Gaming Dispatch 5-11th of February 2017
Welcome to Gaming Dispatch. Another week of gaming news has passed and I am here to bring you the most important stories. There was not a whole lot of noteworthy happenings but what is included are things like Steam Greenlight shutting down, more Nintendo Switch details, and more effects of the Trump travel ban.
Steam Greenlight
In this week's biggest story, Valve has announced that they are shutting down Steam Greenlight in the Spring this year. After its inception in 2012 the community voting system has made it possible for hundreds of indie developers to get their game on the Steam store, on the other hand it has also contributed to the massive influx of games released on the service during the last couple of years. Back in 2014 Gabe Newell said that he wanted to Greenlight system gone and now that time has come, it will not just outright be gone however, it will be replaced by another system called Steam Direct. In the old system developers first had to pay a small fee of $100 to be able to put as many games as they would like up on Greenlight, the community then voted on what they would like to see on the actual store, although if the games actually would get released on the store was up to Steam itself. In the new Steam Direct system developers have to fill out a form including things like personal or company verification and tax documents in addition to pay a fee. Unlike to old system however they now have to pay said fee for every time they apply to the system, meaning that there is a bigger payment barrier to entry. As to how large this fee is has not been entirely decided yet but they are looking at somewhere between $100 and $5000, not that this fee is recoupable, meaning that it’s only going to be a temporary deposit. If the developer meets mentioned requirements their game will get on the store, in other words the voting system is gone.
The possibly huge increase in entrance fee has, as you might imagine, not been too popular amongst indie devs. Daniel Steger, developer of Mount Your Friends, is worried that small hopeful devs will bankrupt themselves with no profit because of the new system. Steam Direct may not be all bad however as it is reasonable to believe that the increased barrier to entry will result in less shovelware and Unity asset flips released on Steam, but on the other hand it may also change the indie scene as we know it.
Muslim ban follow-up
After the Trump travel ban Valve has commented on how it has affected them, particularly in the hiring and e-sports department. During a roundtable discussion with various journalists Gabe Newell confirmed that they have employees that, if they leave the US they can’t come back home, meaning they can’t go to any events outside the country. Additionally the travel ban might affect the annual Dota 2 tournament “The International” in a big way. The huge tournament that has been happening since 2012 has usually been hosted Valve’s hometown of Seattle, with the exception of the first which took place in Germany, might again have to move out of the US to make sure that all foreign teams will be able to participate.
Also as a cause of the muslim ban Unity Technologies the creators of the Unity game engine has taken a stand against Trump’s executive order. Unity CEO John Riccitiello outlined the company’s plan on how to support affected developers in an email circulated among its staff. What was described in said email was that they are going to donate up to $1,000 to nonprofit organizations like the ACLU, and inviting and paying for 50 affected developers to attend the company’s annual Unite Europe Conference.
Proud to be a part of Unity, as it takes a stand against this nonsense. ❤️✊️ #resist #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/eabT3QCrqg
— Robert Cupisz (@robertcupisz) February 8, 2017
Nintendo Switch
New details about the Nintendo Switch hardware has been released, but I am not bothering going through that, so if you want to read it you can do so here.
On the software side of things there has also been some updates. Nintendo has confirmed that the new console is compatible with game engines such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity, and that they are working towards an increased third-party support. One aspects that is good for developers is the fact that the console will use a PC-style architecture which will make for a more familiar development and ease of porting games between the different platforms.
Furthermore it seems like the Switch is likely to get a decent amount of indie title as well as it is confirmed that The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth + is one of the launch titles. Nicalis, the dev of said game, has also confirmed that they are working on multiple other titles for the console as well, they are however not the only ones as both Stardew Valley and Tumbleseed for the Switch has been announced.
Flash stories:
- The World of Warcraft item “WoW token” can now be converted into “Battle.net balance” to be used to buy things in other Blizzard games.
- Not related to video games, but I just want to mention that next season of the fantastic anime that is Attack on Titan is set air at 1st of April.
- E3 will be open to the public this year, with ticket sale starting tomorrow.
- And the upcoming South Park game, South Park: The Fractured But Whole has again gotten delayed, now to sometime before April 2018.
As an interesting bonus story this week, during the ASUS overclocking event Absolute Zero, the overclocker “der8euer” managed to clock the i7-7700K to 7.2GHz. 7.2GHz… That’s almost three GHz more than standard! If you are like me and think this is interesting, check out his video about it.
Sources to all the stories:
Steam Greenlight:
Nintendo Switch:
Muslim Ban followup:
Kommentarer
Legg inn en kommentar