Leonard Nimoy, Rest in Peace

Yesterday, we lost an acting legend. Leonard Nimoy, best known for playing the role of the original Spock, has passed away on the 27th of February, 2015.

His career started in 1951 with Queen for a Day and Rhubarb, ending in 2013 with Star Trek: Into Darkness; taking the role of Spock Prime.

Leonard did a lot of work, after his role as Spock ended, he went to do more acting jobs and most prominently, a director. After his character's death in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, he went on to direct the third Star Trek movie. Followed by the second most successful Star Trek film (critically and financially) after the 2009 Star Trek film; Star Trek: The Voyage Home. Other films that he directed included Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987. Collectively these directing successes lead him to not only become a star actor, but also a star director. Overall he directed 6 films and appeared on numerous TV shows and additional movies.

Come the new Star Trek, a new actor had appeared to play the role of Spock; Zachary Quinto. Soon after, Leonard decided to officially retire the character of Spock so that Zachary could fully bathe in the glory that is Spock.

Leonard maintained an active Twitter account. With his final tweet reading:

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP (Live Long and Prosper".

- Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimey, Twitter)

Farewell Leonard, the world is a worse place without you. May you rest in peace.

Leonard Nimoy, 1931 - 2015.

Victory for Net Neutrality

Net neutrality has been a popular topic as of late. It will dictate whether the internet will be restricted or free as we currently know it. As it currently stands the internet is a limitless bank of information and entertainment. It is unhindered by greedy companies thus far and everyone who uses the internet frequently seeks for it to stay so. 

Yesterday was a special day for the internet and most importantly of all Net Neutrality. On February 26th, 2015, the FCC voted 3 to 2 in favor of making the internet classified as a utility. What does this mean? This means that the internet is recognized just like electricity and water. In effect this blocks ISPs from giving  preferential treatment to companies that pay an additional fee. This preferential treatment is usually known as "Internet Fast-Laning" in which a company would pay the ISP to make their website load faster. However, as of today's ruling; this is now illegal. 

Commissioner Chairman Tom Wheeler originally proposed regulations that allowed for such fast lanes. But, after a huge outcry from citizens and companies like Netflix, the rules were revised to fall more in-line with pure net neutrality. Of the decision today, he said:

"The action that we take today is an irrefutable reflection of the principle that no one, whether government or corporate, should control free and open access to the internet."

- Tom Wheeler, FCC

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed stating:

"We cannot have gatekeepers who tell us what we can and cannot do and where we can and cannot go online. And we do not need blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization schemes that undermine the internet as we know it."

- Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC

One of the best aspects of yesterday is the inclusion of mobile networks for the first time. This means no more throttling by telecommunication corporations such as AT&T for watching lots of videos on your phone.

What you can expect however, is that some ISPs will attempt to hack apart the commissions ruling to pieces in court. For now, this is a solid victory for Net Neutrality.

NVIDIA Lawsuit Controversy

With the release of NVIDIA's GTX 970, a lawsuit has followed regarding the 4GB version of the GTX 970.

The GTX 970 comes with 4GB of VRAM, however, the performance of the 970 becomes drastically reduced once more than 3.5GB of VRAM is used. This is because the memory is segmented; the upper 512MB of the additional 1GB is segmented and has reduced bandwidth, which results in a performance drop.

This has lead to NVIDIA receiving a class action lawsuit after users discovered this problem; claiming that the card was falsely advertised due to the VRAM problems. Users are seeking refunds and a judge will decide whether or not the lawsuit will continue. What kind of excuse will the business give I wonder? NVIDIA gave an official statement in response to the lawsuit:

"GTX 970 is a 4GB card. However, the upper 512MB of the additional 1GB is segmented and has reduced bandwidth. This is a good design because we were able to add an additional 1GB for GTX 970 and our software engineers can keep less frequently used data in the 512MB segment. Unfortunately, we failed to communicate this internally to our marketing team, and externally to reviewers at launch."

- Jen-Hsun, NVIDIA

I am an NVIDIA fan-boy myself, I think they make great hardware products and have delivered solid performance and driver support for the last decade. And the performance of their GTX 980M (Which is what I have) is stellar and nothing below impressive. However, this event has shaken my faith a bit in NVIDIA, and I simply cannot buy the excuse that they failed to communicate such an important piece of information. It would make far more sense from a marketing stand-point that they would not mention it, as who would want to buy a top-of-line graphics card with "fake RAM"?

It's just a shame that they tried to sweep a crap part of their product under the mat and hope that no one notices. Personally I hope that NVIDIA learns their lesson from this and tries to be honest with their loyal customers from here on.

Grand Theft Auto 5 Has Been Delayed Yet Again

The PC port for Grand Theft Auto 5 has been delayed, yet again. Today on the official Grand Theft Auto Facebook page, 25th of February 2015, the PC port of the game was announced as being released on April 14th, yet another delay. These series of delays have become infamous within the gaming community as thousands eagerly await the PC release of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5.

Why is it that the PC port of Grand Theft Auto is so hyped? Because it promises to bring vastly improved graphics, new game-play features such as Heist and best of all; allows mods to be made for the game.

I've already covered in an earlier blog post as to why I think mods are a great thing for any game to have, they just add so much content and increase the game's popularity so much. Both the developer and users benefit hugely. The users are able to make the game however they want it and add limitless replay-ability.

The reason for the delay, is quite boring. Here it is:

"A bit more time is needed to ensure that the game is as polished as possible."

- Rockstar Games

Very vague reason as to why it is needed to be delayed. However, players who have pre-ordered the game will receive an extra $200,000 in-game cash bonus to be used in GTA Online which I guess is a decent incentive not to cancel your pre-order. This is so far the 3rd delay for GTA 5, you would think that the delays would be related to finding lots of in-game bugs. However, that means each time they have gotten close to releasing, they have found more bugs and as a result have delayed again. It is not like Rockstar to announce a release date and not achieve it; let alone delay the game for the 3rd time in a row.

