Author: Admin

[NM] Youtuber DalasReview Pulls Fur Fun From Steam After Game Flops


Youtuber Dalasreview has fully pulled his title Fur Fun from Steam barely ten months after a controversial release and virtually no response from the Steam market. Fur Fun began as a game attempting to obtain crowdfunding to produce a Banjo-Kazooie style game. When those crowdfunding attempts failed, popular Spanish Youtuber Dalasreview backed the game and helped publish it, presumably also helping fund its development.

When the game launched into early access last February, it immediately struck a negative response. People quickly discovered that stolen assets from Banjo Kazooie, Minecraft, and Mario were present in the game’s files, a public spat over whether or not Yooka-Laylee composer Grant Kirkhope had created music for the game resulted in the Fur Fun account publicly accusing him of lying on Twitter, and Dalasreview began filing frivolous DMCA takedown notices against Youtube videos critical of the game and its developer.

In all of this controversy, it looks like the only thing that people weren’t doing was actually buying or playing the game. A quick glance at the Steam charts shows that Fur Fun never once after launch managed to beat a monthly average of one user. Steam Spy indicates that the game had maybe around 717 owners as of December 31, which doesn’t account for copies that may have been given away for free. Despite Dalasreview’s 4+ million subscriber count, it looks like far more people were interested in talking about the controversy of Fur Fun than were actually willing to buy it.

The Steam announcement sounds very similar to other jilted indie devs, even ending with a “good riddance” farewell.

This is our last goodbye!
It’s been a long time trying to keep up the project alive, but it’s time to say goodbye.

Fur Fun is getting out of Steam.
Thanks to all of you for your support and kind comments.
Good riddance.

(Source: Steam)

Chaturday: Gamer Grudges And The Horse Konami Road In On


Here at MMO Fallout, I often get asked a very simple question about game journalists, and whether or not members of this profession intentionally seek contrarian positions in order to goad people they already know don’t like them into responding, thus adding to their growing cache of victim bucks? You’d think so, given the current climate, but from an insider perspective I can say that the answer is a surprising yes.

Of course they do, and for two simple reasons: First, outrage bait gets clicks and clicks get ad revenue. I keep a close eye on what stories get the biggest hits on MMO Fallout, and I can tell you it certainly isn’t the ones with a happy ending. The lowest Crowdfunding Fraudster piece has more hits than any positive coverage on this website, but thankfully we aren’t supported by advertising and thus how many hits a story gets has almost zero effect on the tone that further coverage takes.

The second is that this industry doesn’t exactly pay well, business and landlords don’t accept victim bucks as a currency, and frankly if you’re the kind of person who couldn’t get into a “real journalism” (I’m parsing the words of others) for a lack of integrity or ability to conduct real investigations, then parsing Twitter and Google for the top search trends and penning an article about how you’re wrong for liking that thing or for not liking that other thing, in the hopes that those people share your piece to their friends so they can read it and talk about how angry they are, it’s pretty much all you’ve got. I’m not saying these people exist, but if they did then this probably sums up their motivations.

It’s easy to become disillusioned when you’re forced to write for an industry that you’re not really interested in, don’t know much about, and for an audience that you don’t really relate to. God gamers suck.

Oh did I say that out loud?

But we’re here today to talk about Konami, an entity so reviled in the gaming community that they make Bobby Kotick and Bill Roper look like venerated saints. If any company truly deserves being demonized by the public, it’s the company whose ethical crimes extend outside of “they made a game I didn’t like and filled it with microtransactions.” We’re talking about the Konami, who routinely not only blacklists former employees from the gaming industry but allegedly attempts to stop them from getting jobs in other industries as well.

Let’s also not forget the controversy between Konami and Hideo Kojima, which ultimately led to Konami utilizing its lawyers to prevent Kojima from accepting an award at a game show, the same year that they stripped Kojima’s name from Metal Gear Solid.

We can also have a whole conversation about Konami abandoning its properties, but ultimately the company seems determined to leave the gaming industry behind and frankly the only gripe that many gamers have with this notion is that this might mean the end of beloved franchises like Castlevania and Silent Hill. Konami obviously won’t suffer from this move, their gaming side has been small potatoes compared to their pachinko machines for quite some time.

So yes, there is a community of gamers that will never buy anything that is ever produced with Konami’s name. Does it make them entitled? Not exactly. Are they justified in their reasoning? That’s subjective to the person. Are they going to get attacked and vilified for it? You bet your sweet bippy they will.

