Game News

The AAA game industry keeps on staggering about like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

The hottest furor surrounding Blizzard has died down a bit, but Blizzcon is this upcoming weekend, and we'll have to wait and see how that goes. It has already been confirmed that all questions for Q&A must be submitted in advance. Not to brag (but I'm doing it anyway), but I called it on that score. After last years fiasco with Diablo mobile and “Don't you guys have phones”, I suspect they were always going to do pre approved questions this year. Now with the whole China scandal it was a given, and I look forward to seeing what protests they are going to have to deal with.

Blizzard has already “leaked” Diablo 4 and a remaster of Diablo 2 to create hype, but no one seems to be excited. Time will tell.

The co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, has admitted that they have messed up and he has delayed all their upcoming major titles until next year, causing their stock to plummet 20% or so. I'd be more impressed by a CEO admitting fault if he didn't do it all the time, and then change nothing.

Bethesda has continued to dig themselves a nice big hole with Fallout 76. First they announced that the upcoming Wastelanders update that would finally add human NPC's to the game was delayed until next year, and then they announced Fallout 1^st, a subscription that costs $13 a month or $100 a year. This is considerably higher in several countries.

Fallout 1^st gives subscribers private servers for you and seven friends, a junk box with unlimited capacity, a tent that functions as a quick travel point and some new cosmetics. This is in direct violation of their own promise that all updates would be free and people are furious. To make matters so much worse, it turns out that many players have reported that the junk box deletes everything you put in it. The tent has a tendency to crash you to desktop, deleting the server instance and kicking your friends out of the game, erasing all your hard work.

The private servers don't work either. Players are reporting that others can join in without permission and that they log in to find containers already looted and NPC's killed.

Having a subscription break immediately is already embarrassing but Bethesda's response has been ludicrous. First they claimed that the junk box was only a UI glitch and that all was fine. Then they admitted that the stuff was indeed deleted and that they were “investigating”the issue. The tent crash is also being “investigated”. They vehemently deny that the private servers are just normal instances that are semi-separate and that they would patch in better control on who can join your game at some point in the future. Their general attitude is less like a responsible company and more like a sullen teenager taking out the trash when their moms yell at them for the third time.

To make matter slightly worse still, they did the whole Fallout 1^st two days before The Outer Worlds went live. TOW has been highly anticipated as it's made by Obsidian who made Kotor 2 and Fallout New Vegas, both highly acclaimed. Many also pointed out all the other subscriptions that one could get for the same or less, like Netflix, Xbox for PC, EA Origins, HBO etc.

Fallout 1^st is a complete joke as a subscription, and if Bethesda is going to continue to do business like this, then one has to fear for their upcoming Starfall and Elder Scrolls 6. I can't trust them anymore and will adopt a wait and see. I'm not buying into this kind of nonsense.

Finally, a new report by the UK Children's Commission on micro-transactions and lootboxes paints a very grim picture. They have talked to kids of all ages and found that the issue is sort of worse than we thought.

It's bad enough when an adult can't control his spending but when kids are bullied by their peers for not having cool in-game skins, being taunted as “Default”, then that needs looking at. Many others feel pressured to spend money to keep up, whether in games like Fortnite or the annual Fifa franchise, they even straight up call it gambling. Since they go to school full time, they don't have the time to grind for good players and since the game resets every year, they feel the pressure to pay with real money. This is what EA called “Ethical” and “Fun surprise mechanics”. Please...

Well, I've rambled long enough. Until next time, have a fun week!

Mind blown, but not my own

Hello and welcome to a new week and another Eccentric Sphere!

With that overly enthusiastic greeting out of the way, I can tell you I have to do a short one today. Stuff to do, stuff to do...

Anyway, last week I tripped over Alex Hefner on Youtube, and figured you might enjoy him as well. See, he grew up with rap and hip-hop, and for some reason decided to do a reaction video to a Slipknot video.

This grew and he now uploads a lot of different reactions to metal videos. I guess the Power of Metal grabbed him and didn't let him go. Oh, if you don't like metal music, you might not enjoy this... disclaimer...

If you're thinking: “Reaction videos? Those are so dumb”, then I can inform you this is a bit different. Alex has a lot of charm and humor and puts a lot of work into what seems like pretty simple videos. Little injections of humor to emphasize his point raises this to another level. It's not just some dude sitting there yelling at random internet stuff.

Anyway, give it a shot if you feel like it, you might like it.

Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

Metal reactions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-SDHlNQgy8&list=PLKduaGfFr-zvxksZg5uubMKnU4k1L7bTS

A Blizzard of Trouble

Last week must have been the worst for Activision-Blizzard, particularly the Blizzard part.

