File this under “Things You Now Know About Gaming and The Federal Government.” Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney apologized to Dr. Muhammad Zakir Khan for the unintentional block he encountered when he tried to register for the beta of Paragon, the upcoming shooter. Dr. Khan was trying to create an Epic Games account when his name popped up on a list of Specially Designated Nationals maintained by the U.S. government. Fortunately for Mom and apple pie, Dr. Khan is not actually a terrorist. Unfortunately for him, his name ran afoul of the “overly broad filter” that the registration site was using.
Your account creation has been blocked as a result of a match against the Specially Designated Nationals list maintained by the United States of America’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Why does the Epic Games registration process filter for possible terrorists on the U.S. watch list? Gamasutra notes that the company was trying to comply with federal trade restrictions that impact licensing of the Unreal Engine outside of the United States.
Klei Entertainment and Capybara Games have published a content roadmap for Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked. The expansion, currently in early access on the PC, now has a path to launch that will include the ability for a player to take a character all the way through the base game, the Reign of Giants expansion, and Shipwrecked with save migration. Imagine it! A full three games’ worth of content looking to end your life in cruel ways. Exposure? Poisoning? Eaten by a shark? Stampeded by pig-men? While a marathon of survival that long seems dubious, the developers say that balance will come via user feedback.
This game takes a long time to play, and you will encounter different scenarios each time you play. Players constantly encounter situations that we never even imagined. Because of this, when we add new content to Don’t Starve the initial tuning is, for the most part, our best guess on what will play well.
Lumos Labs, the creators and owners of the “brain training” games on Lumosity.com have been ordered to pay a $2 million fine. The Federal Trade Commission announced that Lumos Labs will pay the settlement as a result of their deceptive business practices. Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection cited the company’s dodgy scientific claims, and marketing based on fear-mongering.
“Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease, but Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”
Lumos Labs charged members monthly for a subscription to their games. As part of the FTC agreement, the company must offer those players a free way to cancel their subscription regardless of their early cancellation penalty.
Far Cry Primal has no cooperative or versus multiplayer. Ubisoft confirmed that the Far Cry offshoot game will be single player only. While Far Cry 3’s versus multiplayer never caught on with gamers, Far Cry 4’s co-op gameplay added some delicious opportunities for chaos in the sandbox shooter. Community manager Jason Paradise explained the decision to cut multiplayer.
We are focusing entirely on creating the best possible Far Cry experience for our fans. Bringing the Stone Age to life and providing players with a strong gameplay experience based off of the Far Cry legacy meant we had to reinvent our core gameplay loop.
Instead of real life companions, you get to make friends with saber-tooth tigers, wolves, eagle-owls, (is that a thing?) and mammoths in the game. That’s a fair trade. When has a real friend attacked a caveman for you? Far Cry Primal launches on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 23rd, and on Windows PC in March.
“$599 US dollars!” The infamous exclamation of Sony’s Kaz Hirai during the price announcement for the PlayStation 3. Gamers and techies can now bask in the glory of those words again thanks to Oculus. The Oculus Rift consumer model is now available for pre-order and far from most analysts’ prediction of being in the $300 range, the unit costs $599. Lucky buyers get an Xbox One controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky’s Tale to go with their flashy VR headset and positional sensor. The first units will roll out on March 28th.
Keep in mind that you’ll need a bit of extra kit for your Oculus Rift to work. The company recommends a beefy computer that can handle the demanding needs of VR software. (Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 minimum graphics processor.) “Oculus Ready PCs” will be offered in February to take all the guesswork out of that end of the setup.
Major League Gaming, the popular esports broadcasting and promotions company, has been purchased by Activision Blizzard. Over the weekend reports surfaced that MLG’s board of directors approved an agreement granting Activision Blizzard the majority of MLG’s assets in exchange for $46 million, but official confirmation wasn’t given until later. According to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, the company will continue to operate the MLG.tv, MLG Pro Circuit, and GameBattles platforms with an eye towards creating “the ESPN of esports.”
