Author: Admin

Tencent Prepares To Take On Steam


Tencent appears to be aiming at PC juggernaut Valve by globalizing its own Steam-esque platform and rebranding as WeGame. Already massive in comparison to Steam, 200 million users in China compared to Steam’s 125 million worldwide, Tencent’s website indicates that the new WeGame platform will support global players on one client, expanding westward and introducing millions more to its ever expanding control of the market. The news comes from a splash page on Tencent’s website, translated and discussed by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad.

For those vaguely familiar with Tencent’s name, the company owns League of Legends developer Riot Games and Clash of Clans developer Supercell. Its stock is currently worth around $30 USD, putting its value around the level of Sony ($31.79) and Nintendo ($30.41). Last month Tencent released its December quarter earnings, boasting 43.9 billion Yuan, $6.3 billion USD. If anyone has the finances to get a foot in the west and put the fear of God in Valve, it is probably Tencent.

(Source: Twitter)

Microsoft Adopts Valve Policy: Self-Service Refunds Coming


Those of you who game on consoles know one truth to be self evident: No refunds. Game comes out that is broken, missing features, or effectively sold on lies and fraud? In that last case, Sony did at least refund No Man’s Sky buyers. Otherwise, you’re out of luck if the game runs horribly or just plain sucks. At least until now, as Microsoft is expected to add a refund system to Xbox One and Windows 10. Discovered recently in the Xbox Preview Program, Microsoft’s refund policy matches that of Steam’s to a T, offering self-service refunds for games with less than two hours played within 14 days of purchase.

Simple as that. As we said, the policy is virtually identical to Steam, as in DLC and season passes are not eligible for refunds, with some extras. You’ll need to wait at least one day post launch for a refund request, and you have to actually have downloaded and launched the app in order to request a refund. Additionally, Microsoft reserves the right to shut down refund access to those who “abuse” the system, with no direct explanation of what constitutes abuse.

(Source: Eurogamer)

Twitch Prime Offers RuneScape Goodies For April


Amazon Prime subscribers, among their other perks, enjoy access to Twitch Prime, a service that offers free channel subscriptions in addition to other monthly goods. This month, Twitch has partnered with Jagex to hand out a month of free membership and a few other bonuses. Log in to Twitch between April 11th and May 8th to claim your code and redeem a month of membership, 200 RuneCoins, 15 treasure hunter keys, and a Prime Colossus Legendary Pet.

The code itself needs to be redeemed by June 9th, with certain items (Treasure Hunter keys) not available for Ironman RuneScape accounts. Check out the instructions on the Twitch page for more details.

(Source: Twitch)

Impressions: Uprising Is A Positive Sign For Overwatch PvE


Following Overwatch’s rather simplistic Halloween event, it was only a matter of time before the game received another cooperative game mode. This new mode has two separate versions, but for the sake of starting out I’ll focus on the story mode. Story mode takes place seven years in the past and sets you up with a team of four made up of Mercy, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, and the rookie Tracer. Your team is given orders by Commander Jack Morrison (Soldier 76) to take on an extremist faction of omnics called the Null Sector that have taken over a portion of London.

The second version of the game is the same concept, but there are no character restrictions.

Effectively, your goal is to take over three locations in a row, escort a payload, and finally kill a boss robot, all while a bunch of other robots stand in your way. The mode itself feels like Overwatch’s take on Valve’s Left 4 Dead, except with robots instead of zombies. It’s also a nice change from the Halloween event, placing the players on the attack rather than defending a single point. Lore and collection enthusiasts will also find something to enjoy with the new skins and dialog discussing the characters as they existed those years past. The concept gives Blizzard a virtual wealth of lore that can be spun into its own story, focusing on specific characters and events in the game’s timeline.

Taken as the story mode, Uprising gets pretty difficult above easy mode. The free hero mode is much less difficult as open access to heroes makes way for less balanced, virtually broken encounters. Regardless, the event is far less static than the Junkenstein Halloween event, is more relevant to the overall story, and overall has gameplay that is more inviting for multiple playthroughs.

Hopefully this leads to more permanent cooperative modes, or even something similar to Valve’s Mann Up mode with a set of loosely connected campaigns

Perfect World Announces Driftwood Tavern Livestreams


Perfect World Entertainment has announced a new fireside chat for Neverwinter called the Driftwood Tavern. Set to stream every two weeks on Friday, the first stream will be live on Twitch on April 14th to discuss updates, hand out prizes, and more. The developers over at Perfect World Entertainment regularly publish developer blogs on various subjects, and this latest announcement appears to be pushing communication with the community even further.

  • Providing news for the next two weeks
  • Updating everyone on any developer activity on the Preview forums you may have missed
  • Gathering feedback from the community
  • Spotlighting the community (fan art, videos, etc.)
  • Having a place for the community to get together
  • …and of course, winning prizes, like the Roccat Kone EMP mouse below!

(Source: Neverwinter)

G2A Blames Gearbox Backlash On “Lack of Knowledge”


G2A.com is hitting back against Gearbox and critics after Gearbox Software pulled its partnership in response to consumer backlash over a publishing partnership between Gearbox and G2A.

“Some developers,” said the company, “and a few influential YouTubers (with John Bain at the forefront) would like to spread an image of G2A.COM as a place which exists from being an intermediary in selling illegally acquired keys. This depiction is far removed from reality.”

