Gaming - Page 171

European regulators have set their consumer-protecting eye of Sauron upon predatory gaming practices, with the focus on in-game currencies and how they can be used to manipulate and deceive consumers.

The European consumer watchdog Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) has filed an enforcement action with the European Commission against the gaming company Star Stable Entertainment, the owners of the MMORPG/horse simulation game Star Stable Online. I explain the specifics of the enforcement action in this article, but I will briefly go over them here as the context is important for what could happen in the future.

EU regulators have deemed several areas of Star Stable Online's monetization practices as predatory, such as the in-game currencies not being one-to-one conversions with euros, and its in-game currency being bundled with "discounts" are both techniques to obfuscate the actual cost of in-game products, making it unnecessarily difficult for consumers to know how much real-life money they are actually spending.

Those who are keenly awaiting the release of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 will be disappointed to hear that the game has been delayed (again).

We're now told that Bloodlines 2 is set to arrive in October 2025 (on Xbox, PS5 and PC), although that's barring any potential further delays, of course.

Behrmann said that the game is now 'done' but still needs further polishing work to iron out bugs, and ensure it runs smoothly and performs well. And to be fair, it's always worth taking that extra time to make sure a new release runs well right out of the gate.

In a market where Assassin's Creed: Shadows just dropped, few games dominate discussions more than the series' return to feudal Japan. As it turns out, you don't need to be the center of conversation to dominate the Steam charts.

Schedule I, an indie drug-dealing simulator, is currently the most popular game on Steam. Released yesterday, it quickly climbed to the top of the "Trending Games," "Popular Releases," and "Hot Releases" charts on SteamDB. The game currently holds an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam based on over 4,000 reviews, and peaked with 116,408 concurrent first-day players - almost double that of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

As the Steam community continues to react to the new title, these numbers may only continue climbing. The game is currently in early access and available with a 15% discount on Steam for its first week.

Europe's Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPCN) has published an enforcement action with the European Commission to prevent rampant predatory monetization practices within video games, particularly with the game Star Stable Online.

The enforcement action explains that the EU views specific monetization strategies in the form of in-game currencies as designed to manipulate and deceive customers into spending more money on the game.

The notice has singled out Star Stable Online, an MMORPG/horse simulation developed by Star Stable Entertainment who is now feeling the sight of the EU regulator that is now requiring the developer to be more transparent with the cost of its in-game items, while simultaneously requesting a soft ban on in-game currency in general as there currently isn't a law in place to prevent it.

The physical sale of Assassin's Creed Shadows has been quite successful in the UK, with reports now indicating the latest addition to the Assassin's Creed franchise has now outsold Ubisoft's commercial failure Star Wars Outlaws by a considerable margin.

Assassin's Creed Shadows has moved more physical copies than Star Wars Outlaws in just 1 week than Outlaws did in 3 months. Additionally, Shadows' physical sales are approximately the same as Assassin's Creed Mirage, with the higher price of Shadows pulling in more revenue.

The data provided by The Game Business states that general sales in the UK are 63% of what Assassin's Creed Valhalla achieved in November 2020, with the discrepancy in sales being attributed to the pandemic causing a huge spike in software sales, and Valhalla being available physically on more platforms at launch.

Almost regardless of accolades, it's extremely common for games to ship Game of the Year editions these days. It turns out, according to a former executive, Valve originally pioneered the strategy - leveraging Half Life's critical success to boost lagging unit sales.

As reported by PCGamer, Monica Harrington, one of the founding members of Valve, and former Chief Marketing Officer, gave a talk at GDC diving into the brand's history. Looking back at the late 1990s, the company was facing challenges with moving copies of Half-Life. During a period where critical reception was strong but sales started to slow, the team needed a fresh angle to push the game further.

According to Harrington, adding a "Game of the Year" sticker and updating the box art had a huge impact on the game's sellability. The original release featured a plain orange cover with just the Half-Life title and logo. But with the awards Half-Life had earned by then, the "Game of the Year" label was a legitimate claim. Pairing that with new artwork featuring protagonist Gordon Freeman helped turn the game into a major commercial success, ultimately selling over 9 million copies over the next decade.

The highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still in development, with the studio behind it CD Projekt Red recently unveiling there are now more than 400 developers working on the project.

The Witcher 4 was recently unveiled at the Game Awards 2025, and while fans of the franchise are more than excited about sinking their teeth into a new world created by Polish developer CD Projekt Red, there will still be quite some time before the title releases. To speed up the development process, more hands have been brought on deck to assist in its creation, with CD Projekt Red recently revealing during an earnings report that it has hired 57 new developers in the last four months - 11 of those developers have begun work on The Witcher 4.

