The year 2014 saw a number of events in the video game industry. No new major consoles were released, but updates and upgrades were: the New Nintendo 3DS was released in Japan and Oceania, and Sony Interactive Entertainment released new model 2000 PS Vita systems in Europe & North America. In video game-related corporate acquisitions, Amazon purchased the online video game streaming service Twitch, and Facebook acquired the virtual reality company and product Oculus. Nintendo released Amiibo in 2014, companion figurines that could be scanned by the 3DS and Wii U systems. On Twitter and other Internet social media, the Gamergate controversy began.
Among video games originally released in 2014, critics gave the highest reviews to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Dark Souls II, Bayonetta 2, Shovel Knight, Velocity 2X, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mario Kart 8, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Other significant games that won awards included Destiny, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monument Valley, Grand Theft Auto Online, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Watch Dogs.
Series with new installments in 2014 include Assassin's Creed, Bayonetta, Borderlands, Call of Duty, Castlevania, Civilization, Dark Souls, Divinity, Donkey Kong, Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls, Elite, Far Cry, Final Fantasy, Forza Horizon, Infamous, Kinect Sports, Kirby, LittleBigPlanet, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Metal Gear, MX vs. ATV, Ninja Gaiden, Persona, Pokémon, Professor Layton, Shantae, Sniper Elite, Sonic the Hedgehog, Strider Hiryu, Super Smash Bros., Tales, The Sims, Thief, Trials, Tropico, Wolfenstein, and World of Warcraft.
In addition, 2014 saw the introduction of several new properties, including Destiny, Five Nights at Freddy's, Shovel Knight, Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall, The Evil Within and Watch Dogs.
Highest-grossing games The following were 2014's top ten highest-grossing video games in terms of worldwide revenue (including physical sales, digital purchases, subscriptions, microtransactions, free-to-play and pay-to-play) across all platforms (including mobile, PC, and console platforms).
Game Revenue Publisher(s) Genre(s) Platform(s) Business model 1 Puzzle & Dragons $1,500,000,000 GungHo Online Entertainment Puzzle Mobile Free-to-play 2 Crossfire $1,400,000,000 Smilegate / Tencent FPS PC Free-to-play 3 Candy Crush Saga $1,330,000,000 King Digital Puzzle Mobile Free-to-play 4 Clash of Clans $1,000,000,000 Supercell Strategy Mobile Free-to-play 5 League of Legends $946,000,000 Riot Games / Tencent MOBA PC Free-to-play 6 Dungeon Fighter Online $891,000,000 Neople / Nexon Beat 'em up PC 7 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare $840,000,000 Activision FPS PC, Console Buy-to-play 8 Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar Games Action-adventure PC, Console Buy-to-play 9 World of Warcraft $728,000,000 Blizzard Entertainment MMORPG PC Subscription 10 Destiny $500,000,000 Activision FPS Console Buy-to-play
Top-rated games
Critically acclaimed titles Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.