Could possibly be business related issues, as there is currently a port strike in LA/West which could be causing issues. We'll never know the real reason as to why they keep delaying the release date.

However, they have finally announced the Heist DLC with a scheduled release date of March 10th. Note the word "scheduled" as they could change it at any time. At the very least, we do know that when GTA 5 hits the shelves for PC, it will be as a game should be; perfectly polished.

Darkest Dungeon Scam on Windows Store

Darkest Dungeon, a game developed by Red Hook Studios is a rogue-like dungeon crawler currently being sold on Steam, the Humble Store and recently the Windows Store. However, the game is not meant to be sold on the Windows Store.

The game is listed on Steam and Humble for $19.99 by developer Red Hook Studios whereas on the Windows Stores it has been listed for $3.99 by Balaji Chowdary, who is a somewhat notorious seller of video-game software that he does not own.

If you have purchased Darkest Dungeon from the Windows Store, then you've technically just acquired pirated software; as the game listed is a pirated version. But it's not your fault; it's Microsoft's fault for not policing their own store to an acceptable standard. However, your copies of Darkest Dungeon are likely to be revoked once this issue has been resolved.

Tyler Sigman, co-president of Red Hook Studios took the Twitter in response to the fraud and tweeted:

"If anyone has a contact at Windows Game Store, please share. Somebody is scamming DD by selling it (illegally) on there."

- Red Hook Tyler (@tylersigman - Twitter)

As well as:

"On a related note, if you didn't buy Darkest Dungeon on Steam or Humble store right now, you got scammed."

- Red Hook Tyler (@tylersigman - Twitter)

It seems a resolution has been achieved as Tyler told Polygon:

"We have had several kind Microsoft employees from various departments reach out and offer to shepherd/escalate the issue to the store team. It's been really great of them to do so. The issue is not resolved yet, but we expect it will be soon."

- Tyler Sigman, Red Hook Studios

There is no confirmation that users who bought the game from the Windows Store will have their keys revoked for sure, but it will most likely happen.

Check the game out on Steam or the Humble Store and support the developers by buying through any of these two retailers. Darkest Dungeon used Kickstarter to fund development for their game. After just two days they had reached their goal of $75,000 and released the game on Feb 3rd, 2015. Graphically unique and appealing, I'd recommend checking this Aliens and Band of Brothers inspired game out.

The Square Enix Collection - How It Works

Square Enix has asked developers to pitch ideas based on the Fear Effect, Anachronox and Gex properties.

News comes from The Square Enix Collection; a platform started in 2013 to help developers find an audience for their current projects. As of today, developers can not only pitch original works but also neglected Square properties. Quoted from Phill Elliott, Collective Project Lead:

"I'm excited to see what talented teams might do with any one of Fear Effect, Gex or Anachronox IPs. We'll monitor the response carefully before deciding which IPs to release next. And it goes without saying that we're delighted for the whole Goetia team, as they become the latest member of the Collective family alongside Moon Hunters and Black the Fall in hitting their funding targets." 

- Phill Elliot, Collective Project Lead

The Goetia that Elliot is speaking about is the recently funded point & click game from the french developers Sushee. Goetia took to the famed Kickstarter with the intention of raising $30,000 to fund development.

To explain how the pitching process works, the Collective says that Square Enix will need to pre-approve anything published to Square's feedback platform internally. That said, if something isn't approved, the developer will be notified and an explanation will be given; so that changes can be made. The reason for the internal vetting comes down to "making sure ideas are relevant to the franchise.", thus ensuring brand quality and relevancy.

The Collective is not looking for sequels to their existing IPs; they want to see what ideas developers can come up with that are relevant to the properties.

Once it has been approved, the idea will then go public to the Square Enix community where users vote and offer feedback on the idea. After 28 days, voting closes and The Collective then makes a decision regarding whether to move forward with the project or cancel it.

"If the response is good, then it's into crowd-funding, which no doubt begs an important question; why ask gamers to pay for a game to be made if it's using our IP? Well, because it will still be the responsibility of the independent developer to build the game - and the developer will still be the key beneficiary of it's success."

- The Collective

It may not come as a surprise that Square will take a decent cut of varying things. First of all, Square will take five percent (5%) provided that the crowd-funding goal has been met. Square also possesses the rights to distribute said project. Square takes a fee of ten percent (10%) of the net sales revenue, and if you've used a Square IP, the company will also charge another 10 percent (10%) license fee. To put it in short and make it easy to read, if a developer created and released a new Anachronox game, for example, they'd receive eighty percent (80%) of the net revenue.

So basically, Square will publish the game and help find an audience to build the game too; whilst a developer gets the funding from crowd-funding and develops the game. In return, Square takes a cut for it's services. However they own the games that are developed like this.

New Rock Band Game Potentially in the Works

A new Rock Band game could be on its way, evidence coming from apparently poorly kept secrets that can be considered as evidence of a new game.

A quote from Bloomberg News:

"Rock Band, the video-game series where players jam along to recorded music, is developing a new title, the first since 2012, according to a person familiar with the plan." - Bloomberg News

Other evidence includes many tweets, one from Gunnar CEO Dave Oshry reads:

"Nick Chester just told me not to throw out all my old Rock Band peripherals OH SNAP." - Dave Oshry (@DaveOshry - Twitter)

Nick Chester is a publicist from Harmonix and the official Rock Band twitter account responded to Dave Oshry with:

"DAMN IT NICK" - Rock Band (@RockBand - Twitter)

On top of this, Harmonix posted a survey asking fans what they would like to see in a current-gen sequel back in January, just after they made new tracks available to players for the first time in over two years. Polygon reached out to developer Harmonix for an official response of which Harmonix replied with:

"While we don't have anything to announce, hundreds of thousands of unique users are still actively playing Rock Band games each month. This passion our fans have shown for Rock Band over the years suggests that rock truly hasn't died and we have always been clear that we'd love to return to the franchise when the time is right." - Harmonix

Only time will tell - will old Rock Band players be dusting off their clunky drum sets soon?

eSports League Wants to Inspect Homes to Catch Cheaters

Professional Counter-Strike has a serious cheating problem. Pro players are being banned all over the world due to cheating, as well as teams that are involved in match fixing which is considered a form of cheating by most people. Match fixing is a way in which the outcome of the game is already decided by the teams in order to obtain large sums of money through the bets that are placed.

