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.
Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, isn't buying into the Netflix hype even after the good Q3 earnings.
Discord, initially a popular app for in-game messaging, is launching a store with hundreds of games users can access for a monthly fee. Jason Citron, co-founder and CEO of Discord, said the company's growth is a "side effect" of gaming becoming more social.
MedMen, which just completed the largest pot-related acquisition to date in America, is preparing for the day when American drug laws catch up, said spokesman Daniel Yi.
Atari, the popular French gaming company, is now open to investments from U.S. investors through its new affiliation with with Nasdaq International. Frederic Chesnais, CEO of Atari, told Cheddar about the partnership.
Loren Padelford, Shopify vice president and general manager, had spent Wednesday morning monitoring the cannabis transactions taking place on Canadian Shopify-powered sites and said the demand was outpacing even his company's bullish forecasts.
Canada legalized recreational marijuana use on Wednesday, making it the second country to do so. Netflix stock is surging after the streaming giant added a record number of subscribers in the third quarter. Plus, Anthony Atamanuik and Adam Pally from Comedy Central's 'The President Show' join Cheddar to talk about their new special 'The Fall Of Donald Trump.'
Auction house Christie's will put up its first-ever painting created entirely by artificial intelligence. Lindsay Griffith, a specialist at Christie's, said the painting is likely to fetch as much as $10,000.
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Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and venture capital firm Initialized Capital, has partnered with 1850 Brand Coffee for the "Bold Pioneer" content where people pitch their ideas to win $18,500 to jump-start their business plan. Ohanian said he's looking for entrepreneurs who are thinking outside the box and making investors "a little uncomfortable."
The video streaming service added nearly 7 million subscribers in the third quarter, far better than forecast, and said it would add nearly another 10 million to round out the year.
