Category: News

Planetside Arena Virtually Unplayable; Pop Drops Under 50


Planetside Arena needs a miracle.

What started out as a bad launch has now turned into an unmitigated disaster, as Planetside Arena’s population numbers are starting to drift consistently below the 50 player line making the game effectively unplayable. Planetside Arena is a battle royale spinoff to Daybreak’s Planetside franchise (go figure) and promises matches with up to 300 players on squads of 12. Well, theoretically it does.

In reality the game is virtually unplayable at this point as populations have hit a level where it may be impossible to actually start a game due to a lack of people. Planetside Arena fills out squads by 12 which means that if you don’t have 24 people, you’re going to have one squad of 12 and probably one squad of five. It doesn’t make for a fun match, and that assumes you’ll even be able to cross the minimal threshold to get a match going.

This makes Planetside Arena Daybreak’s least popular product on Steam, considering Planetside 2 can still hit over two thousand at peak hours, even the Everquest games hit over 100, and Z1 Battle Royale can still occasionally break 1,000. And that’s not counting the people playing off-Steam.

Considering that Daybreak just laid off a bunch of people from the Planetside team and there is apparently almost nobody left, it might be a good idea to skip this one.

Mobility: Stellaris: Galaxy Command Stole Halo Assets


Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a mobile title outsourced to Chinese developers, so if you were expecting quality or not ripping off other IPs you’re in for a disappointment. Galaxy Command was ripped offline before the reviews hit double digits because as it turns out the game just flat out stole art from Halo 4 (as seen above).

An apology was released to Twitter and the game has been taken offline to sweep the content for further stolen art. Barely five hours after launch, which might be a new record for Chinese mobile games.

Daybreak Game Company Registers Dimensional Ink Games


Daybreak Game Company looks like it’s getting closer to announcing a reverse Voltron move, splitting the business into multiple parts for one reason or another.

We’ve been following this for quite some time. Earlier this year, Daybreak began registering trademarks for new studio names that appear to be centered around its major IPs: Golden Age Studios, Darkpaw Games, Rogue Planet Games, Bronze Age Studios. Just this month, Daybreak filed for another trademark: Dimensional Ink Games. The purpose? Your guess is as good as ours, the filing just occurred three days ago.

Daybreak’s statement about the latest round of layoffs is even more telling:

“We are taking steps to improve our business and to support our long-term vision for the existing franchises and development of new games. This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players.”

The running theory with the trademarked studio names was that Daybreak would basically be splitting off their games into separate shell companies for some purpose (maybe to sell them). Daybreak’s latest comments seem to confirm that theory. Dimensional Ink has a Twitter account that was set up this month and has yet to post anything.

We will have to wait to see what this week’s news brings.

Blizzard Makes Statement Now That It’s Closing Time On Friday


It’s 8:30p.m. on Friday here in New York, which means the folks at Blizzard HQ in California are about to go home and most Youtubers are probably polishing off their nightly news videos. So much like Daybreak choosing to lay people off, Blizzard naturally picked this as the best time to release their response to the week’s controversy following the suspension of Hearthstone player Blitzchung.

For those who managed to avoid the news completely, Blizzard suspended Blitzchung from the Hearthstone Grandmaster tournament and forfeited his winnings after he made a pro Hong Kong statement during an interview. Both interviewers were fired as well. The firestorm on the internet has been massive with a Blizzard boycott trending on Twitter, players posting their account cancellations/deletion, and a social media campaign that inexplicably saw Mei becoming a front for the Hong Kong movement.

Blizzard President J. Allen Brack has officially commented and the response is exactly what you would expect out of a company hoping nobody will see their statement at 5:30 on a Friday. The statement naturally denies any influence from China or motivation to appease Chinese benefactors. Brack continuously cites the Blizzard mantra “every voice matters” in his statement defending silencing a person based on their political view, and claims that Blitzchung was punished not for his statement but for the “divisive and deliberate way” he expressed it.

Brack also notes that Blizzard will give Blitzchung his winnings and reduce his suspension to six months. The casters are also suspended for six moths. Brack provides absolutely no reason for why the casters were suspended. Activision head honcho Bobby Kotick has remained silent.

And remember; Every Voice Matters at Blizzard*.

Source: Blizzard

*Not every voice matters at Blizzard

[Breaking] Daybreak Undergoing Fourth Set Of Layoffs In Two Years


Daybreak Game Company is laying off more people, a statement that has become all too familiar over the past couple of years. While an official statement has not been made by the company, Daybreak (now ex) programmer Alex Hoffman posted that today was his last day at the company as part of a “studio wide layoff.” There have been no confirmations of how many were let go or how many remain at the studio.

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MMO Fallout has contacted Daybreak and will update this piece if we receive a response.

Gamigo Immediately Cans Plans For Gifting Premium Items in ArcheAge Unchained


Gamigo has dumpstered an idea so fast, the news was barely able to report the original story.

