Category: News

RuneScape Celebrates 18th Birthday At All-Time High


RuneScape is officially 18 years old, old enough to vote and in many countries even drink, but Jagex today announced that its flagship title is entering adulthood at an all-time high. According to the Cambridge developer, RuneScape is enjoying its strongest year to date, with more than five million downloads on Old School RuneScape on iOS and Android since launch. In addition to this record, RuneScape is also enjoying the highest paid membership total over the Christmas period since 2008, while lifetime revenue for RuneScape surpassed $1 billion.

Jagex CEO Phil Mansell said:

“2018 was a fantastic year for our RuneScape games, which have truly come of age. The franchise has been growing consistently for five years, and we’ve seen a surge of further community growth with the move to mobile. Old School RuneScape’s successful mobile launch was made possible by our incredible team who’ve been able to make this classic game play smoothly in a mobile form-factor, and which allows players to enjoy the convenience of completely interoperable PC to mobile cross-play. This achievement showcases our living games philosophy; bringing deeply engaging community experiences to players wherever they are.”

Jagex has hired more than 100 new members to the team, while monthly active users have more than doubled over the year.

Source: Jagex Press Release

Japan Criminalizes Editing Save Games, Punishable With Jail Time And Fines


Today’s news comes to us from Japan, and if you thought the recent Korean law criminalizing paid boosting was an overreach, just wait until you see this.

Japanese lawmakers passed an amendment to the Unfair Competition Prevention law that makes the modification of save game data illegal within the country. The law not only effects services that create tools to modify game saves but allegedly also includes individuals who make the modifications on their own games.

Guilty parties may be punished with forced payments to the game developer, as well as prison time of no more than five years and fines of no more than 5 million yen, possibly both.

Nintendo appears to be behind this new legislation.

Source: NintendoSoup

[NM] Star Control On Stardock’s Website Following DMCA


Star Control Origins has returned to digital store shelves following its removal from Steam and Good Old Games just a few days ago. Star Control: Origins was removed from Steam and Good Old Games following a DMCA takedown request by Fred Ford and Paul Reiche, two individuals with whom developer Stardock is currently fighting in court over disputes regarding the Star Control franchise.

In the course of their lawsuit, Stardock requested that the court grant an injunction preventing Ford and Reiche from interfering with the release of Origins. The judge denied the request, stating that Stardock developed Origins with the full knowledge that a serious copyright dispute was likely to arise, and that any harm is of its own making.

“Plaintiff was aware of Defendants’ copyright claim to Star Control 1 and 2 since the development of Origins commenced, however, and was aware of the contours of the present copyright dispute since at least December 2017,” Armstrong writes. “Thus, whatever monies Plaintiff invested in Origins was done with the knowledge that serious copyright disputes were likely to arise or had arisen.”

Origins is currently 50% off on Stardock’s store.

Source: Stardock

Blizzard Releases Over 18,000 Partial Usernames Of Toxic Players (From Korea)


Nobody likes a cheater, I know this because of how many times the phrase has appeared in court dockets whenever Epic Games takes a Fortnite cheater to court, but Blizzard really hates toxic gamers and isn’t afraid of laying down the banhammer to let them know just how unwelcome they are. Case in point, Blizzard’s Korean sector has released a partially redacted list of over 18,000 usernames of Korean gamers banned for toxic behavior including abusive language and non-participation which presumably refers to players either ducking out of games or deliberately going AFK to throw a match.

The list of names is heavily redacted and involves the Korean player base, so odds are no one on the list will be familiar to anyone reading this website. It also seems unlikely that Blizzard will replicate this tactic in North America or Europe.

As stated by Blizzard (and translated somewhat poorly through Google):

“As indicated in previous blog, players who use inappropriate language in the game will be subject to silence penalties and will not be allowed to access the game if the silenced penalties are repeatedly used in inappropriate language without sanction Sanctions are under way. In addition to profanity and inappropriate language punishment for players who reported to bimaeneo acts such as deliberate interference ally, the game has been absent from recent enhancements, for more information on this Notice can be found through.”

The entire list of names can be found at the link below.

Source: Battle.net

British Army Aims Sights At Binge Gamers, Snowflakes


The British Army is looking for new recruits, and you gamers, snowflakes, me me me millennials, and phone zombies are just the people they’re looking for.

Okay they’re not exactly private about not being picky, but 2018 recruitment is down and the British Army needs a few good men, or women, or whatever you call yourself. The Your Army Needs Your campaign is targeting all stripes, including gamers who see death as nothing more than an obstacle. The campaign plays off of old World War 1 recruitment efforts and wants you to know that the army sees more in you than just your labels.

Amazon Reveals 2018 Best Selling Games


It’s that time of the year, when retail stores start posting their best selling games from the prior year. Amazon has posted the top selling products in the video game category. The top 10 is mostly comprised of Playstation Plus cards and Playstation cash cards, with Nintendo Switch products making up the bulk of the rest. As for the games themselves, the Nintendo Switch sold like gangbusters and makes up a very large portion of the top 50 titles.

Here is the list of video games in the top 50.

  • #1: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)
  • #14: Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4)
  • #15: Super Mario Party (Switch)
  • #19: Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4)
  • #23: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)
  • #24: Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
  • #25: Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu (Switch)
  • #27: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (PS4)
  • #28: God of War (PS4)
  • #30: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
  • #37: Red Dead Redemption 2 (XBO)
  • #39: Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee (Switch)
  • #47: Mario Tennis Aces (Switch)
  • #48: Minecraft (Switch)
  • #49: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)
  • #50: Spyro Reignited Trilogy (PS4)

You can check out the entire list for yourself here.