Look around the internet blogosphere and you’ll see articles talking about how those nasty entitled gamers aren’t even giving Konami a chance. Given the recent controversy and backlash surrounding predatory microtransactions in games, you may also notice a trend about how reasonable and functional it is that Konami is making Survive online-always even for single player and how generous it is for them to introduce microtransactions for those people who have jobs and thus more money than time (aka not-basement dwelling nerds).

Until of course Konami unveils a scantily clad female character for Survive, in which case the game designers are going to get crucified by the press.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Overwatch League Pro Suspended After Insulting Competitor In Post-Loss Stream


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(Original Story) Dallas Fuel has suspended one of its players, Felix “xQc” Lengyel after the player hurled an insult at a competitor on the Houston Outlaws after a match Thursday night. More details on the suspension will be coming.

Houston beat Dallas with a resounding 4-0 victory on Thursday, after which Lengyel went onto his stream to rant about the loss, eventually directing his anger toward Austin Wilmot of Houston who used Lengyel’s catchphrase “rolled and smoked.”

“No, you didn’t smoke shit. Shut your fucking mouth. Go back there, suck a fat cock. I mean, he would like that.”

It’s obvious from the clip that Lengyel immediately realizes that he let his frustration cross a line, and he quickly apologized on Twitter.

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Wilmot, who is openly gay, accepted the apology while apologizing for his own stream where he referred to Lengyel as a “homophobic piece of garbage” in response.

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While Wilmot may not have taken the flippant, heat-of-the-moment comment personally, Dallas Fuel hasn’t been so forgiving. Lengyel did not play in tonight’s match.

Trion Worlds To Sunset Devilian Following Developer Abandonment


It’s a tale as old as time. Developer abandons property and leaves publisher with no avenue to fix game issues or develop further content, and game eventually shuts down due to lack of ability to support itself. In this case, Bluehole Ginno was in charge of handling the further development of Devilian promptly abandoned the title to work on another title that MMO Fallout readers may be modestly aware of: Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. The game has been in relative maintenance mode since that time.

The time of Devilians has drawn to a close; on March 5, 2018, the sun will set over a peaceful Nala for the last time. The time has come to lay down your arms and carry the laurels of your victories with you to other worlds.

Active players within the last 90 days will be eligible to receive a welcome pack to one of Trion’s other titles. The options available are listed below and at the announcement.

• ArcheAge – The Erenor Eternal Starter Pack, containing:
• Mirage Snowlion Mount
• Moonsand Fox Pet
• 50 Bound Tax Certificates
• 5 Bound Vocation Tonics
• 5 Bound Vocation Expertise Tonic
• 30 Days of Patron Status

• RIFT – The Ascended Essentials Pack, containing:
• Storm Legion Souls
• Nightmare Tide Souls
• Primalist Calling and Souls
• Ascended Souls
• 6 Character Slots per Server
• 2 Bag Slots (Slots 4 & 5)

• Trove – The Trove Essentials Pack, containing:
• Ten class Tokens
• Fire Wings
• Trovian Supercycle
• Tome: Dragon Coin
• Tome: Jade Clover
• 10 Omni Mount Unlockers
• Trove Topper
• S.S. TrovianTrovial Sail
• 50 Gem Booster Boxes
• 100 Bombs
• 15 days of Patron Pass time

• Defiance – T.I.T.A.N. Augment Bundle, containing:
• 250 Arkforge
• Random Legendary Chip
• Random Tradeable Legendary Shield (Titan’s Fury Synergy)
• (these items are claimable on one character)

• Atlas Reactor – All Freelancer Pack
• Includes every character ever made unlocked in Atlas Reactor

Epic Strikes Again: Sues Over Fortnite V-Buck Exploit


Since last October, Epic Games has launched at least six lawsuits against individuals creating or advertising cheats for Fortnite, and as of last week you can add another one to that list. Epic has filed another lawsuit in the Northern District of California court, this time against an individual Yash Gosai, over his advertising of exploits in Fortnite Battle Royale.

While Epic’s previous lawsuits targeted creators and distributors of aimbots, this lawsuit deals with an exploit surrounding Fortnite’s premium currency V-Bucks. According to the lawsuit, Gosai is accused of developing and publicizing an exploit allowing people to gain free v-bucks without paying real money. Epic Games took the action of removing the video via DMCA takedown notice, which the defendant counter-claimed, and now the case is going to court on three claims: Copyright violation, breach of contract, and conversion (monetary damages).