People are getting VAC-banned on a weekly basis. Steam is mostly remaining silent on their tactics in terms of figuring out who is cheating (which is great so that cheaters cannot find a loop-hole).

One professional league in eSports, widely known as FACEIT, has a very unique rule in the rule-book (of which only contenders receive) that states the following:

"All players may be subject to visits from FACEIT admins to inspect their computers for cheats and/or observe them playing an official match. Inspections may happen at random and may not necessarily suggest a suspicion of cheating. To be clear, what we're saying is that we may turn up at your house. Yes, we're serious."

Professional athletes are also subject to similar rules; they must provide their whereabouts to testing organizations so that they can be found at any time for testing in-case they are using drugs to improve their performance. If you consider eSports a sport, and the players as Athletes then it is not really a ludicrous rule to add.

Cheating is pathetic and I cannot understand why people would do it. Some people say that they cannot stop playing a game, so they cheat, so they get banned and thus cannot play the game. Others are simply bored and want to see how long they can go cheating without being banned and finally some do it because they like to see people whine at how low their morals are; to cheat in something where sportsmanship is key to enjoyment.

I don't think cheaters should be given any quarter, they ruin the enjoyment of other people's game time; whilst solely the cheater benefits. What enjoyment is there in winning without an ounce of effort? Some of the most accomplished sportsman seek a challenge to improve themselves in their area of expertise.

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round - Day One Woes

With the release of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round on PS4 and Xbox One, woes have arisen in regards to a game-breaking bug present on the Xbox One version. The bug causes the game to freeze, meaning that Xbox One players are unable to fully play the game as the freezes are so often. It is not known what has caused the game-breaking bug but a patch is on it's way to the Xbox One version of game in order to fix the game. Users have reported that a fix is to disable throw-downs, as this somehow prevents the game from freezing.

It is somewhat astonishing that a bug so game-breaking managed to slip past QA. QA, short for quality assurance is a means to rigorously test game software for bugs, glitches and anything that is not intended to be in the game. Occasional bugs do slip into newly released games. However, game-breaking bugs such consistent freezes are usually obvious and such are fixed ASAP in development. It is an absolute wonder how such a bug could make it into the final release.

These things do happen though, its great to see that the developer is on the case for a patch to fix the issue.

The Stomping Land - Work has stopped according to lead artist

A well looked forward to multiplayer dinosaur game, has suddenly had it's development stopped according to lead artist Vlad. The Stomping Land is a multiplayer video game that is currently in early access on Steam. The game can be summed up as "DayZ with Dinosaurs" as it has similar gameplay and survival needs; with the main change being that huge dinosaurs roam the land in lush jungle environments.

Developer Supercrit of which is being headed by Alex Fundora, has gone silent with no game updates for an entire month. Users took to the forum only to see a thread written by the least artist; Vlad. The post reads as follows:

"Hello everybody!

I'm sad to say this but I have to temporarily freeze all my work for TLS project. More than a month has passed since the day when I received the last reply from Jig. I've sent him 5 messages and haven't got any single reply. I don't know, probably he has some serious reasons to ignore me (and whole community) but to my mind there are no excuses for such behavior. Not to mention the fact that Jig owes me the money for the latest model, he's put me in a very difficult situation because now I will have to pay our texture artist for his work from my own pocket.

If this silence continues I will stop my participation in TSL and start taking the necessary measures to cover my expenses (sell the models for example)."

- Lead Artist "Vlad" - http://thestompingland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7156

After having raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter, the development of The Stomping Land has seemingly stopped; leaving donors with an unfinished game. It's a real shame as this game looked to be a very promising game with a very unique feature it. An open world dinosaur game has long been requested by gamers; backed by some great developers such as "Vlad". It's a real shame that Vlad will have to pay out from his own pocket to their texture artist, as work cannot go unpaid. 

The decision by Vlad came as a result of having heard no word whatsoever from Alex, and as such the need to cover his own expenses has arisen. Vlad has already announced that he will be moving onto other projects, and that the development of The Stomping Land has ceased. 

It can only be assumed that the crowd-funded money has been pocketed by Fundora, and as a result donors are furious. One person who donated $90 has informed Kickstarter of the issue. However Kickstarter could only issue an apology in return. It is unknown if Kickstarter will or can take any action.

Real shame that Kickstarter is being abused like this; the only thing this does is harm the game development community. Many indie companies would like to depend on Kickstarter to kick-start the development of their game, so they can break into the industry and eventually self-sustain themselves. Now that events like these are becoming ever so common, the support of kind donors will only go down

"This game has kinda ruined backing projects/early access games on Steam for me." one Steam user said, I don't blame you buddy.

Fallout Developer Forces CaptainSparklez's Game to Name Change

Parent company of Bethesda, Zenimax sent a cease and desist letter to YouTuber CaptainSparklez who is also an indie game developer. The main part of the E-Mail reads as follows:

"We ask that XREAL immediately expressly abandon the application for FORTRESS FALLOUT and cease any and all current or proposed uses of any mark incorporating the term FALLOUT."

In response, Jordan Maron (CaptainSparklez) said:

"Our lawyers said that Bethesda is a notoriously litigious company. Obviously they have lots of money and resources at their disposal which we don't really have at the moment. So essentially we are being strong-armed into having to change our name."

Bethesda have gone after other developers in regards to game names. Developer Mojang had developed a game known as Scrolls, of which Bethesda pursued and attempted to force a name change. Bethesda believed that Mojang's Scrolls would be confused with Bethesda's The Elderscrolls.