As for Gearbox’s demands, well G2A had some words for them. The company refuses to change G2A shield, a security measure that has been criticized as both G2A profiting off of the use of its system for fraud and simultaneously giving the company less reason to combat said fraud, to become a free rather than a paid service. In response to Gearbox’s demand that G2A provide an API where developers can flag stolen keys, the company also refused unless the developers are ready to pay handsomely for such protection. As for throttling non-certified users to prevent mass key flipping, the answer was also no. And finally, in response to demands that G2A make its systems more transparent with less hidden charges, in regards to its system which seems designed to trick customers into buying into the monthly subscription service G2A Shield, the company also said no.

G2A has received heavy criticism in the past over its marketplace, with claims that the company does not do enough to prevent its market from being used for fraudulent activity. Developers from Ubisoft, Origin, Zenimax, and more have deactivated keys in large quantities that were purchased and sold on stores like G2A and Kinguin with stolen credit cards. G2A claims that they are working on improving their systems.

(Source: Vice)

Watch The Full RuneScape Documentary


Jagex has released the RuneScape 15 Years of Adventure documentary, showing how far the game has come since it was developed by Andrew Gower in his parent’s kitchen. The entire documentary is nearly an hour and a half and includes a wealth of information and interviews. Check it out above.

Gearbox Follows Through: Cancels Deal With G2A


Following yesterday’s delcaration of demands against G2A, Gearbox Software have announced that they are cancelling their partnership with the key reseller. The two parties were partnered for the launch of Bulletstorm: Full Clip edition on Steam, going as far as having a G2A exclusive collector’s edition. After being presented with evidence that G2A was profiting off of resold games purchased with stolen credit cards, Gearbox unveiled a list of demands for G2A to prove that they were committed to combating the use of its service for fraudulent purposes, and since then it appears that the company has not responded.

Gearbox’s own Steve Gibson, head of publishing, gave the following statement:

“As there has been no public movement from G2A by the time Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition launched now on PC, Gearbox Publishing will be doing their part to not directly support a marketplace that did not make the new public commitment to protecting customers and developers requested by Gearbox Publishing.”

The last couple of days have seen people asking the same question, how did Gearbox get into a deal with a company that they clearly knew little about? According to Randy Pitchford, the deal with G2A had begun with People Can Fly. Pitchford himself had only become aware of the deal yesterday (April 6).

(Source: Vice)

Steam Cleanlight: Valve Terminates More Developers Over Review Manipulation


Valve has claimed three more souls as Steam parts ways with developers over review manipulation. The games in question include Techwars Online 2, Concerning Evergrow, and Trigger Happy Shooting. As posted by a Valve Steamworks moderator, the developers were using fake reviews to make their games appear to be more popular and well received than they actually were, leading to their ability to sell on the Steam platform to be revoked.

None of the games will appear on Steam and their developers will be unable to publish other games going forward.

We (Valve) have identified unacceptable behavior involving multiple Steam accounts controlled by the developer of this game. The developer appears to have used multiple Steam accounts to post positive reviews for their own game. This is a clear violation of our review policy and something we take very seriously.

For these reasons, we are ending our business relationship with Mikhail Pasik and removing this game from sale. If you have previously purchased this game, it will remain accessible in your Steam library.

(Source: Reddit)

Gearbox Issues List of Demands To G2A


Gearbox Software has issued an ultimatum to G2A.com, an online key reseller and distributor with whom the game developer had partnered with for the upcoming launch of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. G2A, where people can sell keys, has come under fire in recent years for its inability to police its market for users selling game codes purchased with stolen credit cards and then offloaded onto the store at cheap prices. The store sells buyer protection for an additional fee, which has in turn been criticized as profiting off of said fraud.

Popular online personality John Bain, known more so as Totalbiscuit, threatened to boycott all coverage of Gearbox’s games as a result of the partnership. After a long discussion between the two parties, Gearbox has put forward an ultimatum to G2A, threatening to end their partnership if the demands are not met. For the sake of clarity, we’ve included the entire list of demands, which involve making protection free and creating a web API where developers can report and flag fraudulent keys, at no cost to the developer, as well as throttling for non-developer accounts.

· Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A Shield (aka, customer fraud protection) is made free instead of a separate paid subscription service within terms offered by other major marketplaces. All customers who spend money deserve fraud protection from a storefront. To that end, all existing G2A Shield customers are notified by April 14th that fraud protection services are now free and they will no longer be charged for this.

· Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 90 days, G2A will open up a web service or API to certified developers and publishers to search for and flag for immediate removal, keys that are fraudulent. This access will be free of charge and will not require payment by the content holders.

· Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 60 days implement throttling for non-certified developers and publishers at the title, userid, and account payable levels for a fraud flagging process. This is to protect content providers from having large quantities of stolen goods flipped on G2A before they can be flagged.

· Before Bulletstorm Steam launch, G2A makes a public commitment to this: Within 30 days, G2A restructures its payment system so that customers who wish to buy and sell legitimate keys are given a clear, simple fee-structure that is easy to understand and contains no hidden or obfuscated charges. Join the ranks of other major marketplaces.

Whether or not G2A will capitulate will have to be seen. Gearbox’s statement has been met with mixed response, with some applauding the announcement and others brushing it off as empty threats with long timelines for a partnership that won’t even be relevant two to three months down the line when the deadlines come due.

“Gearbox Publishing won’t support a marketplace that is unwilling to make these commitments and execute on them.”

(Source: Kotaku)