Cheating is taken very seriously by the folks at Epic Games; so much so that they are banning people during the qualifying stages of the first ever Fortnite World Cup.
More than 1,000 accounts were banned for cheating after a bot used by Epic Games discovered them during the qualifying tournament.
They would explain the reasoning behind these bans in a blog post that was released last week; the first Fortnite World Cup Online Open was held on April 13 and 14 with a prize pool of $1 million dollars.
Total number of accounts banned was at 1,221. 1,163 of those are banned from competitive “Fortnite” play for two weeks due to circumventing the game’s region locks said Epic.
“Fortnite” awards World Cup prizes to thousands of players spread across six different regions: Europe, Asia, Brazil, Oceania, and the East and West coasts of North America. 196 prize winners were disqualified and forced to forfeit their prize money for playing across different regions.
Nintendo may have just hit the jackpot in a good way; they can now sell their Switch Console in China.
Nintendo shares were up by more than 15 percent Friday afternoon in Tokyo after its Chinese partner Tencent Holdings received approval to sell its Switch console in the southern province of Guangdong.
Authorities in Guangdong, where Tencent is registered, posted the news on their website Thursday according to Reuters, saying they hadpermission to start distributing the Switch with a test version of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
China brought its 15-year ban on video game consoles to an end in 2015, but Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox have struggled to gain significant traction in the huge local market. This was followed by a ban on new video games last year, which was partially lifted in December, with Tencent winning approval for some games at the start of 2019.
Some analysts see more potential for Nintendo’s games roster than rivals Sony or Microsoft because of the popularity of properties such as Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon in China. Nevertheless, progress in the market is likely to be slow, with new titles needing to be individually approved and a big backlog in applications that are believed to have built up during last year’s ban.
Consoles need approval from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, while software needs permission from the State Administration of Press and Publication.
With Nintendo being able to sell their Switch in China now, it will help its stock prices which had dropped sharply in January due to cutting the project sales of their console. The stock price has been down by 11 percent for the last 12 months.
After a long few years, Gearbox, the gaming company known for its Borderlands series, finally decided that in order to get back on track, it is time for the third game.
This news has been long-anticipated by fans, but it is now official: the third Borderlands game is coming out soon, according to Gearbox. After months of rumors, hints, and teases, the game was officially announced on Friday. There is no word on platforms (Xbox and PlayStation will be assumed here) or a release date, but it has been suggested by 2K Games, the publisher, that it will be out within this coming fiscal year, which will be next April.
This is the fourth entry in the critically and commercially successful loot-shooting Borderlands series, after the first two games and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, which came out in 2014.
Borderlands 3 looks very similar to the three previous games, which were very popular and liked by critics and gamers.
This news, which is great for Gearbox, comes after a few difficult years for the independent studio located in Frisco, Texas. They have dealt with two high-profile games that were poorly received due to their graphics. Aliens: Colonial Marines, which was released in 2013, became infamous after a pre-released demo exposed the game for graphics that were flashy and fake compared to the real game’s. In 2016,an attempt to appeal to the fans of the hero shooters, but that game flopped just as hard as the Aliens game.
Now, the company will hope to win new fans as well as bring back old fans with a new entry to its most successful series to date.
However, for right now, fans will have to wait for more news, and according to Gearbox, there will be more to reveal to fans on April 3.
Who is going to be the lucky ones to enter the hall of fame that is designed for video games?
Will it be Solitaire that is finally able to play its cards right and enter the hall? Could the popular franchise, Mortal Kombat be able to “Finish it” and claim it’s rightful place in the hall? Or could it be the popular mobile game, Candy Crush that is able to enter the hall at a very young age?
There are 12 different games that are up for nomiation that include Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, and NBA 2K. The expert committee will decide whether or not any of these 12 games will be inducted in the hall on May 2nd. Gamers are also allowed to vote for their favorites into the hall until March 28th in an online ballot.
The World Video Game Hall of Fame is located in Rochester, NY and it recognizes all electronic games in many different platforms from arcade to mobile phones.
