Lawsuit demands the right to resell Steam games

One of the biggest gripes about downloadable games (unless you’re a developer) is that you can’t typically resell them — that title is yours forever, even if you’ll never play it again. French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir is doing something about it, though. It’s suing Valve to demand resales for Steam games. Its policy violates the European Union’s right to resell legally purchased software, according to the group. As proof, it points to a 2012 Oracle case where a judge ruled that there was no difference between reselling disc-based copies and their downloaded equivalents.

The outfit also blasts Valve’s self-given right to reuse user-made Steam content, and argues that it should refund any leftover credit if you close your Steam account.

Whether or not Que Choisir wins the day is far from clear. A German group didn’t have any success trying a similar feat. And even if the French lawsuit leads to an EU-wide resale policy, you shouldn’t expect it to spread to the US. Downloads are typically considered licenses in the country, not sales, and wouldn’t be subject to the same scrutiny. Even so, this is a step forward for anyone hoping to thin down a massive Steam library… and make some spare cash in the process.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: UFC-Que Choisir (translated)

A video game journey through America’s original remix culture

Long after Deadmau5 finished his closing set at The Game Awards, one new trailer stayed with me. It was understated and soothing, featuring a hand-painted desert landscape, a rolling train and a hint of fantasy, all backed by a melancholic American folk song. It was a teaser for Where the Water Tastes Like Wine from Dim Bulb Games. I noticed the trailer because of its visuals, but I remembered it because of the song.

“[Music is] a form of art that has amazing appeal and power, and its impact is huge,” Dim Bulb founder Johnnemann Nordhagen tells me. “Look at any group of music fans and watch how passionate they are. … In the context of a game, especially a game like this, music helps set the tone for the world and the experience, bringing players to a particular time and place and mood.”

The music behind Where the Water Tastes Like Wine mirrors the game itself. Players embark on a journey across dusty American landscapes, meeting strangers, hearing stories and telling their own tales. It’s a throwback to the classic “American road” story, like John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, but with interactive twists.

This hits at the heart of American folk music, which started with travelers sharing stories and adding their own lyrics or musicality to a song, until it became the story of a place, an era or a people. Some may recognize the lyrics, “where the water tastes like wine,” from a Woodstock-era song by Canned Heat, but the roots of that line travel far deeper than 1969.

“The title comes from a song, but really it comes from a whole tradition of songs,” Nordhagen says. “The earliest known version of the song was recorded in 1924, and doesn’t include the ‘where the water tastes like wine’ lyric. Other musicians added that later, as they took the song and changed it or molded it into new forms. And that’s one of the major themes of the game — this history of folk culture, of sharing ideas and adding your own take. It’s hard to understand, in our current copyright regime, what sharing music and stories used to look like.”

The game’s composer, Ryan Ike, understands American folk music just fine. He was hesitant to dive into the genre at first, since it was new for him, but the more he learned about folk, the more comfortable he became.

“I think the reason I’m not super intimidated is because this style of music has always been about including people,” Ike says. “When blues and roots stuff started, it was a response to what was mainstream at the time. When people felt musically displaced or alone, these were the styles of music they turned to. Anyone could pick up an instrument and join in, and if you didn’t have one, humming or clapping was totally cool, too. That’s what I love about it; I feel like it’s very personal, but also very welcoming, unlike a lot of other genres that are a bit more exclusive.”

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a game about the American Dream, the centuries-old mythos that if you work hard in the United States, you can live well and fulfill your life’s passions. However, Nordhagen says, that dream is drenched in violence and packed with caveats. Alongside Kerouac and Steinbeck, Nordhagen notes Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 as inspirations for the game.

“There were lots and lots of folks throughout American history who didn’t have access to that dream, or whose dreams were simply to rise out of the oppression that America created,” he says. “And we’re bad at acknowledging that our dreams impact others — that the entire formation of the United States as a country was built on wiping out the previous inhabitants of this land. Manifest Destiny was all about pushing that domination further, and for centuries the whole country was supported on the back of slave labor, and still exists on a foundation of oppression.”

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine emerges from a broad pool of inspiration, stretching from post-Revolutionary America to the 1970s Las Vegas strip. Folk music is the bow tying these disparate eras together.

The soundtrack helps tell the game’s story, pulling in lyrics about historical events, as in murder ballads or protest songs. And, folk music doesn’t stray far from folklore — in the trailer shown just before The Game Awards, a lonely man sitting in front of a campfire transforms into a giant bird. These mystical, magical aspects are also entrenched in the game and its music.

To get the sound right in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Ike pressed Nordhagen for every detail about the game that he could. Then, he studied the American folk genre itself, from African-American spirituals of the 1800s, to modern groups like The Wild Reeds. He also listened closely to other game composers who delved into folk, including Bastion‘s Darren Korb and BioShock Infinite‘s Garry Schyman.