Unlike the other cases we’ve covered where Epic Games is mostly seeking injunctive relief, barring the defendants from playing/cheating in their games, the fact that Gosai is being accused of both using and distributing an exploit to illegitimately acquire RMT currency for Fortnite makes this lawsuit one of the few where Epic is actually pursuing monetary damages. Epic is seeking unspecified damages plus interest and lawyer fees. As Yash Gosai is a resident of New Zealand, this case might take a while.

Both parties are scheduled for a meeting in April.

(Source: North California Court Docket Case 3:2018cv00152)

Paragon Might Be Unsustainable and Fortnite Killed It


There is no doubt that Epic Games has been drawing in the players and the money with the release of their PUBG-esque Fortnite Battle Royale. While Epic refuses to separate the two modes, it did recently announce that Fortnite had drawn in a combined forty million downloads. While Fortnite has been a runaway success, it looks like the game may have sealed the doom of another Epic product.

In an open letter to the Paragon community, Epic admitted that updates have been slow and the title’s inability to draw in players with each new updated has raised cause for concern. The update notes that over the coming weeks it will be looking at Paragon and determining how to move forward with updates.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be figuring out if and how we can evolve Paragon to achieve growth and success, and trying some things internally. In the meantime, Paragon’s release cadence will be slower.

Epic Games admits that a fair number of members of the Paragon team have jumped ship and moved over to Battle Royale and that the title may not reach what Epic considers to be a sustainable game.

Here inside Epic, we’re talking about the future of Paragon in pretty much the same terms as you’re talking about it. The core challenge is that, of new players who try Paragon, only a small number continue to play regularly after a month. Though Paragon has evolved, no iteration has yet achieved that magical combination of ingredients that make for a sustainable game. (As an aside, the problem isn’t marketing or how to make money with Paragon. We have good ideas that would solve those problems if we can find a way to make Paragon grow.)

The entire post can be read at the link below.

(Source: Reddit)

Forget Civil Court, Tencent Is Sending PUBG Cheaters To Prison


We’ve seen a lot of discussion about the morality of Epic Games suing people, including minors, for advertising their cheats in Fortnite, but while court-enforced injunctions may prevent some cheat makers from re-offending, Tencent over in China is taking a different approach; they’re getting law enforcement involved.

According to a report out of Bloomberg, Tencent has assisted Chinese police in taking down more than 120 people in 30 cases involving the creation and distribution of cheats for PUBG and is branching out into its other titles. The individuals under arrest are being charged with violating China’s criminal laws on disrupting computer networks, and unlike Epic Games’ simple injunctions, can and have faced jail times of up to five years as well as massive fines.

“PUBG is going through a puberty of sorts and cheaters threaten to stunt its growth,” said Kim Hak-joon, who analyzes gaming stocks for South Korea’s Kiwoom Securities Co. “Cheaters mostly drive away new users, and without retaining new users, PUBG won’t be able to consolidate its early success and become a long-lasting hit.”

This is not the first case of authorities cracking down on video game crimes. Last year, Jiangsu police arrested a Counter Strike: Global Offensive cheat developer who now faces up to 15 years in prison. In South Korea, a 17 year old was arrested for developing and selling cheats for Overwatch. Over in Japan, police have made use of the Unfair Competition Prevention Law in order to prosecute people creating and selling cheats for video games like Alliance of Valiant Arms and Sudden Attack. In 2014, two men were sentenced to prison in China after scamming people of digital items and selling them for cash.

In some cases, developers are assisting the police in cracking down on criminal offenses, however the police are the entities pressing the actual criminal charges.

Perpetuum Online To Shut Down Its Servers This Month


Perpetuum Online may be shutting down its official servers, but the game isn’t necessarily going away forever. Avatar Creations last week announced that, after seven years, the official Perpetuum servers will go offline as of January 25. If you happen to have an itch that only Perpetuum can scratch, you’ll still be able to log in to one of the game’s already available standalone servers, operated by members of the community.

We cannot release the live server’s database to the public due to privacy issues, however DEV Crm is committed to keep the live DB alive with his own private server solution. This won’t be the same as the current official server in terms of speed and availability and it’s strictly a “no promises made” gig, but it’s something.