Today’s ArcheAge stream caused a bit of an uproar when Gamigo announced that they were going to allow gifting premium items from the cash shop on ArcheAge Unchained. Since Unchained is supposed to be the version that didn’t support pay to win, the community had a bit of a problem with this strategy. As a result, a number of viewers took to the ArcheAge Reddit to voice their concern.

And Gamigo has listened, and immediately put out a statement that this is no longer going to be the case. The statement has been pasted below for your viewing pleasure.

Hello everyone,
The ability to gift items from the in-game premium marketplace has been disabled for ArcheAge: Unchained.

We are committed to ensuring that our revised game-play experience meets the expectations of our supportive community and is in no way clouded by our past. We considered allowing the ability to gift from the marketplace due to the items being trade restricted and cosmetic. In hindsight, it’s easy to understand how gifting could circumvent the items being bound. The decision to remove gifting was unanimous internally and so it is passed into order.

We’ve worked closely with you over the past six weeks to refine offerings in the premium item shop based on the following criteria:
-All premium items are cosmetic in nature, or provide a non-essential game-play service (renames, costumes, character appearance customization, or UCC)
-All premium items are bound to the character that purchased them and are not tradable through any in-game system (mail, auction house, storage chests, player-to-player trades)
-The gifting of premium items has been disabled

We stand behind our approach to delivering ArcheAge: Unchained and more importantly, remain devoted to you. Thanks for your continued support.

~The ArcheAge Team

Desert Dragon World Boss Comes To Black Desert PS4


Black Desert has a new world boss on PS4 in the form of Nouver. Pearl Abyss released the new boss earlier this week along with a new world boss timetable. World bosses spawn across all worlds simultaneously and share their HP across all servers. Nouver drops a sub-weapon box that contains powerful items allowing players to maximize their AP.

“Nouver is a force of nature that rules over the Desert. Adventurers who attempt to face the behemoth dragon will have to fend off sandstorms, heatstroke and hypothermia to just get to the dragon. Then when you get there, you need to face the beast itself! But with great risks come great rewards, and it is possible to get a mighty item from Nouver.”

Check it out.

Source: Black Desert

Epic Games: We Would Not Ban Political Speech


With Blizzard being tossed into a shallow grave and spat on by the public reaction to it banning and stealing thousands of dollars in prize money over a player expressing support for Hong Kong, it was only a matter of time before other developers showed up and used this opportunity to score some quick PR points. And who else is best to show up to the conversation than Epic Games which is 40% owned by Tencent, a company behind much of the backlash to western companies supporting Hong Kong.

In a statement to The Verge, Epic’s spokesman said:

“Epic supports everyone’s right to express their views on politics and human rights. We wouldn’t ban or punish a Fortnite player or content creator for speaking on these topics,”

Tim Sweeney personally backed this statement on Twitter, expressing “Epic supports the rights of Fortnite players and creators to speak about politics and human rights.”

Source: The Verge

[Hearthstone] American Team Displays “Free Hong Kong” Sign At Match


Blizzard just can’t catch a break. When the dumpster fire that was Blizzard’s PR kerfuffle occurred yesterday, folks like myself noted that if Blizzard thought the situation would get better, they were dead wrong. If anything, it’s going to get worse. Much worse.

Following the news that Blizzard had banned a Hearthstone player and rescinded his tournament winnings over comments in support of Hong Kong, and then fired the two broadcasters interviewing him, the news has been rolling in of more PR fallout. Over the course of yesterday, Blizzard employees covered up company signs in protest, the Hearthstone Reddit has been overwhelmed with boycott posts, and Blizzard locked down its own subreddit in an attempt at damage control.

The latest to come out was an American team in the Collegiate Championship held up a sign during their match that said “Free Hong Kong, boycott Blizzard.” As you would expect, the stream immediately cuts away. You can find the stream at the link above. The team had already lost the game at the point where they held up the sign.

Blizzcon begins the first weekend of November. It should be fun.

Angry Blizzard Employees Cover “All Voices Matter” Sign


Today has not been great for Blizzard following the company’s decision to silence and ban a Hearthstone competitor during the Grandmaster tournament after he expressed support for Hong Kong during a live interview. In their attempt at damage control, Blizzard released a statement and then shut down comments on the website. The Blizzard Reddit has been locked.

The Hearthstone Reddit is flooded with players proclaiming that they are professionally done with Blizzard. The Blizzard boycott is trending #11 on Twitter. Now employees are making their dissatisfaction known. As posted by Kevin Hovdestad on Twitter, Blizzard employees came into work this morning and made their disagreement with management’s decisions known by covering up the company’s “Think Globally” and “Every Voice Matters” signs.

With Blizzcon coming in just a few weeks, Blizzard’s response to the spiraling outrage will be interesting.