🎮 Apex cancels controversial changes, Video Game Actors on strike, Quidditch Champions Gameplay...
Apex Legends cancels the most controversial Battle Pass changes, Video Game actors are on strike over AI, Quidditch Champions Gameplay, EDF 6 got bombed over Epic Games login requirement, Elden Ring..
Hello friends,
Today is July 29th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 Apex Legends cancels the most controversial Battle Pass changes
🎮 Video Game actors are on strike over AI
🎮 Quidditch Champions Gameplay
🎮 EDF 6 got bombed over Epic Games login requirement
🎮 Elden Ring Challenges are still a thing
🎮 Epic Games announces new Mobile Strategy
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 Apex Legends cancels the most controversial Battle Pass changes
I didn’t think that had it in them, but Respawn and/or EA finally folded on the real money only for the Premium Battle Pass aspect of their upcoming update to Apex Legends.
I’ve talked about it several times during this past month, but the gist of it was that Respawn announced earlier that after the next update players won’t be able to purchase Premium Battle Pass for soft currency and leaving only real money price tags. It brought a lot of heat and I mean a lot. The game was review-bombed, and veterans were leaving but the companies stayed silent.
Thanks to Kotaku, now we know why. It looks like they evaluated their options and decided to drop this change. That being said, that’s the only change that they are reverting, all the other changes are going in with the game’s next season.
Again, I didn’t think that had it in them. After weeks of staying silent while their prise game was taking a beating of its life I though that they were going to just go along with it and then reevaluate after the update. But it looks like they haven’t lost their reason yet. This doesn’t change the fact that they tried to introduce this change and only changed their mind after weeks of community rage.
I guess it’s the time we live in now, right? At least I’m glad that the community still got their voices heard. At least for now…
🎮 Video Game actors are on strike over AI
I wasn’t aware of it, but according to Kotaku after months of negotiations with major companies in the Game Development industry (like Activision, Epic Games and others) Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are going to strike on July 26 at 12:01 a.m.
The strike was authorized because of the unwillingness of big game companies to budge on guaranteeing performers’ rights over how their work is used in training AI or creating AI-generated copies.
Here’s what chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement regarding this:
The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually. The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games. That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the A.I. use of their faces, voices, and bodies. Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year - that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to A.I., and the public supports us in that.
There’s no telling what upcoming projects are going to be impacted by this strike. But the last strike like this one lasted an entire 2016 if I remember correctly. And it’s unclear whether this one will be resolved any time soon as both sides are too busy taking shots at each other.
As a consumer, I’m a bit upset as it may impact so many exciting projects, but as a professional I totally understand their position. Hopefully, both sides will soon realize that this situation is not doing anyone any favours and return to the negotiation table and reach a fair agreement that makes both sides happy 🤞
🎮 Quidditch Champions Gameplay
Just yesterday Warner Bros. Games released a new gameplay trailer for their upcoming Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions.
The trailer showcases different gameplay modes, like career and multiplayer, the character creation mode and also the gameplay of the Chaser role. It all looks very simple yet elegant. There’s also a whole bunch of stuff related to skins, different brooms and stuff like that, but considering that we are talking about a game that features just Quidditch, I say they are doing a pretty good job so far.
Personally, I think it looks very fun, though it’s still not entirely clear to me how gameplay is going to vary based on all the different positions in the game. For example, I’d love to see what Beater’s or Keeper’s gameplay will look like, but maybe they’ll release some footage of it later. The price for this game is 40 CAD so far, so it sounds quite fair enough. I’m still upset though they’ve decided to release it as a separate game and not as an expansion for Hogwarts Legacy…
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions will launch on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation on September 3, 2024.
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🎮 EDF 6 got bombed over Epic Games login requirement
So, we’ve got a new release this weekend, a new instalment of Earth Defence Force and things are not looking well for them.
The sequel to "EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5" depicts the battle between the EDF and alien life forms that have suddenly attacked the Earth. Players take on the role of an EDF soldier in this third-person shooter in which they must destroy a large number of giant enemies.
