2014
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Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best Pseudo-MMO of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best Pseudo-MMO of the year. This is always a difficult category since it forces us to define MMOs. This year, we opted to make eligible any online game that isn't a pure and traditional MMORPG, games we'd cover in Not So Massively: mobile MMOs, console MMOs, OARPGs, MOBAs, MMOFPS titles, MMORTS titles, and so on. And of course, the game must have launched 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 Pseudo-MMO of 2014 is...
Perfect Ten: Looking back at the biggest MMO news of 2014
Well, my chums, here we are at the tail-end of 2014, having achieved all of our goals and new year's resolutions. Even better, we've survived what's turned out to be one of the wildest, rockiest, and most exciting years of MMO news in recent memory. This was the year of high-profile game launches, even more popular expansions, layoffs, and some epic-level studio face-palming decisions. It's easy to sit here and say that we predicted everything that was going to happen this year, but c'mon, you have to admit that you were surprised by at least one or two events in this industry. It's incredibly difficult to sum up the biggest news of the year without coming to grips with the fact that many stories aren't one-and-done; a lot of what I'm going to be talking about in this list happened over the course of weeks or months and still may not be fully over. That's how news stories are sometimes!
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest MMO disappointment of the year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest Disappointment of the year -- not exactly one of the more coveted awards, admittedly. For this category, we focused on single games rather than concepts, and every MMO that launched in 2014 was eligible. 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 Disappointment of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best MMO Studio
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best MMO Studio of the year. Every studio that runs an MMO in 2014 was eligible, even those who didn't launch anything this year, but whatever the studio did to impress us should have occurred this year. 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 Studio of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Improved MMO
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Improved MMO of the year. Pretty much all MMOs were eligible for this particular award, even if they didn't launch in 2014, as long as they improved significantly 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 reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Improved MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest Story of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest MMO Story of the year. We're not talking about a single article or a game's plot here; we're looking for dominant, ongoing news arcs in the MMO space that had a big impact on the genre. 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 Story of 2014 is...
Tim Cook makes TIME's shortlist for 2014 "Person of the Year"
Apple CEO Tim Cook has made the shortlist for TIME magazine's 2014 Person of the Year, joining seven other candidates from across the social, political, and entertainment sectors of the world. TIME is recognizing Cook for both his business and social achievements this year. Here's its synopsis of why he's Person of the Year material. Tim Cook, who introduced Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay this year, and whose decision to come out made him the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were incredible successes for Apple this year, selling millions of units and crushing records the month they were released. In just the first weekend of sales, Apple sold 10 million units between the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. While the Apple Watch wasn't released this year, excitement for the device is high after it was introduced earlier this year. As mentioned in TIME's nomination, Tim Cook became the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company in October. At the time, Cook explained why he had never addressed the subject publicly before, and what prompted the revelation. I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy. Cook joins other public figures including the Ebola caregivers, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Taylor Swift, Russian president Vladimir Putin, the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region Masoud Barzani, and the Ferguson protestors in the nominations. TIME will announce its person of the year on the Today show Wednesday morning.
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Underrated MMO
We're breaking with tradition this year when it comes to the Massively end-of-the-year awards. Instead of lumping them together into one huge article that no one reads because everyone's busy cheering and jeering over the GOTY down in the comments, we're going to pace ourselves so the little ones get some attention too. We'll also be explaining our votes so you can see the split and the rationale behind our picks. And because we know you want to have your say too, we'll throw in a reader poll just for fun. Please don't cheat. Today's award is for the Most Underrated MMO of the year. As will be the case for many (though not all) of this year's awards, games must have launched in 2014 to be eligible, which makes the list of eligible games fairly short. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for every category, so some games will literally win by a hair. The Massively staff pick for Most Underrated MMO of 2014 is...
The Daily Grind: What game do you intend to play more in 2015?
