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Archived News:
A new
Letter from the Chairman on the Roberts Space Industries website announces
Star Citizen has hit the $46 million milestone in crowd-sourced funding
less than a week after passing the $45
million mark (thanks 88fingers and MammonLord). Chairman Roberts offers
details on the "Updated Scanning Software" this adds to the space combat game,
and reveals the winner of last week's poll for their next commercial. He caps
things off with a new poll, which asks whether they should continue to offer
stretch goals, as he explains in this excerpt: This brings me to the topic
of stretch goals. When we started the Star Citizen campaign, the purpose of the
stretch goals was to make things we had imagined but didn’t think we could
afford possible: adding capital ship systems, studying procedural generation,
hiring additional artists to build more ships at once and the like. The
additional funding continues to expand the scope of the game and make what we’re
doing possible… but it’s becoming more and more difficult to quantify that with
more stretch goals (and to explain that to the rest of the world, which likes to
focus only on how much money we’ve made.)
My preference would be to use these letters going forward to update you on what
we’re already doing with the money; sharing additional parts of Star Citizen’s
development. We would also continue to award flare and other extras to our
backers as we hit milestones, whether they’re funding or schedule-related. If we
discover additional technologies or come up with new elements to the game’s
design we want to incorporate, we’ll let you know about those as they happen.
But this is a decision for the community: let me know what you think in the poll
below.
Though John Carmack offered to
speak at QuakeCon in spite of his
departure from id Software, it turns out the id co-founder will not be
speaking at this year's installment in the gaming gathering. It seems logical
that the lawsuit over his work between id
Software parent Zenimax and his new employer Oculus VR factors into it, but
whatever the reason,
Mr.
Carmack tweeted the following explanation: "Since the question keeps getting
asked -- no, I am not going to be at Quakecon this year. My 2.5 hr talk at SMU
should still be released."
A
Kickstarter update for Torment: Tides of Numenera has word of another
delay to inXile entertainment's upcoming RPG, saying it is now looking like this
will come in Q4 of next year (thanks nin). In April of last year
they announced that "we’ll need a
few months past the December 2014 launch date we first proposed at $900,000, but
they say the recent news that Wasteland 2 is coming
by the end of August means the release must be
pushed back further: So, where are we on Torment then? During the last
week of our Kickstarter, we had adjusted our target launch date to the first
half of 2015. And last December, in Update 27, I mentioned that timeline was
still feasible, but that Torment’s schedule remained in flux until all became
clear with Wasteland 2. Wasteland 2’s success in Early Access allowed us to
spend more time improving it, which also meant we had more time in preproduction
on Torment. We’ve had more time to prototype, improve tools, iterate on our
processes, etc. before entering full production. This has been a great thing for
everything... except for our release date.
Now that we have a more certain roll-off plan for the production team from
Wasteland to Torment, we’re better able to predict the shape of our schedule.
And, as you may have guessed, the first half of 2015 isn't realistic anymore and
we’re looking at the fourth quarter of 2015.
You may wonder how we can extend TTON’s development for a year longer than
planned. By running a small core team during the preproduction phase, we have
been extremely efficient in developing the foundation and the pipeline for the
game – we make decisions more quickly, and we’ll have set a strong vision to
help eliminate uncertainty. This will help us make fewer mistakes as the full
team ramps up. One year following TTON’s Kickstarter, more than 80% of the
development budget remained, so we have a lot of firepower for our production,
beta, and finalization phases.
Focus Home Interactive announces an OS X edition of Wargame Red Dragon
is now available, offering cross-platform play with the Windows and Linux
versions of Eugen Systems' real-time strategy game, as the Linux version was
released to little fanfare a few weeks ago. They also announce a weekend sale
on Steam. Here's the
deal: Wargame Red Dragon launched a successful worldwide invasion on PCs
last April and on computers with Linux just over a week ago, and we are thrilled
to announce that the latest episode of the spectacular RTS series created by
developers Eugen Systems is now available on Mac!
Players can now therefore download the full Mac versions of Wargame Red Dragon
on Steam and from the official store. As multiplayer mode is compatible across
all platforms, Mac players will be able to compete against or team up with the
many players already on PC and Linux!
