Twitter will stream its first live awards show on December 1st
Twitter is already a hotbed of discussion during awards shows, and now it’s ready to broadcast one of those shows — if not necessarily the one you expect. The social network has reached a deal to stream The Game Awards when they kick off December 1st at 8:30PM Eastern. You can watch the whole of Geoff Keighley’s hybrid of ceremony and game premieres through either Twitter’s website or its official mobile apps, whether or not you’re logged in. It’s an easy fit when TGA caters to a tech-savvy audience that already offers running commentary on Twitter, but you no longer have to juggle apps or websites to have your say.
The awards show may amount to a test run for Twitter. The company is no longer a stranger to streaming live sports or political events, but live entertainment is relatively uncharted territory. If it can show that there’s a significant audience willing to watch awards broadcasts directly on Twitter, it may stand a better chance of scoring deals for massive galas like the Emmys or Oscars. And that’s important for a company counting on video to turn around its ailing fortunes.
Source: PR Newswire
Twitch will show you more (but higher-quality) ads
Like it or not, Twitch is about to make it harder to escape ads… but you might not mind it as much as you think. It’s introducing SureStream video technology that has Twitch hosting ads itself, saving it from having to insert promos from third-party sources. This will increase the chances that you see ads during a stream, especially if you use ad blocking software. Sorry, folks, you’ll probably have no choice but to subscribe if you want to guarantee uninterrupted viewing. There will be some upshots if you do have to sit through commercials, though.
As Twitch won’t have to rely on outside ads nearly as often, you should see fewer freezes and other technical problems stemming from the switch to and from third-party providers. Twitch will also have greater control over the quality of the ads you see: you should get more consistent volume levels, higher overall visual quality and quicker removals of “problematic” (read: glitchy) spots. And of course, partnered streamers should get a “more reliable” source of income. If you can’t justify a subscription, you can at least find some comfort in knowing that your favorite streamers could receive more ad money.
SureStream starts rolling out today, and should reach everyone sometime in the “coming months.” Twitch isn’t shy about its underlying goals — this will ideally “attract and retain” advertisers worried that they might not reach you, and help serve more ads overall. However, the streaming giant is clearly betting that the reduced anguish when you do see ads will make up the difference, or at least soften the blow.
Source: Twitch Blog
Play-Doh’s new toy-to-life app is pointless, but fun
If you had a decent childhood, you probably crafted some Play-Doh masterpieces back in the day. Today, however, kids are less likely to play with the modeling compound and more likely to spend time on an iPad. As such, Hasbro is taking a stab at making the 60-year-old brand relevant to modern kids with its new “Touch” app for iPads and iPhones. The game scans your creations and animates them in a virtual world that’s as immersive as it is entertaining, even if you’re nearly 30 years old (ahem).
You can play the game for free with any can of Play-Doh you already have, or buy the $40 Shape to Life Studio set, which includes cutters, character and action stampers, along with seven cans of modeling compound. The set expands the environments and characters you can interact with, and makes the game a lot more fun.
When you first launch the app, you’ll enter a mostly blank world, where your soon-to-be-created main character will live. You’ll then see a virtual can of Play-Doh with a cloud hovering above it; you will need to tap on that before progressing further. This launches your camera, which will scan whatever masterpiece you’ve crafted, and bring it into the app. In my experience, this typically took about 10 seconds, including lining up the image and processing it. This might take longer if you don’t have the right lighting (white light from top) and a white platform to match. The latter is provided with the Studio set; if you don’t buy that, though, any white surface should do.
This is where the fun starts. Once the app has loaded your character, Touch animates your new pal, very accurately identifying limbs and faces. My odd-looking blob (which I shall name Blobby) with three feeble, deformed legs (I’m really not very good at crafts) transformed into a squealing, energetic creature. Of course, over time the noises got a bit annoying, especially when I was trying to make another model and Blobby just wouldn’t shut up. For the most part, though, the app’s background music and sounds were enjoyable.
Your initial creation is just the first of dozens of components you can add to the environment. Each world has five character cans (for adding new creatures) and 10 environment cans. The latter let you add whimsical trees or cannons or waterfalls to the background, and these can even interact with your virtual friends. A cannon can blast your pal onto a higher platform, while a bouncy drum on the ground propels him upward. I was impressed not only by how accurately the app scanned my lumps of clay, but also how well it integrated those misshapen, colorful blobs into the background of whatever world I was in.
Those using the Studio set can also use stamps to create balloons, wings, musical notes and potions to make the characters fly, dance and multiply. These differ in style based on the color of Play-Doh you chose. For instance, using different hues for the music note changes the background song to which your creature dances.
