Entertainment specialist EXG and figurine manufacturer Cable Guys have announced a collaboration to create two new phone and controller holders to celebrate the launch of Call of Duty: WWII. Launching on October 28th ahead of the game's release on November 3rd, the two new Call of Duty Cable Guys will both charge and hold Xbox One and PS4 controllers, as well as smartphones of any size and shape, according to the press release.

Based on characters from the series, each one will have 3m long USB cables and adapters inspired by the franchise and will cost £24.99 apiece. They aren't the only characters in the works, either, as EXG and Cable Guys has hinted the Call of Duty products will pave the way for another line of licensed Cable Guys in the future. 

“Cable Guys came about because we found a gap - or niche, perhaps - in the accessories and collectibles space," EXG CEO Alan Fenwick told MCV. 

"Initially, some concepts were drawn up to show to gamer focus groups, along with some rough sizes and price points.The overwhelming response was they loved the concept and wanted something that was useful and a decent size. Quality was also something that really came across, as gamers seemed to think a lot of the charging stations were boring and in many instances poorly manufactured. The fact they could buy a cool piece of merchandise that also held their controller or device as it charged meant we'd arrived at a new product genre - functional furniture.

"Also, when we put a smaller - or mini guy - into a collectable box, it appeared we’d also create something perfect for gamers to put on their desks or tables. Some even said they’d use it to hold their toothbrush in the bathroom. Either way, it's another example of the multi-functionality of both Cable Guys. We fully expect gamers to dream up new and interesting ways in which they can be used in the months ahead."

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei came under fire yesterday when its CEO Richard Yu said that "pink gold" was the "preferred colour" for women during a launch event for its new handset, prompting members of the tech press to call the remark "unacceptable" and "inappropriate" for a modern-day smartphone maker.

Of course, this isn't the first time a pink or rose gold gadget has been brought to market, either in tech or in games, in order to appeal to women, but platform holders would do well to avoid the same pitfalls as Huawei, according to our Women in Games candidates, who told MCV that gender neutral hardware is just as important as the types of games appearing on each particular console. 

"Stop making everything for girls/women pink!" said Rebecca-Louise Leybourne, a facial motion editor at Weta Digital. "I have nephews and I think they miss out on great games because they think they are just for girls. Not all products aimed at boys are blue, so gender neutrality game console and game marketing will even out the audiences."

Maria Diez Heurta, creative producer at Melbot, agreed, saying that platform holders can "definitely" do more to make their brands more attractive to women "but not necessarily by painting their consoles in pink, please."

The TV adverts for Nintendo Wii included different combinations of people playing. [...] Everybody could connect and feel represented playing Wii.

Maria Diez Huerta, Melbot

Indeed, instead of making consoles supposedly more appealing on a purely cosmetic level, platform holders should be working harder to make sure their products reach women where it really counts, said Games London's business development administrator Roz Tuplin. 

"They can tell women their brands exist," she said. "They can place ads where they’ll be seen, encourage womens mags who wouldn’t think twice about telling their readers to go see a new action film that they might also like to play an action game. It’s easy in the games industry to assume everyone is aware of what games have just been released, but if you’re not actively pursuing this information then you’re not going to know."

Indeed, several of our shortlist held up Nintendo as an example of good practice in this respect, despite the platform holder having also released several pink versions of its handheld consoles over the last decade.

"This is something that I believe Nintendo has done amazingly well with some of their consoles," Diez Huerta continued. "I remember the TV adverts for Nintendo Wii included different combinations of people playing: the whole family, just the grandparents, just kids, kids with their parents, female friends, female with male friends, couples… Everybody could connect and feel represented playing Wii. Also, there were many games released with Nintendo DS which were very appealing to women, without being necessarily overly girly - brain-training games, for instance."

It’s easy in the games industry to assume everyone is aware of what games have just been released, but if you’re not actively pursuing this information then you’re not going to know.