The remaining developers were moved to CD Projekt Red's other projects, such as the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, codenamed Orion, which got the biggest bump in developers by 20, bringing its total to 84 from 64. As for The Witcher 4, CD Projekt Red has an army of developers working on the project, and after the new additions to the team, the total number of developers working on the sequel has reached 411.

When it comes to the most offensive game franchises, games like Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, and perhaps South Park come to mind. However, often forgotten is the Postal series, which is known for being one of the most deliberately offensive, nihilistic and chaotic game franchises in existence. Better yet, you'll be able to experience it in VR.

Postal 2: VR was announced at the VR Games Showcase. Almost twenty years after its controversial release, the 2003 first-person shooter will be reimagined for Steam VR, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest, developed in collaboration with Flat2VR Studios and Running With Scissors.

The game comes packed with all the features you'd expect from a VR iteration of a Postal game. Players can use motion controls to flip off pedestrians on the street, engage in over-the-top violence, and utilize the game's urination mechanic to their heart's content.

Ever wondered what Sea of Thieves would be like in space? Well, here's Wildgate, a recently unveiled team-based shooter by Moonshot Games, a team comprised of former Blizzard developers.

Wildgate was unveiled during the Dreamhaven showcase hosted by The Game Awards' Geoff Keighly and Mike Morhaime, former CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. Wildgate can be effectively summarized as Sea of Thieves in space, but it does have its differences. Here's how it works. Wildgate will pit five teams of four players against each other in a session-based, procedurally generated region of space called The Reach, where players will be tasked with finding "The Artifact" and escaping through a wildgate that will randomly appear.

The game focuses on team-based strategies with the end goal of escaping with the Artifact and their lives by collecting upgrades in the form of weapons, ship improvements, and materials used to maintain and upgrade the quality of the team's spaceship.

Capcom has detailed the first major free update for Monster Hunter Wilds, bringing back familiar monsters, adding new social spaces, quest types, and more. The update is set to arrive on April 4, adding a plethora of new features for early and mid-to-late game players.

The main addition is the return of Mizutsune, a popular monster from past titles, now appearing in Wilds for the first time. Players who have reached Hunter Rank 21 or higher can unlock the new mission by speaking to Kanya at the Scarlet Forest Base Camp. An eight-star Tempered version of Mizutsune will also be available for those looking for a higher-tier challenge. The update also adds new armor sets for both hunters and Palicos based on Mizutsune's materials.

Players can also jump into a new social area called the Grand Hub. Which features a new minigame, Barrel Bomb Bowling, that lets players roll explosives into targets for rewards like pendants and items. There's also a nightly performance by the Diva, adding a bit of flavor to the atmosphere. Squad management has also moved here and becomes accessible once you hit HR 16.

Elon Musk has been on the receiving end of what could be viewed as a digital slam dunk by none other than Ubisoft over the SpaceX CEO's recent comments about Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO commented on a recent post by Mark Kern, who highlighted a sponsored post by Hasan Piker where he was promoting Assassin's Creed Shadows. Kern's post calls out Ubisoft for giving money to "terrorist-platforming streamers," which sparked a response by Musk, who called Piker a "fraud". Musk followed up with another reply saying, "Sell-out" would be more accurate. Objectively, he is promoting a terrible game just for the money."

Musk's last comment attracted a reply from the official Assassin's Creed X account, which wrote, "Is that what the guy playing your Path of Exile 2 account told you?" For those who don't know what the Assassin's Creed account is referring to, Musk recently admitted that he breaks terms of service (TOS) in Path of Exile 2 and Diablo IV by getting someone else to play his account to achieve his, at the time, world-renowned global top 20 rank.

Valve is reportedly in the optimization phase of development for Half-Life 3, which I'm really hoping gets announced officially on April 1, just for the developer to troll the entire world.

Half-Life 3 is reportedly codenamed "HLX" and was discovered during recent updates to Valve's other games including Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2, with a new video posted by Gabe Follower, who details a bunch of new discoveries, and some of them sound really, really exciting.

Valve is reportedly working on a new artificial intelligence (AI) system for its NPCs in Half-Life 3, that acts like LOD (level of detail) with the graphics side of the game. The way this works is how LOD will use higher-quality textures on the environment, characters, items, and more in close proximity to you, reducing the detail past a certain point so that your GPU isn't just loading textures unnecessarily at large distances away from you.

Will GTA 6 cost $100, and push AAA game prices to a new MSRP during an economy fraught with rising prices? CD Projekt weighs in with a purely opinion answer.

Just 5 years ago, the games industry used the 9th console generation to collective raised software prices. Games went from $59.99 to $69.99, a price hike that better reflects the higher costs of games development. Now amid a downturn--which is driven by a course-correction of overspending and bad bets placed during COVID-19--it's speculated that GTA 6's release could be used to deliver another price hike.