“Folk music changes throughout time on a really personal level,” Ike says. “One performer tries something new, another one hears that and iterates on it. A third person might take that idea and put it in a new context and so on. I want the soundtrack for this game to do the same thing.”

Man sues Bethesda over his ‘Fallout 4’ addiction

There’s little doubt that Fallout 4‘s gameplay is involving when you can spend dozens of hours on the main storyline alone. However, one Russian man is convinced that it’s too involving. RT says that he’s suing Bethesda for 500,000 rubles ($7,030) for failing to warn that Fallout 4 would “become so addictive.” Supposedly, the man went on a 3-week gaming marathon that cost him his health, job and wife. Had he known how alluring it was, he says, he would have either waited until the holidays to buy the game or avoided it entirely. We’ve reached out to Bethesda to both confirm the lawsuit and get its take on the claims.

There is a history of these cases, and they can even be successful: one American got compensation from NCSoft after he got hooked on Lineage II. There’s also evidence to suggest that certain kinds of gameplay can promote addictive behavior. With that said, there are many Fallout 4 players who’ve played extensively without ruining their personal and professional lives. This man will have to convince the court that he was genuinely addicted, not just lacking in self-discipline.

Via: VentureBeat

Source: RT

Pinball Labs wants to bring the pool hall experience to VR

Early adopters of the soon-to-arrive Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality headsets are going to need games, and what better way to waste time than a few rounds of pinball? Thomas Kadlec, the developer of the Star Trek Voyager Bridge VR experience is trying to round up Kickstarter funds for Pinball Labs, a pinball simulator that will let you design and play your own games. Built with Unreal Engine 4, games will have realistic physics, a built-in table editor and custom user settings. They’ll be playable in VR on Vive and Oculus Rift, in desktop mode for PCs and on virtual, multi-monitor cabinets.

With a large homebrew pinball community that builds physical tables, Pinball Labs will also work with real world hardware. Kadlec says enthusiasts can “hook up real-world buttons, lights, solenoids and other physical feedback devices directly to Pinball Labs‘ simulation.” That will help developers test new games troubleshoot any problems before spending cash on the real deal. (There’s no word on whether existing Visual Pinball virtual games will work on the system.)

The developer has created a proof-of-concept alpha demo that runs on the Oculus Rift DK2, and funds will be used to develop the editor UI, physics refinements and more. Stretch goals include a device workshop, multiplayer support and voice chat, built-in head tracking and stereoscopic support for 3D TVs and monitors. So far, the project is at around $5,000 toward the $18,500 goal, so if you can’t get enough Pinball FX2, you can back it here.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1820215579/pinball-labs/widget/card.html?v=2

Via: Road to VR

Source: Kickstarter

Ex-NBA star buys a ‘League of Legends’ eSports team

If there was any doubt that eSports are attracting the attention of the conventional sports world, it just got erased. Former LA Lakers player Rick Fox has bought Gravity, one of the bigger League of Legends teams, for an unspecified amount of cash. As he explains, eSports is on the cusp of “something massive” — he wants to get in before things blow up. He’s certainly no stranger to this world between his partnership at Twin Galaxies (the game record-keeping institution) and contributions to a fundraiser for competitive gaming.

He may well be on to something. As Bloomberg notes, 27 million people watched 2014’s League of Legends World Championship. That’s more than the 19.9 million who saw this year’s NBA finals, folks. Even though Gravity isn’t likely to pay its players NBA-level salaries any time soon, it might not take long for Fox to make a return on his investment.

[Image credit: Kirby Lee/Getty Images]

Source: Bloomberg

Play ‘Threes’ for free in your browser right now

Threes, the adorable number-squishing, tile-sliding puzzle game, is available to play for free (and without ads) in browsers via desktop and mobile devices. The game is otherwise free (with ads) on Android and iOS, or you can spend $2 for a version without commercial breaks. Designer Asher Vollmer and illustrator Greg Wohlwend announced the browser edition during a Reddit AMA on Thursday.

Threes debuted as a $2 mobile game in February 2014 and accidentally incited a flurry of clones, including 2048. When the developers launched the free, mobile version in June this year, Wohlwend reflected on Threes‘ clones and its premium pricing structure.

“After the clones started to crop up there were certainly discussions of, ‘Should we just put out a free version now?’ but I’m glad we didn’t,” Wohlwend said. “It would have been rushed and we would have made mistakes and probably treated the player poorly in some way like so many free games do.”

This isn’t the first time Threes has made its way to browsers — shortly after the game’s launch, fan Angela Li created a free, developer-approved version of the game for the web.

so nice to finally have Threes exist outside of unity :3 https://t.co/e0RCf1zB87

— Asher Vollmer (@AsherVo) December 17, 2015

Via: Polygon

Source: @AsherVo, Reddit