Tag: Microsoft

Bobby Kotick Is Gone

The now-former CEO of Activision Blizzard has officially stepped down now that the 2023 year has ended and the acquisition by Microsoft proceeds. He won’t be the only executive-level employee leaving, with more expected to depart as the transition process develops. Otherwise, the leadership teams for Activision Publishing and Blizzard will remain in place.

The now-vacant CEO spot won’t be filled, and instead executives will report directly to Matt Booty, President of Microsoft Game Content and Studios.

Minecrafters, Grab Your Picks…

If you forgot that there was a Minecraft movie on the way, well, here’s your reminder. And now you also know that Jack Black, who has played Bowser in the Super Mario Bros. Movie, will be starring as the main man himself, Minecraft Steve. You may also know Jack Black from a few other films. The movie will be directed by Jared Hess, known for Nacho Libre, and Napoleon Dynamite.

Jason Momoa had reportedly been in negotiations to voice Minecraft Steve last year.

The Minecraft movie has been in development since 2014, while filming began in December 2023. It is scheduled to release in early April, 2025, meaning it will have been in development for 10-ish years. It hasn’t been the smoothest journey for the movie, as a few directors have dropped out, and the initial release date of May 24th, 2019 obviously not working out.

The Mouse Is OUT!

And a horror game has already been created within 24 hours of ‘Steamboat Willie’ entering the public domain. The game, called Infestation 88, has a terrifying depiction of the mouse hunting the player down in a spooky warehouse.

Disney is rather infamous for its heavy-handed approach to protecting its copyright, as the company has been reported to discourage a stonemason from carving Winnie-the-Pooh into a child’s gravestone. In fact, Steamboat Willie was initially set to enter the public domain in 1984, but the company lobbied US copyright laws to extend to “the life of the author plus 50 years”.

Now that the fated day has finally arrived, along with Infestation 88, a horror movie has been announced, as well as NFTs created, dubstep remixes mixed, and just generally making the mouse do things that Disney definitely wouldn’t approve of.

The 2023 Steam Awards

Let’s round up another round of awards! The Steam Awards is pretty straightforward, nominate your favourite games and then vote for them! Games also can’t win more than two categories.

Sit Back and Relax went to Dave the Diver, and the Labour of Love Award was granted to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Better With Friends went to Lethal Company, and Most Innovative Gameplay went to Starfield.

Outstanding Story-Rich Game and Game of the Year goes to Baldur’s Gate 3.

Some News Nibbles

Peanut Butter, a shiba inu, will be participating in Awesome Games Done Quick, a charity speedrunning event. He is probably the first dog to get into speedrunning video games, and he will be beating Gyromite in front of an audience.

The PlayStation 5 has officially passed 50 million units, managing to sell 10 million units in the latter half of 2023.

Square Enix has expressed a desire to apply AI technology ‘more aggressively’ to create ‘new forms of content’ for consumers, with Square Enix president, Takashi Kiryu stating “I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape was we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming”.

And now for some upcoming game releases!

January 11

• War Hospital – PC, PS5, XBX

That’s it for game releases. You have a week to work through your backlog before games start getting released again.

Take-Two Talks Taking More
Last week saw GTA 6 developer Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick have a different take on gaming pricing. While gaming fans hold the game time to price value high, Zelnick wants to take that on board with future titles with a statement to investors saying
“In terms of pricing for any entertainment property, basically the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say the per hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that’s perceived by the customer in ownership, if the title is owned rather than rented or subscribed to.” While this does sound like a dollar per hour measurement, he has clarified the statement this week that this is not a linear relationship, but rather a statement on the value of games. And we can definitely trust the CEO of Take-Two, a company whose biggest earner is GTA Online.

Game Engine Gamemaker Goes Game Dev Friendly
In the wake of Game Publishers Unity and Epic calling for price “restructuring”, Gamemaker, a popular tool for creating 2D and 3D games, has released their new price point and bucked the recent trend. Because of the recent three-fold increase in active users since they joined the Opera family, instead of gouging the user base and changing from a monthly model to a per game install or price per hour played, Gamemaker is celebrating the explosion in users by announcing a new free option for non-commercial use with the ability to export their games to Windows, Mac, and Linux without paying any fees. They’ve also included their asset bundles for use in this free tier. Upgrading is also simple, want to monetise? $99.99USD. Want to put it on consoles? Well, that’s an Enterprise subscription. With games utilising this engine like Undertale, Webbed, Honey, I joined a Cult, and over 290 more listed in Gamemaker’s showcase, we can be sure to see a gamut of Indi games from this engine in the future.

