During my three-decade career as a games journalist I have written a lot of "most anticipated games of the year" articles, and they nearly always have a familiar theme: "Well, the lineup is dominated by sequels (yawn), but at least there are one or two original titles to look forward to!" From today's vantage point that ennui over the predictability of the games industry looks incredibly quaint. We didn't know how good we had it. The past five years have seen seismic shifts in the mainstream industry, mostly connected to the irresistible rise of "live service" games such as Fortnite, GTA Online and Genshin Impact, which survive over multiple years through voracious subscription models. The biggest are insanely profitable: since its launch in 2017, Fortnite is estimated to have earned 20bn ( 15.7bn), maintaining 500 million player accounts into its sixth year. GTA Online still makes an estimated 500m a year ( 399m), more than a decade after its initial release.

This problem is highlighted and exacerbated by the episodic nature of the Hawkeye and Kate Bishop story line, and how disjointed it feels from the rest of the Avengers. Kate Bishop and Hawkeye barely talk to any of the other Avengers, leaving me to assume that Crystal Dynamics couldn't get additional lines from the original voice talent. The final enemy of Hawkeye's story is Maestro Hulk, a demented future version of Bruce Banner. But when I bring my own Hulk to the fight, nobody has anything to say about having two Hulks in the room, not even either of the Hulks. Much of the story is about Clint Barton (a.k.a.

If you've already paid $60 for a video game, haven't you spent enough? That's the question Electronic Arts, or EA, the maker of games including the Madden NFL series, FIFA and Battlefield, has to answer after angering customers who eagerly anticipated one of its biggest holiday releases, "Star Wars: Battlefront 2." On top of the "Star Wars"-themed action-shooter's $60 list price, the game included micro-transactions, which enabled players to spend real-world money on in-game items such as "loot crates" -- essentially a mystery box filled with perks. Although video games have long allowed players to spend currency on cosmetic purchases such as special costumes, "Battlefront 2" players were upset to learn that a trial version of the game let them spend money to bolster their characters. Those who opted against paying were at a disadvantage and simply had to "grind" -- that is, play for many hours -- to achieve similar powers or unlock marquee characters such as Darth Vader. Players accused EA of engaging in pay-to-win practices.

Lydia Ainouz draws a small crowd to watch her playing the Yakuza video game during the opening day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in June 2016. This year's E3 will be open to the public for the first time. Video games are evolving into never-ending epics that can deliver their makers years of sales after the initial purchase -- and players multiple ways to keep spending. At this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual video game industry event in Los Angeles, publishers are expected to introduce a slew of blockbuster PC and console games that will include upgrades and expansions designed to extend their life well after a player normally would have moved on to another title. "If you rewind 10 years ago, when you shipped a game -- if it doesn't make it into the base game, you've got to wait for the sequel," said Pete Hines, vice president of marketing at Bethesda.

A key function of data science at Twitch is using behavioral data to build data products that improve our products and services. Some examples of products that data science has helped to launch include the AutoMod chat moderation system, the similar channel recommendations used for Auto Hosting, and the recommendation system for VODs. This post discusses some of the tradeoffs involved when building data products and presents our approach for scaling predictive models to millions of users. The decision to build a data product at Twitch is often the result of exploratory analysis performed by a data scientist. For example, an investigation of our user communities may result in findings about which types of channels different groups of users are likely to follow. We can use these insights to build predictive models, such as a recommendation system that identifies similar channels on our platform.

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