Epic's new digital storefront wants to compete directly with Steam, but that doesn't meant it won't borrow a few things from Valve's playbook.

The Epic Store now has a refund policy that mirrors Steam's. All games bought on the Epic Store launcher are can be refunded for any reason within 14 days of original purchase, but only if the game has less than two hours of play.

The one caveat is refunds are processed via tickets by Epic's customer support which is apparently quite slow--Epic's own local Better Business Bureau rated it an F for its poor customer support. The team is working on a "self-service solution," according to Epic's Sergey Galyonkin.

Ubisoft is keen on making Assassin's Creed: Odyssey even better through new updates, content patches, and bugfixes.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey isn't just a singleplayer game anymore. Instead Ubi has wrapped its live service framework into the campaign-driven game, creating a continually-evolving experience that's funded by optional microtransactions and season pass content. This adheres to its engagement-driven monetization strategy used in all Ubisoft's games, which requires steady content to keep gamers coming back into the game. Now we're seeing even more efforts to expand the ancient Greece odyssey with new patches.

A new patch 1.1.2 game update will add lots of new features to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, including level scaling options (fantastic news) and a new engraving workshop (even better!). Hephaistos' Workshop lets you buy previously unlocked engravings and even ups the engraving buffs to new tiers, but you'll need to complete challenges first.

Capcom issued a challenge with the Resident Evil 2 Remake demo by including a 30 minute countdown timer. If you can't beat it in 30 minutes then you're locked out and don't get to try again. But talented speed runners are obliterating the demo's clock with know-how.

The RE2make's 1-Shot Demo's limited timer is meant to bring thrills and chills to the experience. Knowing their experience is limited, gamers are stressed to make every second count. But speed runner Trance makes those seconds count in a different way and finds an ultra-fast path to beat the demo in 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

Bear in mind speed running isn't about finding every item, uncovering secrets outside of glitches, solving puzzles or killing every enemy. It's simply about finding the quickest avenue to victory. That often means running past key story areas and circumventing baddies in a mad dash to the finish line.

All Bethesda Game Studios games have "cheat rooms," or little slices of the world cordoned off from the main game that have every item in the game. These areas are kind of like the space between worlds, a Twilight Zone of goods, gear, and content that didn't make it into the final game. They exist for developers to test out various scenarios and ensure items act the way they should. Fallout 76 has such a zone, and it's been accessed by players.

Remember the console commands "coc qasmoke" and "coc testqaitems" from Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 that granted you access to a special cheat area? Fallout 76 may be a live game but it's not that different than its predecessors in this respect--it has a QA zone too, but it's not accessible by console commands. Gamers have found a way to jump into the area and have found all sorts of surprises, including a human NPC called Wooby, as well as every item in the game.

Access essentially makes you into a god and removes the need to keep playing outside of leveling up. Everything from the weakest pipe pistols to the most powerful of weapons and gear can be found here, complete with unreleased power armor skins. Recipes and plans all have their own containers, and looking them over shows just how fragmented and grindy Fallout 76 actually is.

Tencent's MOBA continues its juggernaut microtranaction dominance thanks to China's eager playerbase.

Honor of Kings made $1.93 billion in 2018, making it the highest-earning mobile game of the year, analyst firm SensorTower reports. To put this number into perspective, this one mobile game made nearly 20% of Tencent's total 2H revenues of $10.2 billion. The game (known as Arena of Valor outside of Asia) saw a substantial 19.87% rise over last year's earnings.

Strong monetization and adoption in Asia is responsible for this megaton success. Nearly 95% of spending was from iOS users in China, SensorTower says, and less than 1% came from the United States. It's no wonder that every big games-maker from EA to Activision-Blizzard want to bring their games to China.

Verizon is funneling some of its billion-dollar might into gaming endeavors, more specifically the growing trend of cloud game streaming.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and now Verizon are all making their own subscriptions to beam games digitally to devices, ushering in a new era of convenience and ease-of-use accessibility to gamers. Sources tell The Verge that the telecom titan's service, Verizon Gaming, is currently being tested in exclusive alpha trials across NVIDIA's Shield set-top console box. Verizon Gaming (dubbed Vzg) is also planned for a rollout on Android mobile phones and other platforms.