Roblox Sued Over Child Safety
In the pandemic years Roblox saw a massive influx of underage users (over 60% of users are under 16 years of age) due to the social nature and declaration of safety for minors that the platform claims. The community guidelines claim that ““Roblox is a safe space for meeting online friends, chatting, and collaborating on creative projects.” And “If your child is under 13, we make it extremely difficult for strangers on Roblox to contact them.”
However, a group of parents have filed a civil action suit against Roblox for not meeting their end of the deal, with claims of grooming, sexual content, and the inability to monitor their children’s purchases due to Robux obscuring transaction worth.
Roblox Corp provided a statement to PCGAMER disputing the allegations and reinforced that the site was safe “for people of all ages.”

Now for some quick gaming bytes!

• • Xbox is running a Bluey Sweepstakes to celebrate the upcoming release of Bluey the Videogame coming to PC and consoles. The winner will not only receive the game but also receive a custom Bluey Themed Xbox Series S and controller. Wackadoo!

The perfect way to play Bluey The Videogame: with a #Bluey Xbox!

Follow and RT with #BlueyXboxSweepstakes for a chance to win a custom @OfficialBlueyTV Xbox Series X & controller.

Ages 18+. Ends 12/13/23. Rules: https://t.co/o7jQCwIfzY pic.twitter.com/fNgd2iXjHe

— Xbox (@Xbox) November 17, 2023

• This week Half-Life turned 25 and celebrated by a going free for a limited time. Valve also released a special anniversary update for the game which included bug fixes, official Steam Deck support, multiplayer maps, and more.

Now it’s time for this week’s game releases!

Friday November 24, survive the post apocalypse in the side scroller shooter Evil Diary coming to PC and consoles.
Tuesday the 28^th, take a train ride home through civil war in the RTS Last Train Home coming to PC.
On Wednesday the 29^th, get stuck in time loops in puzzle/adventure game Orten Was The Case coming to PC and consoles.
And next week on the 30^th, find yourself one cup at a time in Pixel Cafe coming to PC, Switch, and next gen consoles. Want to play FTL but as a roguelike with friends? Well, This Means Warp has you covered, coming to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.

It’s Done

It’s been in the works for a while, but Microsoft has finalised its deal to acquire Blizzard Activision for a whopping $68.7 billion. It has taken 20 months of duking it out with regulators, restructuring the deal to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK, and defeating the Federal Trade Commission in the US federal court, but now it’s finally done.

“We love gaming. We play games, create games, and know first-hand how much gaming means to all of us as individuals and collectively, as a community. And today, we officially welcome Activision Blizzard and their teams to Xbox,” says Phil Spencer, Xbox chief. “As one team, we’ll learn, innovate, and continue to deliver on our promise to bring the joy and community of gaming to more people.”

And just so you know, Activision or Blizzard games will NOT be coming to Game Pass this year.

300 MILLION SALES

Minecraft has officially become the first video game to hit 300 million sales. To put that in perspective, Minecraft’s biggest rival in sales is Grand Theft Auto V, which has sold over 185 million copies. (Tetris doesn’t count as it’s considered a series). It is suspected that a good portion of these sales might be from people purchasing multiple copies.

Minecraft has been available since 2009 in its pre-release version, before being officially launched in November 2011. And it still has a grip on the gaming community to this day. Congratulations!

Epic Gains Bandcamp, Employees Lose

Epic Games acquired Bandcamp a year ago, a platform that co-founder Ethan Diamond hoped would “bring the power of healing to everyone” through music.

Well, Epic Games sold it to Songtradr, and following it, roughly half its staff laid off. Songtradr, the music licensing company, states “… the operating costs of Bandcamp have significantly increased. It required some adjustments to ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans.”

50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr, with the remaining 120 employees being laid off with 6 months severance, while negotiations with Bandcamp’s union continue.

Pokemon Van Gogh Cards Gone

The Pokemon and Van Gogh collaboration event, which involved giving a special promo card, Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat, to customers who bought any item at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, has been ruined by scalpers, because scalpers ruin everything.

Now collectors will have to spend a minimum of $30 on Pokemon Trading Card Game products to receive one of the cards. So, stop looking at that online listing that’s going for $500.

And now for some upcoming games!