Roz Tuplin, Games London

"Xbox, Playstation and PC are extremely targeted at men," said indie developer Lucy Blundell. "Games advertised alongside those platforms are often very masculine and uninviting to women as well. The last console I bought myself was my Nintendo Wii and 3DS. Both were highly welcoming to women, but often put down as casual or not hardcore because of this, despite being highly successful systems. 

"Sadly, I feel most games are not for me anymore and have naturally gravitated towards iPhone and iPad. I don’t believe Apple, or Android, do a better job at appealing to women, but their games are easy to get hold of, quick to learn and are made by a huge variety of game developers from different backgrounds. Apple’s 'Editor’s Choice' and regular features are trustworthy and easy to spot, unlike other platforms. 

"I believe that Nintendo is still one of the best platform holders creating games and consoles that appeal to women. I still think there’s room for improvement though – especially with the Switch, which feels less appealing to non-gamers and casuals upfront. I’d love to see more feminine/ female lead games developed by Nintendo in future."

Stop making everything for girls and women pink.

Rebecca-Louise Leybourne, Weta Digital

Creative Assembly's lead concept artist Lulu Zhang and level designer Lisa Burgers also praised mobile as a particularly welcoming platform. "Spending power of women can never be overestimated, and more female players can stimulate more women to join and make their unique contribution to the game industry," said Zhang. 

"I think mobiles and PC do much better than game consoles such as PlayStation or Xbox because they have more games of such genre: sims, atmospheric exploration, high fantasy MMO and so on, which are known to have equal amount number of female players and male players."

Burgers added: "Web games and mobile games tend to expose their games better just because of the nature of them – easily accessible and playable quickly while you are on the go. The method that is often used is through posts or ads on Facebook or the app store, and brands dictate who they target with these ads."

For our full interview with 2017's Women in Games finalists, check out our in-depth feature right here.

Bethesda has opened up about its recent marketing campaign for its upcoming shooter Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Launched on Twitter over the weekend, the short video showed an in-game Nazi being punched in the face with the slogan, 'If you are a Nazi, GTFO' in huge letters either side of the clip. 

Previously, developer MachineGames said it wanted the game to be "timeless" and completely divorced from current events, but it would appear Bethesda has other ideas, as it explained in a recent interview with Glixel.

"The release date for the game was set in stone months prior to its E3 unveiling, and even further removed from the events of Charlottesville," vice president of marketing Pete Hines said.

"The game and its content were well along the path to completion, and no one from MachineGames or Bethesda could have predicted Nazis marching down American streets in 2017. Even talking about it now seems ludicrous. From a marketing standpoint, we certainly saw an opportunity to take a stand against these events while also talking about the game we’re making, which is about killing Nazis and overthrowing their rule in the US."

He continued: "We have an open dialogue with the team at MachineGames. The fact that there is now a political and social climate, particularly here in the US, is something we’ve talked about. We weren’t going to hide from the fact our game is about killing Nazis and freeing the US from their rule, and if we can reference current events as part of talking about the game, so be it. Nazis are evil. We aren’t afraid to remind people of that."

However, Hines reiterated that The New Colossus "was not written to be a commentary on current events" and that he's been pleased with the response to both the game and its marketing.

"With things being the way they are, having a healthy (and safe) avenue to vent some frustrations is a good thing, and we hope Wolfenstein II can be a way to do that for folks." 

There is only one side. #NoMoreNazis #Wolf2 pic.twitter.com/7Ctu265Mus

— Wolfenstein (@wolfenstein) October 15, 2017

When Valve launched Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two as The Orange Box bundle back in 2007, it had a transformative effect on the games retail space of its day. That's according to Valve's Robin Walker, who recently spoke to PC Gamer about the legacy of the game bundle and the impact it had on the company as a whole.

"The Orange Box was also a great product to really highlight why the retail channel was reducing game developer’s options," he said. "We found with Episode One that retail really didn’t understand or like a premium quality $20 title – they stood to make less money per box, and they had a limited amount of shelf space in their stores.