However this ended amicably and allowed Mojang to use the name Scrolls but would not use the word "Scrolls" in future sequels.

Interestingly Bethesda and Mojang have worked together on the console versions of Minecraft to create a Minecraft - Skyrim mash-up; adding new sounds, textures and skins etc.

Sadly this forced name change is becoming increasingly common in the industry. Mobile game developer King.com and their trademark issue over words such as "Saga" and "Candy". They even went after indie developer Stoic over their Viking-themed tactical RPG The Banner Saga claiming that it would be confused with Candy Crush Saga. They have also gone after other games that have candy icons in them.

The Pound Per Hour Scheme

The question of whether X price is worth the content of Y game is constantly brought up. Is the game's price worth the content you are getting from a game?

In recent game releases to spark this debate, Evolve has hit the shelves. Evolve is a multiplayer game featuring a unique four VS one (4 v 1) system of which the 4 players are hunters and the lone player is a monster. 

The game has been priced at £34.99 or your regional equivalent and with it comes the following:

- 4 Classes; Assault, Trapper, Support, Medic

   -  12 hunters, 3 per class. With each hunter doing the same job but with different methods.                      (eventually to be 16, 4 per class)

- 4 Monsters; Goliath, Kraken, Wraith and the unreleased Behemoth (Eventually will be 5 monsters)

- 4 Game modes; Nest, Defend, Hunt, Rescue which can be all experienced in a pseudo-campaign             known as evacuation of which after each round, different effects apply to the next round to mix           the game up a bit.

- Eventually 12 maps (all free)

A lot of people are complaining about the price to content ratio regarding Evolve, saying that with the current content available the price tag of £34.99 is not justified. Many can understand this, both sides of the argument. My opinion is that the value of an entertainment product is subjective to each individual and to apply a logical "yes or no" to illogically created products, is illogical in itself and there is no real definition of what is worth it and what is not; everyone to their own.

To settle this for myself, I use a scheme that I created for myself. I call it the Pound per Hour Scheme. When I buy a game, I expect to get 1 hour of gameplay for every £ (pound) I have paid to acquire the game. Let's take an example; I paid £29.99 for The Elderscrolls: Skyrim and I have played it for 1,500 hours. By far I got my money's worth from Skyrim. Let's take another example; the recently released Dying Light by Techland. I paid £39.99 and an extra £15.99 for the season pass, totaling to £55.98. I have played Dying light for 90 hours thus far, and intend to play it more; I have already gotten my money's worth from this game. I have Evolve, and thus far I have played it for 15 hours, I have not gotten my money's worth yet but I intend to play it a lot more and see no problems in getting my money's worth from this game yet. It is a very unique game and I do not intend to put the game down just yet, especially as I am playing with friends which greatly increases the enjoyment I get from the game.

I hope that by explaining how I value a game with my scheme, others can learn from this and come to value a game for themselves using either my system or their own way of valuing. I just thought I would make this blog post as a couple of friends said they really liked the Pound per Hour scheme I told them I was using, in order to value a game.

But above all, value a game for yourselves and form your own opinion; variety is the spice of life. The more opinions, the more spice so to speak.

Steam - The Early Access Scheme

"Discover, play, and get involved with games as they evolve." - Steam Early Access Page

Steam Early Access is a way for the developers to interact directly with the community. The game that is being sold is usually always unfinished, and is actively play tested by gamers, who then submit feedback for the developer to update their game with popular suggestions. It's a great way for the developers to create hype for their game and ensure that they are making a product that people will like.

To play an early access game, players must buy into it, as a means to fund the game's continued development. Steam always warns that early access may be unfinished, buggy or have serious issues.

These early access games as a result will evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content to their game. Developers like the idea of games and game development as services that grow with the involvement of customers as well as the community. There have been quite a few titles that have greatly benefited from Steam's Early Access Scheme. Steam would like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve the customers and develop a game that has been created with a larger than average input from the community, to truly create a game that they can love.

A lot of people think that this is the way games should be made, as it allows a game to be handcrafted to the community's wants and needs. It truly creates a game that can be thoroughly enjoyed and worth the accompanying price tag.

However Steam Early Access has been abused, in cases such as Earth: Year 2066 when the game had been accused by the community that the product page was misleading and that there were nearly no regular updates to the game. The game was labeled "broken" and unfit for sale, and as such Steam removed the game from Early Access and issued refunds to disgruntled customers.

Hammerpoint Interactive's The War Z was also removed from sale on Steam after the developer was accused of lying on the game's Steam page. War Z also had it's named changed due to a trade mark issue in relation to Brad Pritt's film World War Z after it was brought back as a fully finished product onto Steam.

As a result Valve/Steam has come under fire by consumers due to developers abusing the Early Access Scheme. Games such as Rust, DayZ and Starbound have used Early Access as it should, and as a result have greatly benefited from the scheme. But Early Access is not without it controversies as well.

I personally find it despicable that developers are abusing the system that is giving them a helping hand. These are professionals, yet they are trying to cheat their customers. Customers can be a bit dull sometimes but there is a line where they realise that they are being played for fools. In the end, it only tarnishes and destroys any reputation the developer may have had, and tarnish some of the developer's potential careers in the industry once they have been known to cheat "the hand that feeds them" so to speak. Steam/Valve has made stricter rules in regards to Early Access, but still strongly advises that customers only buy into an early access game should they be satisfied with the current content and game-play quality.

Fraudulent Farcry 4 Keys from Origin have been revoked

Ubisoft have recently revoked a number of FarCry 4 keys that had been illegally obtained through various grey market stores such as G2A and Kinguin. EA has also confirmed that Ubisoft has recently revoked keys for FarCry 4 that were fraudulently obtained from Origin. Other keys, for the other games, that were also illegally obtained were games such as he newly released Assassin's Creed Unity, Watch Dogs and The Crew. Kinguin has estimated that 148,377 Euros will be refunded, they also claimed that an unidentified Russian purchased the keys.