The service has 135 games available for play in the testing phase, many of which are popular AAA titles. Yet early results aren't too favorable due to connectivity issues. In fact the service is so new that users can't even save their progress and must restart from the beginning each time. What's interesting is the Vzg store shows console exclusives like Detroit Become Human, God of War, and Red Dead Redemption 2, however Verizon spokespeople confirm these are likely placeholders and the store has yet to be fleshed out.

Today NetEase and Blizzard announced a publishing extension agreement that brings key games to China through 2023.

Chinese titan NetEase is mostly known for mobile games, but it also licenses the right to publish strong AAA franchises in the region, namely Blizzard games. The company currently runs popular games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo III, and Overwatch in China, and is overseeing development of the Diablo Immortal mobile game for the region.

This extension comes at an interesting time. Blizzard is working on multiple new games and projects including Diablo 4, a possible Overwatch sequel, a handful of mobile games based on key franchises, and even new IP. With NetEase's help, this strong pipeline of games will likely see their way into mainland China, a calculated move that'll earn Activision-Blizzard strong revenues. China is expected to rake in $37.98 billion in 2018's total gaming revenues, largely from mobile games.

You know those fake mock-up renders that pop up when searching next-gen consoles on Google images? The Mad Box's final design concept looks even more artificial.

Slightly Mad Studios, the devs behind Project CARS, is inexplicably making a next-gen console called the Mad Box. After teasing multiple designs of the system and making outlandish claims on performance, company CEO Ian Bell confirmed the Mad Box's finalized concept. The result is a futuristic console box with RGB lighting, a touchscreen front panel, curved winged vents, and a rather thin-looking chassis. Ultimately it looks very expensive to mass produce, and Bell notes that the design could be "slightly amended over time."

What's outside matters little, and gamers know it's what inside that counts. Although it's more than 3 years away, the Mad Box will be a powerhouse equivalent to a high-end PC from 2021, Bell asserts, with specs to enable native 4K gaming. The box sounds like an incredibly risky idea that could tank the games developer.

Although Bungie split up with Activision, the independent dev could still release a Destiny mainline sequel sometime next year.

Destiny 3 could happen as soon as 2020, analyst firm Cowen and Company told investors in a recent letter. Unfortunately we don't have direct access to the letter so we'll be paraphrasing from Gamespot's coverage, but ultimately the firm highlights many of the reasons behind the Bungie-Activision decoupling. Whether or not this prediction will happen depends on the timing, and how Bungie decides to use its big investment from NetEase.

By 2020 it's likely that the hand-off will be complete and Bungie will fully own the Destiny IP. The developer wants to self-publish its own games, meaning Destiny 3 may be released without the backing of a AAA publisher's millions. This is pretty risky for any company, even for Bungie. Luckily Bungie secured a whopping $100 million investment from Chinese juggernaut NetEase to fund its "bold new vision," and we recently posited this vision could see Bungie morph into a developer-publisher with its own label.

The Bungie-Activision split had me thinking about the future of both companies, namely Activision. With Bungie out of the picture, Activision's new core IP focus rests more heavily on Blizzard. Combined with what we know about Blizzard's new IP pipeline, it's possible the strength of these new games made Activision more comfortable with handing Destiny off to Bungie.

Publishers typically like funding and releasing games made by wholly-owned devs. Franchises like Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and Grand Theft Auto all get special treatment from their respective owners for good reason: pubs get to directly control every aspect of development, and more importantly, live service models. Knowing this, Activision's recent decision to give Bungie complete control of Destiny makes sense. Bungie was (and remains) independent even today, and can now go on its own way and possibly morph into a developer-publisher itself. But there might be more to Activision's decision that meets the eye, and it could have to do with what its partners at Blizzard are working on.

Destiny may have made Activision more reticent on taking new gambles on third-party projects, namely new IPs. We may see the publisher double-down on more "safe bets" in this respect, and any new IPs may be made by first-party studios. With Bungie gone this responsibility could rest strongly on Blizzard's shoulders.