It also shows how popular the video game industry is as they are also breaking records in profits again as the industry is projected to make nearly $140 billion from last year compared to the dwarf size amount of $43.4 billion made by the movie industry.
It is very honorable for these games to be considered for the hall of fame and good luck to each and everyone of these games in their races to enter the hall.
Some of the biggest health news headlines have been about the rise of anti-vaxxers in the United States as more and more parents are not getting their children vaccinated. Now, there’s one game known as a sickness simulator that’s adding in anti-vaxxers as a cause of the end of humanity.
Plague Inc., which was created by Ndemic Creations, will be adding anti-vaxxers into the game by popular demand after a fan petition was started on Change.org and asked Ndemic to consider adding anti-vaxxers into the game if the petition reached 10,000 signatures. As of press time, the petition has reached over 20,000 signatures.
Edward Gabrian was the person behind the creation of the petition and his reason for the petition was: “Anti-vaxxers are stupid.”
Plague Inc. was first released for mobile devices in 2012 as a free game with microtransactions for any special diseases to use in-game and it has been a popular game for all mobile users since. The game is so popular that it has since been ported to PC, and Ndemic Creations released the game as a board game after a successful Kickstarter in 2016.
The game is realistic to the point that in 2013, the Centers for Disease Control invited the developer, James Vaughan, to their headquarters in Atlanta to talk about how the game can be used as an educational tool for people.
There is no information about when the update to the game will happen or any official response from any anti-vaxxers about this news.
For some, video games are the way of life while for others, gaming is just a lazy way to live your life. However, in one state, there are plans to place taxes on your favorite games like GTA, Call of Duty, and God of War.
Yes, the home of most Amish people, Pennsylvania, is trying to add a tax for games that are violent or mature, in efforts to make more money for state-run programs. The plan calls for a 10 percent tax, which would be at a cost of $6 for games that usually cost $60 when the game is initially released. This tax would only happen at retail stores as Pennsylvania would be unable to control the digital sales of the games.
This is the second time that the bill has been presented to the legislative body as the first bill failed to make it out of the committee. Now, the bill, which is called House Bill 109, is picking up steam with two Democrats and a Republican currently sponsoring it.
The tax money made from the games would be used to enhance school safety measures in the state.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is currently challenging the law. The ESA says that the law would violate the U.S. Constitution, citing a previous case that stated video games were protected by the Constitution.
ESA also cited research that says there’s no evidence attributing mass shootings to violent games.
It will be interesting to see what the outcome of the case will be, and we will be sure to keep up with any updates as the bill progresses.
Fortnite has been a revolutionary game for all of gaming. It has also been an example for many gaming companies that you can do microtransactions and not affect the gamers that play the game for fun.
It’s not pay-to-win, and along with Battle Royale, Fortnite and Epic Games have one of the better games in recent memories. Now they can say that they had gaming’s first live concert.
Marshmello, the DJ with hits like “Happier” and “Friends”, and avid Fortnite gamer had his first ever concert in a game that was live and free for all gamers to see.
The concert was a standard concert for Marshmello and had his standard set of songs, but of course, it was also different as he was performing these songs live on a game. The concert also stopped all action in the game as gamers were not allowed to kill each other or the virtual Marshmello until the concert was over.
After the concert ended, gamers were able to return to their games and play as they normally would.
Epic Games also released a Marshmello skin for gamers to use for their Fortnite characters.
This is not the first time that Fortnite has used their famous fans for advertisement. They have used Ninja’s popularity to reach the top of the streaming charts on Twitch and YouTube, and have also taken advantage of Drake’s popularity, who is known to be an avid Fortnite gamer as well.
As of right now, there were no reported issues with connections for the concert as it most likely produced a high amount of traffic in the game at that time.
This concert with Marshmello was a good day for gaming and music, as it could lead to something much bigger like a Drake concert. Then we will see if Epic Games has the best servers in the world.
Beginning on Tuesday, Rockstar released the highly anticipated Red Dead Online Beta to those who had purchased the Ultimate Edition. On Friday, the beta was released to everyone and oh boy, the mode has been filled with not so much glitches but rather a lack of things.
