GameSpot's Tamoor Hussain: "Star Wars Battlefront 2" Will Win Out Fans
Electronic Arts is in some trouble with its Star Wars fan base.
"Star Wars Battlefront 2," officially comes out on Friday, but many players are already upset over the expensive in-game transactions necessary to unlock certain characters. Tamoor Hussain, editor at GameSpot and Russell Holly, managing editor of VRHeads.com joined Cheddar to discuss the concept of paying extra within a game.
Hussain says that it used to take a significant number of hours to gain points in order to unlock certain characters, which upset players. So, companies began to add the option to buy the power to unlock them. But people are still upset. He says it could impact sales this week, but many people won't be looking into the issue too deeply.
Holly says in-game transactions are a tremendous business for Electronic Arts, which just bought Respawn Entertainment for over $400 million.
To ease some of the pressure, EA said that it will reducing the amount of resources it'll take to access key players in the upcoming game.
"They kind of changed the discoursed around the game," Hussain said, adding that this move will sway public opinion positively.
The future of entertainment is interactive, according to the creators of the Fireside app. Mark Cuban and Falon Fatemi say that more and more, audience members will want to be part of the live content they are watching, and Fireside helps content creators do just that. They can create a live audience Q&A, facilitate a discussion, and more, all with the click of a button in the app. Creators also have full control of how they distribute and monetize each piece of content they create. Fatemi, CEO & Co-Founder of Fireside, joins Cheddar to discuss the app's interactive content features, what users and creators can get out of the app, plans for NFT and other virtual products, and more.
Predicting the weather is always a tall task, but it's even more difficult in third-world countries. Atmo is looking to make it easier for the world to forecast the weather with its game-changing Supercomputer. Atmo's CEO Alexander Levy and VP of Government Relations Anna Prouse joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to talk all about the company's supercomputer and its impact in Uganda.
Tim Davis, Partner and Executive Managing Director at Steward Partners, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses what activity we could expect to see from the crypto market this week as the Fed decision approaches, the prices of Bitcoin and Ether struggle to find a spark, and the industry continues to digest President Biden's executive order on crypto.
Mission-driven fintech company Propel raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Nyca Partners. Propel's mission is to help low-income Americans improve their financial health. The company's free app is called Providers, designed as a one-stop-shop for Americans to manage government benefits and other income side-by-side. Jimmy Chen, founder and CEO of Propel, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Slingshot Aerospace, a company focused on the future of space sustainability, raised $25 million in its latest Series A funding round. The company's projects will allow commercial, government, and civil satellite operators to share traffic information. Slingshot Aerospace's co-founder and CEO Melanie Stricklan joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to talk about the up-and-coming company.
A Ukrainian drone company is using its technology to help defend its home nation during the ongoing war with Russia. Valerii Iakovenko, co-founder and CEO of DroneUA, joined Cheddar News to discuss its efforts to help against the invasion. "These drones can be used to do strikes more precise and even cheap drones, even simple technologies can help to make a defensive possibilities more precise," he said.
Ford has released its plans to grow its electric vehicle business to Europe — despite a potential lack of full features due to the ongoing chip shortage. Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush, joined Cheddar News to talk about the challenges facing the automaker. "I mean for them, it's really a Catch-22 because they can't lose out on demand," he said. "And they're having to make some tough decisions." He noted that Ford's stock is under pressure even as the electric vehicle play is the right long-term decision.
Pete Davidson is heading to space. The “Saturday Night Live” star will be among the six passengers on the next launch of Jeff Bezos' space travel venture, Blue Origin.