Activision Blizzard Terminates Its CFO, Netflix Poaches Him


As the year comes to a close, Activision Blizzard is making headlines with their announcement that it intends on terminating Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann for “cause unrelated to the company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures.” Mr. Neumann has not officially been terminated and has been offered the opportunity to demonstrate why cause does not exist to terminate his employment, however should he leave he will be replaced by acting CCO Dennis Durkin.

The news dropped in the form of a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission today:

“Mr. Neumann has been placed on a paid leave of absence from the Company pending an opportunity for him to demonstrate why cause does not exist to terminate his employment or why termination of his employment is not otherwise justified.  In light of the above, effective January 1, 2019, Mr. Dennis Durkin, our Chief Corporate Officer, will assume the duties of the principal financial officer (Chief Financial Officer) of the Company.  In the event Mr. Neumann ultimately ceases to be the Chief Financial Officer, then Mr. Durkin will become the Chief Financial Officer.  Mr. Durkin, 48, joined the Company in March 2012 as Chief Financial Officer and served in that role until May 2017.  He has served in the role of Chief Corporate Officer since May 2017 through the present.”

Mr. Neumann may have brighter prospects on the horizon outside of Activision Blizzard’s corporate shenanigans, as the news also broke that Netflix is looking to bring him on board to serve as their own Chief Financial Officer.

Activision Blizzard stocks started the year at $64.31 USD, peaked at $83.39 in October, and has since dropped to a low of $46.57 at the close of the market today. The decline marks a sharp turn from the steady increase in Activision’s stock over the past two decades.

Star Control: Origins Gets Yanked From Store Shelves After DMCA Takedown


While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been used more times than we can count to pull videos and music off of the internet, it’s very rare that the process is used to take down an entire video game. That said, Paul Reiche III and Robert Frederick Ford have decided to end the year with a copyright strike, and Star Control: Origins is the victim.

As noted by developer Stardock, as of this publishing Star Control: Origins is unavailable for purchase on Steam and Good Old Games. The takedown came from the above mentioned Reiche and Ford, over claims that Star Control: Origins violates their copyright ownership over Star Control and Star Control II. Stardock purchased assets related to Star Control from Atari in 2013 after the publisher filed for bankruptcy, including trademark and publishing rights for the trilogy. Creators Ford and Reiche have disputed Stardock’s ownership, which has lead to an ongoing lawsuit between the three parties.

In their announcement on Star Control’s Steam page, Stardock detailed the facts behind the takedown:

“Unfortunately, rather than relying on the legal system to resolve this, they have chosen to bypass it by issuing vague DMCA take-down notices to Steam and GOG (who, btw, Reiche and Ford are suing using GoFundMe money). Steam and GOG both have a policy of taking down content that receive DMCA notices regardless of the merits of the claims. To my knowledge, never in the history of our industry has anyone attempted to use the DMCA system to take down a shipping game before. For example, when PubG sued Fortnite for copyright infringement, they didn’t try to take Fortnite down with a DMCA notice.”

Star Control: Origins released on PC just three months ago in September. This is not the first time Stardock has received a DMCA takedown from Reiche and Ford, as the pair had filed a copyright notice to cease distribution of the original Star Control trilogy, a strike that was later reversed. Ownership of the Star Control trademark is viewable here.

Star Control: Origins is still available on Good Old Games as of this article being published. This is likely to change.

Source: Steam

Reminder: Steam Will No Longer Function On Windows XP/Vista Tomorrow


Does anyone still use Windows XP or Vista to play Steam? Unsurprisingly, the answer is yes. According to a November 2018 Steam software/hardware survey, approximately .12% of Steam users are still on Windows XP while Windows Vista is, to put it bluntly, presently unlisted. Presumably Vista users are lumped into the .09% currently running “other” versions of the Windows operating system.

At least, Windows XP users will making up .12% of the population until tomorrow, as January 1 not only marks the beginning of a new year but the official end of life support for Steam on both systems. Valve announced the end of support back in June of this year, and as of tomorrow the client will no longer function for owners of either operating system.

As far as the internet goes, Valve is one of the few remaining companies to have continued support for Windows XP through 2018 along with League of Legends. Blizzard ended support for DirectX9 and 32-bit operating systems in 2017, as did Neverwinter, while Heroes & Generals left the OS behind in 2015.

Tim Sweeney: Tencent Not A Parent Company, Offline Mode Coming 2019


Epic Founder Tim Sweeney took to Reddit last week to clarify a few things regarding the Epic Store and what role Tencent has to play in it. The original poster in the thread laid down a number of accusations against Epic and Ubisoft, among others, over questionable practices. Included in the list was the allegation that Epic is collecting data to hand over to its “parent company” Tencent and thus the Chinese government.

“Their TOS states they have the right to monitor you and send the data to their parent company. And who is Epic’s parent company? The Chinese dev that’s known for spying for the Chinese government. Tencent. The same Tencent who’s working hand in hand with the Chinese Government to work on tools to spy on their own citizens. Escentially Epic Games is owned by the Chinese Government.”

Sweeney showed up later in the comments to refute that Tencent is a parent company, as Sweeney himself is the controlling shareholder. Tencent owns a minority investment in Epic Games and does not have access to any customer data. He posted in the same thread responding to a user asking if the Epic store will have an offline mode, confirming that it will be released in “early 2019” for games that are playable offline.

Comment from discussion Ubisoft needs to stop with this Always Online bullshit; Epic Games Store is literal Spyware and worse..

https://www.redditstatic.com/comment-embed.js

Source: Reddit