"The Orange Box avoided this by combining multiple quality products into a single box that was worth that full amount, but in doing so it created other problems. Retail had never seen a new, high quality box containing more than one title. Historically, a box that contained multiple titles was a bundle of old or low quality titles.

"So in terms of Steam’s history, to us The Orange Box represents the era in which distribution channels placed a huge amount of friction on what kinds of games were made, how big they should be, and how much they were sold for. These weren’t things that retailers should be blamed for, they were simply the side effects of operating in physical space. It’s great to be able to look around and see such an enormously wide spectrum of games being made today, many of which wouldn’t have had much of a chance to find their audience in that physical distribution world."

Indeed, combining three games into a single title particularly helped with the reception of Portal, Walker continues, as it meant Valve din't have to do "the heavy lifting of explaining to people why they should buy this thing that was unlike anything they'd played before," allowing the company to "lure" people in with its sibling titles instead. 

Of course, these days, games publishers don't need to employ such tactics, as the sheer number of options available now make it much easier to sell smaller, Portal-style releases, both at physical and digital retail alike. Still, there's no denying the role The Orange Box played in creating today's retail landscape, as it allowed retailers to think a little differently about how much games cost and the way they're presented on shelves. While it's unlikely we'll see another Orange Box-style release (either from Valve or any other game publisher, for that matter), its impact won't be forgotten. 

A brand-new series of esports events are coming to the UK, courtesy of a partnership between newcomer organisation Ultimo Hombre and nightclub chain Deltic, the companies have announced.

Founded by leading figures in both the gaming and urban events industries, Ultimo Hombre aims to make esports accessible for everyone, from kids and families to teens and core gamers, with prizes to be won in every tournament. 

Ultimo Hombre will be staging 'Gamerdays' at around 60 venues around the UK over the next 18 months, starting on Sundays before eventually expanding to mid-week events. The first event kicks off this Sunday (October 22nd) at Birmingham's PRYZM venue, with international gaming star Calfreezy appearing throughout the day alongside special guests Go 8 Bit's Steve McNeil and BBC Radio One's Julia Hardy, who will also be hosting the event. 

Gamerdays will be split into two sessions – a family friendly morning session, and an 18+ afternoon session where cash prizes can be won and more mature titles will be available to play. In addition to titles such as Call of Duty, FIFA 18, PES 2018 and Dirt 4, VR experiences and retro gaming break out rooms will also be on offer. 

“We’ve been working diligently behind the scenes to create a series of gaming events that are amongst the most ambitious, inclusive and entertaining ever staged in the UK, and we’re delighted to announce our launch venue, starting operation this October,” said Mark Adams, CEO for Ultimo Hombre.

“Working in partnership with renowned publishers, industry experts and the gaming community at large has allowed us to design an event for everyone, focusing on eSports and gaming fans, rather than professional players and teams; everyone has a chance to become a legend at Ultimo Hombre.”

Tim Howard, marketing director for the Deltic Group commented: “Deltic venues are renowned for cutting edge staging, elite sound systems and unrivalled atmosphere, the perfect ingredients to cater for a gaming audience and ideal for the highly ambitious Ultimo Hombre events.

"Our PRYZM location in Birmingham is one of our flagship locations, an ideal choice to lead the way, bringing gamers and families together and kicking off what we believe will prove to be a unique way to watch, play and experience the latest games. We can’t wait until multiple venues are battling each other live for bragging rights and are confident that gamers of all ages and abilities will be thrilled with the Ultimo Hombre events.”

TT Games, Frontier Developments, Criterion Games, Ninja Theory, Wargaming and Naughty Dog will headline this year's Yorkshire Games Festival, event organisers have announced.

Returning to Bradford's National Science and Media Museum for its second year this November, the five-day event will celebrate games culture and introduce a new generation to the science and art of game development. Talks include presentations from Destiny 2 writer Martin Korda, TT Games' head of design Arthur Parsons, Ninja Theory's Dominic Matthew, Wargaming's director of special projects Tracy Spaight and Frontier's Louise McLennan and Sebastian Hickey, as well as former Naughty Dog VFX artist Iki Ikram.

