Author: Admin

A Response to the Venture Beat Cuphead “Controversy”


Let’s talk Venture Beat and Cuphead.

Now in case you haven’t noticed, I tend to avoid covering controversies involving game journalists being bad at video games. Polygon’s video of Doom was embarrassing on a level that the people involved should have known not to publish it, but the factor that blew it out of control was the lack of context. There was no commentary on the video, nor was there an explanation about who was playing and why they were so bad. I’ve pointed this out when talking to/about developers, but it’s not proper to leave plot holes in your messaging, because the internet has a tendency to fill in those holes and by default assume the worst.

It also doesn’t help that Polygon has a history of publishing articles that are at best outrage clickbait, and at worst an open admission that the author has utter contempt for playing video games and gamers. Polygon hadn’t reviewed Doom at that point, so people weren’t sure whether the person recording the footage was going to be scoring it. As I said in our previous coverage, my dad doesn’t understand how to use a DVD remote control, I probably wouldn’t put much faith into his “this thing is a piece of crap” review. But the review came out, by another person, and Polygon ultimately gave the game a respectable 8.5.

But we’re here to talk about Venture Beat and Cuphead, specifically a video lacking context and commentary that popped up on their Youtube channel of Dean Takahashi playing the game and failing miserably. In fact, the video is titled “Dean’s Shameful 26 Minutes of Gameplay.”

The video above is from Gamescom, with Venture Beat’s writer managing to fail at the basic tutorial when the instructions are literally spelled out for him on the screen. Watching the video from start to finish, you might think that the message conveyed by Venture Beat is that the game is too hard, and therefore we might be looking at a bad review similar to Polygon’s Doom video.

Well that’s not the case. In fact, Takahashi seemed to quite enjoy it while admitting that he was terrible at it. An accompanying article explains pretty clearly that Takahashi has respect for the lost art of skill-based games.

While my performance on the captured video below is quite shameful, as I never finished the level, I think it shows quite well why Cuphead is fun and why making hard games that depend on skill is like a lost art.

And this is where we come to the video’s number one and pretty much only flaw: There is no context. Like the Polygon video, there is no commentary either live or post where Takahashi or another Venture Beat editor describes what is going on. Having a post-recording commentary session where Takahashi and the guy who convinced him it was worth uploading watch the video and talk about the game while laughing at his dismal performance would drastically alter the mood of the video, letting the viewer know that VB is in on the joke and it’s all in good fun. Entire Youtube channels are built on guys playing video games badly and then reacting to how badly they play, so it works.

Imagine adding in context like explaining that the guy had 26 minutes to play a game and the developer just sorta handed him a controller and said “go with it.” Time crunch, plus a potentially crowded and loud showroom floor is the kind of context this game is missing. A staffer standing over your shoulder and/or constantly talking to you while you play can easily distract from what is intended to be a difficult game. Again, we’re not told any of this.

Venture Beat doesn’t even link to the article I posted above in the video, stripping it of what little introspective context that it might have had. You wouldn’t know that the article existed unless you read the website and happen to stumble on it.

Ultimately in both cases we’re dealing with a video that was released in a context that nobody wanted that should have never been published in the form that it was. Venture Beat thought that the video was hilarious and published it thinking that the internet would find it hilarious, kind of like when a group of friends get drunk and record one guy in the group doing bad impressions because they’re drunk and think it’s hilarious, so they post it to the internet so everyone else could find it hilarious, but then find out that sober people outside the group don’t find a straight video of a man stumbling around, drunkenly mumbling half-quotes from 80’s movies funny. It’s an inside joke that should have stayed inside but didn’t because when you laugh at something long enough, you forget that the outside world doesn’t share the same context that you do.

And yes, people are going to be offended no matter what you put out and question your journalistic integrity, it’s the way of the internet. The proper response is for other outlets is to not all simultaneously put out a “no you’re stupid” response about how being good at video games is actually a bad thing.

Other than that, I have no opinion on the matter.

Duke Nukem Licensed Out To MMOARPG Wild Buster


MMOARPG Wild Buster dubs itself a “gritty science fiction hack’n’slash MMORPG” with PvP, PvE, and now apparently Duke Nukem. In an announcement posted today, developer Insel Games announced that the Duke would be joining the roster of heroes. No piracy here, the inclusion of the babe-rescuing, cigar smoking, Ash parody is fully licensed with the blessing of Gearbox. Insel Games also hints in its Indiegogo campaign that more than one character may be from another property.

What Hack’n’Slash MMORPG would be complete without a badass cast? That’s why we are thrilled to announce the addition of the legendary Duke Nukem to Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan’s already deadly dozen!

See the story on Steam, view more details about the game on its website, or check out the trailer below. Insel Games is aiming for an October launch, with early backers gaining access to alpha.