I can't quite believe it's December. Pretty soon it'll be Christmas, then New Year's, and then we'll see if 2015 is an unintentional comedy for the MMO industry just like 2014! I kinda doubt that it will be, simply because there aren't as many new/big games on the way. In any case, there are a few pre-existing titles that I neglected this year, and I fully intend to return to them in 2015. What about you, Massively readers? What MMO do you intend to play more of in 2015? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
HTC's recovery stays on track by the slimmest of margins
When a company like HTC has been on a year-long losing streak, it's hard to work out if its earnings for this quarter are a cause for celebration or despair. Last quarter, you see, the One M8 helped the company achieve a huge turnaround, pulling down a $92 million profit after a series of losses. This time out, the news is goodish, since while the company did make a profit, it was just $19 million - but considering that HTC was losing money this time last year, it's better than nothing. As far as products are concerned, the M8 is still doing well, and lower-end phones like the Desire 610 and 820 are getting plenty of attention from carriers and consumers. Hopefully sales of the HTC-made Nexus 9 and the RE camera will help the company maintain its promise to keep raking in cash rather than handing out IOUs.
Nintendo suddenly resurgent on the strength of Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros. isn't just fun to play, it also gave Nintendo a fun financial quarter. For the first time in a while, the Japanese company turned a profit, 24 billion yen worth ($224 million) to be exact. That's a big (Wii) U-turn over last quarter, when it managed to lose 9.9 billion yen ($97 million). Overall, Nintendo sold 3.2 million copies of Super Smash Bros. worldwide and 1.3 million 3DS units, not bad considering that sales started late in the quarter. Plus, the game hasn't even launched yet on the Wii U, but sales of that console were also up 22 percent in anticipation of the November 21st launch. Along with upcoming Amiibo figurines, all that should set Nintendo up for a nice Christmas quarter. Despite the good news, however, overall sales are still down 12.8 percent over last year -- and Super Smash Bros. games don't come along every day.
LG sells a record 14.5 million smartphones as profits nearly triple
LG has just reported a record quarter for mobile phone sales, showing that it's taking advantage of a slump from arch-rival Samsung. LG sold 14.5 million handsets over the last quarter, its highest total ever and 20 percent more than last year -- with more than a third of those LTE models. It chalked up most of the success to its well-reviewed top-of-the-line G3 handset, along with strong sales of its mid-range L products. LG's mobile division scooped up KRW 3.6 trillion ($3.5 billion) and put an end to three straight quarters of losses. Home entertainment also performed well, climbing 3 percent on the strength of higher-margin UltraHD 4K sets. All that resulted in an operating profit of KRW 412 billion ($599 million) -- not nearly Samsung-level numbers, but at least LG's are going up, not down.
Verizon enjoys a rush of new tablet users as smartphone plans stagnate (updated)
Verizon's money machine continues to plow on, but much of its wireless growth this quarter came from tablets, not smartphones -- a trend that started last quarter. Big Red added some 1.4 million net retail connections, of which a whopping 1.15 million used LTE-equipped tablets. Many of those may have come via its new More Everything plan, which only adds $10 to an existing contract for a tablet, compared to $40 for another smartphone. Though all those devices technically count as new connections, Verizon only added 304,000 net phone customers, compared to 940,000 472,000 this time a year ago. Despite that smartphone connection dip, however, Verizon still saw 7.5 percent more wireless revenue ($21.5 billion) and a similar bump in operating profits.
Sprint loses hundreds of thousands of customers due to 'service disruption'
Now that T-Mobile has upped its game, Sprint is left as the only major US carrier still struggling with financial losses. That didn't get much better this quarter, as the company lost 364,000 pre-paid and 231,000 valuable postpaid customers. It says the losses were anticipated, and were largely due to widespread annoyance at disruptions to its service, caused by the ongoing overhaul of its network infrastructure. Whatever the reason, the end result was the same old story: It finished with a net loss of $151 million for the quarter. The good news, however, is that Sprint's losses seem to be getting smaller as time ticks on -- it actually lost four times as much money in the same period last year.