In response to a sudden disappearance of games from user library's; over 4600 tickets have been submitted in a mere 72 hours by the people who have mysteriously lost their games.

Similarly, this has happened to developer Rebellion games in relation to their Sniper Elite game franchise. In the year 2013 of July, Rebellion had claimed that there were fraudulent keys and had taken similar action to Ubisoft and EA.

G2A and Kinguin are not authorized Steam resellers, they acquire their keys from various places. Such as from cheaper regions, of which they resell in more expensive markets for a profit. The reason why the games are cheaper is because the average income is a lot lower than say in the UK, as a result of gamers not being able to afford games, the piracy rate is a lot higher than anywhere else because people will not simply stop playing games because they cannot afford them; they will instead pirate them. Which is why as a response from developers to combat piracy in these regions, is to lower the prices so that buyers can afford them and therefore reducing the piracy of their game.

Unfortunately, as a direct result we have richer people who are buying keys in bulk that are intended for poorer countries and then selling them on again in the expensive markets for a huge profit in comparison to what they paid.

To combat this they could region lock but no one would want that, as it means for example, if one were to emigrate from the UK to the US, you may loose all of your games. Some people have thousands of pounds/dollars worth of games on their Steam accounts. Region locking is unfortunately a good solution to countering these people who are buying keys to make a profit.

This is not the consumers fault, as how are they meant to know where their game key came from? What is a legitimate re-seller and what is a grey market seller? How can you tell the difference? There are no lists, and it can be hard to determine what is legit and what is not. Furthermore, these keys are working as intended and buyers never give it a second thought after they have their game.

Further more, popular streamers have deals with these websites. For example, PewDiePie has a deal with G2A and gets a cut each time a game is bought using his links. Consumers are being told by popular individuals that "it's okay to buy from here.".

This is why when a new game comes out, Steam sells the game for full price (£40 or your regional equivalent) whereas on other sites the game being sold is 25% cheaper. This is not sorcery or that they are better at marketing the product. It is simply because the game key they are selling was simply never intended for the region it is being sold in, and sometimes they are illegally obtained.

H1Z1 - Pay to Win?

With the recent release of H1Z1, controversy has stirred in regards to it's apparent pay to win model, whilst at the same time begs the question of where you draw the line in regards to what is considered 

Pay to Win.

Early on, one of the game's developer's stated that players would be able to invest real money into air drops, which would drop "water and food", according to a developer. The air drop spawns somewhere randomly in the map, forcing players to forge alliances and to interact with other players. Investing your real money does not guarantee receiving supplies; it simply guarantees an air drop. 

Come release of the game, air drops not only drop food and water, but also weapons and ammo. This has sparked a lot of the community into going to the forums to complain about the apparent pay to win model that the game incorporates. The developers were not entirely honest, but nor did they outright lie either. Their description of how air drops would work were blotchy at best. It does not always guarantee a weapon or some ammo in an air drop, but their is a chance. It was also coincidental that air drops were dropping particularly close to popular streamers, allowing them an advantage over "normal" players in the form that now the popular players have access to ranged weaponry and a supply of ammo, as well as survival supplies.

The game is one of the most prominent zombie-survival games on the market, it has been developed by SOE. Players feel betrayed and have been requesting refunds left and right, surprisingly SOE has agreed and is giving out refunds on a no-questions-asked basis. This is quite impressive and I believe this could be damage control. My personal opinion is that it is very blurred as to whether this is pay to win. There is a random chance that the air drops could give weapons, but sometimes not. Depending on this random chance, dictates whether it is pay to win or not. It is not strictly pay to win, as you can simply just get shot in the face whilst on your way to the air drop you just paid for and then have it taken from you.

However, prior to the release of the game, there have been many articles about how air drops work and that they could contain weapons and ammunition, yet the entire player base is complaining about how SOE have been snakes, encouraging the pay to win game model. To quote from an article:

"Players will need to pay the organization providing the supplier money - and watch out - your payment could be in vain as other players will be able to see the planes and supply drops. These aren't free supplies being handed out by a group such as the Red Cross or anything either: they are purchased via the in-game store. Airdrops will provide survivors with ammunition, food, water, weapons and other supplies."

- VG247 article from August 16, 2014.

This just blows any real complaints out of the water, the information was there and players simply ignored it. They did not know what they were getting into despite being warned and I could only say that there is no one to blame but themselves for not doing their research on the game and air drops.

Neither party is really in the wrong here, we will have to see how SOE handles this in the future.

Hatred - The most controversial video game of 2015

Hatred, a video game developed by Destructive Creations, is probably the most controversial video game to enter the market in 2015. Hatred is heavily criticized due to the context of the game. It is incredibly violent which is not so unlike most games. A lot of games are very violent. This has led to the game to receiving an Adult Only rating by the ESRB. The reason why this is a unique case in comparison to other violent games is because of the context of which Hatred is set in.

In Hatred, you are what is known as a Spree Killer, game-play consists of killing everyone and everything. Including civilians and police officers, in brutal ways such as stabbing, shooting and punching/kicking. In detail, this mean you shoot your victims in the mouth, stab them repeatedly in various areas, all while they are begging for mercy. This as a result has led the ESRB to give it an Adults Only rating, which creates problems in terms of selling the game. Steam has historically not stocked Adults Only games, during the game's green light phase it was taken off, only to be reinstated by Gabe Newell himself, who is the managing director of Valve Corporation, which in turn owns Steam.

But now that the game has received an Adults Only rating, it is unclear whether or not the game will be stocked on Steam, which could heavily affect sales of the game. There will be other retailers that will stock it, and of course the developers can sell it from their own website. However, this will heavily affect the game's exposure as well as the fact that such a rating means that the game cannot go onto consoles. 

The developer's would prefer to get a standard M+ rating because with Adults Only they will have problems getting it on consoles.