The lack of content:
So, for an online mode to succeed, there needs to be some type of content, like story mode or events, or something. Red Dead Online may be in the beta stages, but the lack of activities on the mode makes it seem like the only reason it was released was to give the players something, along with patching a few things.
It only took me a few game hours before I had finished the online story mode (more content to be released) and the few other optional missions. That’s a small issue when compared to this next one.
MICROTRANSACTIONS
Microtransactions are here to stay as long as the player is willing to pay for them but come on Rockstar, why does it seem like your Red Dead Online mode has the transaction system of a mobile game? There should not be two different currencies in the game.
It is bad enough that the in-game economy is so bad that it is going to take a ton of grinding to get the weapons and clothing you want if you did not buy the ultimate edition. I can not stand it when your game is more or less a pay to win situation.
That type of system has led to gamers buying fewer of those games. Now, most of the time, you’ll see those games in the sports gaming side of things, but you get my point.
The plotline makes no sense
There won’t be any spoilers in here, but the plotline describing how your character got to where he/she is makes no sense. Where is your “redemption” for this plot? Rockstar aims for a story mode here, but based on what I have played so far, it just seems like another GTA Online but with the lack of flying cars, jokes, and whatnot.
Do not even get me started with the try-hards as they are in every online game. However, it does not help with the gaming experience.
Red Dead Online is unable to capitalize on the main game’s success for now, and it won’t until Rockstar is able to fix these issues or make the game better.
After Sony canceled the PlayStation Experience earlier this year, there was hope that Sony would make an appearance at E3 in 2019. Well, that’s another tradition that PlayStation will be breaking this year.
For the first time since E3 began over 24 years ago, PlayStation and Sony will not be showing up at the event. Sony said in a statement that their reason for missing the event comes down to the way games are showcased nowadays. “We always want to innovate, think differently, and experiment with new ways to delight gamers.”
This is not the first time that a big video game company has decided to skip E3. Nintendo started this back in 2013 when they decided to skip the event in favor of an online press conference that they still do to this day.
However, Nintendo did end up making a return to E3, but they had a much smaller role as a vendor.
As noted, Sony made the decision earlier this year to cancel their annual PlayStation Experience. Their decision to cancel it did not backfire in their face as they had one of the best years in gaming in recent memory.
Games like God of War and Spider-Man, which were PS4 exclusives, sold in record numbers, and this has resulted in higher PS4 sales so people can play those games.
In October, it was confirmed by Sony president and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida that Sony was working on a PlayStation 5 with an official announcement to come in 2019 or 2020.
The critically acclaimed game, Red Dead Redemption 2, was destined to be one of the games of the year, but most people could not have seen what RDR 2 would end up accomplishing.
Rockstar announced on Monday that within the first three days of release, Red Dead Redemption 2 sold over $725 million in copies, around 10 million units sold. Rockstar is also projecting that the game will have made a profit by December and will have sold over 20 million units by then.
Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two also has stated that RDR 2 had the most pre-order sales in PlayStation Network history. However, RDR 2 is only second behind Grand Theft Auto 5, another Rockstar game that was released in 2013, for most sales in a three day period, with GTA 5 hitting the billion-dollar mark within that time period.
Most people don’t think about the cost that goes into making a game like RDR 2, and they may wonder why the game is not profitable as of right now. But if you think of it, this is very normal.
Since the release of the original Red Dead Redemption, developers have been working on the second one. There was controversy regarding paying employees, with some developers working over 80 hours in a week to get RDR 2 to the point where it is at now.
Not to mention, Red Dead Online has not been released as of press time. Take-Two will break even before the release of the online mode (release date is unknown), so do not feel bad for them as we will be giving them our money soon enough.
Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899 in the Wild West where you play as Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang. The game follows the story of the gang as well as a young John Marston, the protagonist of the first game.
NOTE: This will not have any spoilers until the author of this story has completed the game.