Owners of Wargame Red Dragon on PC can also download the Mac and Linux versions
of the game free of charge to a compatible machine, and the new Mac/Linux
players can also download the PC game!
And there's more good news: Wargame is the Weekend Deal on Steam! From today
until Monday, June 16, you can buy Wargame Red Dragon at an amazing 33%
discount, while the price of the new Wargame Franchise Pack, which now includes
all 3 Wargame games, has been slashed by 40%. AirLand Battle and European
Escalation, for their part, are both enjoying a 66% discount.
The GamersGate Summer Sale is on.
Here's the deal on the deals: GamersGate today will open up the gates to
it’s annual Summer Sale which includes great discounts on games from major
publishers such as SEGA, UbiSoft, Capcom, Kalypso and Square Enix. As well as
discounts on hundreds of titles on well known franchises like Assassins Creed,
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, Tom Clancy, Devil Man Cry, South Park, Might
and Magic and many more.
“This will be the 6th consecutive Summer Sale at GamersGate and we are pleased
to offer such good prices to our customers. This will be one of the biggest
sales ever and we think our customers will enjoy and be surprised on the
offers”, says Ioana Manea, Head of Promotions at GamersGate.
GamersGate’s Summer Sale starts on June 12th and ends on the 19th. There will be
daily deals and weeklong deals on hundreds of PC, Mac and Android games.
The Mojang
blog follows up on the recent
dustup over commercial Minecraft server operation with a clarification of
their position of what server operators are allowed to do. Here are the does and
don'ts: You are allowed to accept donations
You are allowed to accept donations from players. You can thank them publicly or
in-game, but can’t give preferential treatment for donating. You are not allowed
to restrict gameplay features in an attempt to make money.
You are allowed to provide in-game advertising or sponsorship opportunities
You are allowed to put adverts in your Minecraft worlds to help with costs. If
used within reason, adverts and sponsorship can be appropriate ways to fund a
server.
You are allowed to sell in-game items so long as they don’t affect gameplay
We don’t mind you selling items in game, but they must be purely cosmetic. Pets,
hats, and particle effects are OK, but swords, invincibility potions, and
man-eating pigs are not. We want all players to be presented with the same
gameplay features, whether they decide to pay or not.
There is one exception to this rule – capes! We have a lot of fun making cool
capes for extra-special members of our community and Minecon attendees. We’d
like to keep them as exclusive as possible. So, yeah, no capes please, even if
you’re giving them away for free.
You cannot charge real-world cash for in-game currency
We don’t mind in-game currencies which are earned through playing, but you are
not allowed to sell them for real-world cash. Remember – if the stuff you sell
affects gameplay, we’re not cool with it.
Don’t pretend to be us. Provide your customers with loads of info
If you do decide to monetise your server, you must clearly state that the
purchase is not associated with Mojang, declare who the money is going to, and
provide a purchase history and contact details. You should also check the
legality of selling digital items in your specific region.
- Drunken Robot Pornography on
Steam. Save 50%.
- Indie Game The Movie Bundle on
Steam. Save 75%.
- Tex Murphy: Mean Streets on
Steam. Save 50%.
- Thief on
Steam. Save 50%.
The Assembly website announces The
Assembly, an upcoming game from nDreams ( Xi) designed specifically as a
virtual reality experience, targeting PCs using Oculus Rift headsets and PS4s
with Project Morpheus support (thanks
All Games Beta). They are accepting newsletter signups, offer
an E3 trailer, and
provide the following outline of what to expect: We're delighted to be
announcing The Assembly at E3, where we have revealed our first trailer and
shown off an early demo of the game itself. The Assembly is coming to PS4 (with
Project Morpheus support) and PC (with Oculus Rift support) and has been
designed from the ground up to be a perfect VR adventure experience. The
Assembly is on track to be available at launch with both these headsets. We'll
aim to update this site fairly regularly with new information and articles about
the game. In the meantime, please sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date
with all the exciting VR projects that we're working on!
Continue here to read the full story.