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Master x Master Players SOL With Less SOL


One sentence no player wants to hear is that when a developer announces that their game is just too generous, but for Master X Master players, that fear is becoming a reality. In an announcement on the official website, NCSoft has revealed its perspective that players are getting away with a little too much, and as such don’t have much of a reason to invest real money in the game to shortcut their way through progression.

Our goal with MXM is to provide different activities and ways to progress and unlock Masters at a reasonable rate through the use of SOL, or through quicker unlocks with X-Coin. SOL is currently quite generous, which means players progress through the game and content much faster than intended, and our X-Coin prices just aren’t comparable for those that choose to buy X-Coin as a shortcut.

In response, NCSoft is cutting the accumulation rate of SOL, an in-game currency, across the board. You can find the details at the link below, but the gist is that you’ll be getting less SOL and certain things will become more expensive.

(Source: MXM)

Warner Bros. Says It Won’t Profit Off Shadow of War DLC


Warner Bros. has spent the last week on the receiving end of some flack after the announcement that upcoming title Shadow of War would include a memorial to a deceased Monolith employee in the form of paid DLC. Some have accused the company of profiting off of the death of one of its employees.

Forthog Orc-Slayer appears in Shadow of War as part of a $4.99 paid DLC pack, he was created as a memorial to executive producer Michael Forgey who had passed away from a brain tumor last year. An NPC in the game, Forthog can show up when the player needs him most to lend a helping hand. The announcement also came with the statement that $3.50 from each sale would go directly to Forgey’s family through December 31, 2019.

Players quickly took umbrage with a caveat noted at the bottom of the video, that not only would the donation only include purchases made within the United States, and thus exclude other countries, but certain states would be excluded. While one can surmise that the exclusion of countries and states is due to various laws/regulations and not some malicious act, the response from Warner Bros. hasn’t done much to clear up the confusion.

"Neither Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment nor Monolith Productions will profit from any sales of the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC regardless of the territory in which that DLC is sold."

Reading between the lines on this statement suggests that Warner Bros. has a card up its sleeve to ensure that the money goes where it needs to, and in the likely event that this is related to local laws and regulations, it would not behoove WB to state publicly that they plan to circumvent said laws.

(Editor’s Thoughts: In all likelihood, we will never be told exactly how Warner Bros is going to make not donating and not profiting work, but if MMO Fallout had to throw in its two cents, I recommend looking at how Pachinko parlors in Japan. You can bypass just about any payout law by adding more steps and calling it something different.)

Donations directly to the family can be made through Youcaring.com.

Perpetuum Online Ends Development, Eyes Private Servers


Perpetuum Online is a name that we haven’t heard around MMO Fallout in quite a while, so long that many of you might have assumed that the game had quietly shut down. It hasn’t, although we have learned that development has come to an end. In a post on the official website, detailed plans have been laid out for the future of Perpetuum Online, a rather niche sci-fi MMO. In the post, Avatar Creations announced that while Perpetuum had two major population spikes, the number of players never really remained sustainable to maintain proper development.

While development on the game is ending, that doesn’t mean that Perpetuum will be gone for good. The official server will remain online for an unknown amount of time, and a standalone server client is being created so that players will be able to continue on their own servers. The client is apparently small enough and requires little resources, meaning you could boot it up alongside the game and play on your own server if you want.

As expected, premium currency and DLC are going away, and the game will only be available on Steam:

A bigger change that some of you probably won’t like is that soon Steam will be the only place where Perpetuum will be distributed, including the standalone server. The reason for this is to ensure the availability of the game on a stable platform, as opposed to our own website that we cannot guarantee to be around forever. Another reason is that it’s uneconomical for us to keep our own payment platform, as purchases made via Steam outweigh our own store by far.

You can find the entire announcement at the link below.

(Source: Perpetuum Online)

[Community] Turbine Is Now Making Mobile Junk


Turbine is a hard company not to view in revulsion, considering that the company interest in developing real video games probably left when Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online were spun off to Standing Stone Games, the rather underhanded way in which Turbine scraped what little they could off of Asheron’s Call while lying about their intentions to hand the game over to the community, and some disapproval over the announcement that publishing of LOTRO and DDO would be handled by Daybreak Game Company. All of this came alongside the announcement that Turbine would be focusing on mobile game development, a statement that qualified the company as no longer having anything of value to give to the industry.

Well you weren’t wrong. Turbine has announced its next game, and it appears to be exactly the cynical, cash grabbing, pay to win mobile strategy game that many of you immediately though of when you heard the words “mobile developer.” A popular franchise shamelessly slapped onto the same Evony clone that Chinese developers have been ripping off and releasing by the thousands over the past decade, one that will no doubt exist for a year before fading into obscurity, because as we have repeatedly seen not even a high profile property skin like Game of Thrones is enough to guarantee success in the saturated mobile market, and will disappear as silently as it came.

