UK Reverses Course On Gambling Thanks To EA’s Tone Deaf Argument


Who would have guessed that Electronic Arts worst enemy would be itself? Outside of everyone with a shred of common sense and human decency I can hear you saying, and I get it.

The last we heard from the UK in terms of possible loot box regulations, the Gambling Authority stated that loot boxes are not gambling because there is no real money payout system. Not too long afterward the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee had a sit down with some representatives resulting in what might be the most embarrassing statements to ever come out of the mouth of the gaming industry. EA’s Kerry Hopkins stated that FIFA’s Ultimate Team packs were “quite ethical and quite fun” while Epic went even deeper into propaganda territory by stating “I would disagree with the statement that Epic makes money from people playing the games.”

Well following a deluge of public comments on the hearing (never let anyone tell you your complaints don’t matter), the DCMS has published its report on immersive and addictive technologies and they are not happy with how Kerry Hopkins conducted herself. In thanking the number of people who came forward with information, the DCMS took time to admonish the industry for its dishonest and unacceptable conduct:

“In contrast, we were struck by how difficult it was to get full and clear answers from some of the games and social media companies we spoke to and were disappointed by the manner in which some representatives engaged with the inquiry. We felt that some representatives demonstrated a lack of honesty and transparency in acknowledging what data is collected, how it is used and the psychological underpinning of how products are designed, and this made us question what these companies have to hide. It is unacceptable that companies with millions of users, many of them children, should be so ill-equipped to discuss the potential impacts of their products.”

In its conclusion, the DCMS has recommended further action be taken by the government in accordance with the 2005 Gambling Act.

“We consider loot boxes that can be bought with real-world money and do not reveal their contents in advance to be games of chance played for money’s worth. The Government should bring forward regulations under section 6 of the Gambling Act 2005 in the next parliamentary session to specify that loot boxes are a game of chance. If it determines not to regulate loot boxes under the Act at this time, the Government should produce a paper clearly stating the reasons why it does not consider loot boxes paid for with real-world currency to be a game of chance played for money’s worth.”

You can read the rather lengthy report at the UK Parliament website here.

Steam Cleaning: Banned Developer Creates Shell-Accounts


Where would we be if Steam’s worst developers weren’t so stupid?

There have been hundreds of developers banned from Steam for various reasons of scumbaggery, and Valve doesn’t do a fantastic job of vetting the identity of creators so many of them have come back in one form or another. The latest developer to do this is apparently Sun Lucky Industries who have taken to creating numerous shell accounts to put their copy-pasted, low quality games on Steam.

Thankfully they aren’t very intelligent. Their games Monster Planet, Urban Riots, Desert Monsters, Animal War, Alien Creatures, and Desert Lost contain the exact same price (99 cents) and the exact same product description. They also look like exactly the same game but with different assets packs.

“This is a third person action game,The player is surrounded by a group of monsters represented by the leader,Players can explore the surrounding area freely, but need to kill the monster or avoid the monster’s attack, the leader of the attack and vitality is very high need attention,Players need to survive as long as possible.”

Will Valve react? More than likely.

Big thanks to the folks at Sentinels of the Store for their diligence.

Jagex Cancels Weapon Diversity Update, At Least For Now


Jagex today announced that they are cancelling the weapon diversity update, a project that had been in beta for the last month. The weapon diversity program was meant to differentiate weapons from one another on a more solid grounding, but the major impression was that the update just wasn’t transformative enough. Most changes were being made to weapon DPS which left players simply choosing the weapon with the most optimized damage.

In the end, we were unanimous as a team. The QA resource could be used on projects that we are currently working on (and planning to announce at Runefest), tightening them up and increasing our confidence in them. That came with a caveat: we still believed in the aims of Weapon Diversity, so we agreed that we would get our design team to design completely new utility benefits for weapons, which could be introduced over time rather than in one big clutch. For example, a quest might have a reward of a javelin; we would then take the opportunity to release a javelin effect to be rolled out for all javelins at the same time.

With their options being plough ahead, restart the project from scratch, or cancel it and focus on other major projects, Jagex chose to cancel. The good news is that while this project is dead, the spirit remains alive and is still being planned for the future.