In regards to Steam, the question is how far is Steam willing to go? Will they allow it to be sold on Steam? 

The only reason why the developer would go for the option of getting an ESRB rating, is so they can stock it for consoles. Console games require an ESRB rating to be sold for the console, however Steam does not require such a rating. I think it would be great for them to drop the ESRB rating and just get it out on Steam, rather than trying to get it across all platforms. Where is the line drawn in regards to what Steam stocks?

The game was green lit incredibly quickly by the community, will Steam respect the community's wants? Or will they consider the rating?

Valve does not look too much at the games that are Green Lit, so perhaps they will give Hatred special treatment. The end result will be very interesting to see, will it be sold on Steam or will it be rejected?

We will have to see.

The State of Free to Play Games - Pay To Win?

Free to play games have been around for a while now. They are great, who could possibly complain about free games? No one if they are done right, but you have to ask yourself how does the developer earn money after developing a game? Almost all Free to Play games have an in-game store, that usually takes currency acquired from playing the game (at a painfully slow rate) or allowing the player to pay real money to acquire in-game items.

Free to Play games like League of Legends have a store with which players can pay real money for character skins, or to buy in-game currency (like it is earned in-game) of which they can use on Champions. The payment of money for skins is okay as it is just cosmetic and does not affect the game in terms of balance. However, when a champion is newly released, it  is usually above average in strength compared to other champions in the game, this can be seen as pay-to-win but people who play the game on a regular basis will be able to afford the champion using in-game currency (earning in-game currency in League of Legends is quite quick).

This does however highlight a growing problem, and that is the option of paying money to get an advantage in the multiplayer side of a video game, hence the term pay-to-win. 

Most players understand that the developer must earn money in some way, and an in-game store is justified but the grey area is the availability of items that affect game-play balance. Aside from paying to get an advantage, the only other way for a company to earn itself some money, is to sell cosmetics. You would be surprised how much people enjoy additional customization for their characters (myself included) and I happily pay for something of which I can use and see on my character, that looks cool. Many have noticed that pay-to-win items such as guns in some games, have a cool model to boot. Why not sell these as skins? I think if anyone is buying an item for advantage is foolish, as this simply takes the challenge away if you have a definitive advantage over the other players.

The latest game that joined the "Pay-To-Win" team is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with it's season pass. They are heavily promoting the fact that you will get a new shiny gun if you buy into their season pass. I play Advanced Warfare quite a lot, and that gun is certainly the best in-game at this moment, and they know it, as well as the players. It's cheap business tactics to promote this kind of behaviour; it needs to stop. Simply offer it as a model swap, rather than an entirely new gun. Surely this saves time to make items purely cosmetic? There is no need to make individual stats if it simply a model swap for an already existing weapon.

We can only hope that this issue resolves itself, as new ideas come forth and new techniques are tried and tested. Let it be known however that I think despite balance issues with every game, be it free to play or paid. I think in the end, skill will always outshine balance problems.

DLC - When is it okay to charge?

The topic of DLC and how it is delivered to consumers is a heavily discussed topic in the gaming community. But first of all, what is DLC?

DLC stands for Downloadable Content, it is a way to expand on an already existing game by adding a variety of things, be it features, areas or challenges to complete. DLC is always made by the original games developer; which keeps the creative direction intact and consistent. DLC is usually released a lot later after the game it is intended for, it is a way to breathe new life into a game. However, sometimes there is what is known as "Day One DLC"; which is DLC that is available on the first day of game release.

Now, this is where the controversy starts in regards to DLC and how it should be handled. A lot of gamer's feel that Day One DLC is a scam in it's own, as all game content that is available should be made available, with the game upon release. DLC should come after, as they developed it after the game's initial release, rather than making you pay for parts of the game, rather than the whole game, so to speak. Really these are quite shady business tactics to get more money, you can also get season passes that usually save a little on all the DLC should you choose to buy them separately, these also usually come with incentives such as early access to DLC.

My views are that any content that is made before the game's release date, should be packaged with the game. It was developed during the game's development cycle and is therefore part of the game. Essentially the developers are making people pay for parts of the game separately, awful.

Most recently, Metro: Last Light, developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver, asked players to either pre-order or pay for the hardest difficulty setting. This is exactly what is wrong, they should not be segmenting essential parts of a game, or even segmenting parts before release, then branding them as DLC. In some cases this is not the fault of the developers, but of the publishers who are forcing the developers to make some pre-order incentives so to get early sales, forcing people to buy under the influence of impulse buying to get certain perks.

The tides are beginning to change it seems however, as developer CD Projekt Red, creator of The Witcher game series, has announced that their DLC is to be free upon release so as to make a statement to the rest of the industry and their business practices. Sixteen pieces of DLC to be exact, which is enormous.

"This is our way of saying thank you for buying our game." - CD Projekt Red

"As gamers, we nowadays have to hold on tight to our wallets, as surprisingly right after release, lots of tiny pieces of tempting content materialize with a steep price tag attached, haven't we just paid a lot of cash for a brand new game?"

- CD Projekt Red

Amazing mentality to have to combat the greed, I do not mind paying for content that is developed after the game has been released, as it is extra work. But paying for content that was developed and finished before the game was released is shady at best. Including cosmetics, I believe should made available free of charge when the game is released.

Modding - How it brings out the best in a Video Game

Modding, short for modifying is generally used on the internet in reference to modifying a game to suit the user's wishes. In history, games that have been modifiable have done a lot better in terms of popularity when compared to games that do not allow modding. A few games come to find in terms of being modifiable, that are coincidentally also very popular. I'll list a few:

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (And all other Elder Scrolls that are modifiable)

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

 Left 4 Dead 1 & 2

Fallout 3 & New Vegas

The list goes on, my point is these games are massively popular in the RPG community, and one of the main reasons is because you can mod them, to change them into whatever you like. There are no limits to how much you can mod a game, so long as there are modders out there to make what you wish or even make yourself.

