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.
U.S. stocks rebounded to end higher on Thursday after President Biden announced new sanctions against Russia following the country's attack on Ukraine. The Dow was down 859 points at its lowest point of the session, before ultimately finishing the day in the green. Melissa Armo, founder and owner of the Stock Swoosh, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
HearHere bills itself as a mobile audio entertainment app for road trips. The company just announced $3.2 million in seed funding led by Camping World, a retail company that sells recreational vehicles and camping supplies. HearHere's GPS-powered app offers over 8,880 stories across the continental U.S. and serves up the stories based on a users' geographic location and interests. The stories are narrated by some big-name celebrities including actor Kevin Costner, who is a co-founder of the company. Woody Sears, co-founder and CEO of HearHere, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
On December 25, 2021, NASA got into the holiday spirit by launching the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space science observatory in history.
It is intended to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's flagship mission in astrophysics and is able to view objects too old and distant for Hubble. Gregory Robinson, director of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope program, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the mission. "I think a lot of what we don't know today is what I'm expecting to find and certainly really understand what took place more than 13.5 billion years ago and see the formation of some of the first galaxies in our universe," said Robinson.
YouTube creator platform Spotter recently announced $200 million in Series D financing at a valuation of $1.7 billion, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Spotter allows YouTubers to license the rights to their video catalogs in exchange for large sums of cash paid upfront. The company's clients include some of YouTube's most popular personalities, with a combined total of more than 1.2 billion subscribers. Aaron Debevoise, founder and CEO of Spotter, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict drags on — and global economies could see pandemic-era prices and supply chain issues come back full force. Both countries supply key commodities and materials, including semiconductor production. That sector, in particular, was hit hard by the pandemic and was just beginning to see a recovery when the invasion began. What happens next? Do companies have enough to fall back on and can they rely on pandemic-era measures to stay afloat? Everett Millman, Chief Market Analyst at Gainesville Coins, joins Closing Bell to discuss which sectors are being hit the hardest, rising prices, how consumers could feel the impact, and more.
Jamie Hemmings and Jilea Hemmings, owners and founders of Nourish + Bloom Market, join Cheddar News to talk about the inspiration behind creating their cashierless grocery store.
While crypto exchanges have been used to aid Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, critics point to possible sanction evasion on the Russian side using the same technology. Cheddar's Alex Vuocolo takes a closer look.
TikTok is extending the maximum length of its platform's clips to 10 minutes in length, a big leap from its three-minute cap, in order to keep up with competitors such as YouTube and Instagram Reels.