For an app that’s designed for kids four and older, Touch is a tad confusing. During a demo, scanning and dragging a musical note over my character made him groove, but I couldn’t recall how to do that during my own playtime. After looking at the in-app tutorial and the included instruction sheet, I still couldn’t figure out how to do so and had to ask a Hasbro rep to clarify. That’s not a luxury most kids have.
Speaking of luxuries, while it’s nice that you don’t have to invest in the Studio set to enjoy the game, there are benefits to getting it. You can use the included character stamps to unlock five more worlds, bringing the total to six. Each world houses 15 more cans so you can add more characters and wacky backgrounds. That’s a lot of combinations with which to explore and personalize the Play-Doh Touch universe.
Discovery and expression are going to have to be enough to maintain your child’s attention to Touch. There’s no real objective to the app, other than encouraging the player to be creative and artistic. No score is kept, nor are there levels to advance. You’ll only need to collect orbs of light to have enough energy to unlock new cans to add more to your world. And while that doesn’t provide a lot of motivation to keep returning to the game, it’s not a bad thing either. What Play-Doh’s Touch provides, just as its modeling compound has done for decades now, is a way for kids — or maybe even adults — to be imaginative for hours on end.
Steam now requires that game makers show real screenshots
Have you ever been duped into buying a game on Steam that looked good in the store preview, but was nowhere near as exciting when you sat down to play? Valve wants to put a stop to that. The company is telling Steamworks users that, once the developer tool’s Discovery Update 2.0 arrives, all games on Steam will have to use in-game screenshots for their store image galleries. As Polygon notes, it’s a simple matter of truth in advertising: Valve wants would-be buyers to know what it’s really like to play, not just stare at concept art. It can be “harder for customers to understand” what they’re getting without actual in-game content, Valve’s Alden Kroll says.
It’s not certain that Valve will always double-check game submissions to make sure they honor the policy when it takes effect in the next few weeks. However, this at least gives the company the power to force changes (or in the worst cases, pull apps) if it sees a game that violates the new rule. If nothing else, Valve is practicing what it preaches. The Dota 2 product page on Steam now focuses on in-game screenshots where it previously centered on illustrations.
This doesn’t guarantee that every sketchy developer will mend its ways, or that Valve will avoid selling games whose massive hype doesn’t quite match reality. It should discourage studios from trying to hide shoddy graphics from customers, though. That, in turn, should reduce the chances that you need to ask for a refund or otherwise suffer through buyer’s remorse.
Source: Polygon
Steam runs out of ‘Splinter Cell’ game keys during a sale
Digital stores by their nature usually have unlimited inventory, right? Don’t tell that to recent Splinter Cell: Blacklist buyers. Steam began a sale on Splinter Cell games on October 28th, and almost immediately ran out of Blacklist keys — you just received a “failed to contact key server” error (or similar) when trying to play the stealth action title. Steam support and developer Ubisoft promised that keys would arrive on October 30th, but there were still reports of CD key issues as of that afternoon.
We’ve asked both Valve and Ubisoft for their responses and will let you know if they say more. Some users say they’ve received refunds, but that’s not much comfort if you were determined to get Sam Fisher’s adventures at a discount. And no matter what, it’s clear that there wasn’t adequate planning. You don’t run a sale when you’re unprepared to handle the inevitable increase in demand, especially not in a digital era when customers simply expect software to be available.
Via: Kotaku
Source: Steam Community, Reddit
EA temporarily blocks Origin access in all of Myanmar
Some gamers are learning first-hand about the dangers of trusting your game library to a copy-protected service: you’re at the mercy of that service and its interpretation of the law. Players living in Myanmar have discovered that EA started blocking access to Origin in the country sometime in September. Even if you started your account elsewhere, you aren’t allowed to either visit the Origin store or use any of your purchased games. You can use a virtual private network to get around the restriction, but that could easily bog down your connection while playing online. Thankfully, the headache is only momentary.
EA initially said the block was a matter of obeying US laws that ban offering service in certain countries. However, that was an unusual decision giving the timing. President Obama announced that same month that the US would lift trade sanctions on Myanmar, and they haven’t been in effect since October 7th. Why clamp down right as legal restrictions are disappearing? The company now realizes that this was a mistake: a spokesperson tells Engadget that it’s “working to restore access,” and will discuss the timing when it can. You can read the full statement below.
While that’s heartening news, the incident underscores the advantage of buying from stores with unprotected games, like GOG. Even if the service shuts down completely, those games will still work. It also suggests that services like Origin should have policies in place for compensating users who lose access in cases like this, rather than asking them to accept country-wide bans.
“We are working to restore access to Origin for our players in Myanmar. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we’ll share updates on timing as soon as possible.”
