Puzzling behavior

Good Morning. If you’re like us then perhaps your attention span in gaming has been diminishing over time. Have no fear! Check out this post where users discuss “What video games never get boring”.

— Jason Liu, Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST: Cross (S)words

It’s no secret that a serious area of investment for the New York Times is their puzzles and mini games. Crosswords have been a long-time staple both in analog and digital forms but new additions with Wordle and Connections have created a morning ritual for many readers and non-readers — yes, you can get a Games Only subscription.

There’s so much interest in these games that even the third-party ‘markets’ are insanely lucrative — one of the top performing keywords on gaming blogs are related to daily hints for Wordle. According to SEMrush, “wordle” is in 20 of the top 100 highest-traffic keywords for all of Forbes.com

The success of the NYT has attracted some attention from competitors — a new offering from Hearst, called Puzzmo is just beginning their limited public preview. How do you get in? By solving a puzzle, of course.

Step back: the definition of gamer continues to broaden and mini puzzles are among games with the broadest appeal, across language, age, and interest. These ‘simple’ games are not to be ignored.

HUD

• Peanut Butter, a Shiba Inu, will be speedrunning Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse during January’s AGDQ 2024 under the new category Dog Assistance.

• Sony has filed a patent for a new DualSense controller that will store and charge wireless earbuds.

• Xbox continues to take on accessible gaming with multiple updates. Some big ones include supporting keyboard mapping to controllers, accessibility feature tagging on games, and low/no vision options for Sea of Thieves and Forza Motorsports.

MAJOR W

• Apex Legends season 19 drops on October 23rd and comes with a new legend, Conduit.

• Niantic’s latest AR game, Monster Hunter Now, surpassed 10 million downloads in its first month.

• Xbox players can play up to 10 hours free of Diablo IV this weekend — no game pass required.

F IN THE CHAT

• PC users may find Mortal Kombat 1 having more HDD storage being used on crash reports than the game itself.

• September’s video game sales were down in Europe compared to the previous year.

• The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria PlayStation 5 release was delayed from October 24th to December 5th. Epic Games Store release is still on time.

CAREER CORNER

• Senior Director, EAV Sports Analytics — EA (Toronto, ON)

• Social Content Designer — 2k (Novato, CA)

• Vendor Program Manager — Riot Games (Los Angeles, CA)

HIVE MIND

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