NEWS | Week beginning October 19th | GAME Blunder, Fallout & One Life

Good evening guys! It's that time of the week again! Let's get straight into it!

GAME Blunder

First up, we start with a short, and well, rather idiotic story.

UK based video game retailer GAME was hit with a nationwide gift card shortage after a manager in one of GAME's Scottish stores accidentally ordered the company's entire stock.

Were you affected by the gift card
shortage?

Customers at various stores around the UK were told that they simply could not buy gift cards or trade items in for store credit due to an 'error', and a pretty big one at that.

The issue is slowly being fixed, with GAME's website only stocking £25 and £50 gift cards, with the£10 version being unavailable still.

Many were worried that the company had again come under financial issues, much like the issues that occurred in 2012, when the company came under administration in 2012 and had to close down multiple stores around the UK as well as completely close similar video game retailer GAMEstation, that was owned by parent company GAME. A similair situation occurred, where gift cards were simply made unavailable during the time they were under administration.

As said, that is a pretty big mistake to make. Yeah, over-ordering stock could be slightly problematic, however, ordering the company's entire stock is a quite a massive mistake. I'm sure he was left very red faced!

Fallout

Next up, I have yet more Fallout news!

The day of reckoning is slowly coming upon us. Fallout 4 will soon be with us, After 7 long years of waiting, the next chapter of the Fallout series will be with us. Earlier this week, Bethesda Game Studios, the developers of Fallout 4, made the all important announcement that the game has 'gone gold'. 

When a game goes gold, it means the developers working on the game have done all that they can for the time being, and they feel it is ready to be sent to the presser to make millions of copies of the game. It is finally ready!

Oct 23rd - the bombs have fallen. Fallout 4 is complete. All 27 versions. pic.twitter.com/AwkWOoTEgt

— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) October 23, 2015

Bethesda tweeted this earlier in the week, which is all the confirmation we need!

Don't mind if I do!

Now you might be asking, how can I appropriately celebrate the launch of Fallout 4? Well I might just have the answer for you!

Fallout is getting it's own brand of beer, thanks to a collaboration between Bethesda and Carlsberg UK.

If you go on Amazon and type in 'Fallout Beer' or simply click here, you can pre-order a case of 12 beers. The description reads:

"Fallout beer has been brewed using a unique blend of malted barleys combined with selected hops," the description reads. "A light coloured pilsner lager, with a refreshing zesty hoppy taste and a floral aroma."

Priced at £29.99 for a pack of 12, it may seem a little pricey, however, you can't really complain, it's Fallout Beer!

One Life

Finally, a new First-Person Shooter was added to the Steam Greenlight roster this week, and well, it's a little different to say the least...

The shooter, appropriately named 'One Life', permanently locks your account when you die.
Yes, you read that right. Once you die, you're done for good. The usually blue PLAY button in Steam greys out, and that's you done forever.

“One Life is the first multiplayer survival game with perma-permadeath. If you die, you will leave the game forever. Will you manage to survive in this harsh world full of dangers? Upgrade your battle truck and set off for hot spots with friends. Play with your own rules but remember: your every move can be the last one.”

Once you have been hunted by all of your online foes and have ultimately shot you to bits, they can either finish you off and end your One Life. Get it?! Because you only have One Life! Hahaha?!
No? Okay...

A typical FPS, or something
new?

Anyway, they can kill you, leave you to die, take you captive, etc, etc. The choice is theirs. If you want to take them captive and keep them as your slave for the rest of the time you're in the game, then you can. The decision is entirely yours.

Now, this game does cost. One Life has a $10 price tag. Yeah, that kinda sucks. You invest $10 into a
game only to die within the first 5 minutes and be locked out of the game forever? Not cool. As a result, developer Kefir! has implemented a spawning system, allowing the player to have full control over where they spawn and what you spawn with, within reason. I guess that sorta makes up for it?

Kefir! have also realised that once players die, there is nothing stopping them to make a new Steam account, re-purchasing the game and play as a new character. They do however hope that players honour the One Life system. I did it again! Another pun...
They said:
“Creating another account won’t be the easiest thing as the player will feel the loss of the character and the ability to playOne Life again on the emotional level.”

I'm honestly not too sure something like this will work. $10 isn't exactly much, however, the fact that there is a possibility that you could die instantly and lose all access to the game isn't definitely something worth thinking about. Maybe if the game was free, or at least, a lot cheaper. Otherwise, I'm not so sure it will catch on!

You can check the games Greenlight page here.

Anywho, that's it for this week! What did you think of this weeks news?
Were you affected by the GAME blunder? Will you be purchasing the Fallout beer? Does One Life sound appealing to you?

Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)

NEWS | Week beginning October 12th | Payday 2 Microtransactions, Warhammer 40K Pricing Confusion & Fallout 4 Live Action Trailer

Good evening guys, and welcome back to another news round-up! Let's get straight into it!

Payday 2 Microtransactions

First up, Payday 2 developer Overkill has this week added microtransactions into Payday, after stating multiple times that they wouldn't.

Overkill released the new Black Market Update, which allows players to open safes and claim random loot drops. This isn't a new concept by any means, most notably, CounterStrike: Global Offensive also uses such a concept. You get a case, buy a key for said case, and hope you get lucky with a high ranked drop. Very similarly to CS:GO, the safes in Payday 2 cost £1.60.

Now people aren't neccessarily mad by the microtransactions. Again, much like in CounterStrike, you can trade these skins or sell them on the Steam Marketplace for Steam Wallet funds. This concept has proven to be very successful, with new skins and cases being added by developer Valve on occasion. Most are angry by the fact that the developer has said a countless amount of times that Payday 2 will not feature microtransactions.

Not cool Overkill, not cool...

For example, in 2013, producer Almir Listo wrote in a blog post that:

"We've made it clear that Payday 2 will have no microtransactions whatsoever."

Then, a month later, lead designer David Goldfarb responded to worries that microtransactions may be added in the future by saying:

"No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No."

As you can probably imagine, Payday 2 owners are not terribly happy by the fact that the game now features microtransactions. Some Reddit users have created a thread simply entitled "Fuck you overkill" and the Steam page for the game is now flooded with hundreds of negative reviews.

In all honestly, Overkill should have been expecting this. They say Payday 2 won't feature microtransactions, then on the game's 4 year anniversary, they add an update with microtransactions. The Payday community has a right to be mad!

Warhammer 40K Pricing Confusion

Next up, popular Strategy game Warhammer 40K has recently come out, and some fans of the series are slightly confused by how the game has been priced on the different platforms it is available on. 

Developer Rodeo recently published the new Warhammer 40K: Deathwatch on the App Store and it was given a £2.29 price tag. No one seemed to bat an eyelid. However, the game also received a PC port. Now this is where is gets confusing. For some reason, the PC version of the game costs £18.99, a whole £16 more than the iOS version.

Rodeo co-founder Ben Murch does have his reasons for making the PC version cost considerably more than the iOS version...

"The biggest reason for the price-tag is the lack of in-app purchases and where we wanted to price the original iOS game. It's such a crazy marketplace at the moment on the App Store. People think that £3.99 for a 14-hour high-end game experience is too costly! Everything is expected to be free.

Would you rather a cheaper game with
microtransactions, or a more expensive port
without microtransactions?

"We really wanted to put Deathwatch iOS on sale at a premium price, as that's what we feel it's worth. However, knowing that the audience wouldn't buy it like that, we had to chop the game up by putting in in-app purchases for the card packs and having a lower entry price. Which means that for £2.29, you only get a very small section of the full game.

"On PC, all that's been taken out, so players get the experience we originally intended... which we believe is worth the £18.99 price tag."

To put it simply, the iOS version of Deathwatch will contain a range of different microtransactions. Rodeo knew that iOS users wouldn't purchase the game if the game cost any more than a couple of quid. Therefore, in order to reduce the price of the game, they had to cut out bits of the iOS version and turn them into microtransactions. For the PC version however, there will be no microtransactions, meaning players will be getting the 'full experience' and as a result, the PC port will cost £18.99.

Rodeo are a business, meaning they have to make money. They knew that gamers are less likely to buy the game on mobile if the price is over £3, therefore reducing the price to ensure people buy the game on mobile is a smart move. The reasoning behind it all makes sense. I am however not so sure that people will like the fact that the game will have microtransactions. 

God damn microtransactions!!

Thanks to Eurogamer for the info!

Fallout 4 Live Action Trailer

Now, we end on a short and sweet story. Ahead of the release of Fallout 4 in November (ONLY 22 DAYS!!! :D) Bethesda has released a fancy live-action trailer, showing us Fallout Fan-People what Fallout's post-apocalyptic world would look like if it were a movie!

I would give you some details and stuff, but why ruin it? Go ahead and watch it yourself!

Now doesn't that make you excited?!!

Aaaaannddd that's it for this week's video game news round-up. Are you angry that Payday 2 now has microtransactions? Would you prefer to buy a cheaper mobile version or a more expensive PC port? DID THE FALLOUT LIVE ACTION TRAILER EXCITE YOU????!!!!!

Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :D

NEWS | Week beginning October 5th | Playstation Now launches, FIFA Hacks & Battlefront Beta

Yes, I am back. Well, I never really left, but, anyway, the News is back!

Playstation Now UK

First up, Playstation Now has officially launched in the UK. 