Source: Reddit, EA Answers HQ (1), (2)
‘The Division’ update keeps you playing past the endgame
Ubisoft is facing the same problem with The Division that Bungie encountered with Destiny: how do you keep people playing after they’ve hit the level cap, especially when extra content only goes so far? Its solution: dangle the promise of more loot. The developer has released that promised patch to overhaul the game’s mechanics, and its centerpiece is a new World Tiers feature that increases the difficulty of enemy characters in return for greater rewards. The higher the tier, the greater the chance you’ll get items you’d want to keep. You can also accrue experience beyond the regular and Underground level caps, and Ubisoft has tweaked loot drops across the board — you’re more likely to get equipment appropriate to your level, and any enemy has a chance of dropping advanced gear.
As for those overhauled mechanics? A lot has changed, and it’s mainly for the better. There have been “many improvements” to enemy AI, and it takes less time overall to kill them. Scavenging has been removed from the game entirely, for that matter, and you now progressively heal when you’re outside of combat. Weapons and armor have seen significant rebalancing as well. To top it off, skills behave very differently — there’s no longer a cap, but you face diminishing returns the higher your skill levels get.
It’s hard to say if the update will inject new life into The Division, although it at least clears the way for the DLC that Ubisoft had delayed for the sake of the new patch. From a cursory glance, though, the update appears to tackle some of the biggest complaints with online role-playing games of all kinds, especially shooter RPGs. You not only have more reason to play past the usual endgame, but should spend less time grinding or licking your wounds.
Source: Ubisoft
Adult Swim’s latest game embraces cassette glitches
Does something look slightly off with picture you see above? Don’t worry, that’s on purpose. Adult Swim Games and Fire Face are launching the surreal puzzler Small Radios Big Televisions on November 8th for PC and PS4, and its hook is a time-traveling cassette deck that lets you “reconstruct the past” of abandoned factories through tapes. Only here, reality is just as fragile as the tapes in question — expect plenty of distortion, discoloration and other glitches that could play havoc with your head. Complete them and you’ll find retrowave tunes from Owen Deery (also available on Bandcamp) as a reward. Given Adult Swim’s solid track record with releasing off-kilter titles like Headlander and Westerado, it could be worth a try just to see how well this analog-meets-digital premise turns out.
Source: Steam, Bandcamp
Skyrim, NBA 2K and new Mario are coming to Nintendo Switch
The Nintendo Switch looks like an impressive piece of hardware capable of going from the living room to mobile with the swipe of a hand, but it’s nothing without a lineup of acclaimed, high-quality games and fresh experiences. In the Switch’s debut teaser trailer, we got a glimpse at some of the software hitting Nintendo’s new hardware, including a new 3D Mario game, a new version of Splatoon (look at those hairstyles) and a new Mario Kart featuring King Boo and two item slots. Of course we saw The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as well, but it was the third-party support that really stood out.
In the trailer, the Switch played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and NBA 2K, and Nintendo has listed a swathe of partners that plan to support the console. These include Call of Duty studio Activision, Fallout house Bethesda, Mass Effect publisher EA, Bayonetta developer Platinum Games, Final Fantasy creator Square Enix, The Walking Dead studio Telltale Games, Assassin’s Creed company Ubisoft and Mortal Kombat publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
This is a positive sign for Nintendo fans, following the Wii U’s rather anemic third-party support, especially near the end of its life cycle.
In today’s trailer, we also got a glimpse of some Amiibo sitting next to the Switch, though it remains unclear if the new console will support Nintendo’s toys-to-life figures natively. Nintendo promises to reveal more details about the games and functionality of the Switch before its worldwide release in March 2017.
Source: Business Wire
Jackbox releases its latest party game pack on October 18th
You may not be all that familiar with Jackbox Games, but it has quite the following: party games like Quiplash have helped it stand out in a sea of indie studios. And it’s about to make it a little bit easier to get acquainted. The developer has revealed that it’s releasing its Jackbox Party Pack 3 bundle on October 18th for PCs (through Steam), the PS4 and Amazon Fire TV users. Xbox One owners will get the title slightly later, on October 21st. Whichever route you go, you’ll get the same experience.
The cornerstone is undoubtedly Quiplash 2, the sequel to Jackbox’s give-a-goofy-answer game. However, the other games might be worth a look. Guesspionage is a polling game based on public answers, for instance, while Trivia Murder Party is probably the only trivia game hosted by a serial killer. Fakin’ It asks you to expose a lying friend, and Tee K.O. has you squaring off using clever shirts and slogans. Like most party games, you’re probably only going to play these titles every once in a while — however, the sheer variety (and hopefully quality) of them might be enough to justify a purchase.
Source: Jackbox Games, PlayStation Blog
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