Author: Admin

[Community] PC Gaming May Not Be Dead, But Lawbreakers Is Starting Out Weak


Cliff Bleszinski has a long history with PC games, although you may not know it if you just started gaming within the last ten years. For a while, Bleszinski had a great relationship with the PC platform, until Unreal Tournament allegedly sold quite poorly on the system (according to Gamespy online stats from the time), leading up to 2008 where Bleszinski announced that Gears of War 2 would not be coming to PC, blaming piracy. In reality, Gears of War 2 didn’t come to PC because it was an Xbox platform exclusive.

“The person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know [BitTorrent] to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.”

Certain developers have been exaggerating the effects of piracy on PC for years, going further back than 2011 with Ubisoft claiming that 95% of PC consumers would pirate their product, a factor that runs in direct contradiction to their investor reports which consistently show great sales on PC. As a result of his snubbing of the community, Bleszinski’s name has been somewhat dragged through the mud over the years.

Now Bleszinski apologized for his comment at the 2015 Game Awards, alongside showcasing his upcoming (now released) game Lawbreakers. Well Lawbreakers has launched and while it is receiving very positive reviews, from critics and gamers (87% positive on Steam), the population on PC has been slow to adopt the title. Steam Charts shows a launch day peak of 3,000 which has been steadily dropping over the past week. By comparison, Battleborn launched to a day one peak of 12,000 and is presently sitting at a peak of 280 over the last 30 days, including free trial players.

Bleszinski, for his part, has already responded to news comparing Lawbreakers to Battleborn, noting that the game is “a marathon not a sprint,” and that he would “rather be the underhyped game that slowly ramps up into something that people adore than something that comes out with way too much hype that there’s a backlash for, which is why I think the Steam reviews are so positive.” You can check out the entire interview at Eurogamer.

As for Lawbreakers, we will need to wait and see if the game is able to attract more publicity, and thus a more active population, and what plans are in store should traffic continue to dwindle.

H1Z1: King of the Kill Releases Producer’s Letter


Daybreak Game Company has released its latest producer’s letter for H1Z1: King of the Kill, detailing upcoming updates to the arena shooter. The combat update, set to hit the test server soon, will improve how weapons handle with a reticle offering an accurate idea of where your bullets will go. In addition, each weapon will be tuned to provide a more specific use at different ranges.

In addition to the weapon changes, new points of interest are being added to the map along with an updated bleed mechanic, a deathmatch mode, as well as a battle royale mode that gives each player the same random weapon with infinite ammo, with no weapons spawning in the map.

Check out the full letter at the link below.

(Source: H1Z1)

Vega+ Will Ship Within The Next 8 Weeks, RCL Threatens Critics


Retro Computers Ltd has broken a three month silence to announce that the long-delayed ZX Spectrum Vega Plus, a classic game system, is aiming for launch within the next eight weeks. In an update posted to backers today on Indiegogo, RCL noted that they have secured the rights to “some of the biggest games in the Spectrum scene,” and that following some delays related to technical issues and other factors, the console should be shipping later this year.

We can also confirm we have secured rights to some of the biggest games in the Spectrum scene, and the final games list will exceed all expectations. We aim to begin shipping the Vega+ to backers within the next 8 weeks, and to follow this immediately with our first shipments to retail.

RCL also took the time to call out parties posting abuse and spreading misinformation online, threatening to publicize the names of those involved. It should be noted that RCL has repeatedly referred to outlets like The Register and The BBC as “fake news” and has not posted any evidence to support their claims, in response to negative coverage of the Spectrum Plus and its repeated delays.

In time, we will be able to publicise in detail what is going on, including the names of those making up the above-mentioned group. But right now, on the advice of our lawyers and related authorities, we have to wait until all various investigations and legal actions have been completed.

Will Retro Computers Ltd meet its new shipping date? We’ll have to see.

(Source: Indiegogo)

[NM] Friday The 13th Cans Team Killing Because Its Community Can’t Behave Itself


Gun Media is removing team killing from Friday the 13th because its community can’t play the game responsibly, the developer announced on Reddit today. In Friday the 13th, one player takes the role of Jason Voorhees while seven others take the roles of camp counselors and try to escape or fight Jason. Or they can act like children and murder each other, which is exactly what happened and happened so often that Gun Media saw fit to take the feature out altogether.

So the biggest thing we’ve heard from our community with the game are issues pertaining to rampant team-killing that has unfortunately been abused by players on all platforms. While the mechanic’s intent is designed to promote life-or-death experiences into each and every game you play, the reality has turned into more of a Battle Royale scenario to a point our team feels a change needs to be made.

So from now on you can’t kill your teammates, well mostly. To prevent people from abusing this by standing in front of the car, it will be possible to kill teammates by running them over. Bear traps will also still do damage or kill but will not cause experience loss.

(Source: Reddit)

QuakeCon Will Showcase 6 Charities


QuakeCon is upon us, and Id Software and Bethesda Softworks have announced that no less than six charities will be present. This year will see presence by the American Red Cross, 1UpOnCancer, Dallas Pets Alive!, Extra Life, nonPareil Institute, and Gamechanger. Attendees will be able to show their support on the convention floor.