October 20

• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – PS5
• Super Mario Bros Wonder – Switch

October 23

• Just Dance 2024 Edition – PS5, XSX, Switch
• Three Minutes To Eight – PC

October 24

• Cities Skylines 2 – PC, PS5, XSX
• Dark Envoy – PC
• The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria – PC, PS5
• Metal Gear Solid Master Collection: Volume 1 – PC, PS5, XSX, Switch

Game Engine Dev News
After the backlash against Unity’s contentious plan to charge developers extra fees for each game installation as of last month, Unity is parting ways with CEO John Riccitiello. Riccitiello has stepped down as CEO, and all major seats at the Unity Table, effective immediately. Unity’s announcement of his near decade-long tenure ending rave about his contributions rather than his recent price gouging – sorry, I meant subscription model.
While the change in pricing structure from Unity was almost universally panned, it hasn’t stopped Epic from taking the idea on board with the announcement of a per-seat licensing fee for licensees in Film, TV, Automotive and other fields… but excluding the gaming industry. This would primarily affect studios using the technology for real-time CGI like Disney (The Mandalorian), Warner (The Batman), and HBO (Westworld), as well as small companies who primarily use the system for 3D animation (3^rd World Studios). This price restructuring also comes after a recent layoff of nearly 900 employees. CEO Tim Sweeney has attributed these changes to recent financial difficulties at Epic Games, primarily due to the company’s heavy reliance on Fortnite’s revenue over the last 6 years.

CD Projekt Makes Headlines
CD Projekt have announced the cost of bringing Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 to all platforms as well as the recently well received DLC Phantom Liberty totalled around $125.9 million dollars. That’s almost $200 million in Aussie dollar bucks.
In totally unrelated news also at CD Projekt, CD Projekt employees, along with others in the Polish video game industry, have formed a union in response to multiple rounds of layoffs at the studio in the last year (totalling around 170 lost jobs). The union’s goal is to improve workplace and industry standards with legal power and a stronger collective voice. The union aims to address these issues and protect the gaming industry’s potential by providing a stronger voice in times of crisis.
Hopefully this gives them the job security they need, unlike the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf QA unionised workers we reported on in June of 22 who have all been laid off in September. Bioware’s head of marketing, Liz Corless, said in an email this was due to “…the end of a fixed term client contract.” And according to a former employee Keywords Studio (their employer) has “…no more work available” while posting job vacancies for QA work. The union has filed a complaint against the studio this week.

Nintendo Formally Steps Away From The WiiU & 3DS.
Nintendo announced this week that they will formally be discontinuing the online support for the Wii U and 3DS in April of 2024. This will include all online play, ranking systems, and data distribution for all Nintendo titles. However, this does not include eShop support! You will still be able to update and redownload purchased software. And for you Pokéfans, the Pokémon bank and Poké Transporter will also continue to be supported until further notice.

And now for some upcoming games!
Friday October 13, get ready for Christmas with The Grinch: Christmas Adventures and Transformers: Earthspark – Expedition both coming to PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.
Monday October 16, cozy hex strategy game Growth comes to PC.
Tuesday October 17, cyberpunk RPG Cyber Knights: Flashpoint comes to PC, or enjoy the roguelike autobattler Legend Creatures 2. Both coming to PC.
Oh and Sonic Superstars is also coming to everything the 17^th as well.
Wednesday October 18 brings us Alaskan Road Truckers coming to PC.
And next week on Thursday October 19 comes a heap with The 7th Guest VR for PC VR, Quest and PSVR2. Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Express from developer Microids coming to PC and Consoles. Or how about you get your vehicle combat experience with Chaos on Wheels coming to PC. Pick up the twin stick shooter and tower defence game Endless Dungeon, coming to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Maybe battle for your sanity in the Lovecraftian horror Forgive Me Father 2 coming to PC. Or for a social experience, grab a friend to rob the rich to give to the poor in the co-op action game based in a Robin Hood world Gangs of Sherwood coming to PC and next gen consoles. Or shoot at your friends in the large scale, top down, multiplayer shooter Operation Valor coming to PC. Or just play a few games with them with The Jackbox Party Pack 10 coming to most platforms.

Call of Duty Uses AI To Find Toxicity

Call of Duty is no stranger to less-than-pleasant behaviour from players, like many massively popular games with an online component. What is Activision doing now to combat it? Activision is now teaming up with Modulate, an AI program developed specifically to filter through voice chat in order to flag, and deal with, problematic behaviour.

It’s still in its early stages, with ToxMod, the tool being used, entering beta testing on North American servers. The tool is already used in a number of online games, but Call of Duty would certainly be a large task.

The program isn’t capable of banning players, but instead will monitor voice chat in real time, flag problematic behaviour depending on context, and then provide this information to moderators to take action. In theory, you can still cuss out your friends when they’re taking their sweet time getting to you, so players shouldn’t be worried about being boisterous.

