Gaming News

Forever Entertainment together with SEGA Holding Co., Ltd. from Japan will co-create and publish Panzer Dragoon: Remake and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei: Remake. The premiere of the first part is planned before the end of 2019!

A proper proton whitelist appears: https://linuxgamecast.com/steam-whitelist/

Epic throws first punches at Valve: https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/09/new-releases-for-epic-games-store-are-delaying-or-canceling-steam-releases/

The GOG social media guy tries to join an apolitical gaming project and gets the usual treatment: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/12/anti-gamergate-journalists-smear-former-gog-employee-for-being-apolitical/73203/

True doom sequel appears: https://www.romerogames.ie/sigil
I'll be playing this. I already really liked that random map he made ages ago and I play doom almost every week. More maps, mods and madness are always good. Hoping to jump into a mod project for it myself.

Fornite streamer abuses wife while live Warning: Discretion advised, might be hard to listen to. https://youtu.be/7yHy0gcZ11Y

Metro 2033 film that was announced in 2016 has been halted and the rights have reverted to creator Dmitry Glukhovsky, apparently they were trying to Americanize it and set in in Washington DC with the Dark ones just being random monsters and radical change the factions due to the change of location.

@gizmo Thanks for the link. Interesting how open Halliday is about his personal experiences.
Despite years after their pre-GG disgrace in firing Rob Florence, Eurogamer haven't changed their attitude despite 2 ethics policy updates post-GG. As seen by suggesting that Halliday is possibly pro-GG like a McCarthyism piece. If Halliday wasn't pro-GG, I'm sure they've helped in making him so now.

In news, Valve has become aware of the double-standard censorship that their catalogue is being combed with (by an unknown element at Valve) and preparing a response and decision soon.
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/12/valve-will-reportedly-address-steam-game-bans-at-the-end-of-the-week/73288/
What that decision will be is still anyone's guess. They'll either have to ban a ton of games that got a free pass despite having the same content as the banned ones or lift the bans for all.

Crytek must respond to keep their case against Star Citizen open
https://techraptor.net/content/star-citizens-crytek-lawsuit-might-be-coming-to-a-close-soon

Cops join Smash game after being summoed for noise complaint
https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/12/11/police-respond-to-noise-complaint-over-smash-bros-join-in-playing
This is brilliant Like the opposite of swatting outcomes.

Sieghardt wrote: »

If they're remaking it they might as well remake it from scratch anyway, most of it should be easy enough to replicate

That would put the investment way above what typical remasters cost. They're usually just minimum-effort HD treatment that an emulator can do, which is practically money-printing to a publisher if they can poke the nostalgia nerve in marketing.

EA fights back against Bethesda for the worst game publisher of 2018 award with a last minute customer data breach knockout blow!

Robert ninja wrote: »

@gizmo Thanks for the link. Interesting how open Halliday is about his personal experiences.
Despite years after their pre-GG disgrace in firing Rob Florence, Eurogamer haven't changed their attitude despite 2 ethics policy updates post-GG. As seen by suggesting that Halliday is possibly pro-GG like a McCarthyism piece. If Halliday wasn't pro-GG, I'm sure they've helped in making him so now.

Retro covered the fact that Florence wasn't fired above but it's also worth commenting on how the affair was handled after the dust had settled somewhat.

As before, it's best to listen to the people involved to get a better understanding of what happened. A few days after the event, Bramwell made this post which not only explained things from their perspective but praised both Florence and his article. John Walker, Editor at RPS, also weighed in on the wider issue with this post and then, most importantly, Florence gave a longer form response with his side of things via a post on Walker's blog. As you can see, there was no animosity on Florence's side towards either Eurogamer or Bramwell and he made it clear where his ire was directed.

It's also worth noting he highlights the fact he felt the need to publicly ask people to lay off off the other writer in question due to the level of abuse she was getting over the incident. It's rather unsurprising that when things kicked off a year later, he didn't exactly hide his feelings on the matter nor does his opinion on the matter seem to have changed over the years.

As for you take on the Halliday interview, well that's just disappointing really.

gizmo wrote: »

It's rather unsurprising that when things kicked off a year later, he didn't exactly hide his feelings on the matter nor does his opinion on the matter seem to have changed over the years.

His feelings towards it don't impact if what Eurogamer did was ethical or good/bad precedent in the industry. They censored his article and folded immediately. They didn't protect their staff or show reliability. He may forgive and forget but the consumer doesn't have to. I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if they actually changed and got better but their ethics policy updates have been toothless.