Regardless of all of this, the aims of Weapon Diversity have not gone away: we still want to bring strategy back into weapon choice, and we believe that will make the gaining of weapon rewards so much more joyful.

Incidentally the weapon diversity beta ran alongside the bank rework update which was also temporarily cancelled only to be brought back, so those who had been looking forward to this update may not be completely disappointed.

Source: RuneScape

[Column] Astellia’s Subscription Trial Should Be Free/Contribute


Astellia Online is launching with a subscription, by which I mean it’s launching with a trial subscription, and it’s a bunch of tat.

When Astellia launches it will cost $40 for the introductory kit, with no word on how quickly the game will go free to play once the market wholly rejects paying up front for what is otherwise a rather generic import MMO that feels like it came out roughly ten years ago. If you’re not interested in the $40 up front fee, you can penalize yourself by spending $10 per month to check out a “trial” version that is otherwise the exact same thing and contains no restrictions. Astellia is not a subscription title otherwise.

Here’s the fun part: Your $10 per month doesn’t contribute to your purchase price, so if you are going to “play it safe” your penalty is that you’ll be paying a 25% premium for the privilege of doing so. If you sub for two or more months, and I can’t imagine why anyone would outside of forgetting to cancel their auto-renewal, well you might as well just call it a day. BarunsOn Studio calls it a “risk vs reward” system, whereas I’ll just call it a “contempt for the customer” system, one where the publisher knows that they have a steep uphill battle convincing a large number of people to buy into a $40 game that looks a lot like the dime-a-dozen Korean MMOs that launch for free by the thousands every year, but there’s no way management is going to open the door to thousands of gold farmer accounts without getting at least a little bit of dosh in return.

Astellia’s business model runs the risk of death by a thousand cuts of apathy, and the whole thing is worse considering it’s been done before. Other games have introduced starter editions that get you into the game at a lower cost, and then allow you to upgrade to the full game if you like what you’re playing. Many of those games (Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, etc) are insanely successful, more than Astellia Online is likely capable of conceiving. They don’t begrudgingly punish people for their skepticism.

Astellia asking players to throw away ten dollars risks immediately creating a relationship of animosity. There is no reason outside of contempt or greed (or some combination of the two) to immediately start your outreach to potential customers on such a hostile note, and no reason that the $10 first month can’t go toward the cost of the game. That would foster a more welcoming image. The number of sales you get from people who pay the $10 and then eat the cost and upgrade to the full version won’t be zero. I’m also willing to bet it won’t be a large number either. Ten bucks isn’t a lot of money, but Astellia isn’t a particularly high quality game. In the grand scheme of things gamers have a lot of other options either through the games that they already bought or through the multitude of free to play MMOs that are of much higher quality, far more content, and already have an established user base.

I’ve seen posts in the forums with people boasting about the idea that this acts as a gatekeeper and that it “weeds out people like you” toward critics. I’ve been writing about MMOs for fifteen years, these are the same people who will be wondering why nobody was willing to give the game a try in 2020 when the announcement comes that the game just didn’t get a good enough return to remain solvent.

All this for yet another game coming out of Korea that promises it will totally never include those crazy pay to win schemes that the Korean version has. Developers have never broken their promise in that scenario, right? At the very least, we can hope that the gold farmers (whom I suspect are at least tangentially related to this lower price version) who bulk-buy accounts to spam chat with advertising aren’t using stolen credit cards. Don’t forget, every dollar lost to a chargeback costs roughly $2.40.

This is where my free consultation of Astellia Online comes to a close. You can have your people call my people for more details.

EA Community Team Wins Award For Most Hated Comment On Reddit


You have to wonder how it feels to juxtapose simultaneously being one of the most successful companies in the industry while also being one of, if not the most hated. Electronic Arts has won numerous awards over the years for the worst company not just in the gaming industry, but in the world. The game publisher known for acquiring game studios, ruining the reputation of their games through budget cuts and rushed development periods before shuttering said developer, Electronic Arts hailed in the massive anti-consumer failure known as the Online Pass.

But now EA has another notch to add to its belt under bringing ruin to Bioware, and that is officially being recognized as having the most hated comment on Reddit. Of course we are talking about the “sense of pride and accomplishment” comment that EA’s support team left when defending the egregious use of microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II, a monetization system that was quickly pulled yet didn’t do much to stop the disappointing sales that followed.