Farewell, CeBIT 2014
CeBIT 2014 is done, and it's high time that we say goodbye to the Hannover Messe. Of course, much of CeBIT's thunder has been stolen by Mobile World Congress and IFA, but given the interesting products that we've stumbled upon here, there's clearly still some life in the show. We hope that you enjoyed our efforts, and if you missed any of the news or hands-ons, grab a champagne-flavored ice cream (yes, really) and check out the unabridged list below.
Bend it like robo-Beckham with the U14 Free Kick toy
Axpro is a Taiwanese company that makes flash drives, so it's surprising to see it building app-connected toys like U14 Free Kick - a game that's a weird hybrid between Frujit Ninja, Subbuteo and Robot Football. Making Fruit Ninja-style swipes on the iOS app determines the power and direction of a free-kick made by a robotic footballer, in the hope of getting it up and over a defending wall. It's been designed for groups of soccerball fanatics who want to show off their ball-curving prowess without doing the real thing, and seems ideal for late night pub competitions. Unfortunately, it won't become commercially available until Axpro finds a distributor, so we might have to clip our nails and dust off that Subbuteo box after all.
Archos' 6.4-inch smartphone puts the buttons on the back
When we talk about smartphones with buttons on the back of the case, most people's thoughts turn toward the LG G2. But now the French electronics outfit Archos has decided to follow in LG's footsteps with the 64 Xenon, a 6.4-inch phablet that puts both the volume and power buttons on the rear side. Packing a 1,280 x 720 IPS LCD display, dual-SIM slots and HSPA+ radios, it's clear that this is designed to square up against the likes of the Galaxy Mega, but with a much lower price tag of 200 euros (around $275).
Power strips don't have to be ugly, just ask Powerdrobe
Yes, power strips aren't the sort of thing we usually discuss on this august periodical but sometimes we spot something at a trade show that simply demands attention. Normally, it's the sort of gear that you tuck behind or under your desk, but Korean designer Sangki Kim wanted to make something a little more stylish. That's why he built the Powerdrobe: a box that sits beneath your display (or all-in-one) to keep everything nice and tidy. Kim, who also designed the Desk Phone Dock we reviewed a few years ago, gave the box a classy rounded look and chrome toggle switches, so turning on your computer makes you feel like you work at NASA, circa 1965. On one side of the unit, there's a pair of USB ports for charging mobile devices, while on the other side you'll find either a US or European mains socket, depending on which version you buy. The back offers up either four or six further mains sockets to satisfy your lust for power, with all the mess hidden behind a solid plastic screen. The four-socket model will arrive in April and set you back $40, with the bigger unit coming later and costing a few dollars more.
Archos' octa-core smartphone is surprisingly quick for the price
When it comes to smartphones, hugs and all-you-can-eat buffets, more is better, right? That's why we had to sit down and play with Archos' 50c Oxygen. The gassy, Jelly Bean-running handset is one of the first to use MediaTek's 1.7GHz octa-core MT6592 CPU, housed behind a 5-inch 1,280 x 720 IPS LCD display. Archos has found room for dual-SIM slots, 1GB RAM, 8GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot, while the 2,000mAh battery should last you at least a day.
An e-reader that makes calls: InkPhone promises two weeks on a charge
When we reviewed the dual-screen YotaPhone, some of you thought it'd have been better if the device simply skipped the LCD and relied on a single E Ink display instead. Well, that's exactly the approach taken by Onyx (via its Polish distributor, Arta Tech) which is showing off a prototype of the MIDIA InkPhone here at CeBIT. Packing a 4.3-inch front-lit E Ink display (no LCD here), the device is designed as a back-to-basics device for people who need really long battery life or simply those who are looking for an e-reader that can also make calls. Part of the appeal, of course, is that E Ink displays sip power, and the company promises that the InkPhone will last for more than two weeks on a single charge of its 1,800mAh battery.