Composer David Wise will also be in attendance, plus Overcooked's Oli De-Vine and Phil Duncan, Criterion's James Svensson and Kieran Crimmins, and Gang Beast creators James and Michael Brown. A full line-up is available on the festival's website. 

What's more, this year's event will introduce a dedicated 'School's Day' on the first day of the festival (Wednesday November 8th) to expand the festival to KS2 and KS3 students looking to learn about how to make industry-leading games. The day will include lessons on coding and story-telling. 

There will also be a dedicated Business and Video Games workshop for newcomers to the industry, as well as a networking event. That's all in addition to the 'Let's Play' weekend designed for families and gamers of all ages. 

"There are scores of brilliant games events all across the UK, across Europe even, but we want to take a different approach with the Yorkshire Games Festival,” festival director Kathryn Penny said.

“Across the five days, we’ll be bringing some of the industry’s brightest and best to Bradford to discuss frankly what they’ve learned from being behind some of the most creative and successful titles out there. In the midst of all this will be the next generation - the games industry’s future stars, lapping up that expertise and that knowledge for the years ahead.”

Tickets are available now, with prices for speaker events starting from £35. 

SpecialEffect celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and just raised over £300,000 during its One Special Day campaign. We talk to founder and CEO Dr Mick Donegan about what’s next for the gaming charity.

Congrats on your 10th anniversary! How has SpecialEffect grown over the last ten years?

We’ve increased the number of people we help through face-to-face assessments and support tenfold, and we’re now collaborating with both hardware and software developers worldwide. Our aim from the start was to use the knowledge, skills and experience our team acquired by working with people with the most complex disabilities in the UK to be able to help people on a global basis. As time goes by, we’ve been able to collaborate with more and more developers to make games more accessible for more people. We’re very proud, for example, to have supported Double Fine in making Day of The Tentacle fully controllable by eye-gaze. 

How did your Twin Town 2018 initiative come about and what are your plans for it going forward?

The idea for the Twin Town car challenge came from Brendon Cross, one of our vice presidents, who’s from the telecoms industry. Across the 2014 and 2016 events, it’s raised over £400,000 and been fully embraced by the games industry with the likes of GAME, King, Green Man Gaming, Playground Games, Sumo Digital, Sega and many more getting involved. The good news is that we already have 80 teams registered for the 2018 event. The aim is to get 100 £500 cars taking part – people can register at www.twintown.org.uk.

How has this year's One Special Day event been received?

It’s gone to a whole new level this year with over 30 more companies involved, including the likes of Sega, Supercell, Rovio, EA and Yogscast. We couldn’t be more honoured at the way in which the industry has embraced the event and it’s going to make a huge difference, especially to the increasing numbers of gamers who need our help. It’s an event that takes on a life of its own every year, and our team starts planning pretty much after the previous one has finished. It feeds into the planning cycle that includes all events that we run, and compliments our GameBlast gaming marathon weekend in February really well.

What have been the most important new gaming technologies (controllers, eye-tracking, and so on) for you as a charity?

One of the most important recent new technologies to our day-to-day work is actually one of the controller modifications we’ve created ourselves. Many of the people we see have a condition that means that they don’t have the strength to use a standard games controller, so the resistance of the joysticks is too much for them to move. 

A couple of years ago, we started swapping out the springs in the joystick pots for lighter ones. The impact of this simple idea has meant so many of the people we see have been able to keep using a standard controller for longer, or use one of these joysticks as part of a more complex setup, when no other joystick has been easy enough for them to move. The idea is simple, but the modification takes a lot of skill and time to complete. We often need several controllers to complete just one, as damage to the boards when removing parts is common.

Our ideal aim would be for a controller manufacturer to offer the option of swapping out the springs at the point of manufacture, meaning we could use our resources for other projects and people globally could access this hardware more easily. 

What do you make of Microsoft's Copilot feature for the Xbox One? Is this something you'd like to see more of?