Modding is not only great for the game's popularity, it is also a great and encouraging way to train one's skills. Modding can either be done via coding or asset creation such as modelling and texturing. I have made a mod for Skyrim, and it greatly improved my modelling and texturing skills. I intend to do more, and I'd love to do some modelling for Dying Light, should the upcoming mod development kit support importing of new models, such as new weaponry or re-textures. It's a great way to beef up one's portfolio with creative assets.

Modding adds a lot of extra play-time to a game, you can either add weapons to the game, add functionality, change the way combat works or even increase the difficulty of the game. Skyrim is literally transformable into anything with the amount of mods available. There are mods that add additional dragons, change the game into a more stealth-themed game, more enemies, more weapons & armour, player created DLC, new lands and new areas to explore. The possibilities of modding Skyrim are limitless, you can truly create the experience you have always wanted with mods, and I'd love to see the same result for more games, as it can be only be good for a developer's game to be modifiable. 

Techland have allowed both of their Dead Island game's to be modifiable, and so there is no reason to believe that they may back out of their decision, they have even apologized for introducing a patch that hinders already existing mods, in the name of dealing with cheaters in multiplayer. This is a great attitude, and I hope to see more developers that take this approach when developing their game.   

Dying Light - The Potential for Mods

Dying Light on it's own is a great game and I would highly recommend it to any who are fans of zombie games. What could make the game potentially even more exciting is that Techland have recently announced that they will be releasing a mod development kit, and I quote:

"We will be releasing an extensive mod development kit for Dying Light."

If you head over to The Nexus, a modding site that hosts a large number of mods for different games, you may notice that there are already some mods available for Dying Light. However they are quite small mods that just change some game-play stuff, but it's nice to see there is already life stirring in the modding community for Dying Light. Techland used the words "Extensive", which is a word that excites me in relation to modding potential. 

What this could mean is the potential for weapon mods, game-play/difficulty mods and finally additional features mods. 

For me personally, a cool looking weapon can keep me playing a game for a lot of extra hours, aesthetics of a game are important to me and do affect my interest in games as well as my immersion in a game. It is what kept me interested in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim for so long, just because of so many cool weapons that I could use in battle. With the ability to change the main characters outfit already in the game, I'd like to see some mods that introduce some cool new outfits. I'd like to see a stealth themed outfit to pair with a dagger so I could a zombie-assassin so to speak.

Game-play mods, I'd like to see some mods that will have an effect on the difficulty of the game. Be it either mods that affect the zombie's combat effectiveness or mods that will affect the player, such as making it harder to craft or lower the damage of weapons.

I'd like to also see some mods that add additional functionality to the game. There is already a mod that allows you to check the time with your watch during the day, would be great if there were additional crafting recipes or wall run.

But there is no telling what "extensive" means to Techland, we will simply have to wait and see what the mod development kit brings to the table and to what extent it will allow the players to edit/add to the game's existing content. Here's to hoping it is what everyone wants, and to what Techland has said; extensive.

Dying Light - A Zombie-Apocalypse Game of Epic Proportions

Dying Light, the latest zombie game to be released into the game market by developer Techland. Possibly also the first true open-world zombie survival game, you have games like Left 4 Dead, of which are great zombies games but they are not open world and it does have a finite point where the game "ends".

I'll cover three areas, gameplay, graphics and AI (artificial intelligence).

Graphics

Being an Xbox One/PS4 generation game, the graphics are stellar. It has some amazing lighting effects and looks especially good at night, when all the lighting effects truly come to life, and certainly helps to make the game very creepy at times. Texture quality is stellar especially for weapons, zombies look amazingly detailed as well. You can see the pustules and exposed flesh in great clarity, and there is some great variety in the different zombies that are present in the game. The lighting is certainly a strong suit of this game, but being a borderline horror game with zombies, I would expect for lighting to play a big part in the game as it helps to bring intense moments to life and immerse the player into the game.

It also has beautiful vistas in the background that instill a sense of wonder in the player, sometimes I could not help but wonder what monstrosities could be wandering the buildings in the distance.

Gameplay

The game-play mostly consists of chopping up zombies, as you'd expect. However, this zombie game has additional features. You are able to free run and parkour your way around the game world, and it's very satisfying to do so. However, you may be thinking that this makes the games easy as the zombies are slow etc. In the game there are many types of zombies, and there are some that can parkour just as well as the player, especially at night there are zombies that can match your agility and will outrun you, meaning that to succeed in this game at night you must get good at climbing, sliding and taking difficult routes to shake off your pursuers.

At night, most of the zombies are vulnerable to UV light, allowing you to keep them away from you or bar a path you have taken to evade them whilst being chased. You are also able to craft a multitude of items to help you survive, such as grenades, flares, molotoves, med kits, potions and more. You are also able to augment your weapon by modifying it using parts you have found whilst on your travels. You are able to modify your weapon with fire, toxic, bleed or electric parts to add after effects and extra damage to your attacks. The combat is very fluid and suits a lot of play styles, you can use guns (which are quite rare and should be reserved for dire moments), which deal a lot of damage, but they will also attract more zombies because of the noise they make. There are also three skill trees that you are able to spend points in to develop your character, and the combat tree (known as Power) allows for a variety of ways to deal with the zombies, either through take-downs, grapples or a chance to execute a stunned opponent. The survival tree helps you to survive, by increasing your health regeneration, allows you to craft boosters to give you temporary effects. The agility tree gives you extra running stamina, extra health and on-the-fly abilities such as drop kicks and elbow charges to knock the horde of the infected out of your way. It also allows you to use zombies as a jumping point, and as such vault over them to either escape or get to hard-to-reach areas.

The game can be very thrilling at some points, especially at night when you must move silently and swiftly to avoid the dangerous infected known as Volatiles. Especially at the start of the game, it is recommended that you avoid them due to your character not being developed enough and the weapons are simply too weak to kill a Volatile. You can use a gun, but I would recommend saving it for a very special occasion. However, once you have progressed a bit, you can start to take on the Volatiles at night with stronger weaponry and utilities such as flares to keep you safe in the event you are caught and have no option other than to fight.

