Electronic Arts will donate $1 million to the Global Giving’s Coronavirus Relief Fund in conjunction with its upcoming FIFA Stay Home, Play Together campaign tournament.
The money will aid Global Giving in donating masks and ventilators to hospitals while also sending doctors to communities in need. The nonprofit organization is also helping feed children who rely on school meals and will deliver essential items to families in quarantined cities and refugee camps.
The FIFA 20 Stay and Play Cup streams from April 15-19 on EA Sports FIFA’s Twitch account, and EA is encouraging fans who watch the tournament to donate and support global relief efforts if they can.
“We want to bring the global football community together with the EA Sports FIFA 20 Stay and Play Cup, so millions of fans can experience the thrill of their favorite clubs and professional footballers playing — even when we have to be apart,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a press release. “As part of ‘Stay Home, Play Together,’ we’re working to help people around the world find more ways to connect through play. Combined with relief contributions we are making, we hope to make a positive impact in people’s lives during this challenging time.”
Globally known European football clubs Chelsea, Liverpool, and Real Madrid will join 17 of their counterparts as the real-world professional athletes represent their teams on the virtual pitch.
The publisher kicked off the Stay Home, Play Together campaign on March, 26 with an Apex Legends tournament that saw top pros compete for $50,000 while the company gave an additional $250,000 to the International Red Cross. Three Apex Legends Global Series tournaments have also been added over the next two months with a prize pool of $100,000 per event. In early April, NFL players showed off their virtual gridiron skills in Madden NFL 20 as Los Angeles Chargers’ Free Safety Derwin James came out on top. The upcoming FIFA tournament will closely follow the format that worked for the Madden version.
Beyond these competitions, EA is adding in-game events to other games. Fans can get 1,500 company coins just for logging in on Battlefield V. Also, Plants vs. Zombies 2 is having an Aloe Immune Booster event through April 16 that allows players to partake in a one-time quest while also getting a free piñata in the store each day.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.