Head on over to the official website and you will find several paragraphs about the registration bonuses but virtually nothing about the actual game mechanics. There is a good reason for this, games of this caliber have no mechanics and if advertised as they truly are, a game where the player most closely allied with the Iron Bank of Braavos will win, well less people would want to sign up. Games that, even in the context of video games, have utterly no point and slow down to incentivize you to pay money to go nowhere, like paying for the gas to run your car on a treadmill.

I’ve railed against games so boring that the developer builds in bots so they can play themselves, on a level so rough that my joke review actually got covered at the Game Developers Conference in China, but despite the presence of an auto-play button, you can argue that there is a game there for those who want to play it. You couldn’t make an auto-play button for the vast swaths of identical city building games, because there is nothing to play.

So rather than continue beating down Turbine, I’m going to count my blessings that Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online are in the hands of a leadership that actually care, or at least are willing to pretend that they care, that Warner Bros. and what remains of Turbine are no longer handling it.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

Funcom Boasts Best Half Ever As Conan Exiles Propels Profits


Funcom’s second quarterly revenue report is out, and the results are as expected, positive. The combined success of Conan Exiles and Secret World Legends has propelled the Oslo developer to its best half in the history of the company, nearly halving their debt and increasing equity by 40%. Sales of Secret World Legends have exceeded company expectations, although the sales had little effect on this quarter’s revenue due to its late release and will not be seen until the next release. Overall revenue increased 79% over last year.

To complement its success, Funcom has rebranded as Funcom 2.0, with a brand new logo of a screaming face on a burning flag, to convey the developer’s passion, ambition, and history.

Two new games are currently in production at Funcom, with the Oslo studio working on a new Conan game and the Durham studio in the concept stage on a game that will be dependent on the success of Secret World Legends. In addition, Funcom has announced that it is partnering with Bearded Dragons to produce a new game for 2018. Funcom had previously revealed that Johnny Depp will be involved in a TV series based off of The Secret World.

(Source: Funcom)

Blizzard Again Promises Tough Punishment For Overwatch Trolls


If you could formulate a plan to effectively punish, and get rid of, toxic players in your community, you might just become the richest person in the gaming industry. Until then, we’ll need to sit back and watch as developers continue to commit to punishing toxic community members and hope that everything works out for the best.

For Blizzard, the ongoing discussion of toxicity has come back up after director Jeff Kaplan posted on the official forums regarding an account that had miraculously accrued more than two thousand complaints, been silenced for more than a year’s worth of time, and has been suspended three times.

"That account has a total of 2247 complaints filed against it — making it one of the worst offending accounts we’ve seen. The account has also been silenced for a total of 9216 hours. There are 3 gameplay suspensions on the account as well as 7 silences against this account (these are for abusive chat and/or spam). There is also a manual GM account suspension for "massive griefing" levied."

Blizzard’s plans to alleviate grief include removing silencing altogether and utilizing suspensions/bans more. For competitive, Kaplan stated that the company is in the process of handing out bans/suspensions for players who boosted in Season 5 of competitive mode, also adding that players will be permanently banned from competitive if they are found to be abusing it repeatedly.

"We will do this as it is our responsibility but we’d like to spend more time rewarding good players rather than having to focus on poor sportsmanship and unacceptable bad behavior so much. Like it or not, this is an "us, the OW community problem" and not just an "OW team problem". For better or for worse, we’re in this together."

Long term plans involve promoting positive behavior. Toxic behavior is a problem that MMO Fallout has reported endlessly on, with various developers flexing their muscles and threatening harsher punishments and longer bans. For developers, especially those with large competitive communities, the fight against toxicity is a constant uphill battle.

[NM] Sonic Mania Gets Review Bombed Over Unannounced DRM


Sonic Mania is the latest target of Steam review bombing as users leave frustrated, negative reviews to protest unannounced design decisions.

Launched on PC just yesterday, Sonic Mania is currently on the receiving end of a number of negative reviews in response to Sega’s decision to use Denuvo DRM. While Denuvo has shown to be quite divisive among the community, the news of its presence in Sonic would likely have not drawn as much controversy were it not for Sega omitting it from any advertising prior to release.

Sega has stated that the omission was a mistake and that the game being unplayable offline was entirely unintended and would be investigated along with reports of issues with controller setups. Sega Europe released a statement earlier today, deploying a patch to fix offline mode.

Denuvo is a form of Digital Rights Management that has been employed by a number of developers over the years. Its goal is to prevent piracy by performing regular checks on the copy’s legitimacy. For many titles, this protection translates to an inability to play offline, as the game will not function without a solid connection to the Denuvo servers. It appears that Sonic Mania was an unintended victim of this protection, as Sega has patched the game to function offline.

Sonic Mania still has a mostly positive rating, despite the aggravated customers.