Category: News

[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

What Happened: Global Adventures Abandoned And Left To Die


Global Adventures is a game that MMO Fallout gave away beta keys for back in December 2017, and the fact that so many keys were left to grab is probably an early warning that the game was going to go down like a wet fart. Actually, the fact that the game shut down rather quickly in China should be the first indication that a release westward would be a commercial failure, but here we are.

Like many of its kind, Global Adventures hit closed beta and then…disappeared. The last Tweet sent out by the Global Adventures account is from January 6, 2018. The latest news post on Steam is for maintenance on February 16, 2018. There are reviews in March that suggest the server was still online at that point, followed by a review in July noting the server being dead.

In their infinite disregard for community relations, Suba Games has never acknowledged the abandonment of Global Adventures, nor did they allow for refunds from players who purchased packs only to have the game abandoned in beta. Months later, they haven’t even bothered taking the game off of Steam or delisting it from their website. In fact, the only official acknowledgment comes from Suba’s community manager, who points to the developer PixelSoft suddenly disappearing after failing to fix major bugs in the game.

“I would like to clarify this time around that Suba Games is a publisher, not a developer. The developer for Global Adventures is PixelSoft, who seemingly disappeared after constantly failing to fix major bugs and making excuses about it. This makes it so Suba Games cannot deliver their promises of giving out exclusive rewards during open beta, as there probably never will be an open beta. Of course, I do not agree with the idea of selling early access and opening a closed beta cash shop when the developers have proven to be shoddy already.

“Since PixelSoft abandoned the game, there’s nothing Suba Games can do but to follow suit and abandon the game as well. Again, this does not excuse the terrible business decisions Suba Games ended up making to disappoint the fanbase of the game, especially with their no refund policy.”

Does anyone else remember Global Adventures’ short lived relevance?

ATLAS Hits Steam To Mostly Negative Reviews


ATLAS is “the ultimate survival MMO of unprecedented scale with 40,000+ simultaneous players in the same world.” At least, that’s how it was advertised by Grapeshot Games. Following multiple last minute delays, ATLAS hit Steam Early Access on December 22 and early access is exactly where it will stay for a good long time.

But Steam users aren’t impressed. The game currently sits at a mostly negative 22% positive despite approximately thirty seven thousand people logged in and playing at 10am on Christmas Eve. People are citing ATLAS as effectively being a DLC item that was spun off into its own game, compounding issues revolving around latency, connection, and various other bugs.

One player stumbled upon a hidden menu in ATLAS that is directly from ARK, as others in the same Reddit thread have been notating similarities between the two titles.

If you picked up ATLAS at launch, we’d like to know your experience.