Personal Computer Game News

[king3pj]

DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: GO combined are bigger than all of Steam was just 2 years ago.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota...am-was-two-years-ago-and-theyre-still-growing

I get DOTA. It's free to play and MOBAs are exploding. The way Counter Strike (and now CS:GO) remains on top of the multiplayer shooter genre on PC has always kind of been a mystery to me though. It's not free to play, there are a million multiplayer shooters, and graphically it's pretty dated at this point because its 3 years old and even back then it was designed to run on light hardware.

I never had a gaming PC when the original Counter Strike was huge and I didn't have one yet when CS:GO was released so maybe I just don't get it. My only experience with Counter Strike was the port on the original Xbox. That was my first Xbox Live game and I played the hell out of it. I had my custom soundtrack saved on the Xbox hard drive and I probably played more hours of that than any other game on Live for that system.

From my time on Xbox I know that Counter Strike is more tactical than most other shooters. You don't just run around like crazy because you don't respawn and it only takes a bullet or two to kill you. If you rush in and die early you hurt your team because then they are short handed for the rest of the round. Maybe that's where the appeal comes from? Still, with all the shooters on the market it seems like something would be able to knock off a 3 year old game.

 

[yourbeliefs]

OnLive is shutting down at the end of the month, with all the assets/patents going to Sony, likely to bolster it's Playstation Now Service.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-04-cloud-gaming-company-onlive-shuts-down-this-month

 

[Poke]

A new Deus Ex is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/7/8360771/deus-ex-mankind-divided-ps4-xbox-one-pc

Hope its good.

 

[Poke]

REPORT: GTA 5 PC RETAIL COPY TAKES UP 7 DISCS

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/08/report-gta-5-pc-retail-copy-takes-up-7-discs

 

[yourbeliefs]

Mortal Kombat X on Steam has a streaming install feature. Too bad they didn't bother to tell anyone in advance...

http://kotaku.com/mortal-kombat-xs-streaming-steam-install-has-fans-angry-1697688696

And of course, the Steam reviewers are in, many giving the unhelpful positive reviews that it's a great Menu simulator or that the Menu Boss is too hard.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/307780

Total Biscuit shows off how bad this system is..



Oh, and there's this gem (NSFW)

 

[yourbeliefs]

In reference to the previous NSFW image, apparently a popular MMA fighter thinks that the girl in it was modeled after her likeness, and she may not be too far off..

http://kotaku.com/mma-fighter-claims-the-new-mortal-kombat-ripped-off-her-1697868061

 

[yourbeliefs]

Remember Battlefield: Heroes? Well, it's going Bye Bye..

http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/en/forum/showthread.php?tid=505380

 

[yourbeliefs]

Remember Battlefield: Heroes? Well, it's going Bye Bye..

http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/en/forum/showthread.php?tid=505380

Looks like EA is actually shutting down 4 F2P games. The Old Republic is still safe.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/15/8422237/ea-shutting-down-free-to-play-pc-games

 

[yourbeliefs]

Kerbal Space Program is finally coming out of Early Access on April 27.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com...-Program-1-0-comes-out!?p=1848359#post1848359

 

[yourbeliefs]

WWE2K15 is coming to PC this Spring. It's supposed to be similar to the One/PS4 versions. I almost wish this wasn't the case because I found 2K15 to be quite lacking, although on the positive side they're including all the DLC for free, which is quite a few characters.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/2k/wwe-2k15/wwe-2k15-windows-pc-announcement-this-spring-27315901

 

[yourbeliefs]

"Copycats" in gaming are nothing new, but this game almost brings it to a new level..

 

[yourbeliefs]

Steam has started allowing Modders to sell their Modson Steam for games that aren't made by Valve, starting off with Skyrim. This has caused quite a stir online, mainly negative, as people are complaining that Mods should always be free and trying to make money off them goes against the whole principal behind Modding (although really the reason you typically don't charge is because then you're more prone to C&D requests from the publishers of the games you're modding.)

Total Biscuit describes the situation in good detail here.


Reddit is a fury over this..

A modder says why this is a bad idea..

One user points out the incredible gall of Valve to take 75% of profits from all mods sold.

Valve is removing donation links for all Workshop mods

Someone made a parody video about the whole thing with that Spanish talk show that seems to be the Internet's replacement for "Downfall" videos.

A Boycott Steam Workshop group has been created

The creator of the famous Gary's Mod has weighed in. Needless to say his opinion isn't going over well.

Oh, and there have been numerous cases of people taking free mods from Nexus Mods and uploading them to Steam and charging money for them

Personally I think the old system was best where you had free Mods and just allowed a donation button. Forcing users to pay for Mods (especially for Mods that were once free) without even giving us any sort of notice is a rather balsy move, and the idea that Valve takes 75% of the profits for their sales is just utter greedy b*llshit with no true justification. It made sense for the TF2/DoTA2/CS:GO stuff as those are Valve games. Doing it for a 3rd party game simply can't be justified. We'll see what happens. I wouldn't be too surprised if Valve decides to pull back on this because there's no doubt that unless they change some things, people are not going to embrace this.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well, to quote the great Jim Ross, "Business is about to pick up here!"

Lord Gaben has come down from Mt. Olympus to answer questions about the whole Mod controversy in a Reddit AMA. He's taking a break currently, and honestly the best way to view what he's said is to look at his profile and the things he is responding to, but in any event here is a link to the AMA.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/

 

[king3pj]

I don't have a problem with people wanting to get paid for their work. Dark Souls is pretty much unplayable without the DSFix mod so pretty much everyone who plays that game has it installed. The guy who made it probably deserves some kind of compensation for fixing the game.

At the same time, his mod probably wouldn't be as universally used if he charged $5 for it. I don't know how many people will actually be willing to pay for mods. I personally probably wouldn't buy many but I'm not a heavy mod user anyways. I did run one to play Dragon Age on my TV because the text was so small that it was unreadable. A modder made a new UI for U.S. TV gamers that took away a frustrating problem. Would I pay $5 for that? I don't know.

I've also used texture mods for some older games to make them look better. Again I had fun messing with that stuff because it was free but I wouldn't have paid for it.

The bigger problem with all this is the 75% Valve and the game publishers are taking. Yes, the game is the publisher's property and yes, Valve has costs for hosting these mods but I don't think that justifies a 75% cut.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So on ESPN 2 last night they decided to show some eSports. It looks like people aren't willing to embrace eSports quite yet..

http://kotaku.com/espn-airs-video-games-twitter-freaks-out-1700333433

 

[yourbeliefs]

Minecraft is now letting you play as a girl officially.

https://mojang.com/2015/04/new-skins-achievements-music/

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well that was quick... Valve has removed the paid workshop from Steam...

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8505883/valve-removing-paid-mods-from-steam

 

[yourbeliefs]

FYI, Act II of Broken Age is released today.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So NetherRealm released a 15 GIGABYTE patch to fix the PC version of MK X. Unfortunately, it ended up wiping out user's save data, and won't even work with backed up saves. NR pulled the patch. Not much consolation for those who lost all their progress.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/307780/announcements/detail/134324112481126114

 

[yourbeliefs]

WoW lost nearly 3 million users over the span of 3 months...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...-Loses-2-9-Million-Subscribers-in-One-Quarter