If you want to play the game online on Steam you’ll have to create an Epic Games account. It was announced on launch day and funny enough, the devs already announced plans to remove it 🤣
Rightly so, as it brought them a ton of negative reviews on Steam. A lot of people are complaining about technical errors while trying to launch the game, controller support being disabled every time an Epic Game achievement pops up and constant de-sync issues.
Honestly, I haven’t played any of the EDF games as it all looks a little bit over the top for my taste, but it looks like the whole situation is kind of justifiable from my perspective. I honestly hate this new trend that when you buy a game on Steam you need to install like 1000 of different launchers, anti-cheat systems and plugins to just launch it. I got so frustrated a few years ago when I bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition and got a bug when my achievements weren’t triggering because of the EA launcher. And I bet that a lot of performance and technical issues are happening because of this other launcher as it probably hasn’t been properly tested during a QA stage.
So, all in all, I think they got what they deserved but it’s good that they are already working on fixing this mess.
🎮 Elden Ring Challenges are still a thing
I recently saw on Kotaku an article about a streamer beating the last DLC boss in Elden Ring with both controller and dance pad. The only thing was that it happened at the same time…
It’s great that the game managed to accumulate so much community-driven content and still continues to do so, but I suddenly remembered this gem that I’d seen a couple of days prior 🤣
Now every time I see a new YouTube video popping up about a challenge run, I’m going to remember this guy as it all looks a little bit like this to me at this point.
I imagine the next step would be to find a way for a microwave or a dishwasher to run Elden Ring and then beat it using only the buttons on these devices…
🎮 Epic Games announces new Mobile Strategy
After a tireless battle of lawsuits around EU regulations, a few days ago Epic Games revealed their new strategy for mobile games.
TL;DR: Fortnite will return to the iOS store in the European Union, while the Epic Games Store will be available again on Android worldwide and on iOS in the European Union. Also, Epic Games is bringing its mobile games to AltStore on iOS in the EU and Fortnite and its other mobile titles will no longer be available on the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Here’s the official announcement:
Today, we're announcing that Epic also plans to bring our own mobile games including Fortnite to other mobile stores that give all developers a great deal. And, we will be ending distribution partnerships with mobile stores that serve as rent collectors without competing robustly and serving all developers fairly, even if those stores offer us a special deal for our own games.
Here's why we're doing this: We've long been advocating for the rights of stores to exist and compete fairly on iOS and Android, and progress is spreading across the globe, in the form of Europe's DMA, similar laws in the UK and Japan, regulatory investigations around the world, and victory in the Epic v Google litigation in the US. As operators of the Epic Games Store, we'll take advantage of this opportunity to bring all developers a great deal on our store. And as game developers ourselves, we want to do everything we can to support other stores that strive to bring all developers their own great deals.
In exciting news, we are announcing that our mobile games will come to AltStore on iOS in the EU, and we expect to announce support for at least two other third-party stores soon.
Finally, in sad news, we are today announcing that Fortnite and our other games will be leaving the Samsung Galaxy Store in protest of Samsung's anticompetitive decision to block side-loading by default on Samsung Android devices, and as a result of public revelations in the US Epic v Google lawsuit of ongoing Google proposals to Samsung to restrain competition in the market for Android app distribution.
I suspect that in the end, it’s all going to be for the better, but I’m honestly dreading the fact that to play the games you want you need to install like 10 store apps. I understand that it’s the way the industry works and I have the same thing on my computer (Steam, Battle.Net, Epic Store, EA, Ubisoft etc.), but it brings so much inconvenience for the end-users…
I’m wondering if somebody is already working on a platform that will allow to merge all these platforms and stores in the same place while keeping the revenues with their respective platforms 🤔 I’d be down for that!
😄 Personal Update
I finally bought a Diablo 2 and it’s been a blast so far 🙌
Once I got started, I realized that I didn’t know anything about this game 😅 I mean, I knew the basics, but I didn’t know anything about how to build your character, what to do with runes, how important resistances are etc.
So, basically, whenever I had spare time, I’ve been playing Diablo and it doesn’t look like I’m going to be done any time soon. I’m also thinking about giving Diablo 4 a try with their upcoming first expansion and a new class. I know that it’s even more grindy and it’s a bit off-putting that you need to be connected to the internet to play it, but still, based on the footage it looks quite interesting.
What do you think?
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
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Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.