The idea that this comment is the most hated on Reddit is no surprise, gamers and those who follow internet drama have known for the better part of the year. For EA however the distinct dishonor has been encased in the carbonite known as the Guiness Book of World Records. EA’s 683k downvotes beat out the second place contender which has a whole twenty four thousand.

Why don’t you just admit that nobody on Reddit likes you?

 

[Not Massive] Gaijin Throws Taiwan Under Bus For Chinese Gov’t


A game developer doing something scummy to appease an oppressive dictatorship? Must be a day ending in WHY.

In the world of developers doing stupid things, if you push past the western AAA industry of Electronic Arts and Valve and make your way toward the back of the room, you might spot Gaijin Entertainment.

Back in 2015, Gaijin’s producer Pavel Kulikov got caught pulling an extortion scheme against a Youtuber, threatening the guy’s livelihood in return for positive coverage of the game. Kulikov was fired and Gaijin denied any knowledge or involvement in the plan. But Gaijin doesn’t understand public relations, or just doesn’t give a toss, since in 2018 the next scandal popped up with an official content partner referring to players as puny beggars, hoping that they drown in their own bile.

In today’s scandal, Gaijin has been accused of kissing up to the People’s Republic with the outright removal of Taiwan Republic of China flags from the China tech tree in the game War Thunder. The move has been painted by members of the community as an attempt to “suck the toes” (in a manner of speaking) of the Chinese government and is related to recent heightened tensions surrounding the One China policy, by which China does not recognize Taiwan as independent.

So far there has been no comment from Gaijin. The megathread on Reddit has gathered over 500 comments and 4.7k upvotes. This comes two years after Gaijin was accused of cutting story content to appease the Chinese government, involving the Japanese invasion of China in 1939.

Source: Reddit

[Video] Planetside Arena Footage


Daybreak Game Company this week released new footage of Planetside Arena. The footage features Squads, a massive game mode pitting teams of up to 12 players in matches with up to 300 people.

Planetside Arena goes into early access on September 19.

Pearl Abyss Launches Full Megan Fox Trailer For Black Desert


Who loves Black Desert? Megan Fox does. Pearl Abyss today launched the full Black Desert trailer featuring Transformers star Megan Fox. The full trailer dubbed “Follow the Light” will be aired on national television spots. Check it out and revel in how much the Sorceress Class looks a lot like Megan Fox.

 

Fallen Earth Is Dead, But May Return


Fallen Earth is celebrating its ten year anniversary with the announcement that the servers are coming down. It isn’t the way most companies want to celebrate their game growing old, but the unfortunate reality is that the game is just unsustainable in its current form. As Matt Scott, CEO of Little Orbit stated:

I’m sad to announce that effective 10/2 (or there about based on when the event goes live), we will be taking the Fallen Earth servers offline. Unfortunately after weeks of monitoring things and getting players feedback, I have determined the current state of Fallen Earth just isn’t sustainable in its current form. You guys have been very tolerant, but the player experience is terrible right now. It’s laggy and buggy. Servers crash quite often, and stacking is still disabled due to exploits. I don’t blame the player base for the low concurrency numbers. You need a better game to play.

The silver lining on this cloud is that Little Orbit would like to update and bring Fallen Earth back online at some point.

Source: Fallen Earth Forums

Black Desert PS4 Adds New Classes, World Boss


Black Desert on PS4 is launching a new update that will see two new classes, a world boss, and more content added to the game. In addition to the Dark Knight and Musa classes, players will also be able to take on the world boss Kzarka

Dark Knight wields intense power gained by burning nature’s latent energy. She wields the deadly Kriegsmesser for close range encounters, and uses her powerful, nature-burning magic for mid-range encounters. Musa was born with a tiger’s roar, and the power of that roar still echoes through his every action. His sword and bow make short work of anyone foolish enough to stand between him and his goals.

Guilds will appreciate the introduction of node wars and conquest, a small and large version of guild vs guild fights to take over land nodes across the game world. For more information on today’s update, as well as spawn times for Kzarka, check out the link below.

Source: Black Desert