4th October 2022 Google Stadia To Close Down In January 2023

It's been almost three years since the cloud-gaming console, Google Stadia launched. However, last week, the company announced that it will be closing down its service in January 2023. 

A blog post written by Vice President and General Manager of Stadia, Phil Harrison, detailed that players who bought the hardware and games will be receiving a refund for their purchases. He writes, "we’re grateful to the dedicated Stadia players that have been with us from the start. We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store. Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions. We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center."

Google Stadia allowed players to pick up games that they maybe wouldn't have been able to run on their own machines, including Remedy's recent adventure, Control.

Control Ultimate Edition launched on the Google Stadia just over fifteen months ago on July 27th for $39.99. The release was teased back in May of that year and released alongside Marvel's Avengers and Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game. 

For more information, including the history of the service, check out Polygon's article, HERE.
Read the original blog post on Google Stadia's closure, HERE. 

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29th September 2022 Control's Composer, Martin Stig Andersen To Attend Reboot Develop Blue 2022

Reboot Develop Blue opened its doors today for a three-day networking and skills conference targeting video game professionals, held in beautiful Dubrovnik, Croatia. Over one hundred speakers will step up on the stage to talk about their craft. Included in the list of speakers is Martin Stig Andersen who worked with fellow composer, Petri Alanko, to bring to life the Control soundtrack.

His lecture "Music Design - From LIMBO to Back 4 Blood" will take place tomorrow (Friday, September 30th) on the Amber Stage at 15:00 local time. 

The event will be the first held since the pandemic following the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 conferences. At Reboot Develop Blue 2019, lectures were recorded and later published on their official YouTube channel. We will post a link to Martin's lecture if it is uploaded. 

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23rd September 2022 Official Community Q&A with Courtney Hope & Sean Durrie

Last month, to celebrate Control's third anniversary, Remedy and 505Games invited fans to submit video recordings of any questions they might have for Courtney Hope and Sean Durrie.

Players who have completed the adventure will know how important the roles of both Jesse and Dylan Faden are, the characters portrayed by those two actors. Plus, with Control's blend of gameplay and live action, embodying the characters and recording may not be like your typical game or TV project. For the first time, the studios are giving a rare opportunity to ask the actors behind those characters and allow players to glimpse behind the scenes of Control. Questions were submitted and collected by the start of September in preparation for the video call later on.

Today's the day! The video is packed with questions and answers in a fast-paced interview style. During the 17 minute video, they discuss haunted apartments, recording in a closet with a loudly breathing dog, lessons learnt from Quantum Break, their working dynamic when together, and a lot more. There was also a tiny cat! Check it out below!

EDIT: The artwork used in the video is by the brilliant Sarah (@Sitriga), who is also accepting commissions! 

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22nd September 2022 Thomas Puha To Discuss "Lessons Learned From A Career In Games" at EGX 2022

For those looking for career advice or to break into the games industry, GI Academy is a fantastic resource, providing articles such as 20 Lessons From 20 Years, advice on how to turn your GameJam project into a full release, or even just simply how to get a job in games. If you're attending EGX in London (UK) this weekend, GI Academy will be returning to the show with a brand new lineup of talks, alongside their career fair to help you get started. 

If you have a Friday ticket, tomorrow you can see Remedy's Communications Director, Thomas Puha talk about his journey through the industry. Starting at 15:30 BST, he will be taking to the GI Stage for his lecture, "From Fanzines to Triple-A. Lessons Learned From A Career In Games".

You can view the panel listing HERE. 

At the moment, we're not sure whether the talk will be recorded, but if it is, we'll include a link below once it's uploaded. 

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