+ 2014 games and expansions scoring at least 90/100 (MC) or 90% (GR) Game Publisher Release date Platform MC score GR score Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar Games November 18, 2014 XBO 97/100 98.33% Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar Games November 18, 2014 PS4 97/100 96.33% The Last of Us Remastered Sony Computer Entertainment July 29, 2014 PS4 95/100 95.7% Shovel Knight Yacht Club Games June 26, 2014 3DS 90/100 93.67% Fez Trapdoor March 25, 2014 PSV 91/100 92.5% Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Nintendo November 21, 2014 WiiU 92/100 92.39% Rayman Legends Ubisoft February 18, 2014 XBO 91/100 92.17% Bayonetta 2 Nintendo September 20, 2014 WiiU 91/100 91.38% Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition Blizzard Entertainment August 19, 2014 PS4 90/100 91.25% Dark Souls II Bandai Namco Games March 11, 2014 PS3 91/100 89.68% Kentucky Route Zero – Act III Cardboard Computer May 6, 2014 WIN 91/100 89% Dark Souls II Bandai Namco Games March 11, 2014 X360 91/100 88.95% Dark Souls II Bandai Namco Games March 11, 2014 WIN 91/100 88.3% Out of the Park Baseball 15 Out of the Park Developments April 24, 2014 WIN 89/100 90.71% Velocity 2X FuturLab September 2, 2014 PSV 90/100 90.56% Rayman Legends Ubisoft February 18, 2014 PS4 90/100 90.45% Metro Redux Deep Silver August 25, 2014 WIN 90/100 90.2% The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Nicalis November 4, 2014 WIN 86/100 90.2% Child of Light Ubisoft April 29, 2014 PS3 89/100 90% Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition DrinkBox Studios July 2, 2014 WiiU 90/100 88.86% Fez Trapdoor March 25, 2014 PS4 90/100 88.46% The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II Nihon Falcom September 25, 2014 PS3 90/100 87.5%
Major awards Category/Organization 32nd Golden Joystick Awards The Game Awards 2014 18th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards 15th Game Developers Choice Awards 11th British Academy Games Awards Game of the Year Dark Souls II Dragon Age: Inquisition Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Destiny Independent / Debut DayZ Shovel Knight Transistor The Banner Saga Never Alone Mobile/Handheld Mobile Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Monument Valley Handheld Pokémon X and Y Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Innovation Oculus Rift DK2 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Monument Valley The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Artistic Achievement Animation Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag rowspan="2" Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Monument Valley Lumino City Art Direction Monument Valley Audio Music Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Destiny Alien: Isolation Far Cry 4 Sound Design Destiny Alien: Isolation Character or Performance Trey Parker as multiple charactersSouth Park: The Stick of Truth TalionMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Ashley Johnson as EllieThe Last of Us: Left Behind Game Design or Direction Game Design rowspan="2" colspan="2" Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game Direction Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Narrative The Last of Us: Left Behind Valiant Hearts: The Great War Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Kentucky Route Zero: Episode 3 The Last of Us: Left Behind Technical Achievement colspan="2" Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Destiny Multiplayer/Online Battlefield 4 Destiny Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Action/Shooter Far Cry 4 Destiny rowspan="2" colspan="2" Adventure Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Family Mario Kart 8 LittleBigPlanet 3 Minecraft: Console Editions Fighting Super Smash Bros. for Wii U rowspan="2" colspan="2" Role-Playing Dragon Age: Inquisition Sports/Racing Sports rowspan="2" Mario Kart 8 FIFA 15 rowspan="2" OlliOlli Racing Mario Kart 8 Strategy/Simulation colspan="2" Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft colspan="2" Special Award Lifetime Achievement Industry Icon Award Pioneer Awards Lifetime Achievement Award BAFTA Fellowship Hideo Kojima Ken and Roberta Williams Allan Alcorn,Ralph H. Baer Hironobu Sakaguchi David Braben
Events
{| class="wikitable col-1center" style=width:100% |- ! Date ! Event ! |- | January | Atari emerges from Bankruptcy and plans to enter the Social Casino market.
| January 6 | 2K Games discontinued the MLB 2K series.
| January 7 | PlayStation Now, a cloud-streaming from Sony Computer Entertainment was announced.
| January 15–16 | Steam Dev Days held in Seattle, Washington.
| January 27 | Microsoft acquired the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games.
| February 5 | Double Helix Games was acquired by Amazon.com
| February 18 | Irrational Games, the creator of the BioShock series was shut down.
| March 12 | 10th British Academy Video Games Awards held in Tobacco Dock, London.
| March 17 – 21 | Game Developers Conference 2014 held in San Francisco, California.
| March 18 | Project Morpheus, a virtual reality initiative from Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 is announced.
| March 25 | Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion.
| March 28 – 30 | Rezzed 2014 held at the NEC Birmingham.
