Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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The Wednesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Steam's Top 10
 
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Warner Bros. exec says Hogwarts Legacy's sold 15 million, made over a billion dollars, and now they want to do the same with Superman
https://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-exec-says-hogwarts-legacys-sold-15-million-made-over-a-billion-dollars-and-now-they-want-to-do-the-same-with-superman/
On a recent earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav waxed lyrical about the ongoing success of Hogwarts Legacy, before going on to discuss this in the context of James Gunn's upcoming Superman film. The movie, Superman Legacy, has rather brutally dumped everyone's favourite super-geek Henry Cavill and is intended as a reboot of the character.
The point Zaslav's making is that games are now as big if not bigger than the more traditional movie avenues for the likes of Harry Potter. "The real differentiator for us as a company is that we own our IP," said Zaslav (thanks, Tweaktown). "We may be the only media company that owns, whether it be the DC universe, Harry Potter, all the content that we own, Game of Thrones, that's for us to deploy. I think that's particularly important strategically."
Zaslav went on to outline just what a success the game has been: "Hogwarts Legacy has amassed more than $1 billion in retail sales and over 15 million units sold worldwide to date, and today the team is launching the game on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One platforms."
>> Owning the IP is useless if you don't know what to do with it.

The daddy of battle royales is still going strong as publisher Krafton posts record sales for PUBG
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-daddy-of-battle-royales-is-still-going-strong-as-publisher-krafton-posts-record-sales-for-pubg/
PUBG might not be the talking point that it was at launch, but six years on the daddy of battle royales is still going strong. In a preliminary earnings announcement, publisher Krafton boasted about its "all-time high in in-game sales", which on PC has grown by 68% year on year. This has also been the main driver for Krafton's "record quarterly sales" of $407.8 million.
This has led to a net profit of $202.2 million, with Krafton's mobile division also enjoying a period of growth thanks to PUBG Mobile's sandbox mode and new releases. Aside from acknowledging that it published Callisto Protocol, the sci-fi horror romp was left out of the celebratory announcement. This is unsurprising given that it failed to meet publisher's absurdly high sales expectations. Krafton was hoping for 5 million sales in the first year, but soon after launch slashed that number down to 2 million.
While PUBG continues to grow when it comes to sales, player numbers have not seen a similar rise. The battle royale is still looking very healthy, of course, with consistent concurrents of between 4-500,000 players. After this many years, and with so many competitors trying to get their own slice of the battle royale pie, that's nothing to be sniffed at.

Age of Wonders 4 is the fastest-selling game in the series
https://www.pcgamer.com/age-of-wonders-4-is-the-fastest-selling-game-in-the-series/
Magical turn-based strategy Age of Wonders 4 has become the fastest selling game in the series, according to aptly-named developer Triumph Studios.
The announcement was made via the Age of Wonders 4 twitter account, in a post that also provided some impressive stats. In "less than a week" AoW 4 has sold a whopping 250,000 copies. Meanwhile, on Steam, the game has experienced a peak concurrent player count of 42,826. That's a lot of players conquering arcane realms as cannibal mole-people.

GOG has two new Deals of the Day and two new sales:

• The first DotD is Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness, 50% off during 46 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/black_geyser_couriers_of_darkness
• The second DotD is Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, with a 75% discount until Friday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/fell_seal_arbiters_mark
• The Midweek Sale features up to 90% discounts during 4 days: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20230510_midweek_sale
• And Kalypso puts its games up to 75% off for 7 days; https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_kalypso_publisher_sale

Steam has two new deals:

• Starship Troopers: Terran Command will be 20% off until May, 16th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1202130/Starship_Troopers_Terran_Command/
• And GreedFall gets a 70% discount until next Tuesday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/606880/GreedFall/

The Humble Store has a flash deal: Planet Zoo will be 80% off during 26 more hours: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/planet-zoo

And Fanatical has four new 24 hours flash deals and a new bundle:

• The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me is 33% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/the-dark-pictures-anthology-the-devil-in-me
• Dying Light 2 Stay Human gets a 60% discount: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/dying-light-2-stay-human
• Breathedge is 75% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/breathedge
• The last flash deal is RESIDENT EVIL 7 biohazard Gold Edition, 78% off: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/resident-evil-7-gold-edition
• And the new Mystery Mayhem Bundle comes with up to 20 unknown games to get: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/mystery-mayhem-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Unity manager publicly states company is 'out of touch', is fired within three hours
https://www.pcgamer.com/unity-manager-publicly-states-company-is-out-of-touch-is-fired-within-three-hours/
A manager at game-engine developer Unity has been fired after calling the company "out of touch".
Miranda Due, Senior Partner Relations Manager at Unity, originally made the remark in reference to an executive's idea for making commuting to Unity's offices easier.
"A Unity exec just shared that they rent a secondary [apartment] in [San Francisco] to make it easier to be in the office- maybe we should all just do this to make it easier to RTO [return to office]" Due tweeted on May 8. "This company has lost it. Completely out of touch."
>> Nothing denies the claims of being out of touch like firing the person that made those claims, right?

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Unreal Engine 5.2 looks better than ever
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/zelda-ocarina-of-time-in-unreal-engine-5-2-looks-better-than-ever/
CryZenx has released a new video, showcasing 18 minutes of new gameplay footage from his fan remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Unreal Engine 5.
For those unaware, CryZenx has been remaking this classic Zelda game in Unreal Engine 4/5. And, this new video, showcases some new features that the creator has implemented.

GAMING NEWS

The Last of Us Part I Update 1.0.5 reduces shader building times, improves CPU performance, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/the-last-of-us-part-i-update-1-0-5-reduces-shader-building-times-improves-cpu-performance-full-patch-notes/
Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy have released Update 1.0.5 for the PC version of The Last of Us Part I. According to the release notes, this latest patch reduces shader building times. Moreover, it optimizes the game’s code to improve global CPU performance.

A Plague Tale: Requiem gets a Performance Mode on PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/a-plague-tale-requiem-gets-a-performance-mode-on-pc/
Asobo has released a new PC Update for A Plague Tale: Requiem that introduces a new Performance Mode to it. According to the team, the Performance Mode brings additional options to optimize the game’s graphical performance.

Bloodborne Remaster/Remake rumors resurface online
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/bloodborne-remaster-remake-rumors-resurface-online/
And it’s that time of year guys. According to reports, Sony may hold a Playstation Showcase on May 25th and the Bloodborne Remaster/Remake rumors have re-surfaced. Oh yeah, here we go again.