Goodbye Volition

The game developer company, Deep Silver Volition, developer of titles like Saints Row, and Red Faction, has closed its doors after 30 years of development. It hasn’t been a smooth journey for the company, with Volition’s Saints Row reboot facing negative criticism upon reveal. After a transfer from Embracer, and a multi-billion dollar deal collapsing, Volition has been shut down while Embracer goes through some pretty significant restructuring.

IPs including Saints Row and Red Faction will be transferred to another subsidiary, Plaion.

“For 30 years now you have played our games – sometimes you’ve loved them, sometimes you’ve been disappointed with them, but you’ve always been there… We can’t thank you enough for sticking with us throughout this time.” Volition says in a letter to its community.

STRAY MOVIE

Did you like that cat game that came out last year? The one where you’re a little kitty cat in a futuristic city populated by robots? Well, it’ll be hitting the big screen! Annapurna Animation, who developed the film Nimona, will be developing an animated film based off of the game.

“It’s a buddy comedy about a cat and a robot, and there’s such a hilarious dynamic. So, there’s comedy inherent in this, but there’s not one human being in this movie. I think it’s one of the reasons why the game was incredibly popular,” says Robert Baird, Annapurna Animation boss.

Annual Diablo Expansions

Blizzard will be releasing multiple expansions for Diablo IV on an annual basis, with each year being broken up into quarterly seasons, with long-term storylines promised.

This roadmap isn’t unusual for developers, to space out new content on a regular basis. The 11 year long gap between Diablo III and Diablo IV has also been cited as a reason, and it’s hoped that this approach will help rectify that.

Season 2, Season of Blood, has been announced as part of GamesCon opening night.

Arcane Season Two!

Season two of Arcane, the Netflix animated series based off of Riot Games’ League of Legends game, will be premiering in winter 2024 (or summer for us Aussies). Woohoo!

And now for some upcoming games!

September 7

• The Dragoness: Command of the Flame – Switch
• Toss! – PC VR, Quest, PSVR 2

September 8

• Fae Farm – PC, Switch
• NBA 2K24 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 12

• Eternights – PC, PS5, PS4
• The Isle Tide Hotel – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 13

• Heretic’s Fork – PC
• Super Bomberman R 2 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 14

• Ad Infinitum – PC, PS5, XSX
• AK-xolotl – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
• The Crew Motorfest – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
• Heavy Duty Challenge – PC, PS5, XSX
• Sugar Shack – PC

That’s it this week in gaming news!

Who Wants Activision’s Transformers on Game Pass?

Does anyone remember those Transformers games for the Xbox 360 developed by Activision? The ones you can no longer buy digitally? Well, Hasbro has expressed an interest in bringing it up for the Game Pass. The problem? Hasbro initially claimed that it was because, “apparently Activision’s not sure what hard drives they’re on in their building. When a company eats a company that eats a company, things get lost…”

They did also follow-up with an apology for saying that Activision lost its Transformers games, stating that the comments were “made in error”.

Hasbro do really want Transformers on the Game Pass however, “Hope is that now that the deal is moving forward with Microsoft and Xbox they’ll go through all of the archives and every hard drive to find it all because it’s an easy Game Pass add.”

So, who knows?

The Last Of Us Knockoff Is Dead

A budget Switch game called The Last Hope: Dead Zone Survival, bore a striking resemblance to Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, down to the gruff-dad character with an Ellie-like companion. And as you can imagine, it did not last long, with the game being pulled from the Nintendo eShop, and the game’s trailers disappearing from YouTube.

The game’s trailers were less than awe-inspiring, and for those who decided to give The Last Hope a try found their hopes dashed when the entire game is around 20 minutes long and horribly buggy.

While the trailers being pulled can be clearly attributed to Sony submitting copyright claims, The Last Hope’s disappearance from the eShop might be due to caution from the developers, Sony themselves, or Nintendo covering their six o’clock.

Mutant Turtles Invade Minecraft

No no don’t worry, the sea turtles in Minecraft are fine. But our favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be crossing over with Minecraft, which includes a special DLC texture pack featuring Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, special maps for exploring the turtle’s favourite haunts, and you’ll even be able to battle enemies such as Shredder and Krang.

This is of course on top of the pizza-scented Xbox controllers we mentioned the other week. All leading to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film coming out in a few weeks. Hype!

Zoom Zoom Guardians

If you’re participating in this year’s Solstice in Destiny 2, you will be thrilled to learn that you can now use Sparrows in the European Aerial Zone, so you can get to the bad guys really, really quickly, and beat them up quicker than it took me to finish this story. Happy Solstice!

And now for some upcoming games!

