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.
Adam Battle, research assistant at University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, joins Cheddar News to discuss space junk heading to the moon and if more should be done to prevent space junk in the future.
The capital of Kyiv is home to more than 1,000 tech startups.
Some of the prominent tech companies founded in Ukraine include names like 'Grammarly' and 'GitLab,' but even companies that aren't based in Ukraine rely on the massive amount of tech talent in the country. Andy Kurtzig, CEO of Justanswer, joins Cheddar News to discuss how he's aiding hundreds of his employees in Ukraine.
Mark Clerkin, Head of Trading at CoinList, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he elaborates on the range of features his platform offers, from investing in up-and-coming tokens to trading, and says his company is eager to partner with Block CEO Jack Dorsey on future projects.
Music-focused NFT platform Pianity raising $6.5 million in a seed funding round. Pianity has developed a marketplace that allows musicians to sell their tracks as limited edition NFTs. Since its launch last year, the company says it has already sold 11,000 NFTs and artists have earned over $1.1 million from NFT sales. Kevin Primicerio, co-founder and CEO of Pianity, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
ZipRecruiter reported revenue growth for the fourth quarter of 2021 and raised its forecast for the coming year, beating Wall Street expectations. The recruitment site has benefited from one of the tightest labor markets in history as companies desperately try to fill empty positions. Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter, joined Cheddar to discuss how the company has adapted to The Great Resignation, a tight labor market, and record inflation.
Ford is looking to charge its electric business forward -- splitting its EVs and legacy internal combustion engine models into separate units. Ford says the split will streamline its EV business and boost profits, while giving it a better competitive edge. Ford's new EV focused business will be called Ford Model e. Greg Martin, Co-Founder, Rainmaker Securities joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