As for his remarks about GG. You can thank the very same game journalist clique for making sure that it's the case with tons of anti-GG articles and wrong-think police to weed out anything pro or neutral. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

gizmo wrote: »

John Walker, Editor at RPS, also weighed in

The guy who lied about receiving death threats under the GG hashtag and displayed double standards when he greenlit Florence's article talking about rape allegations against a game dev (Tempkin) but threatened bans for bringing up the same topic of a self-labeled rapist game dev (Quinn). Not much weight to be added there.
The TL:DR of his piece is pretty much "yeah we support him and think this is an important topic to discuss". Cue no 'discussion' for half a decade.

gizmo wrote: »

As for you take on the Halliday interview, well that's just disappointing really.

The real disappointment is that people still read eurogamer after doritosgate, gg, censoring the Crash Override Network leaks which completely crumble the narrative they try to spin to date. Although you did make me find this video and channel which I appreciate.

By advice of a good friend, I'll not be having long discussions about these things on here anymore as they're sure it's a net negative for me. Game related news with light convo from now. Any rage towards me about the news I find interesting I'll not reply to - users are always free to take it up with the sites themselves.

In news
It's the 90s all over again. Extra taxes for those evil video games in USA.
https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/13/pennsylvania-state-rep-proposes-tax-on-mature-video-games/

China takes a harder approach to it
https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/13/chinese-video-game-ethics-panel-allegedly-bans-nine-games-including-fortnite/

Apple bans historically accurate strategy game. Not the first time. They have a no-sads-like approach to content.
https://toucharcade.com/2018/12/05/apple-removes-afghanistan-11-by-slitherine-from-the-app-store/

AI learning to play games even better now with less/no human guidance. Turns out it performs better without our knuckle-dragging suggestions.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/mb

Sieghardt wrote: »

They're remakes, not remasters

Ah, my bad. Everyone was saying remasters earlier so I assumed.

J. Marston wrote: »

I feel blessed that I haven't the first clue what that gamergate nonsense was about.

In a nutshell, gamers were being charged premium rates for shoddy, budget gates.

J. Marston wrote: »

I feel blessed that I haven't the first clue what that gamergate nonsense was about.

You feel blessed that you're ignorant?

Robert ninja wrote: »

Leaked sales figures on Sony titles
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/sony-inadvertently-leaks-player-counts-for-ps4-titles/

the surprising thing to me is that theres only one exclusive in the top 25 (last of us remastered) and thats a game from last gen! It kind of underlines how much they hang on touting the best exclusives (which they do have), as without them, there's very little to differentiate the two platforms.

Robert ninja wrote: »

Leaked sales figures on Sony titles
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/sony-inadvertently-leaks-player-counts-for-ps4-titles/

BFV sales are abysmal considering its publisher and funding. It's telling that some of the most sold games are multi-platform.

Unlisted rules for school locations and depictions of children in games according to Valve artist
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/12/valve-now-bans-games-on-steam-for-child-exploitation-school-settings-according-to-dev/73665/

These rules make Life is Strange technically ban-worthy however the overall goal seems to be primed to target Japanese games which often have school settings and loli style. Good on Jane for finally revealing some actual information when Valve has been completely dark after doing a 180 after saying they wouldn't be "taste police".

Carlton sues Epic for using a dance he claims is his
https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/18/carlton-banks-actor-is-suing-epic-games-for-stealing-his-dance-in-fortnite/

Maybe he'll get something if they settle for PR reasons. Stranger things have happened.

Since the data is about 5 weeks old it's likely that 200k for bfv is only the day 1 of the
deluxe edition sales. So in fact pretty good !!

They have removed hitman and bfv as the data was unreliable.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Even aside from that, the leaked stats don’t actually contain info for a substantial number of exclusives anyway, including most of the biggest ones. It’s obvious that a lot of exclusives have been huge commercial successes and brought significant boosts to the brand’s reputation: being behind some of the market behemoths is more a simple illustration of how the mainstream game market is, rather than anything resembling a rebuke of the concept of exclusives.

And since bringing significant boosts to the brand's reputation is pretty much their primary goal, looking at the position of PS4 in the market place I think they've done rather well. I swear, if I see another meme with some silly joke about God of War or Spider-Man not having micro-transactions...

On an unrelated note, where the absolute **** did Mortal Kombat X get those kinds of numbers from?

Easy to avoid those memes, just don't go on r/gaming.

Varik wrote: »

You mean the "hey this was successful and didn't need micro transactions" stuff.

If Spiderman had them they probably would have made a nice bit with the unlock system and all the suits.

Yup, that's the implication. I just find it utterly bizarre how some folk can miss the point of the exclusive title so completely and then go parade that ignorance around draped in snark. J. Marston is right too, it's endemic in r/gaming.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Ha, that was the one that made me go “what?!” as well. On a par with Fortnite is madness.

Aye, I can understand some of the other titles being higher up than expected as they would have come as part of PS+ but MK definitely threw me. Props to NetherRealm though, they're definitely showing up Capcom on the fighting game front imo.