Rockstar has finally released the most anticipated game of the year in Red Dead Redemption 2. It took 8 years before gamers around the world got to play as Arthur Morgan, a thief and lead enforcer of Dutch Van Der Linde’s gang. This gang has gone through anything and everything, and now, you can experience it yourself.
However, most people are very impressed with the graphics of the game and how the characters act towards you. Here are a few things that RDR 2 does differently from other open world games.
The world that you are playing in:
Ican’t even begin to talk about how your interactions in the open world in this game can affect your playing experience. The way that you hunt to what you eat and how you dress for the weather—it feels like you are living in a real-life simulator and I freaking love it. Rockstar has finally produced an open world game with factors like these. This stuff matters to a gamer who wants to live like they were in the late 1890s and not have to deal with the real life heat.
The animals in the game
I don’t remember ever playing a game that shows the diversity of the animals in the world that you are playing in. I have seen animals as big as bison and bears and as small as songbirds and rats. And by the way, you can hunt all of them. This is one of my favorite parts of the game. You don’t need to hunt them, but it is fun to explore the different animals in the game.
The weapons and maintaining them
Of course, the weapons in a western game are very important for your survival. Another new thing that has started in this game is the cleaning of your weapons. If they get too “dirty” then you need to clean it; otherwise, it will affect the strength of the bullet and the path of the bullet as well.
I am looking forward to playing more of this game and finishing the story mode on there, but so far, so good for Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
Anytime a new generation of gaming systems is in the works, it is hard to keep it a secret, and this news is no exception. In fact, this story was probably the worst kept secret in the gaming industry. However, the news was made official by Sony CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida, in an interview with the Financial Times. Sony is currently working on a successor to the PlayStation 4 but has stopped short of calling it the PlayStation 5.
“At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware,” Yoshida said.
This announcement comes after Microsoft announced that they are currently testing Project xCloud, streaming technology for playing any Xbox games on phones and tablets. The public will be able to test this project beginning next year.
Sony does offer streaming games on the PS4 and PC with its PlayStation Now service, which was previously available on Samsung Smart TVs.
Yoshida did not give an exact date for when the new system would be available on the market, but according to Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO John Kodera, the new system is hinted to be released in 2021 as reported by Digital Trends. Kodera previously stated in May that the PS4 has entered “the final phase of its life cycle.”
Do not expect for Sony to drop the PlayStation name as the game systems with the name have been very successful in the past 3 decades. The PlayStation 2 is the best selling console of all time with 155 million units sold. The PS4 since it was launched in 2013 has sold 80 million units, and it will likely pass the sales of the PS3, which sold 83.8 million units according to GameSpot.
After a very quiet E3 from Sony on the PlayStation side of things, it was announced that there will not be a PlayStation Experience for 2018, at least in the United States.
No PSX for PlayStation fans this year leaves questions; photo from kotaku.com
Shawn Layden, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Worldwide Studios chairman made the announcement. His reasoning behind the decision was that he believed they would not be able to live up to the expectations of a high-profile media event with not much to show.
Layden said on the PlayStation Blogcast that with the focus on the recent and successful release of Spider-Man and the future releases of games like Dreams and Days Gone, there was no way there would be enough people from North America to appear for the event.
Sony has had a very successful year with games like God-Of-War, which broke Sony’s game sales record with 3.1 million copies sold within the first three days of release. This record would not last for long as Spider-Man would break the record with 3.3 million copies sold.
However, at E3, Sony only focused on four games: Spider-Man, The Last of Us: Part II, Death Stranding, and Ghost of Tsushima.
PlayStation Experience, which is also known as PSX, first appeared in Europe in the 2000s, disappeared for a number of years, and then reappeared in the United States in 2014.
Layden did not rule out the possibility of the return of PSX in the future.
This news comes after rumors of Sony allowing PlayStation Network users the ability to change their usernames. PSN users were hoping that the rumor would had been confirmed at PSX.
We all know what you are here to read about—a “new” PlayStation. It can’t be, right? Can it really be the PlayStation 5 that everyone has been looking forward to for the past few years? Well… maybe not. While many may be getting their hopes up for something new from Sony’s most successful gaming platform, but this newest update to the PlayStation family is going a slightly different direction.
