Gaming - Page 547

EA is being sued for FIFA Ultimate Team lootboxes, which allegedly violate California's gambling laws.

The new lawsuit, Ramirez vs Electronic Arts (5:20-cv-05672) makes a big case out of a simple premise: EA's Ultimate Team lootboxes are unregulated gambling.

The lawsuit, which has been filed by attorneys Tim Blood from Blood, Hurst & O'Reardon and Andrew J. Brown on behalf of California plaintiff Kevin Ramirez and over 100 unnamed people, aims to set new precedent for EA in a jury trial. The goal with the trial is to force EA to change its "predatory and unlawful practices" concerning lootboxes and regulate them as gambling, collect damages, and force EA to pay for attorney fees.

Modder Cedricishappy makes a fully functioning Game Boy Advance out of a small watermelon, and takes it on the go to freak everyone out.

We've seen some crazy creations, like Shank's portable Wii made out of an Altoids tin. Now we have the Melon Boy, a bizarre and ridiculous creation that packs in an emulated Game Boy Advance into an actual watermelon. Well, a hollowed-out watermelon shell, of course. But a watermelon nonetheless.

Cedric's watermelon creation is absolutely hilarious and is something you'd dream up in the throes of boredom. It honestly looks like something out of Ren and Stimply. The world's most awkward handheld has a bunch of buttons on the front rind and is powered by a saran-wrapped Raspberry Pi on the inside.

Diablo and Diablo II have some of the most addictive loot-finding in any game ever made. This was by design, and fed the core gameplay loop from day one.

In a recent interview with Ars Technica, original Diablo designer David Brevik talked about the game's legendary RNG randomization and how it was designed to keep gamers playing. Diablo was always built from the ground up with two simple ideas: Instant action, and tons of loot. The loot idea was based around old PC games like Moria, but on a deeper and more robust level. Diablo set the bar for ARPG loot systems, which basically turned every single enemy into a walking slot machine, and Diablo II kicked things up a notch.

"For Diablo, there was a lot of technical things we had to overcome for things that were different than games at the time," Brevik said.

Unity Software is about to start publicly trading its shares with an IPO, but no terms have been defined.

Today Unity Software, the company behind one of the most-used 3D engines in gaming and entertainment, filed an Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Form S-1's are filed when any private company wants to start publicly trading its shares on an open exchange. The form reveals tons of info about Unity's business, including revenue losses, risk factors, and the sizable market that Unity currently occupies.

The filing doesn't outline how many shares will be delivered at what price, however. Those terms will be announced in a press release. We do know that Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse are underwriting the IPO. The form indicates Unity will have a capitalization of $1.2 billion and 238,366,733 shares of common stock outstanding after the IPO.

Fall Guys is set to rake in tons of microtransaction cash when it releases on mobile devices in China.

Fall Guys, gaming's biggest new indie sensation, is coming to China's $36 billion mobile market. The game is being developed by Billibilli, but the official product page has been scrubbed, presumably due to an earlier-than-expected announcement. Neither Mediatonic, the developer of Fall Guys, nor publisher Devolver Digital have confirmed a mobile release just yet.

China represents a boon for a game like Fall Guys, which has exploded onto the market with 2 million sales in just 6 days. The game is buy-to-play on PC and PS4 alongside a free download for PS Plus subscribers, and features in-game microtransactions via a premium currency that unlocks new outfits.

Nintendo plans to release a new Switch model in early 2021, sources tell Taiwanese newspaper Economic Daily News.

Nintendo is ramping up internal production on a new Switch SKU, sources say, and Macronix will supply the internal flash memory. There's no concrete information on the device, but based on the reports, it seems like the new Switch isn't meant to be a next-gen contender with 4K support and higher-end specifications.

Instead it should be an upgrade over existing models with a better display and more enhanced interactive features, which indicates better built-in haptics, sensors, and possibly new-and-improved JoyCon controllers. There's been no real indications on a next-gen custom Tegra SoC solution being developed alongside NVIDIA to power a higher-end Switch+ or Switch Pro model, and Nintendo has said it cares more about fun than powerful hardware.

UPDATE: We found Corsair's Form S-1 filings with the SEC, which are required for any private company to be publicly traded on an exchange.

Corsair plans to go public with a $100 million public offering, sources tell Forbes.

PC gaming company Corsair plans wants to go public again, this time with a $100 million initial public offering. The idea is to raise capital by switching shares from private to public. Corsair will issue new public stock, but no information on exact price-per-share has been revealed. The company hasn't formally announced the IPO, the terms, or the underwriting institutions.