It’s been a really strong step towards greater accessibility on its console. It allows us to add other controller options, either by splitting the controls between different parts of the body – for example, holding one controller in the hands and another mounted to move a joystick with the chin – or share the controls with a friend using one controller each.

Previously, we needed to use hardware to recreate this feature on the Xbox. With Microsoft building this into the operating system, it means more people can set themselves up to use multiple controls without the need for extra hardware. 

Our ideal aim would be for a controller manufacturer to offer the option of swapping out the springs at the point of manufacture, meaning we could use our resources for other projects and people globally could access this hardware more easily.

There are now more gaming-based charities than ever before – what does that mean for SpecialEffect?

The term ‘gaming-based charities’ covers a pretty wide spectrum. Our own particular focus is on people with the most complex physical disabilities, which is why we have a multi-professional team that includes five specialist occupational therapists backed up by a specialist technical and software design team.

This is to ensure that even someone who, for example, might be very fragile with a life-limiting condition has the most effective, efficient and safest way of controlling their technology. It’s a life-long service, continuously re-visiting the person to modify and customise their system to the finest detail as their condition changes. That’s not only to ensure that they have the safest and most effective way of playing video games for the rest of their lives; it’s also to continue to give them the best chance of winning.

From the evidence of the ever-increasing number of requests we receive for help by our particular demographic year-on-year and the ever-increasing number of generous people who want to help them by supporting us, the arrival of charities who describe themselves as gaming-based doesn’t seem to have made any noticeable difference to our work. 

How does being on-site at events like EGX help both the wider community and you as a charity?

It’s a chance to update those people who support us on all of the additional severely disabled people we’ve been able to help as a result of their generosity, as well as let them know about future fundraising opportunities. It’s also a chance to tell new people about our work.

One of the great things about expos being held at locations like the NEC is that the wheelchair access is so good. It’s a great chance for more and more people who could benefit from SpecialEffect’s help being attracted to our stand who otherwise might never hear about us. In a nutshell, it’s a great way for people who need our help to find us, and a great way for us to find new people who might want to help us to help them.

Warner Bros' Middle-earth: Shadow of War's first weekend figures came out this morning and it looks to be down on what the company was hoping for the title. It's still one of the better-selling titles of the year – in the top ten of 2017's various Week One openings – but we can't help but feel Warner Bros was hoping for a little more.

Before release, Warner Bros’ Olivier Wolff told MCV the game was a "Q4 triple-A flagship title" and that the company had "never had such an investment in one marketing campaign."

He continued: “Pre-orders are pretty strong. They are above what we had for Batman Arkham Knight and we are very happy with what we have.”

While we can't reveal exact figures, we can say that Shadow of War sold a fraction of what Arkham Knight went on to sell at launch back in June 2015. Indeed, while Shadow of Mordor fans were clearly super-keen to play the game and pre-ordered it in large numbers, it didn't then drive the mass of sales Warner Bros was hoping.

Arguably, that's because even a good license like Middle-earth (putting aside for one minute the merits of not using the more-widely recognised 'Lord of the Rings' moniker) simply can't compete with a cultural behemoth such as Batman.

Now, it must be noted that those pre-order figures may have been largely digital, creating a wealth of sales that we can't see in our figures. However, we can't see any reason why Shadow of War would have a larger percentage of digital sales than similar titles in its genre – unlike, say, Overwatch or Destiny 2 where the long-term play pattern can make having a disc an annoyance.

Comparing physical sales to similar titles, Shadow of War is behind PS4 exclusives such as Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, despite it benefiting from additional sales on the Xbox One, which amounted to 39 per cent of its total.

Finally, we can reveal that the new game was down in Week One on its 2014 predecessor. Even taking into account a certain amount of 'digital shift', this is most surprising to us. The original game gained strong critical acclaim over time as the press lauded its Nemesis system of in-game opponents, it had a highly successful GOTY edition and was heavily discounted at digital as well.

All of that made it look as though the franchise had gained considerable momentum since its initial outing in 2014, but it now looks as though our gut feeling on the franchise's establishment as a 'big game' may have been a little off the mark.

