News 12-14

EA has scooped up Codemasters at great cost. Germany is investigating Facebook over potentially anticompetitive practices in handling the Quest 2. Players are seeking--and receiving--refunds for Cyberpunk 2077, and it only gets weirder from here.

Episode news stories

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-14-ea-agrees-USD1-2-billion-acquisition-of-codemasters

EA will purchase Codemasters to the tune of over $1.2 billion. The companies say this will allow them to "dominate the racing category." Codemasters makes fantastic racing games, but there's plenty of competition left in town. Here's hoping EA acts in their best interests.

https://www.vrfocus.com/2020/12/facebook-oculus-account-linking-being-investigated-by-german-regulators/

Facebook's mandatory account linking on Quest 2 is under investigation in Germany. You may remember Germany briefly halted device sales over the summer, and even that wasn't the beginning of the country's distrust of Facebook. Many developers have also cried foul, but is it worth tanking your development efforts?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22173738/cyberpunk-2077-developer-apologizes-base-ps4-xbox-one-performance-issues-refunds

Cyberpunk 2077 buzz on social media has been super weird--perhaps because it involves glitchy genitalia. CD Projekt Red has come forward to apologize for performance issues and offer to assist disappointed players in getting refunds over the course of the next week. Nonetheless, we're let down--and maybe even a little bit haunted--by what we've seen.

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