Mike Sepso, the Senior Vice President of Activision Blizzard Media Networks, was a co-founder of Major League Gaming and came to Activision when the company hired Steve Bornstein, the former CEO of ESPN and the NFL Network in October of last year. Both executives were given the goal of growing the esports business for the publisher.
Terry Garrett is blind, but that didn’t stop him from playing through The Nintendo 64 classic, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It took him almost five years, but the accomplishment is amazing without the aid of sight. In the last video of his epic series, Garrett defeats the final boss of the game and basks in his glory.
Garrett, an engineering student at the University of Colorado, started his quest back in May of 2011 by setting up directional speakers so he could navigate the game’s levels via sound. With some help from fellow gamers, Garrett even got through the infamous Water Temple, a feat that many gamers gave up on back in the day. Bravo Terry!
The world loves Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie shattered box office records over the holiday weekend and people young and old can’t seem to get enough of the return to classic Star Wars sensibility. Unfortunately for fans of the movie looking forward to recreating some of those epic moments in Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront, the publisher confirmed that there are no plans to include the latest movie’s content into any future DLC beyond the free Battle of Jakku map that was released in early December. According to EA, they are “focusing on the original trilogy for this release of Star Wars Battlefront” in response to inquiries regarding the newest movie’s content.
The publisher previously announced that Star Wars Battlefront will get four more packs of DLC content in 2016 as part of the season pass. These DLC installments will include new maps, heroes, and equipment, but apparently none of it will be from the seventh movie. It’s not surprising that the future content of the game would continue to adhere to the original trilogy designs rather than incorporating the new movie’s assets since that would require more resources to produce. Sorry, Finn. This is not the game you’re looking for.
One of the cool little facts about The Great War is that in December 1914, the troops along the infamous No Man’s Land of trenches and muddy snow put down their arms and celebrated the holiday in an unofficial cease fire that became known as The Christmas Truce. Gifts and food were exchanged. Handshakes and songs were shared. For a little while, at least, the soldiers were able to set aside the battle and come together as young men away from their homes and families.
Verdun, from Blackmill Games and M2H, is one of those multiplayer shooters that falls a bit harder on the side of historical accuracy. Like Red Orchestra, here’s a lot of rivet-counting goodness in its simple team-based shooter setup. From December 22nd to January 4th, Verdun will be commemorating The Christmas Truce. A dedicated truce map will be available that features no gunfire. Players will be able to toss around a football, throw snowballs at each other, and write postcards “home” through an in-game mailman. Pause for a little Yuletide cheer, then get back to the slaughter after the New Year’s party.
Dying Light, Techland’s already stuffed-to-the-gills zombie game, which is going to get a bunch of new content in February, is also getting 250 new character levels. That’s not a misprint. 250 levels of skills, unlocks, and experience to grind. The upcoming Enhanced Edition of the game will feature Legendary Levels beyond the original 25. As the linked video shows, some of the perks seem comically overpowered. That’s probably a good thing because anyone that’s maxed out the base game’s levels is probably playing in a manner that’s less serious and more experimental. It’s all about flying judo kicks and bunny-hopping into undead crowds rather than trying to stay alive.
Dying Light: Enhanced Edition will be a free update for owners of the base game on February 9th. A bundled Enhanced Edition of the game will be sold at retail that includes the Season Pass content.
On December 21st, Nintendo will release a free update for the Super Mario Maker that will make it easier to search for levels, see how quickly someone beat your levels, and adds a few new items to the palette. The Bookmark Update features a browser-based search engine made specifically for the game. Once you sign in with your Nintendo ID, you can mark creations to play later. The Bookmark site will be available on any device that can surf the web, as well as within the game on the Wii U. You’ll be able to find that frustratingly difficult level so much easier! The update also adds an area on the level menu that shows who beat a level first, and the record for beating the level the fastest. How wonderful it will be to see how quickly that guy in Canada blew through your carefully constructed deathtraps.
In addition to bookmarking and score enhancements, the update will come with new items to destroy other players, or for them to destroy you.