If I haven't previously mentioned Playstation Now before, it's a subscription based service that allows Playstation 3, 4 & Vita users to play hundreds of Playstation 3 titles. Currently, the service is priced at £12.99 per month, giving you access to all of the games available on the service. 

Do you think that it's
overpriced for what's
available?

If you don't fancy paying £12.99 a month, you can instead rent each game for a limited amount of time at £2.99 each. There is also a week long trial so you can see whether the service is your cup of tea or not, just keep in mind that if you do take part in the trial, ensure you cancel the renewal or the service will continue to take money out of your account each month!

Now, as it is a streaming service, a good internet connection is needed. It does test your internet beforehand to ensure that you can actually stream the games. I'd recommend using a wired connection when using Playstatio Now, otherwise it's likely that you won't be able to use the service!

I think Playstation Now could be a good success for Sony. At the moment, I'm not too sure. It seems like there are only PS3 games available at the moment, with only a few classic PS2 games. If they continue to add to the catalog and add classics from the PS2 and PS1, then yeah, but with it priced at £12.99, I'd wait a while and see if they expand the catalog. 

FIFA Hacks

Next up, a bunch of high profile FIFA YouTubers have been hacked, leaving their FIFA Ultimate Team accounts looking rather empty.

Over the past few weeks, a bunch of major FIFA YouTubers, like WS2, MattHDGamer, and Nick28T have all had their Ultimate Team accounts hacked. For those of you who are unfamiliar with FIFA, Ultimate Team is a mode that allows players to create their own teams with player cards and play other people online. If a player in real life has a good game over the weekend, then they'll get an inform card, which can be obtained in packs.  

If you play FIFA, do
you trust EA?

Most of the big FIFA YouTubers upload regular pack opening videos on their channels, where they show off the big and expensive players they pull from the packs. They can then sell these players on the in-game market for 'coins' with which they can buy other players or more packs. 

One of the standout examples is YouTuber MattHDGamer, who pulled an Inform Ronaldo card on the first week of the games release. In-game, the card is worth around 3.4 million coins, which translates to around £800 in real money. So, as you can guess, everyone is a little pissed.

However, one of the main reasons that the FIFA community is fuming is because of how easy it is to hack into an account. All it takes is for a hacker to message the online EA Customer Service Live Chat armed only with an email or gamertag. And how they get this information I hear you ask, the hackers simply look at the online leaderboards and find an account that is near the top of the leaderboards for Club Value. Ridiculous, I know. Unfortunately, most customer service reps that work for EA don't actually know how to do their job, and they unknowingly give access to accounts thinking that the hacker has actually been locked out of an account. YouTuber W2S reckons he lost around £1000 worth of in-game items when his account was hacked in September. Both MattHDGamer and W2S were given coins as compensation for their issues.

EA released the following statement following the hacks:

" We encourage all FIFA players to secure their accounts with authentication and verification steps, which we outline on our help and our product sites. 

We are consistently working through our customer experience teams to secure accounts and make sure players are educated when account compromises are made. "

I don't now if it's just me, but it sounds like they're blaming us the players...

If you have FIFA 16 and play Ultimate Team, ensure that your account is safe, otherwise the same could happen to you!

Battlefront Beta

Finally, the Star Wars Battlefront beta was released on all current gen consoles and PCon Thursday, and it's pretty great!

There are two game modes available, Drop Zone and Walker Assualt. Drop Zone is much like 'Hardpoint' on Call of Duty. You have to capture and hold a pod while you try and repel enemy forces. Pretty standard.
It's Walker Assualt where things get interesting. The Imperials have the task of escorting two AT-AT walkers to the Rebel base so they can destroy the base. The Rebels have to activate Uplink sites so friendly bombers can be called in to destroy the walkers. These Walker Assualt lobbys can hold up to 40 players at a time, so, as you can presume, things can get pretty crazy. You can pilot vehicles, whether that be X-Wings or an AT-STs, use turrets and power-ups. Oh, and take control of two hero characters, Luke Skywalker

May the force be with you!

and Darth Vader!

On the note of hero characters, some PC players have been delving into the files of the beta and it seems like there will a wide range of different characters available in final game. The files within the beta directly mention The Emperor, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Boba Fett. The files also come with some voice clips for the characters. For example, there is a sound clip from The Emperor which specifically references him killing Princess Leia, and another sound clip that references Han Solo killing Boba Fett. Could this mean that there will be some sort of Hero Battle mode or something like there was in Battlefront 2? I hope so!

If you haven't already downloaded the beta, go do so! You're missing out! The beta is scheduled to end on the 12th, so tomorrow... Get in while it lasts!

And that's that for this week. What did you think of this weeks news? Will you be subscribing to the Playstattion Now service? Have you been hacked on FIFA? Will you be taking part in the Star Wars Battlefront beta? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)