The Steam listing for
the newly announced edition
of Grand Theft Auto V coming to Windows this fall. This offers a bit more
on how the open-world action game will take advantage of more powerful systems,
including more cars, as the original console versions have the traffic density
of the Dakotas in spite of being set in a fictionalized version of the parking
lot that is Los Angeles. Word is: "Grand Theft Auto V for PC will take full
advantage of the power of PC to deliver across-the-board enhancements including
increased resolution and graphical detail, denser traffic, greater draw
distances, upgraded AI, new wildlife, and advanced weather and damage effects
for the ultimate open world experience."
A
Steam Community announcement has word on a weapon that's been removed from
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive after a DMCA takedown notice. For those
who had purchased this item, it has been replaced by a rare Valve-designed
substitute, while the two claimed creators of the gun have been banned for
violating the terms Valve's "low friction" submission process, which requires
swearing to the originality of their work. Here's some detail: All
contributors share joint responsibility for the originality of their Workshop
submission, and therefore share joint liability for claims of copyright
infringement. That is, if two or more artists collaborate on a submission and
the submission contains intellectual property that isn’t their own, all artists
involved in the submission will share in the consequences.
For the items in question, the following steps have been taken:
- Both contributors have received Steam Community
bans. They receive no proceeds from either item, and both items have been
removed from the game.
- For owners of the M4A4 | Howl and Howling Dawn
sticker, those items have been replaced by an alternative designed by the
CS:GO team. These items will never be produced again, and have been assigned
the ‘Contraband’ rarity.
- All other in-game items that involve at least one
of the contributors in their revenue share have been discontinued.
- The Huntsman Case and Community Sticker Capsule
have been revised to replace the copied and discontinued items.
- Moving forward, we will no longer work with the
contributors and we will not ship any existing Workshop submission that
credits their involvement.
The cost for everyone involved in the resolution of this issue has been
significant, including our players and community members. It takes considerable
time and effort for the CS:GO team to resolve copyright infringement disputes,
but fortunately copying is rare – the CS:GO community has submitted tens of
thousands of unique entries to the Workshop, and we have shipped dozens of your
designs without a problem.
A CapcomUnity E3 2014
Dead Rising 3 PC Twitch broadcast offers a look at the upcoming PC edition
of Dead Rising 3 (thanks
NeoGAF).
Capcom says PC owners will be able to unlock the game's set 30 FPS limitation,
but they should do so at their own risk, because they don't know what will
happen (and are apparently too terrified to try). "When we started the PC
project we knew we weren't gonna be able to guarantee anything above 30
frames-per-second. We're not gonna stop you from uncapping the frame rate, but
we can't guarantee the experience," they explain. "We just really don't know
what's gonna happen. You might see some weird stuff with physics, some weird
stuff with zombies."
A new
Steam Community announcement informs us that 75 more upcoming titles have
been approved by the Steam Greenlight program.
This page offers an interactive listing of the new approvals.
Yahoo News - Celebrities, Stooges, and 25th-Century Reporters- Are Video
Games Art or Merchandise?
These departures from reality — an outer-space setting, unusual song
choices, a female singer with a male voice — seem quintessentially
transformative. Not according to the California appellate court, though,
which held that Band Hero did nothing more than depict the band members
doing exactly what they do as celebrities — performing songs. The upshot was
that Activision had no first-amendment right to depict images of the band in
Band Hero.
The problem with this holding is that, if a movie, rather than a video game,
had depicted the band in the same way, the result probably would've been
different. Twenty years ago, the hit coming-of-age movie "The Sandlot" told
the story of a motley group of boys who played sandlot baseball. One of the
main characters was "Michael Palledorous," nicknamed "Squints." The real
Michael Polydorous, a former childhood friend of the writer, wasn't amused.
Apparently, Polydorous as a kid had looked and dressed like the movie
character. Even though the Squints character had a similar look and almost
identical name to the real person, the court threw the lawsuit out of court
because the movie was obviously a fictional work of art entitled to
first-amendment protection.
The U.S. Open and the FIFA World Cup both get underway today. I'm not big on
watching association football, but it's one of my favorite pastimes compared
with watching golf. And as it turned out, I enjoyed a lot more of the World Cup
last time around than I expected, so I plan on checking it out again. And this
time they won't even have those horrible vuvuzelas... at least I hope they
won't!
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