Fig Claims 4 of Top 10 Crowdfunded Games In 2016


When I say that Fig carries four of the top 10 funded games in 2016, your answer is probably “of course, they curate the list of games they put up.” As someone who previously had doubt about Fig as a crowdfunding platform, I’m happy to see that the service is apparently finding its footing. Boasting a 78% successful funding rate, Fig (whose name is now synonymous with Tim Schafer) has been the stone on which games like Psychonauts 2, Wasteland 3, and Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch have been able to find backers.

Apparently Fig backers are quite satisfied with the service, since more than 3,700 came back to back more games, funding an average of $133.71 per person. For more information, check out the infographic below.

(Source: Fig)

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Spurs Frontier Lawsuit Against Atari


Frontier Developments is currently best known for their hit title Planet Coaster, of course when people aren’t thinking of them as the developer of that Star Citizen-esque game that actually saw release. Odds are you’ll also remember them as being the developer behind Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, because I just told you they were. The news today is that Frontier Developments is suing Atari over what it claims are $2.2 million in unpaid royalties.

“We can confirm Frontier is currently pursuing a complaint against Atari. We have attempted to resolve this issue without legal action since April 2016. We have so far been denied our contractual right to audit by Atari, and we are unfortunately left with no other way to resolve our concerns. We are unable to offer any further comment while the matter is subject to due legal process.”

Here’s where it gets weird. First, of all people, TMZ broke the story. According to the news article, Frontier Developments is citing a Steam tracking website (likely Steam Spy) in their claim that Atari owes them $2.2 million, following with a lawsuit because Atari has been delaying an audit which Frontier is entitled to in their contract. Secondly, it is odd to see a developer using something like Steam Spy as a source. For the record, it is impossible for third party services to count how many people own a certain game, that information isn’t publicly available. They guess, using data from accounts that are public, and do not claim to be accurate.

Imagine users as voters, but instead of voting for one of three candidates, they’re voting for several games from tens of thousands available in Steam catalog. Even the most popular paid games are reaching maybe 5% of this audience and most are in realms of 0.1% or even less.
So 0.1% margin of error for a game with 0.1% of Steam audience would produce results that are mostly useless. That’s why Steam Spy has to gather millions points of data daily to predict games sales and audience. And that’s why Steam Spy is often wrong. Not by much, but still wrong.

At a $2.2 million difference comparing sales to Steam Spy, it’s rather believable that Atari shorted Frontier Develoments on some level, and you could be forgiven for taking the delays as a sign that the company is hiding something.

Or maybe nobody at the shell corporation that calls itself Atari answers their email. I couldn’t get a single person to answer my requests for comment over Asteroids: Outpost.

Community Revives The Sims Online, It’s Too Popular


The Sims Online is back! I’ll give you a second to remember that this existed.

We’re going on ten years since The Sims Online was shut down by Electronic Arts, but nothing online ever dies forever. Unfortunately for players, while promising for the developers, is that interest in the revival has been so overwhelming that the servers just couldn’t handle the influx. In addition to North American players, the game has drawn an equal number of potential customers from Brazil. The DDoS attacks were also an issue.

With over 1000 people, we would not even be able to get everyone in the building, and having all new users play at exactly the same time without lots to split everyone into would be a recipe for disaster. Picking a server configuration to allow this many users to play would be a complete shot in the dark – and we wouldn’t know the root cause or true capacity of a server configuration if we were way over it (it would just crash immediately)

For right now, the game is going back into closed beta until the problems can be ironed out.

(Source: FreeSO)

PSA: Return To Atlantica Online, or Lose Everything


Atlantica Online is getting a new set of parents in the form of VALOFE, moving from its current home at Nexon on January 11th. As part of this transition, players are warned to transfer their stuff or face the possibility of losing it. Anyone who does not transfer their account over by the January 11th transition will lose everything, and there won’t be a way to get it back.

“We’ve always had the passion for playing games. We think that this is a great foundation for being able to operate the game for the community we’re about to have.” said the Game Operation Team for Atlantica Online in VALOFE. “We [VALOFE] envision the acquisition as a ‘homecoming’ and an opportunity to awaken the great potential of this MMO, promising the improvement of game-play for players, veteran and new.”

Our thoughts: If you have an account on Atlantica Online, do yourself a favor and just transfer it. You a year from now who wants to play it again will be thankful.

(Source: VALOFE press release)

Daybreak Continues Shrinking: Landmark To Shut Down


Daybreak Game Company’s library continues to shrink just a little more, with the news that the rest of Everquest’s Next’s failed dream, Landmark, will shut down February 21st. As of right now, the game will be unavailable for purchase while all items in the marketplace will have their cost turned down to 1. In addition, Player Studio items will not be available for listing and purchase in the Landmark Marketplace. The servers will come down on February 21, 2017.

Landmark, originally known as Everquest: Landmark, was a supplementary game sold to players on the foundation that it existed to test Daybreak’s engine for use in the full Everquest Next. When Everquest was cancelled last year, Landmark dropped the Everquest name and was spun off into its own building game. Fans hoping to see compensation are out of luck, Daybreak will neither be making it possible to host your own server nor will they be reimbursing anyone who invested in the title.