| April 11 – 13 | PAX East 2014 held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
| April 12 – 13 | Midwest Gaming Classic 2014 held at the Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield Hotel in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
| May 20 | Nintendo discontinues the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection servers for Wii and Nintendo DS games.
| May 29 | Electronic Arts shut down Mythic Entertainment
| June 5 | Nintendo announces that their president, Satoru Iwata won't attend E3 due to medical issues.
| June 10 – 12 | E3 2014 held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
| June 12 | Nordic Games acquired the publishing label of THQ.
| June 14 – 17 | DreamHack-Summer held in Jönköping, Sweden.
| June 25 | Google releases the Google Cardboard a VR accessory designed for smartphones.
| June 30 | Crytek's IP's Homefront: The Revolution was acquired by Koch Media. Crytek UK, formerly Free Radical Design, and Crytek USA was shut down.
| June 30 | Deep Silver set up a new subsidiary known as Deep Silver Dambuster.
| June 30 | Electronic Arts shut down more than 50 multiplayer games.
| July 10 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'''s creator Neversoft was merged into Infinity Ward by Activision.
| July 17 – 20 | QuakeCon 2014: The massive annual LAN party held in Dallas, Texas.
| July 24 – 27 | SDCC 2014 held at the San Diego Convention Center.
| July 29 | The Nvidia Shield Tablet is released in North America.
| July | Airtight Games was shut down approximately one month after the release of Murdered: Soul Suspect.
| August 7 | Activision revived the brand of Sierra Entertainment.
| August 11 | Electronic Arts launched a subscription video game service called EA Access for the Xbox One.
| August 13 – 17 | Gamescom 2014 held in Cologne, Germany.
| August 20 – 22 | Unite 2014 held in Seattle, Washington.
| August 25 | Twitch was acquired by Amazon.com for $970 million.
| August 28 | The Gamergate controversy came to public attention due to the introduction of the GamerGate hashtag.
| August 29 | Nintendo announced the New Nintendo 3DS XL.
| August 29 – September 1 | PAX Prime 2014 held at the Washington State Convention Center.
| September 18 – 21 | Tokyo Game Show 2014 at the Makuhari Messe in Tokyo.
| September 25 – 28 | EGX London 2014 held in Earls Court, London.
| September 27 | Naughty Dog celebrated its 30th anniversary.
| October 2 – 5 | GIGACON 2014 held in Telenor Arena, Oslo, Norway.
| October 3 – 5 | EGS 2014 held in Centro Banamex, Mexico City, Mexico.
| October 6 | Ubisoft Reflections, formerly known as Reflections Interactive, celebrated its 30th anniversary.
| October 11 – 12 | Play Expo 2014 held at EventCity, Manchester.
| October 11 – 12 | FirstLook 2014 held at Jaarbeurs in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
| October 19 | 2014 League of Legends World Championship was held at the Seoul World Cup Stadium
| October 24 | 32nd Golden Joystick Awards was held
| October 24–26 | Milan Games Week held at Fieramilanocity in Milan, Italy.
| October 31 – November 2 | PAX Australia 2014 held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
| November 6 | Microsoft Studios acquired Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion.
| November 7 – 8 | BlizzCon 2014 held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.
| November 12–17 | E-Sports World Championship 2014 was held in Baku, Azerbaijan
| November 27 – 30 | DreamHack-Winter held in Jönköping, Sweden.
| December 4 | 2K Games announced a new subsidiary called Hangar 13.
| December 5 | The Game Awards 2014 held in Las Vegas.
| December 6 – 7 | PlayStation Experience held at The Venetian Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Notable deaths
January 23 – Justin Carmical, 42, retro game enthusiast known online as JewWario. February 14 – Harold Ramis, 69, actor, writer, and director who created the Ghostbusters franchise and co-wrote the 2009 video game. April 19 – Bob Hoskins, 71, actor who played Mario in 1993's Super Mario Bros..