Meet Colorado congressional Representative Jared Polis. He loves League of Legends. The Riot Games produced video from April was meant as a harmless bit of marketing to promote the diverse community of players. Hey, look! Even Congressmen play videogames! Unfortunately, this video along with a fashion makeover landed Polis in some political trouble. Based on his promotional appearances, the Office of Congressional Ethics investigated Polis and found “substantial reason” to believe that he had violated federal laws relating to improperly using taxpayers’ time and resources to participate in the events. On Monday, The House Ethics Committee (the only body legally able to bring charges in this situation) cleared Polis of wrongdoing. Polis’ lawyers had argued that the congressman’s appearances in these events resulted in no material benefit to him, and were no different from any other community outreach or press function, and The House Ethics Committee agreed.
The takeaway for gamers? There’s someone in Congress that geeks out about League of Legends hard enough to get into trouble. In fact, Representative Jared Polis loves gaming enough to work on legislation for it. Go Colorado gamers!
It’s microtransaction time for Destiny and Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Both games are adding new in-game purchasable items, just in time for Christmas.
In Bungie’s Destiny, players now have the opportunity to buy a consumable that instantly boosts one character to level 25. The Taken King expansion came with one free boost that did the same thing, but now players can apply this level-up to another character for $30 more. Sub-class experience will still need to be earned the old-fashioned way, but with this new offering players can bypass all that pesky low-level stuff and get right to the Taken King content. Who really wants to play through a game anyway?
In Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III, cyber-soldiers can purchase Call of Duty Points a new in-game currency that can be traded for Black Market cosmetics for versus multiplayer and consumable boosts for the cooperative zombie mode. Unfortunately for fans of pay-to-win, it appears that the new system won’t allow you to unlock game-breaking advantages.
Star Citizen’s crowd-funding has passed the $100 million mark. Along with this milestone in funding, Cloud Imperium Games announced the release of Alpha 2.0 to their backers, featuring first-person shooter gameplay. The newest build of the game includes “open-world” combat interaction in the Crusader planetary system consisting of a gas giant surrounded by three moons and two orbital stations. The latest build offers more gameplay than has been present previously, but it is still barebones in comparison to the stated goals for the final product. According to the developers, the game “will evolve as development continues” towards a final release some time in the future.
While the funding for Star Citizen shows no signs of slowing down, critics of the project continue to level accusations at the company. Game designer Derek Smart maintains that the company is being financially mismanaged, including the possibility that the whole studio is a scam of epic proportions. In a less confrontational blog post, Cliff Harris, the creator of Gratuitous Space Battles and owner of Positech Games, sees Star Citizen funding and wonders if more government oversight is needed for games industry marketing and addiction manipulation.
“They just passed $100,000,000 in money raised. They can do this because individual ships in the game are for sale, even though you bought the game. I guess at this point we could just say ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’, but yet we do not do this with gambling addiction. In fact some countries have extremely strict laws on gambling, precisely because they know addiction is a thing, and that people need to be saved from themselves.”
Access to Star Citizen’s Alpha 2.0 release is available here beginning at $45, but you can spend tens of thousands on the game should you choose to do so.
Rockstar is updating Grand Theft Auto V next week with crew activities. The free Executives and Other Criminals patch for Grand Theft Auto Online will add ways for players to enforce their rule on underlings and the city. Along with the usual increase in opulent real estate and clothing, the update lets leaders “hire” other players to be their bodyguards and set incentives like regular pay, experience bonuses, and stat boosts. The boss will also be able to access exclusive co-op jobs and challenges to assign to their hirelings. Finally, these player-run organizations can then muscle in on each other in all-out gang warfare.
Organizations can go head to head in Freemode, with new missions that make full use of the latest executive defense options including new armored vehicle variants, the devastating Turreted Limo and the missile defense systems of the Super Yacht, which also comes with its own suite of supporting vehicle upgrades including the new SuperVolito Carbon helicopter and personal watercraft.
The Executives and Other Criminals update is launching on December 15th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