August 3rd

• Adore (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Flutter Away (PC)
• Tiny Thor (Switch)

August 4th

• Death Becomes You (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

August 8th

• Gord (PC, PS5, XSX)
• Tower of Fantasy (PS5, PS4)
• WrestleQuest (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

August 9th

• Legend Bowl (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

August 10th

• Atlas Fallen (PC, PS5, XSX)
• Stray (XSX, XBO)
• Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

That’s it this week in gaming news!

It’s a new week, so lets go #Glorbo
This week Zahra, Hazel and Caroline go (hedge) hog with gaming news, a recap over the who, what, where, when, and that of this years Queensland Games Festival, and then the team talks of the sadness that the lackluster new series of Sonic Prime brought them.

Government backs Aussie gaming.
Screen Australia has announced the backing of Aussie games to the tune of $3 million AUD through it’s “Games: Expansion Pack” fund and “First Nations Games Studio” fund. The First Nations Games Studio fund awarded AU$600,000 to two studios, Guck, & Awesome Black, both working on projects related to First Nations storytelling and talent development. Additionally, the Games: Expansion Pack fund provided AU$2.4 million in funding to 21 different studios across the country. The funded games cover a wide range of genres and platforms and aim to accelerate skills and creativity within the Australian games industry. Additionally, the Federal Government has introduced the Digital Games Tax Offset, providing a 30% refundable tax offset for projects with budgets over $500,000. Click the following for a list of all the projects funded and their synopses.

Smell Like a Gamer
In recent news, Xbox is going a bit crazy with the themed sweepstakes with both a Barbie movie tie in with a Barbie Dream House Custom Console, and Barbie and Ken controller face plates. But they pulled out all the stops for the game release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. This release not only has a sweepstake for four controllers designed after each of the turtles themselves, but the can also “…come with a built-in scent diffuser shaped like a slice of delicious New York ‘za.” Smell-O-Vision at it’s finest. If you’re interested in the TMNT Mutant Mayhem Controller this giveaway will be running till August 13 this year, where you will need to retweet the Xbox Game Pass sweepstakes tweet or whatever they will end up being called with the X rebrand.

the pizza party never stops with these guys🍕

follow @XboxGamePass & RT this post with #XboxTMNTMoviesweepstakes for a chance to win these TMNT-inspired controllers!

be sure to see @TMNTMovie in theatres 8/2/23 in the US!

ages 18+. ends 08/13/23. rules: https://t.co/C2Pjfi7yru pic.twitter.com/h6P3sjcvu7

— Xbox Game Pass (@XboxGamePass) July 24, 2023

AI in the News Goes Glorbo
This week the World of Warcraft Reddit community tricked an online publishing AI by feeding it false data about a made-up character, Glorbo, it’s mandatory item Klikclac, and their nemesis Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks, resulting in the generation of fake content presented as actual news under the pseudonym Lucy Reed. This account is credited to writing near 80 articles a day with potentially little to no oversight. This incident raises questions about the validity of AI automated publishing and the potential impact on the increased value of human generated, or at least human moderated, content.

Now in Activision Blizzard News
Sigh… Look I’m just as sick as you that these guys keep being in the news. TL;DR is basically, they screwed up the Diablo 4 season release and people are complaining that company’s being cheap, of unfair nerfing, that the menu design is tricking people into buying the season pass, of new items causing nausea, and that some player’s characters butts are out in the open. Also, that the FTC has backed out of the whole merger with Microsoft blockage, and Overwatch 2 is coming to Steam. To read more about these stories, check out the links in the news post on our Facebook page @ZEDgamesau.

And now for a couple of quick bytes:

• Mods have given your favourite NPCs in Stardew Valley AI Brains, yep, think about that like Jordan Gerblick of GamesRadar;

“…when you know those video game characters had to have their existing inner-workings hollowed out and replaced with the increasingly ominous power of AI, I can only imagine those interactions feeling incredibly creepy – as if it’s not really them anymore.”

(Image credit: Eric Barone)

The mod is Talk to Inworld’s AI Villagers and is now available on NexusMods.

• And the US Entertainment Software Rating Board wants to scan you and child’s face to validate age with digital purchases. The proposal to the FTC would have you upload a photo into a system controlled by Yoti – an Epic Games subsidiary, with collaboration with company SuperAwesome, which would be analysed and then deleted. They go on to claim the system poses no substantial risk to parents’ privacy.

And now for some of the upcoming game releases.
On Friday July 28, Disney Illusion Island is coming to Switch. Monday 31^st, F1 Manager 2023 is coming to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Wednesday August 2^nd, Ninja or Die: Shadow of the Sun is coming to PC. And lastly on Thursday August 3^rd, explore nature, relax, and take photos in Flutter Away coming to PC.