So what do developers think about this? There's been lots of back-and-forth about GTA 6 costing $100 and now we have the perspective of one of CD Projekt's higher-ups on the topic.

It's official: Game Informer has returned from the grave with new ownership at the helm.

After more than 30 years of print and digital games coverage, ailing retailer Gamestop unceremoniously shut down Game Informer, laid off all the staff, and effectively axed the entire branch. The website was pulled down and decades of coverage was offline.

Now Game Informer is back, and it's thanks to Gunzilla Games, a game studio who purchased GI and decided to rehire all the staff and spin the publication back up. Under Gunzilla, the Game Informer team will have 100% editorial freedom to tackle any and all topics and coverage they see fit, including digital and magazine prints.

The Witcher 4 won't be out until 2027, CD Projekt management tells investors.

Ciri's new adventure in the Witcher continuation won't begin in 2026. The Witcher 4 won't be out until 2027 at the very earliest, CD Projekt management has conveyed to investors in a recent company earnings brief. The game is currently in full production at the studio, and as of the end of February 2025, there's around 400 developers working on The Witcher 4.

In the company's FY2024 webcast CEO Adam Kicinski said this of the company's financial net profit targets for 2025-2028:"Even though we don't plan to release the Witcher 4 by the end of 2026, we are still driven by this financial goal."

The Switch 2 will launch in June, and Nintendo will carry out the Switch 2's initial game release structure in a three-phase plan, sources tell Insider Gaming.

Some of Nintendo's strategies for the Switch 2 may have been leaked, including a possible release window. Sources familiar with Nintendo's plans for the Switch 2 tell Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson that the successor could be out sometime in June, which is smack-dab in the middle of year. Nintendo's software release schedule for the Switch 2 has been deliberately timed around this mid-year launch.

As for the cadence or any possibility of constraints or constrictions in the pipeline, reports show that Nintendo has shipped out devkits for the Switch 2 as early as 2021. Even still, some developers are expected to be waiting on Switch 2 devkits and may not have them until on or around the device's reported June 2025 release.

NVIDIA is bringing its DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation (MFG) tech to a few more games, as the library of support for MFG, which is exclusive to RTX 5000 GPUs, grows steadily.

The biggest hitter among the new recruits for MFG is Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and support for DLSS 4 arrives via an update tomorrow (the Nightmares and Visions update to be precise).

Another game to get this treatment is Enlisted, an intriguing sounding massively multiplayer squad-based shooter set in World War 2 (see the above video clip).

If you are someone who spends a lot of time in front of a computer screen, like myself, you should consider snagging yourself a pair of blue light glasses to reduce eye strain and improve comfort during prolonged screen use.

For those who don't know, prolonged exposure to screens can cause eye strain that can result in symptoms such as dryness, irritation, and fatigue. Blue light glasses are designed to filter out high-energy blue light, which reduces flare and overall discomfort. Another reason to consider blue light glasses is the ability for the blue light to interfere with melatonin production, meaning being exposed to blue light for prolonged periods of time, particularly in the evening may result in you finding it harder to fall asleep at night.

There are other benefits, such as some people experiencing headaches from being exposed to screens for too long, long-term eye health benefits, as there is some concern, while not confirmed, that blue light exposure may cause retinal damage over time, and wearing blue light glasses can prevent this. Gunnars have long been in the blue light glasses market and have a range of different options with some focussed on style, a gamery look, and casual. Below are some of the best ones I have come across and have used throughout my long gaming/work sessions.

Publisher of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Take-Two Interactive has filed a copyright take-down notice against a GTA 5 mod that features GTA 6 content.

The mod under the spotlight is a FiveM mod that added a GTA 6 map into GTA 5, which was sourced from the material gained from a hack GTA developer Rockstar Games experienced a few years ago, and inspired by modders attempting to create the GTA 6 map based on any information that's been made available. Among the material stolen from the developer were numerous assets for its upcoming and highly anticipated GTA 6, which the modder, Dark Space, decided to use as inspiration for the map added into GTA 5.

However, Take-Two Interactive has resisted that idea, and Dark Space has abided by the copyright notice to prevent the publisher from taking further legal action. Perhaps the map was too close to the real thing? Take-Two didn't specify in the copyright notice.

Microsoft has begun testing for Xbox Game Hubs, a new feature that would allow players to access stat tracking, capture tools, settings, and social features in a centralized dashboard for each title.

As highlighted by The Verge's Tom Warren, the feature is currently available to select users in the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring, where early feedback is gathered before a broader rollout. When launching a game from the home screen, instead of jumping straight into the game, players are now taken to a Game Hub panel that includes details like playtime and achievement progress, screenshots and media captures, and social information about friends who play the game.

This interface appears in multiple locations across the Xbox dashboard, including the home screen, game library, and pins list, but it notably does not appear when launching games via the Guide menu or Quick Resume.