Unpacking Awards, Azure Attack, and No Opposing Chats

Australian Game Developer Awards Winners Announced!

The winners for the Australian Game Developer Awards have been announced, with Queensland and Victorian developers leading the way.

Local game Unpacking by Witch Beam has taken the Game of the Year Award, with the relaxing puzzle game also taking home the Excellence in Accessibility Award. Art Director and Designer Wren Brier says,

“It’s humbling to be part of a roster of amazing studios with incredible games that have won this award. We’re so pleased that Unpacking also took home the Excellence in Accessibility Award as we’re firm believers that video games can and should be enjoyed by everyone.”

Another local game, Webbed, the adorable game about spiders, received Excellence in Gameplay.

Beethoven & Dinosaur took home Excellence in Art and Excellence in Audio Awards for The Artful Escape. Black Lab Games won the Studio of the Year Award.

Steve Wang from Wargaming Sydney was awarded the Adam Lancman Award for his contribution and advocacy for the local games industry.

Chad Toprak, Kathleen Smart, and Ashley Van Wynngard were jointly awarded the Rising Star Award for the impact they’ve made to the industry in a short amount of time.

The Forgotten City by Modern Storyteller took home Excellence in Narrative, The Oregon Trail by Gameloft Brisbane won Excellence in Mobile Games, Sharmila by Chaos Theory Games and the World Food Programme took home Excellence in Serious Games. Pico Tanks by Panda Arcade was awarded Excellence in Ongoing Games, and Video World by Things for Humans won Excellence in Emerging Games.

Largest DDoS Attack Mitigated

Microsoft reveals that its Azure cloud service mitigated a 2.4 terabytes per second denial of service attack this year, which makes this the largest DDoS attack recorded to date.

The attack was carried out using a botnet of around 70,000 bots primarily located across the Asia-Pacific region. The target of

 the attack has been identified as an Azure customer in Europe. The record-breaking attack came in three short waves over the span of 10 minutes, with the first at 2.4 Tbps.

Thankfully the DDoS attack was mitigated, preventing Azure from going down. Previously the DDoS record was a 2.3 Tbps attack on Amazon in February 2020.

League of Legends Removing Opposing Team Chat

Riot Games has announced that chat between opposing teams in League of Legends will be disabled in an attempt to cut down on toxic behaviour.

“While chat can be the source of fun social interaction between teams as well as some good-hearted banter, right now negative interactions outweigh the positives. We’ll evaluate the impact of this change through verbal abuse reports and penalty rates, as well as surveys and direct feedback from you all.”

And now for some upcoming game releases!

October 14

• A Little Golf Journey [PC, Switch]
• Bonito Days [Switch]
• Despot’s Game [PC]
• Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Dungeon Encounters [PC, PS4, Switch]
• Godstrike [PS4, XBO]
• Jackbox Party Pack 8 [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Ruin Raiders [PC, Switch]
• Sphere – Flying Cities [PC]

October 15

• Ancient Stories: Gods of Egypt [PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Crysis Remastered Trilogy [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO]
• Demon Slayer: The Hikonami Chronicles [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO]
• The Good Life [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Greylancer [PS4, XBO, Switch]
• Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town [PS4, XBO]

October 18

• Nuclear Blaze [PC]

October 19

• Dying Light: Platinum Edition [Switch
• Into The Pit [PC, XBO]
• War Mongrels [PC]
• Youtubers Life 2 [PC, PS4, XBO, Switch]

October 20

• Healing Spree [PC]
• Jars [PC, Switch]