Our thoughts: Landmark is probably the most fraudulently marketed game in recent memory, from the fact that it was sold as a supplement to an MMO that the studio knew wasn’t fun and was potentially on the chopping block, to the fact that the announcement of EQN’s cancellation came conveniently after the no-questions refund period expired, to the fact that people who put in for the $100 founder’s pack only got to have the game launch and not even last a year. Considering this is the second game shuttered within the last year, and it looks like Daybreak won’t even take the easy route and compensate people with digital goodies for their other games (at no cost to themselves), Landmark and EQN should be a shining example to avoid putting any money into this company until the game goes gold.

(Source: Daybreak)

Screenshots: Final Fantasy XIV Patch 3.5


Final Fantasy XIV is set to launch patch 3.5, The Far Edge of Fate, and Square Enix is sharing a ton of new content screenshots. Seriously, the few that I have curated are just a sample of the massive amount of media that Square has released. Topping the list of new content is Dun Scaith, a 24 player alliance raid requiring level 60 in any disciple of war or magic, as well as an unknown item requirement and completion of the Freedom of our Skies quest. A major update to the party finder will allow players to group up with players on any world on the same datacenter, it will be possible to change the color of your egi, and you will go head to head with the final pillar of the Triad, Zurvan the Demon (req level 60, eight players, and completing Balance unto All.).

If you head over to the Final Fantasy website, you can read numerous previews of patch 3.5, coming later this month.

(Source: Square Enix Press Release)

Firefall Shut Down For 2 Weeks In December, Nobody Noticed


In my predictions for 2017, I said that Firefall would shut down and nobody would be surprised or really notice. What I didn’t realize was that Firefall had already shut down, for two weeks, back in December. And nobody outside of the community noticed. According to posts on the community forums, the servers first went down as early as December 7th and didn’t come back online until December 22nd.

Hello, we have found that our datacenter is having critical issues and all services including the website and game are impacted. We hope to have everything back online ASAP.

But don’t let that fool you, according to posts on official Facebook notice, the game is still essentially broken in many areas as features like Battle Lab do not work. The official website has not had a news update since May, it may still be impossible to level past 20 due to unfixed bugs in the main mission, and nobody seems to be present to answer emails.

So Firefall is still a bit broken, has less active Steam players than a full Battlefield 1 server, and seems to be riding the breeze on a prolonged descent while nobody is around to save the sinking ship. In the future, it will likely be known as one of the most incompetently run MMOs of all time, between the constant shift in direction and staff to the allegedly high sum spent to develop it.

(Source: MMO Bomb)

[NM] Ham Radio Deluxe Bricks Consumer’s Software, Co-Founder Blames Diabetes


There’s a shiny nickel in it for whoever looked at that headline and immediately understood it.

HRD Software, who develop software for ham radio, is being hung out to dry after a customer complained about his software’s incompatibility with certain versions of Windows. One user, Jim Giercyk, called up customer support to complain that his product completely stopped working after a recent update. As it turns out, Giercyk left a bad review for the company not long before, and rather than handling Giercyk’s complaints like a professional would, that HRD Software decided to remotely disable his product and revoke his key.

Now, if you aren’t aware, it is illegal in the United States to punish a customer for bad reviews, as per the Consumer Review Fairness Act passed into law by President Obama on December 16. As it turns out, HRD Software had a full blacklist of customers who had posted bad reviews and thus had their copies banned in retaliation, with co-founder Rick Ruhl even leaving an angry voicemail and threatening legal action against one such user. Ruhl blamed his diabetes for the way he acted.

“I apologize publicly … I do have diabetes and sometimes this affects my judgement and it did in that voicemail. I truly regret it. I’m talking to my doctor about changing my medications so I won’t have any more low sugar.”

Ruhl has been removed from his position in the company and will move on to other opportunities.

(Source: The Independent)

ArcheAge 3.1 To Take Game To Its Roots


ArcheAge is getting updated to version 3.1 on January 17, so long as you are playing on the Korean servers. Among the updates are more character and item growth, potentially pointing to an increased level cap, as well as an increase in overseas trading, balancing new and veteran players, and adding/improving conveniences. XL Games hasn’t given a whole lot of information on what is coming with the update, so we’ll have to wait and see about more details as well as when the updates is coming westward.

(Source: Percy Meets ArcheAge)

2017 Predictions for 2017: 2017 Edition, Part 2: Let’s Throw Everything at the Wall


Since I’ve managed to once again push the new year predictions until it’s actually the new year, it’s time to throw everything I have in the old portfolio onto the table and get it all out of the way at once.