The official news post goes into more details on standalone server operations. There are presently five servers online, however most have single digit player counts.

(Source: Perpetuum)

Game Software/Hardware To Hit $165 Billion In 2018


It’s no surprise that the gaming industry brings in quite a bit of moolah each year, a number that has been increasing for years and doesn’t show much of a sign of slowing down. Analyst Digi-Capital today released a prediction that video game hardware/software could reach $165+ billion in sales and go as high as $235 billion by 2022 if it stays on course. By comparison, according to the firm, this kind of revenue will make the gaming industry bigger in the next five years than the GDP of 150 countries.

You can read the whole report at the link below. The gaming industry has also been fueled by record investment, over $2 billion in 2017 and growing.

(Source: Digi-Capital)

[From the Vault] Rant: More Money Than Sense


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(Editor’s Note: This piece is an unpublished rant from 2013 that I decided to release because it is mostly finished albeit a giant text of complaints, I feel it still holds true today. The story below is true.)

I had an epiphany moment way back when Final Fantasy XIV first came out in 2010 that drastically changed my view on gaming and a notable portion of the gaming community. I came across a thread on the official FFXIV forums where a guy was complaining that Square Enix wouldn’t give him a refund despite the game being in poor condition. He explained in the original post that he knew of the game’s problems during beta, and even participated in almost every phase, but decided to pre-purchase with the hopes that they would be fixed by the time the game launched. They weren’t, so he wanted his money back. Understandable. While few would disagree that Final Fantasy XIV had major problems in its first iteration and was without a doubt a trainwreck, just keep reading. I wouldn’t be telling this if it didn’t get better. One of the users asked what exactly he found wrong with the game. His response? The slow combat system, the slow leveling, the individual profession levels, everything about crafting, the graphics, the lack of open world pvp, the lack of open worlds period, leve quests, traditional questing, story-driven quests, reliance on crafting, lack of looting players, and a few other things I may be forgetting. In other words, the entire game.

Personally I found this man astounding. What he wanted was Final Fantasy married to Darkfall, a hardcore sandbox pvp MMO, and apparently gave serious expectation that Square Enix would suddenly transform every single aspect between open beta and launch. I can see a guy who plays a beta, sees some features that aren’t available immediately or are buggy or broken or needs to be balanced, but buys the game to get in early because he expects those bugs to be fixed later on. That kind of disappointment I can agree with. What this guy wanted was a fundamental rewrite of the entire game. But boy howdy, does it get better. Just keep reading.

Eventually someone in the thread said “count it as a $50 lesson in spending your money wisely.” He didn’t spend fifty bucks. After our friend played through most of the beta phases, found not a single redeeming quality in his words, he went ahead and ordered the collector’s edition and loaded his account with a couple hundred dollars in Crysta. Not only that, but he did the same for his wife who similarly hated every part of the experience. Just sit back and let that sink in. Putting six hundred (at least) down on a video game that you didn’t like. Six hundred bucks. Ten new games, or two hundred on your average Steam sale. Several months of car payments. Many massage appointments to soothe your temper. I don’t know. The last thing I spent over six hundred dollars on in one go was a down payment on my car.

I saw a few people in the thread at this point calling the man delusional, and I have to agree with them. He genuinely believed that FFXIV would suddenly transform into an entirely new game literally overnight, against all evidence to the contrary, and was willing to bet six hundred bucks on it. When pressed on why he wasted so much money if he hated the game, the guy responded “it’s my money, I decide how I spend it, not you.” Fair enough, no one is trying to tell him how to spend his money. A little defensive of an answer for someone who believes to be in the right, I must say. Now, you may be thinking “oh this guy is probably rich,” and you would be correct. Pressed further on the matter, he admitted that six hundred dollars “was basically nothing” to him compared to his weekly income, but that his demand for a refund was on principle rather than price.

Three years later and I still think about this gentleman because his thread opened me to the ocean of people with more money in their wallet than common sense in their head. I saw it from people purchasing lifetime subscriptions to games that they had either not played, or had played and did not like. In people purchasing multiple copies of Star Trek Online just to get their hands on the multiple store-specific cosmetics, only for Cryptic to add them to the cash shop later on. In people setting up multiple accounts for WWII Online and Warhammer Online as a “donation” to keep the game running. Spending into the triple digits on a Kickstarter of a game that they might not even like in return for some cosmetics.

Other than that I have no opinion on the matter.