F1 2019 launched last year and received a patch soon after with NVIDIA DLSS, but F1 2020 launched not too long ago without it -- well, an update is now here and we have the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER now capable of 4K 60FPS which is nothing short of amazing.

The results speak for themselves really, the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is capable of 39FPS average in F1 2020 before the new v1.08 patch -- but post-patch wtih DLSS enabled it super-accelerates thanks to the dedicated AI processors (Tensor Cores) inside of the Turing GPU -- right up to a huge 62FPS average.

This brings it above the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER with DLSS disabled, which scores 56FPS average -- but the RTX 2080 SUPER with DLSS enabled scoots right up to 85FPS. The flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on the other hand, goes from 69FPS without DLSS enabled to an insane 103FPS with DLSS enabled.

Microsoft has officially released Flight Simulator, which has already blown most gamers away -- while pissing off others -- with the game requiring 16GB of VRAM minimum if you want to play it at the 8K resolution.

Flight Simulator is expected to drive $2.6 billion in hardware sales over the next 3 years according to John Peddie Research. Their research involved players being split into 3 categories: entry-level, mid-range, and high-end. The higher-end gamers will obviously spend much more than the other two, which will help drive those big numbers.

JPR explains in a statement: "Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the global leader in tracking the hardware spend of gamers, has analyzed the sales impact of the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. This includes PC builds, processor upgrades, display upgrades, flight sticks and throttles, flight system control units, rudder pedals, simulation pit components such as seats and frames, and VR sales".

You've probably seen some benchmarks of Flight Simulator flying around, with our take on Microsoft's ambitious new game looking at 8K performance -- a next-gen game, with a next-gen resolution.

Flight Simulator at 8K was pushing my test bed to the absolute limits, where the game is using 16GB of VRAM -- minimum -- at 8K. Yeah, 16GB of framebuffer is being filled which annihilates the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 SUPER, Radeon RX 5700 XT, and everything else pretty much.

The only graphics cards left standing is the NVIDIA TITAN RTX -- a card that costs $2499, and the AMD Radeon VII -- only because it has 16GB of VRAM and I would not recommend buying it right now. Cranking up the anti-aliasing (AA) however, began driving VRAM consumption up even more.

Halo: Infinite has been delayed to 2021, and fans are calling for the Xbox One version to be cancelled entirely. But 343 shouldn't do this, and Microsoft shouldn't let them. Here's why.

Like all developers making any game, 343i is having a tough time making Halo: Infinite. Not only are they trying to make a game, which is hard, they're trying to make a game and a new engine at the same time, which is nearly impossible in the best of times. Add on the complexities of COVID-19 work-from-home measures and having to make the game compatible on as many as five different Xbox consoles, and we have a recipe for trouble.

Despite these challenges I personally think it's important the game still releases on current-gen Xbox systems. There's a number of reasons here, many of which are grounded around Microsoft's current business, its marketing, and its formal obligation to current-gen.

Microsoft supports Epic's decision against Apple, and warns courts that cutting off Unreal Engine on iOS and Mac will significantly disrupt the games industry.

On August 31, Apple plans to remove Epic Games' license unless it agrees to specific terms, including adhering to Apple's 30% revenue cut and not offering competing storefronts. This would not only permanently remove Fortnite from iOS and Mac but also remove Unreal Engine support for both platforms, cutting out countless developers from Apple's lucrative billion-dollar mobile infrastructure.

Epic has already warned this would cause lots of harm to developers. Now Microsoft is chiming in, and has filed a statement in Epic's formal legal complaint against Apple.

Today Rocksteady announced Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and confirmed a bunch of reports in the process.

Just like previous reports said, the new Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League game is an online-driven four-player live game that will be next-gen exclusive, and it's not coming out for another two years. The game is being developed from the ground up to target PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, as well as variable perf on PC hardware.

The big draw to Suicide Squad is the four-player action. The game features four playable characters including Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang, all of which have their own ways to move around and special abilities. Rocksteady's Sefton Hill confirms the game is totally squad-based and there will be four character squads even if you're playing singleplayer. The other slots will be taken by bots.

WB Montreal finally unveiled Gotham Knights, their new two-player Batman game. We take a closer look at the new details and outline what you need to know.