Chances are you've already heard about this as international media has reported on it but here is the Blitzchung drama.

On Monday the 7^th of October, Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai, won a Hearthstone grandmasters tournament and in the interview that followed he said: ”Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age”. The livestream was immediately shut down.

In very short order Blitzchung was stripped of all his winnings and slapped with a one year ban from Blizzard e-sports. The two shoutcasters (commentators) were also suspended by Blizzard for a year.

So, an American corporation punishes a Hong Kong citizen for showing solidarity with his people in their fight for human rights and democracy? Hang on now... A press statement in the west calmly stated that Blitzchung had violated the rules of the tournament by talking about something besides the game... and that's why they took everything away from him? Well read on.

In the East, Blizzards message was a bit different. There are a couple of different translations of the Mandarin Chinese message but the content is essentially the same: We are very angry and we will always uphold and defend the dignity of China. I'm paraphrasing but that's essentially what it said.

So now the American corporation is punishing a Hong Kong player on behalf of Communist China? Not good...

This blew up in an incredible storm of fury all over the world. A Norwegian member of Parliament wrote to Activision CEO Robert Kotick, asking him to do the right thing. U.S. politicians on both sides have condemned Activision-Blizzard. Human Rights watch groups are furious and fans are boycotting, canceling their subscriptions and even deleting their Blizzard accounts in protest. The amount of cancellations got so bad that Blizzard either tried to stop it by shutting down the pages where you delete your account or the system crashed under the load.

The fury continued to grow and all Activision-Blizzard said was: We're evaluating our situation. Then on Friday the 11^th just before the closing of business, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack issued a statement.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

Not only is this a weak non statement, but the language is so grammatically weird that some are suspecting that is was written in Chinese and not in English. I have no evidence either way. However, phrases like:

“We now believe he should receive his prizing” is not really how an American normally writes.

So now Blitzchung gets his prize money and is “only” suspended for six months as are the casters.

To make the whole mess messier, a U.S. Hearthstone team in another league held up a sign during a tournament stating “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizzard”. The camera was pulled away from them but they received no punishment whatsoever, even though their message was harsher than Blitzchungs.

In protest, the American University team forfeited the match and dropped out of the tournament. This does illustrate that Blizzards actions had nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with appeasing China.

Some Blizzard employees have protested via a walkout and even covered up the parts of the statue outside Blizzard HQ that says “Every voice matters”.

Now with Blizzcon only a couple of weeks away, peaceful protests are being organized so it might be an interesting convention.

That's the story in a nutshell, if you want more, Youtube has dozens of videos on the subject. But, what's the bottom line here?

China is an enormous market for both mobile and PC games, and Activision-Blizzard is obviously very keen on not offending the Chinese government, because those who do, are not welcome to do business there. The CCP can, have and will throw out any and all companies that they deem unsuitable.

It is sad that Activision-Blizzard is so keen on nothing but money that this event has taken place but perhaps it's a good thing that we know the truth.

That's it for me, join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

Bills of Mortality

We all know being alive is dangerous. No one has ever survived being alive. Nope, everyone who ever lived, died. End of story.

But how did they die? That's a good question, even if I ask it myself to set up the next part.

Introducing Bills of Mortality.

Started in 1592 in London as a record of burials, it was published on and off until 1819 when the parishes adopted a new system. Usually it functioned as a record of how many died that week and from what. Now as a disclaimer, I'm aware that this is pretty macabre, and that these were real people, but some of these entries are really funny out of context.

I first heard of these in an episode of 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, but a quick Google search finds a bunch of these. So lets take a look.

The first page I found is from the week of August 15-22 1665, during the Great Plague:

Plague: 3880 (no surprise there)

Consumption: 174

Dropsy (a form of heart failure): 40

Aged: 54

Fairly normal stuff so far, right? Let's keep going:

Frighted: 1

Lethargy: 1

Sore Legge: 1

Stone: 2

Winde: 8

Then we get very specific:

Found dead in the Street at St. Bartholomew the Lefs: 1

Killed by a fall down the stairs at St. Thomas Apostle: 1

Apparently going to church is dangerous...

Another list is for the entire year of 1665 and is therefore more detailed:

Drowned: 50

Executed: 21

Leprosie: 2

Murthered (Murdered) and Shot: 9

Killed by several accidents: 46

King's Evil: 86 (this is actually TB not the acts of an evil king.)

And finally, my favorite entry as a cause of death:

Suddenly: 1

So there you have it, stay away from the King's Evil or you may die Suddenly! Until next time, have a great (and safe) week!