Providing useful analysis of sales figures is a tricky business these days, largely because publishers don't provide digital sales figures, but also because games can earn so much money post-release through DLC and micro-transactions. Of course, none of that secondary revenue is useful for physical retailers – be they online, high-street or both.

In the end, it's not a great day for retail, and even Warner Bros surely can't be pleased with the start Shadow of War has made in the UK, despite the potential for greater earnings over the lifetime of the title.

Wargaming has opened a new mobile development studio in Moscow, the company has announced. Headed up by industry veteran Andrey Zimenko (pictured right), the studio will start developing "mid-core" titles for mobile platforms as soon as it has finished the hiring process for its new team. 

Zimenko, who has 13 years experience in the games industry, previously oversaw mobile publishing at Wargaming Alliance. He also led mobile development studio Mail.Ru.

Wargaming is currently recruiting for a number of role on its careers page, and it invites all "talented, energetic and committed developers with a mobile background to join the new team" in Moscow. 

“Moscow is one of the most significant centres for mobile gamedev in the world so we had to establish a presence here,” Zimenko said.

“Our main objective for now is building a strong team capable of achieving the most ambitious goals. We welcome mobile game development professionals to join our ranks and share their most daring ideas with us.”

MCV recently spoke with Wargaming's CEO Victor Kislyi about how the company’s now managing its wider spread of titles, while retaining players and acquiring new ones. 

“At Wargaming, we have different mobile initiatives spread out here and there," he told us. "Mobile is now a very separate division. No matter what you do with PC and console, those are huge projects with history and legacy, and a little bit of extra bureaucracy, and so they will always be a little slower. Whereas with mobile, you have to be extremely agile when it comes to mobile projects: prototyping, releasing, updating and killing. If something is not working, you just have to kill it.” 

FIFA 18 has now been the top of the UK weekly physical charts for the third consecutive week.

Sales for EA’s title were down 55 per cent week-on-week but that was not enough for Warner Bros’ Middle-earth: Shadow of War to overtake the football behemoth and take the top spot. The follow-up to 2014’s Shadow of Mordor debuted at No.2 with sales decreasing 18 per cent compared to its predecessor. 

Back in 2014, Shadow of Mordor was also beaten by a FIFA title, as FIFA 15 was No.1 and Warner Bros’ game had to settle for No.2. 

But despite Shadow of War performing a little below expectations, it was a good week for Warner Bros, as the publisher now has three titles in the Top Ten, with Lego Worlds gaining one spot to No.9 with sales increasing five per cent, and The Lego Ninjago Movie Video game landing at No.10 for its second week on shelves, with sales only decreasing 22 per cent.  

Meanwhile, Bethesda’s The Evil Within 2 entered the charts at No.3 to rather disappointing sales. They were down nearly 75 per cent compared to the first entry, which debuted at No.2 back in October 2014.

Having debuted at No.2 last week, Forza Motorsport 7 settled for No.4 this week, with sales down 63 per cent. Meanwhile, Destiny 2 is out of the Top 5 for the first time since launch, and has landed No.6 with sales decreasing 42 per cent.  

The only other new entry in the charts this week was Gun Media’s Friday the 13th: The Game, which debuted at No.15. But some titles re-entered the Top 40, with Battlefield 1: Revolution taking No.29 thanks to a 73 per cent boost in sales, and 3DS title Luigi’s Mansion 2 re-entering the charts at No.40 thanks to its re-release via the Nintendo Selects collection.

Here's the UK Top Ten for the week ending October 14th (data courtesy of GfK/Ukie):

1. FIFA 18 (EA)
2. Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Warner Bros) - NEW
3. The Evil Within 2 (Bethesda) - NEW
4. Forza Motorsport 7 (Microsoft)
5. Forza Horizon 3 (Microsoft)
6. Destiny 2 (Activision)
7. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
8. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (Activision)
9. Lego Worlds (Warner Bros)
10. The Lego Ninjago Movie Video game (Warner Bros)