For the first time in a long time, the new Batman game won't star Batman. In fact, Batman is dead in the game. Gotham Knights stars four other characters from the bat family--Batgirl, Red Hood, Nightwing, and Robin--and focuses on a "dynamic, interactive" Gotham City that's constantly changing and reacting to your decisions and what villains are doing.

It's basically set up to be a big interactive movie. For example, Mr. Freeze blankets Gotham in ice, changing the roads and the environments completely. This kind of thing can happen depending on which villain your fighting. The storyline is set in arcs, and Gotham is reactive and alive.

Today WB Games finally revealed Gotham Knights, and Batman won't be in it. Bruce Wayne is dead.

The next Batman game won't actually star Batman. Bruce Wayne dies in WB Montreal's new Gotham Knights game. Protecting Gotham's streets now falls on a team of four exemplars that must transform from vigilante to hero to knight: Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Red Hood (Jason Todd), and Robin (Tim Drake).

The new cinematic story trailer paints a grim picture of Gotham. Villains run amok, Jim Gordon is dead so the Gotham City PD mistrusts Batman and his kin, and the Court of Owls rules everything from the shadows. Yes, the Court of Owls are in, and there's thousands of dead Talon warriors just waiting to wake up and annihilate our dream-team of heroes.

Crysis Remastered hasn't had the best launch so far, and while it has been watered down enough to get onto the mobile Nintendo Switch -- we're still waiting for it here on the PC and consoles.

Well, Crytek has officially announced that Crysis Remastered -- which was originally meant to drop on July 23, has been penciled in for a release on September 18. You will be able to pick up Crysis Remastered for $30 on the Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store, and PlayStation Store.

You'll notice I didn't list that Crysis Remastered would drop on Steam, but I'm sure it will -- so we'll have to wait and see if Crytek keep us happy (by releasing it on Steam) or feel the wrath of pissed of PC gamers if it's locked to the Epic Games Store.

Some of Ubisoft's new collector's editions won't come with a physical disc, the company today announced.

Xbox collector's editions of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, and Watch Dogs Legion won't come with a Blu-ray game disc and will instead be digital-only, Ubisoft says. These expensive $199 editions will come with a special redeemable code instead. As of right now both the Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion editions are sold out, but Far Cry 6 is still available.

Ubisoft didn't give a reason for the change, but it could have to do with lowering shipping and manufacturing costs. Ubisoft may also want to drive up digital sales to boost its total-year earnings. Also this could have something to do with the Xbox Series S, the lower-cost digital-only next-gen Xbox that should be revealed soon.

Apple has produced documents showing Epic Games requested a special side deal to allow direct payments for Fortnite and Unreal Engine games on iOS. The company also wanted the Epic Games Store on iOS too.

Epic Games is taking on Apple in a legal battle that could shake up the industry. It all started when Epic allowed direct purchases in Fortnite on iOS, which denied Apple its 30% cut for all revenues.

This broke the terms of service, and Apple removed Fortnite from the iOS market. Epic knew this would happen and had a legal complaint ready that not only alleges that Apple is a monopoly, but calls for an anti-trust case into the trillion-dollar tech titan.

Square Enix has strong confidence in its new Marvel's Avengers live service game and assures investors that "powerful" in-game content is coming.

Apart from Final Fantasy, Square Enix's new Avengers game might be the company's next biggest series. It's a live service game aimed at recurring revenues via in-game cosmetics, and Marvel confirms that gamers can unlock and pay for 80 years' worth of iconic costumes to dress up in-game characters like Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, and more. Avengers will be a huge opportunity for Marvel and Square Enix vis-a-vis royalties and revenues.

In a recent Q&A session, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda tells investors that Avengers will have lots of post-release content, which is to be expected for a GaaS title. Matsuda says Avengers will have rather robust content right at launch, and he's no-doubt referring to the PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5 Spider-Man exclusivity...among other updates.

We all know that the end of this year is going to be absolutely bananas for all gamers, no matter which platform you're on -- gamers are gamers, and every single one of them would be more hyped right now than any time in history.

We're on the eve of not just a big wave of next-gen GPUs from NVIDIA -- but also for the first time in what feels like forever, AMD is about to fire back and enter the high-end enthusiast GPU market again. On top of that, AMD has put Intel onto its knees after being near-invincible, and has next-gen APUs inside of both Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles.

We will see somewhere north of 200 million PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X consoles over the next 5 years, on top of 10s of millions of graphics cards and gaming PCs in that time. So, it should come as no surprise that enthusiast gamer himself, NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang, is hyped for the end of the year.