“We’re honored to host a variety of charities at QuakeCon this year, giving our attendees more opportunities to support a cause that they really connect with,” said Pete Hines, VP of PR and Marketing, Bethesda Softworks. “Seeing the community band together to support these organizations has become one of the highlights of our show.”

(Source: Press Release)

Gigantic Is Still Here, Starts New Community Events


Gigantic developer Motiga has announced the latest community challenge for players. Gamers have one week to deal 2.1 billion damage to enemy guardians, or face the horrible defeat of not being rewarded a solar flair skin. You’ll have to ask yourself, are you a bad enough dude to kill the guardian and go out for burgers?

COMMUNITY CHALLENGE! You have exactly one week to deal 2.1 BILLION total damage to the Guardians. Up to the challenge?

Gigantic is available on Arc, Steam, and Xbox One.

(Source: Twitter)

Retro Computers LTD Melts Down, Spams its Indiegogo Page


The saga of Retro Computers LTD and the ZX Spectrum Vega Plus continues. If you haven’t read our previous coverage, you can do so here. While RCL has consistently responded to angry backers in an unprofessional manner, mostly by sending out social media admins to agitate the masses, the company finally began responding on Indiegogo today.

To announce that an announcement would be coming.

We will be making an announcement very soon. We are also very sorry that a hardcore group of people who have been refunded Ratcliffe and Co are still posting abusive comments.

Rather than utilize some free time to update backers, RCL then chose to spam its own wall, posting the following message no less than 40 times in the span of an hour or two.

Chatter on side channels suggests that RCL breaking their multi month silence may be due to the impending release of their bank records by shareholder Paul Andrews.

Regardless this appears to be just another case of RCL being tone deaf in their dealing with angry backers. Despite claiming that no refunds are denied, a quick inspection of the Indiegogo Page still shows numerous fresh claims of ignored refund requests.

Mobile Dominates NCSoft Quarterly Report


NCSoft’s second quarter finances have been released and they are quite a doozy. While sales grew 8% both quarterly and over last year, profit and income both dropped 56% and 66% respectively thanks to increased labor costs and marketing increases. Just how much? 370%, from 5.1 billion KRW in Q2 2016 to 24.1 billion in 2017. Similarly, labor costs jumped 24% and “variable costs” went up 186%, due in part to a 244% increase in royalty payments. Ouch.

On the game’s side of the report, mobile has dominated NCSoft’s revenue reports and has become the largest sector by a wide margin, even against Lineage which continued to drop in revenue thanks to a lack of promotion over the second quarter. Every other title in NCSoft’s library (as noted below) also dropped by some factor in revenue during this period, with the sale of mobile games making up for their shortcomings. The launch of Lineage M, the mobile Lineage port, is also to thank for a drop in Lineage revenue as some players made the jump over to mobile.

Guild Wars 2 is expected to receive a substantial bump thanks to the impending launch of its next expansion. The full report can be found over at the NCSoft website

PSA: Ghost Recon Wildlands Free Trial Available


Have you been waiting for an opportunity to try out Ghost Recon: Wildlands and also happen to game on Playstation 4 or Xbox One? Well you are in luck. Ubisoft today launched a free trial for both consoles (nothing for PC, sadly), giving an opportunity to give the game a go before throwing down sixty bucks. The trial includes the full game including single player and multiplayer. From Ubisoft’s description:

“TAKE DOWN THE CARTEL In a near future, Bolivia has fallen into the hands of Santa Blanca, a merciless drug cartel who spread injustice and violence. Their objective: to create the biggest Narco-State in history.

BECOME A GHOST Create and fully customize your Ghost, weapons, and gear. Enjoy a total freedom of playstyle. Lead your team and take down the cartel, either solo or with up to three friends.

EXPLORE BOLIVIA Journey through Ubisoft’s largest action-adventure open world. Discover the stunning diverse landscapes of the Wildlands both on and off road, in the air, on land, and at sea with over 60 different vehicles.”

Valve Updates Steam Groups To Curb Gambling Spam


If you play Counter Strike: Global Offensive, odds are you are probably not unfamiliar with the mass quantities of spam groups that have popped up related to gambling websites. Thanks to Valve not implementing a way to automatically block group invitations, players were at the mercy of whether or not a bot group had you in their sights. With today’s update, Valve hopes to curb Steam spam by preventing level 0 bot accounts from spamming invites.

First off, we see that more and more organized spammers are using bots to create groups on a huge scale. At some times, the number of new groups created explicitly for spamming outweigh the legitimate groups. Once a spammer has created a bunch of new groups, they then use bots to invite random players into the group. Even if only a small percentage of players that were invited end up joining any one of these groups, the spammer still can end up with a significant audience. The spammers then use these groups to advertise various websites or offers by posting frequent announcements to the members.

Starting today, you will only be able to invite your friends to groups, and likewise in regards to receiving invitations. It seems fairly likely that this will lead to friend request spam replacing group request spam, but it is a step in the right direction.

(Source: Steam)