There are also human enemies to fight, that will want to kill you either for supplies or because they have been ordered to. They tend to be in numbers and are one of the most difficult enemies in the game as they are able to parry and lunge towards you. They are also capable of throwing Molotoves, grenades and knives/axes to flush you out or if you are in a hard to reach place.

There is also a multiplayer component to the game, you can play the entire game in co-op (story included) with up to five players in a game, of which can either be a human or a zombie. As a zombie, your objective is to kill the human players, of which can only survive on a consistent basis as long as they are working together. The fact that a player can join the game as a zombie at any time (if you set the options to allow this) really adds to the immersion. It becomes absolutely terrifying when you are being chased by an absolute beast of a zombie and it is easy to feel panicked.

AI

The AI of the game is surprisingly impressive and interesting despite your main enemy being the walking dead who are summarized as dull, brainless idiots. The normal dead are quite stupid, their strength comes from numbers and swarming you. The more active infected such as Volatiles will chase you and surround should there be more than one around. They will also pounce onto you, in which you must get them off you as soon as possible.

The humans that are hostile are also quite varying in what they do. They will also surround you, and they are will parry or dodge your attacks and then follow up with a lunge. It gets most interesting when they are grouped up, and they have guns. They will take defensive positions and move on you or flank you to get a good shot.

Conclusion

Overall I think it is a great zombie game, and I certainly appreciate that it is an open-world game (we need more of these). I think it's got great game-play and it certainly plays to the theme's strengths. The story is pretty good to, it is somewhat believable with realistic characters and for once I could say that for once there is no real romantic sub-story (despite there being an opportunity for one), which is a nice change. Everyone is just a friend in the story. I would highly recommend this game to fans of zombie games, developer Techland has done a great job developing this game and I look forward to seeing what the DLC holds, most looking forward to potentially story content.

NVIDIA Kepler - A Bounding Leap for Mobile Platforms

Every so often, NVIDIA releases a new architecture for their GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) which has notable improvements across the board for both Desktop and Mobile graphic solutions. However in recent architectural releases, the desktop counterpart has only really gained a small increase in performance, which the majority of improvements focused on heat and power consumption.

However, this pales in comparison to the improvements seen in NVIDIA's mobile solutions, as not only has the heat outputted from the cards been drastically reduced, the performance gain coming from NVIDIA's previous flagship mobile GPU (GTX 880M) has gone up by 50% with the GTX 980M. This brings the performance difference between mobile and desktop solutions ever closer as we move towards a more mobile world. The fact that the heat output has also been reduced by up to 10C (trust me, this is a lot!), allows for a cooler, less stressful experience for the card. And for the enthusiasts, this gives more headroom for overclocking the GTX 9xxM series

For once, NVIDIA can truly say that their mobile solutions can run all the latest games at full details, the power inside this small card is incredibly impressive compared to the fair larger desktop variants.

Kepler architecture has also brought in 8GB VRAM variants to their GTX 980M. A lot of people think that this is too much, but in my opinion this is greatly needed. Now that the new consoles have been released, this means new games with impressive graphics and as such PC ports will be released. The result of porting a game designed for the consoles, over to the PC platform usually results in a huge increase of system resource usage. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a great example, in the single-player it will use up to 11GB of system RAM, and a full 7.9GB of VRAM from your graphics card. In comments from users, the amount of RAM and VRAM available does not seem to really affect the performance of the game, but using a lot of VRAM certainly helps with texture load times and texture pop-in. The amount of system RAM used also greatly helps load times (even in multi-player) once the game gets going.

The release of the new Kepler architecture has coincided perfectly with the release of new games and new technologies

The Direction of Call of Duty - Innovation?

Over the years, Call of Duty has annually released a new game, with each iteration, at the very least, a new story has unfolded. The stories that lay in the campaign of Call of Duty are of high quality in my experiences, however, they do not innovate at all in the multiplayer department, until now.

With the latest release of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, I am pleased to write that Advanced Warfare has truly innovated, with one small addition that completely changes the way multiplayer is handled in Call of Duty.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set in a futuristic world where military tactics and equipment have changed, the addition being exosuits, which is a skeletal-like armor that surrounds the body and supports the joints in order to give the wearer additional strength, stamina, speed and finally exo-jump, of which is achieved via a jet pack situated on the wearer's back.

What the addition of the exosuit has done to the Advanced Warfare is that it has allowed for new play-styles to emerge, and has effected the way players are generally playing. The largest comparison can be seen in Search and Destroy; a game-type of which is akin to the classic Counter-Strike mode. People were usually hesitant, a bit more tactical and a lot slower in terms of advancement in the old games, as is in Counter-Strike. With the addition of exosuits, mobility has greatly increased and as such has encouraged more of a rush-style of game play.

Rushing is usually a dangerous tactic that involves in moving at a high speed towards the enemy, hoping to catch them off-guard with the intent of appear from either behind or from a position completely unexpected, the rewards are huge if executed correctly.

This development has resulted in faster paced games, and as previously stated new play-styles which are not necessarily bad. It has also added additional character customization such as exo-abilities and the exo-launcher (which is really a replacement for firing a grenade). The interesting part is the addition of exo-abilities; there are several to choose from each with varying affects of their own.

Exo-suits also allow for some interesting battles, as there is so much more to movement than ever before, and really makes the so game so much fun to play; it's so refreshing.

It begs the question however, excluding the sequels to Advanced Warfare, let us set our minds to other entries into the franchise. Will they include exo-suits? Or will it return to the standard COD ways? Or perhaps they will find their own ways to innovate, with other unique additions or gameplay elements. What if there was a heavy influence of bows and arrows? Or they added in elemental powers (if we got really wacky).

Only time will tell.