  1. The World of Warcraft Nostalrius successor will become a huge item among its community, bringing in thousands upon thousands of concurrent players. Blizzard will send a cease and desist order which the operators will ignore until they receive notice that they are being sued. Around that time, Blizzard will announce the Pristine Servers for WoW.
  2. Laura K Dale will continue leaking Nintendo information leading up to and beyond the release of the Switch. Behind the scenes, Nintendo will conduct major internal investigations to figure out who is giving her this information. It will turn out to be a friend of the fired employee Allison Rapp.
  3. Steam will officially hit the level of a premium television package: Hundreds of channels but only a fraction of it worth watching.
  4. Firefall will first announce that the console version is cancelled before revealing that the PC version is shutting down either simultaneously or a week or two later. Nobody will be surprised, however the last few hours will draw in a lot of people to watch the world burn.
  5. Pathfinder Online will shut down, the press won’t notice for a month and by that point most won’t bother covering it.
  6. The SAG gaming strike will come to an end with both sides making concessions. Gamers who previously took a side will go back to not pretending that they are concerned about people in the industry.
  7. Trion Worlds will launch a new game, expansion, or major update to one of their games, resulting in the servers being unusable for close to a month. People will continue to be surprised that Trion Worlds can’t handle launching anything. This will happen multiple times.
  8. Phantasy Star Online 2 still won’t come to the west.
  9. For that matter, other MMOs that the west wants will launch in Korea/China, flop because the local audience isn’t interested, then never come anywhere.
  10. More games will be re-released as HD remakes, but a lot will include extras like concept art, arcade modes, and bonus content. People will be annoyed at the idea of buying the game again, but will admit that the $20 isn’t a high price and the concept art is pretty cool.
  11. Developers will take a cue from Call of Duty and release an HD remake only to add microtransactions weeks after launch. Unlike Call of Duty, they don’t have as many bridges to burn.
  12. Resident Evil 7 will release and become the first major VR title to really “pull it off.” A streamer will admit live on camera that he just literally crapped his pants, he might even show the camera only to be banned by Twitch. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pZNC7wQekk)
  13. South Park will release and be pretty good, but some gaming journalists and TV media will use it as a club and beat gamers over the head over a prolonged poop joke scene.
  14. Activision will announce that they are considering pulling an Ubisoft and holding off on future Call of Duty releases until they can figure out what is going on. They will deny that it has to do with the series plummeting in sales.
  15. No Man’s Sky will continue to update and add in features that should have been available on launch. The game won’t see much of a bump in users.
  16. Bulletstorm will release and sell a negligible amount of copies thanks to its high price. It will go on clearance at Gamestop within a couple of months and Randy Pitchford will call gamers entitled and cite the Duke Nukem cameo as a reason that the game is worth $50. Gearbox may or may not reveal one of the few games anyone actually wants from them: Borderlands 3.
  17. More video game movies will come out, they will under-perform and most people probably won’t be aware that they ever hit theaters.
  18. Daybreak Game Company will become the new foster home for wayward developers, picking up publisher rights for independent companies. New tiers will hopefully be added to the all access pass allowing you to play their games for a higher, but still cheaper, price.
  19. Valve will continue to get sued, and lose, over its refund policy in countries that are not America. Expect the policy to get incrementally better worldwide.
  20. More governments will start to pay attention to gambling in games, forcing rules like revealing lockbox odds and restricting who can participate. Gamers will fully realize that lockboxes are worthless investments.
  21. Troll games will become even more prevalent. Steam Greenlight will be marred in yet another controversy as a Ukranian developer uses the platform as a method of laundering money.
  22. Yooka-Laylee will launch and while it won’t recreate the nostalgia of Banjo Kazooie perfectly, it’ll still be a great game. The most ardent of purists will find some reason to complain.
  23. Another game will launch following a blatantly misleading advertising campaign. The press will call gamers entitled after nobody buys it and the advertising standards will find the developer not guilty because old men working in a bureaucratic office don’t believe that dozens of interviews and demo reels constitute advertising.
  24. Another few survival games from ex-developers who claim to have worked on STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl will head into early access.
  25. Star Citizen will miss its release dates. All of them.
  26. Camelot Unchained will launch and rather quickly drop its mandatory subscription because that system only works for a small number of titles. They will initially deny that the new system is free to play.
  27. Conan Exiles will launch and be pretty cool. The general consensus at Funcom will be that wasting money on another giant MMO isn’t worth it.
  28. Darkfall: New Dawn and Darkfall: Rise of Agon will launch. One will cannibalize the other and possibly die itself because the original Darkfall was a commercial failure.
  29. Paladins will change its name to WatchOver, Hi-Rez will continue to deny any inspiration from Overwatch.
  30. H1Z1 will bring on new lead developers, multiple times, with Daybreak announcing each time how committed they are to developing both versions.
  31. I will write a negative article about an indie developer who will email me with a not very subtle threat of lawsuit. He will immediately back down when I CC my attorney.
  32. John Smedley will announce that he has joined a new startup. Their first game will be a sandbox MMO. (Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-15-amazon-hires-john-smedley-to-lead-new-san-diego-studio)
  33. An indie developer will release a game that he genuinely thought was good. It won’t be, he will have a mental breakdown and pretend to have been a troll all along.

As always, I will revisit this list at the end of the year to see what I managed to get right. Until then, may the force be with you…or something.