Tag: IGF

It’s Time To Vote For GDCA

Online voting is now open for the 2022 Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival Awards. You have until Friday, February 11th at 5.59pm AEST to submit your vote.

All finalists are eligible for the awards, and casting your vote can determine the winning games, with the winners being announced at the Game Developers Conference in March.

Local game Unpacking by Witch Beam is on the finalist list for GDCA and Unpacking and another local game, Webbed by Sbug Games are both on the list for IGF. These games join the ranks with Sable by Shedworks, Halo Infinite by 343 Industries, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart by Insomniac Games, and so much more.

You can check out our Facebook page @ZedGamesAu for links to vote!

Sony Buys Bungie With More Acquisitions On The Way

Sony has announced a deal to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion, making it yet another large consolidation deal in the games industry. Bungie will be ‘an independent subsidiary’ of Sony Interactive Entertainment, and will remain a multiplatform studio. They promise that Bungie will have the option to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play, which may come as a relief to current players who have already had to migrate their accounts in the past.

But Sony isn’t stopping there! Jim Ryan has said that we should expect more studio acquisitions in the future, with Sony aiming to expand beyond the PlayStation console, although the timing of the Bungie acquisition has many suggesting it is in response to Microsoft’s recent acquisitions of Activision, although the Bungie deal has been in the works for over 5 months.

New York Times Now Has Wordle

The popular word game that has taken the internet by storm has been acquired by the New York Times for an undisclosed price in ‘the low seven figures’. Wordle’s creator, Josh Wardle, says the game will continue to be free to play, however the New York Times statement seems to imply otherwise, stating that Wordle will “initially remain free to new and existing players”.

The New York Times does promise that Wordle will have an interesting future ahead, with a team of designers and engineers to further the user experience.

It’s unclear exactly what this means at this point, but many are cautious for the future of this little world game.

Ubisoft Complains That Players Don’t Get NFTs

After Ubisoft announced Quartz in December 2021, an NFT platform that would allow players to buy and sell virtual goods for real-world cash, they had been met with a wave of concern as to the potential environmental impact such a platform could cause, and what NFTs in video games actually mean for players.

The publisher answers critics by explaining that Quartz would use the Tezos blockchain to circumvent the energy-hungry algorithms, so that a single transaction would use roughly the same amount of energy as a video stream. However, this hasn’t stopped criticism, with many asking ‘what’s the point?’.

“I think gamers don’t get what a digital secondary market can bring to them. For now, because of the current situation and context of NFTs, gamers really believe it’s first destroying the planet, and second just a tool for speculation”, said Nicolar Pouard, VP at Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab.

“But what we [at Ubisoft] are seeing first is the end game. The end game is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items once they’re finished with them or they’re finished playing the game itself. So, it’s really for them. It’s really beneficial. But they don’t get it for now.”

And now for some upcoming game releases!

February 4

• Cheftastic!: Buffet Blast (PC)
• Dying Light 2 Stay Human (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)

February 8

• Apex Legends: Defiance (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Model Builder (PC)
• OlliOlli World (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Rumbleverse (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)
• Sifu (PC, PS5, PS4)

February 9

• Unbound: Worlds Apart (PS5, PS4)

Activision Blizzard Served
On July 20^th the State of California filed a lawsuit with the Superior Court against Activision Blizzard after an investigation beginning in 2018 into the company’s “frat boy” culture. The lawsuit alleges many sexist workplace issues, as well as several itemised accounts of serious allegations of sexism and harassment against women and people of colour.
In response Activision Blizzard released a statement calling the lawsuit “irresponsible behaviour from unaccountable State bureaucrats…” this was mirrored by Blizzard’s Chief Compliance Officer Fran Townsend’s internal email calling the lawsuit “distorted and untrue… factually incorrect, old and out of context…” However, since the release of the lawsuit Activision Blizzard employees have come out corroborating with the events described in the lawsuit.
The fallout of which has resulted in a petition signed by over 3200 current and former Activision Blizzard employees calling for recognition of the seriousness of the allegations, repercussions to those who dismissed them, and a safe space for people to speak out. Current employees are also staging a walkout to demand changes in the current leadership.
In response Activision CEO Bobby Kotick issued a public statement apologising for their behaviour and hiring an external law firm for confidential reporting and to review their workplace policies.

Amazon’s New World Bumps Through Beta
After delaying the release for over a year, this week Amazon opened its new game New World for the closed beta testing to those that either pre-ordered the game or were invited through a sign-up. Amazon celebrated with New World’s real-time combat MMORPG managing to accumulate over two hundred thousand concurrent players during weekend play and fairly positive feedback, but was hampered by some severe teething issues.
The most major of these was the reported bricking of EVGA RTX 3090 graphics cards. The bricking was theorised to be caused by frame rate spikes in menus and the resultant voltage spikes that fried the card. While Amazon stated that “We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s…” they did release a patch to cap the frame rate of menus within 24 hours of the first reported issue. EVGA has also confirmed it will be replacing affected cards, with return forms reportedly already containing a specific “New World” category.
The beta of New World is scheduled to end August 2^nd with the release date set for August 31^st 2021.

Aussie Takes Independent Games Festival Grand Prize
The IGF took place on the 21^st of July to celebrate the achievements and innovations of independent game developers. This year there were over 500 entries for the 8 major awards with over 60 games shortlisted for the awards and more than half of those nominated for one or more of the eight award categories. This year’s winners were:

• Arrog, the hand-drawn enigmatic adventure puzzle game from Hermanos Magia and Leap Game Studios, won the Audience Award.
• Vessels, the space narrative adventure from Local Space Survey Corps, LLC., won Best Student Game.
• Teardown, the destructible voxel world game from Tuxedo Labs was awarded for its Excellence in Design.
• Blaseball, an online absurdist-horror fantasy baseball league game from The Game Band, took the Nuovo Award.
• Genesis Noir, an explorative adventure game, was developed by Feral Cat Den, with sound design by Skillbard, took out the awards for both Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Visual Art.
• And finally, Umurangi Generation, created by Lismore developer Origame Digital, is a first-person photography game and took both the award for Excellence in Narrative and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Now for some upcoming game releases.
Scare yourself silly with Draft of Darkness, a roguelike horror deck builder, or reflect with No Longer Home, an indie game about letting go and saying goodbye, both coming to PC on July 30^th.
On August 3^rd, grab some friends for Rocket Rumble, a space racing brawler, coming to PC. Or try your hand at the 25 second time looping FPS Lemnis Gate, also being released on the 3^rd and coming to PC, PS4 & 5 and Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Lastly Starmancer, the interstellar construction and management sim from Chucklefish, is coming to PC on August 5^th.