All of the accessories of the PlayStation Classic including the console itself. Photo from blog.us.playstation.com
Sony has announced a throwback version of the PlayStation 1 to celebrate 24 years of PlayStation and to follow in the same path that Nintendo has done for the past few years now.
This new version of the PlayStation 1 will be called the PlayStation Classic and will feature 20 games from the PS1’s original library that will be built into the station. The system will be updated in order to work on a modern television, and much smaller than the original PS1—so small, in fact, that you could hold it in your hand.
Sony has only announced five of the 20 games to be on the PlayStation Classic, including Final Fantasy 7 and Tekken 3.
On a video posted to Sony’s YouTube channel, the PlayStation Classic will not be able to play games from the original PS1, but only its 20 pre-loaded games. The PlayStation Classic will come with two retro controllers, will not have an AC adapter, and only possess HDMI for audio and video and a micro-USB for power.
Sony will be releasing the PlayStation Classic on December 3, the same day that the original PS1 was released 24 years ago, for $99.99 to buy—to compare, some games with bonus features, additional content, and free virtual cash (much like the upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2) will have a roughly similar cost all its own.
Microtransactions have been a hot topic in the gaming industry. The question has been, should they be allowed in games? Well, one country has decided that one form of microtransactions is illegal.
Belgium has decided to ban so called “loot boxes” from video games in their country, labeling it as gambling. This is just a week after The Netherlands declaring some “loot boxes” as gambling as well.
The Minister of Justice in Belgium has said that publishers of games that have “loot boxes” risk fines or prison time if these games with loot boxes are distributed in Belgium.
Games like FIFA, Overwatch and CSGO were determined to promote gambling and thus will be subject to Belgian gambling laws. Star Wars Battlefront 2 was able to escape the ban to due the outcry of there being loot boxes in the game when it was released, the publisher, EA removed them.
The main reason for the decision from Belgium is to stop minors from being exposed to gambling when they are only trying to have fun, the Minister of Justice noted.
Publishers who don’t remove the “gambling” from their game could face up to five years in prison and fines up to $800,000.
However, for those who hate these loot boxes in America, don’t expect anything to happen since most forms of gambling are legal.
The never-ending lawsuit between Lindsey Lohan and Take-Two Interactive has finally ended in favor of the makers of Grand Theft Auto 5, but next time, they may not be so lucky.
The real life Lindsey Lohan and the GTA 5 character “Lacey Jones;” photo from digitaltrends.com
Judges from New York state’s highest court ruled in favor of Take-Two Interactive in a lawsuit case. Lohan had sued Take-Two over the likeness of the GTA 5 character “Lacey Jones” who only appeared in one mission during the storyline game in a random event. Lohan had been fighting the case since 2014 which was called a “publicity stunt” by Take-Two.
Lohan’s case nearly was dismissed in 2016 but she was able to get her case to a New York Supreme Court judge who ruled against her. Then she appealed her case to the Court of Appeals which affirmed the decision of the state’s judge.
The unanimous ruling did find that video game avatars constitute a portrait of someone. However, Lacey Jones, described as a “beach-going young woman” lacked characteristics that reasonably identified the plaintiff.
Lohan’s lawsuit will most likely end here unless she can prove and show how the ruling and New York’s privacy laws conflict federal Constitution laws. If she can prove that, her case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court but the possibility of that happening is slim to none.
Even though Lindsey Lohan didn’t get the result that she was looking for, the ruling is very significant in New York. Video game avatars can be a likeness equivalent to photographs, films, or other depictions under the law.
Video game companies will have to watch twice before making a character that is similar to a celebrity because otherwise, they could end up in court and lose.
If you are a PC gamer with Grand Theft Auto 5 Online, you may had gotten banned for no apparent reason.
GTA Online’s latest update is NASCAR on steroids but some PC users are unable to play due to a ban; photo from egmnow.com
After the “Southern San Andreas Super Sport Series” update, many users on PC have been reporting a wave of bans, either mistaken or for no good reason. Users on PS4 and Xbox One have not had the same bug as of now. Most of the bans on the PC have only been for 30 days instead of a lifetime but it still frustrates players who want to play the game and the latest update.
