actually been a pretty long year -- it seriously seems like Monument Valley has been out for a decade, given how many times I've played it -- so here, without further ado, are my favorite apps of 2014. Fling (Free) An awesome idea for an app that has seriously captured my attention for months on end, Fling lets you randomly message up to 50 other people from all over the world, and vice-versa. The result is a massive collection of views, photos, jokes, and blurbs from people you'd never otherwise meet, and it's pretty darn cool. Sure, you have your handful of trolls just trying to find a sexting partner -- ok, maybe "handful" is a bit modest, as there's quite a few of them -- but overall the experience is fantastic. Dark Sky ($3.99) I hate weather apps with the fiery burning rage of a thousand suns. I hate going through pages and scrolling around to see forecasts, I hate how they all seem to find a way to make weather far more complicated than it is, and I hate how often they're just plain badly designed. All those reasons are why I love Dark Sky. It's the un-weather app. Forecasts are as simple as a date and a timeline showing when it's going to precipitate, and there's no digging required, but my favorite feature is on the main screen where the app tells you whether it's going to rain (or snow) within the next hour. The app alerts you when it's about to pour, and that feature alone has saved me many a wet bike ride. I love it. Goat Simulator ($0.99) What else can you say about Goat Simulator other than it's unlike any other game you've ever played. It started as a simple tech demo that spun out of control when the internet became obsessed with the idea of doing obnoxious stunts as a goat. Now it's a game, and a fantastic one at that. Be warned: You definitely have to make your own fun -- it's a bit of a sandbox, really -- but if you have any sense of humor whatsoever you're going to fall in love. Soccer Physics ($1.99) Soccer Physics is barely a sports game, but that's what makes it great. You have one button to control your two-man team and get the ball in the opposing team's goal, and prevent it from landing in your own. That's easier said than done, and even if you let your team sit completely still there's a good chance you'll come out on top, but it's still a blast to play and a great two-player game with a partner. Google Hangouts (Free) Google's Hangouts app used to be pretty horrendous, but the iOS 7 update it received in February 2014 greatly improved things. It's now one of my go-to chat apps thanks to it's speedy and responsive design, and it's also a lot more visually appealing than the past versions. If you tried the Hangouts app after it launched in 2013 and barfed on the floor, I don't blame you, but you should definitely give it another spin as we enter the new year. You'll probably be surprised. Monument Valley ($3.99) Let's not beat around the bush here: Monument Valley is probably in the top 5 of greatest iOS games ever made. It's puzzles are relaxing but challenging, and the game is absolutely gorgeous no matter what device you happen to be playing on. It's well worth its asking price, and its charm will stick with you for a long, long time after you've wrapped up the last levels. Oh, and you're probably going to want to play it again anyway, so that helps, too.
Jukebox Heroes: WildStar features the MMO soundtrack of the year
Originally I wanted to write a final Jukebox Heroes column for this year that would have ranked all of the soundtrack releases in 2014, but that ran into a couple of snags. Not only am I still in the process of listening and finding all of them, but one game's score was going to thrash the rest of them so badly that it didn't feel fair to stack them up together. That MMO was, of course, WildStar. I started to suspect that Composer Jeff Kurtenacker's score for WildStar was going to be something else when the studio started releasing parts of it over a year ago, but even then I wasn't prepared for the sheer quality and quantity that the full soundtrack presented. Critics and fans of the game alike have been very vocal in praising this game's music since the beta and through launch, and I'm still grooving on it months later. My only complaint is that it still -- still -- has yet to see an official release, free or paid. So even though our yearly awards didn't include a soundtrack category, I'm going to take the initiative and crown WildStar as the soundtrack of the year. Let's listen to six of the OST's highlights and discuss our favorites in the comments section.
One Shots: Top 10 best player screenshots of 2014
It's been a pleasure being your tour guide through a sea of player screenshots this year, and I can't wait to see what awesome pics you all will take in 2015. Before we get to the new year, however, I'm going to do something we've never done before here on One Shots: play favorites. Actually, I went back through all of this year's columns and picked out 10 screenshots that I personally liked the best. I don't often comment on what I think of a picture or what makes one stand out over the others, so the end of the year seemed to be a good time to do this. And I have one other special treat for you as well! Starting tomorrow, Massively will be putting out a single One Shots entry each day for the next two weeks. So if you've sent in a picture but have yet to see it posted in its full glory, then it may indeed happen over this holiday season!
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: MMO of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards come to a close today with our 12th and final award, this one the biggun (and usually the most contentious): our MMO of the Year. To be eligible for this award, MMOs must have launched in 2014, full stop. (If you want to know what would win the staff's best-MMO-ever vote, it's Star Wars Galaxies, and now I've saved us all that discussion, and you're welcome.) All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Anticipated for 2015 and Beyond
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Anticipated MMO for 2015 and Beyond. Pretty much every MMO that isn't out yet or is planning a major content update in 2015 was eligible for this award. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Anticipated MMO for 2015 and Beyond is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best Update or Expansion of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best Update or Expansion of the Year. Every patch, be it small freebie update or traditional paid expansion, was eligible for this category, as long as it released in 2014. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best Update or Expansion of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Likely to Flop
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Likely to Flop in the coming years. This'd be a released or announced MMO that we think has little chance of performing to expectations, even if it may not capsize completely (though we're happy to be proven wrong!). All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Likely to Flop in 2015 and Beyond...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest MMO Blunder of 2014
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest MMO Blunder of the year. This is also not a fun award to give or receive, but criticism is a necessary element of growth. This category focuses on a mistake made by a game or developer or the genre as a whole, something that has far-reaching negative consequences for the industry. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Biggest MMO Blunder of 2014 is...