It is believed that Rockstar’s “anti-cheat” system has failed and according to one player on the GTA Online forum who has their own “anti-cheat” software, everyone in his session was labeled as cheating even though they haven’t been.
The system is singling out everyone who might be an illegal-modder which has resulted in bans for many who have done no wrong.
While it is natural for someone who has been caught cheating to say that they haven’t been, something has been amiss with the recent bans. Most of the players that have been banned have fewer than 10 hours of game time which suggests overreach on the game moderators’ parts.
Another thing that might be causing the bans is that some users do have a modder on their PC but the modder is only being used offline, not online.
Neither Rockstar or its parent company, Take-Two Interactive have made a statement to the GTA Online forum or a public statement about the situation.
Remember the days when you’d buy a game and you’d get a 100 per cent completed package? Now, it’s the norm to expect a half-finished game that’ll get fixed later on with downloadable content, or DLC.
In the beginning, DLC was a welcome change to gaming. It meant you could get more from your already complete game in increments. It gave you a reason to keep coming back to your already great game. But now it seems that games are intentionally giving you less content so that they can charge more to get the full experience.
The problem got worse with a system called microtransactions. This system of DLC has always been a common element of mobile gaming. It’s when you play a game that has an artificial currency, such as lives in Candy Crush or gems in Clash of Clans. You can get them yourself over long periods of time, or you can pay and get them instantly. This currency can be spent in the game to speed up your upgrades and reduce the time it takes for you to be able to play again. It goes without saying that many of the highest-level players are the ones who spent money.
This is the problem gamers have with “freemium,” or pay-to-win games. They’re used to games where the best players rise to the top and casual gamers have to work to earn their place of respect. With microtransactions, it‘s just the opposite. Skill becomes irrelevant, and the richest players win every time –which is fine for mobile gaming , where the most casual gamers will be.
That all changes when microtransactions are introduced into console gaming. EA was shameless in their experimentation with this form of bleeding their fans dry. We paid $60 for Dead Space 3, and were surprised with a cool material crafting system you could use to create and modify weapons. We were even more surprised to see that you don’t have to grind through hours of killing enemies to get these materials; you only had to pay $0.99 apiece for the new guns. You can then easily breeze through the game on your first run without much worry. It was a slap in the face to fans of the franchise, for selling out to the casual gaming crowd.
But that’s the way things are now. Games are released unfinished, and all it takes is an apology and an update to make things right. Mass Effect 3 was criticized for having the worst ending of all time, leaving fans to make extensive videos rationalizing why anyone would ever make an ending this bad– but developers fixed it with a downloadable update. You can also pay along the way to open up missions and unlock characters that would dramatically change the course of the game. Or you could not, and only get some of the experience.
Evolve is undoubtedly the most recent culprit and one of the biggest offenders of charging for complete content. At launch, you’re given a selection of three monsters and twelve hunters, which you had to unlock by playing in a certain style and by all-around being good at the game. Either that, or buy the shortcut. On day one, you could see people playing as the most overpowered monster, because they spent the extra money to win before anyone else could earn it.
Many games nowadays have a ‘season pass’ option, where you pay a one-time fee and it pays for all of the content for that year. Evolve has this as well, for $20. But there’s still a total of $74.49 worth of skins and other content that isn’t covered by this season pass. That’s more than double the original price of the game — just in added content that doesn’t even change the game.
This is just one step in a slippery slope, where games will give you less, and charge you for more, despite not even changing the base price of the product. We’ve seen this with Destiny, Titanfall, and Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and it’s become the norm for nearly every game that has come out this year. It’ll only get worse, because this business model has worked for mobile gaming–so these video game publishers want to push it onto the rest of us.
This is the end of the article. Sure, it’s abrupt and doesn’t seem like a sensible stopping point, but if you want the rest of the article, it’ll be made available in two months for a small fee of $14.99. Enjoy your incomplete content.
