High Ping Basterds

On our 35th episode, we are talking about the following topics:

• [07:28] Alien Isolation sees a whopping 120% player count boost post-movie
• [17:13] Abby Actress in HBO's The Last of Us Season 2 Receives Extra Security Due to Gamer Backlash
• [26:07] Amazon Games boss says we need more AI and it's not "taking work away" because "for games, we don't really have acting"
• [32:54] Black Myth: Wukong Sells an Incredible 10 Million Copies in Just 3 Days
• [43:55] A Prominent Accessibility Advocate Worked With Studios and Inspired Change. But She Never Actually Existed. - IGN
• [51:42] What Went Wrong With WoW? A Blizzard Veteran’s Theory on World of Warcraft’s Fall From Its 12 Million Subscriber Height
• [1:01:00] Sony Launching Its Own Blockchain For NFTs and Play to Earn Games

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In our 34th episode, we discussed the following topics:

• Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer Mod Canceled the Day Before Launch After Activision Sends Devs Cease and Desist
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard gets the EA special: 23 deluxe-exclusive cosmetics, 2 editions that don't include the game, pre-order armor, and 3 artbook editions alone
• US FTC finalizes ban on companies buying and selling fake online reviews
• Epic Games launches mobile store, bringing Fortnite and Fall Guys to iOS and Android
• Epic’s Tim Sweeney: Fighting Apple and Google has cost Epic about $1 billion
• Actors demand action over 'disgusting' video game sex scenes
• New game tech report claims biggest issue affecting game dev right now is funding

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Another week and another episode. This time its episode 33. In this episode, we discussed the following topics:

[08:49] Xbox Hardware Revenue Down 42% From Last Year as Activision Acquisition Continues to Boost Content Sales

[12:59] Intel To Lay Off 15,000 Employees

[22:36] Game Informer to Shut Down After 33 Years

[27:54] Early Borderlands movie impressions brand it "disaster" and "huge misfire" | Eurogamer.net

[34:53] Former Xbox studio Tango Gameworks and 'Hi-Fi Rush' have been acquired by PUBG's Krafton Inc, saving it from closure

[38:27] Nintendo against sheet music: their war against piracy has reached the point where even arrangements of their songs can’t be made - Softonic

[44:27] Meta shuts down Quest developer Ready at Dawn

[50:19] How Outersloth is turning Among Us' success into funding for indies

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...so as I was saying before being so rudely interupted. Here are the links to the news we discussed today on our Episode 32:

[05:45] Warner Bros. has acquired MultiVersus studio Player First Games | VGC

[12:01] Humble Games Announces 'Restructuring of Operations' Amid Layoffs - IGN

[16:38] Activision Reportedly Sold an AI-Generated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Cosmetic - IGN

[21:33] Activision Can Listen In On Players And Use Sound Data To Train Its AI Models

[28:53] Live service games get ditched "too soon" by big publishers, Warfame boss says | Eurogamer.net

[35:54] Twitch updates sexual harassment policy to make it "easier to understand" | Eurogamer.net

[38:16] Roblox Predator Problem Potentially Exposes Kids to Pedophiles

[50:49] World of Warcraft developers form Blizzard’s largest and most inclusive union - The Verge

[53:22] Video Game Actors Are Going On Strike Over AI, Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

[1:01:19] Research identifies suspicious behaviour on Steam Marketplace that may suggest money laundering | GamesIndustry.biz

[1:07:07] Matchmaking Series: The Role of Skill Matchmaking

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They say 30s is when a person truly comes to their own self. Perhaps it is also true for podcasts. Or not, because the latter is not a living thing. Anyway, here are the articles and timestamps for Episode 31:

[11:14] The First Descendant’s Playercount Shows Why People Are Still Making Live Looters

[18:20] Here’s how much Valve pays its staff — and how few people it employs

[24:52] "Go and learn how to mod": CD Projekt lead says "half" of the people making quests for Cyberpunk 2 right now are former modders

[30:58] 2.2 Million People Were Willing to Pay $100 to Play College Football 25 3 Days Early

[41:36] The FTC Pushes Back Against Xbox Game Pass Price Increases

[50:07] Halo' Canceled at Paramount+ After Two Seasons

[55:42] Bethesda Game Studios workers have unionized - The Verge

[59:40] Report: 82% of US gamers made an in-game purchase in freemium titles in 2023

[1:03:49] 37 years later, Hideo Kojima says Metal Gear was so "ahead of its time" because of its portable radio, not its stealth-action

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The Big 30!! By Gawd, this podcast has now as many number of episodes as I have been on this earth in terms of years. Feels like it has learned a lot. Proud very proud. Anyway here are the topics we discussed in this episode:

[01:37] The end is in sight'—Fallout: London, a DLC-sized mod plagued by delays, will arrive soon with its own installer to help slim the chances of Bethesda breaking it a 2nd time

[08:47] PS5 Dev Kit sold as 'PizzaStation 5 Development Kit' which sold for $6500, includes spatula

[11:52] Microsoft is hiking the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and launching a new ‘Standard’ tier

[20:05] Suicide Squad Season 2 Delayed Just Two Days Before Release

[24:59] Palworld Dev Signs Deal With Sony to Form Palworld Entertainment and Expand the IP

[32:42] Piranha Bytes closed. The end of the studio behind Gothic, Risen and Elex

[37:15] The Esports World Cup Has An Insane List of Sponsors - IOC announces Olympic Esports Games to be hosted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

[45:32] Disney reportedly victim to a 1TB data breach

[51:04] Stellar Blade dev generates over $300m in IPO, South Korea’s second-largest this year

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Our week continues with Episode 29. We talked about the following video game news. Here are the links:

[04:18] GTA Online adds a quality-of-life feature players have wanted for years then upsets everyone by paywalling it

[13:09] Netflix's Horizon Zero Dawn Series Has Been Canned, Report Claims

[21:37] Co-op games on Steam is on the rise

[27:26] Why are Japanese developers not undergoing mass layoffs?

[34:10] Epic Games refers Apple to the European Commission, after dispute over button design

[38:46] Nintendo war against Switch piracy ramps up with two fresh cases

[49:17] "Atreus is a terrible character…": God of War Creator David Jaffe Likes Only 1 Part of Atreus, and Thinks Ragnarok Failed Him Terribly

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On this mellow 28th episode of our podcast, we discussed the following subjects:

• [11:03] Microsoft has begun sending out refunds for both the Xbox and Steam versions of the Redfall 'Bite Back' Edition
• [16:50] Sony's New Tech Lets You Create Mini-Games Out Of Your Gameplay
• [23:30] Sega sees net loss of 6.6 billion yen due to business restructuring in Europe and cancelled games
• [27:18] FromSoftware Owner Hit By Massive Ransomware Attack
• [31:19] Escape From Tarkov Adding New Incentive for Reporting Cheaters
• [37:10] SAG-AFTRA announces fourth tier to new indie dev contract
• [43:51] Multiple Assassin’s Creed remakes are on the way, Ubisoft CEO confirms
• [51:56] PlayStation May Go Fully Digital After PS6, Analyst Predicts
• [59:27] Dragon Age developer discusses why big games take so long, and why they're announced so early
• [1:08:06] Xbox Exec On Why Microsoft Closed Hi-Fi Rush Studio Despite The Game Doing Well

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On our 27th episode, we talked about the following topics:

• According to the game's director, the $500 League of Legends Ahri skin wasn't meant for the average fan, but instead 'players who are willing to spend $200 a month on their hobbies'
• Nintendo issues multiple DMCAs on modding site GameBanana
• https://x.com/helldivers2/status/1801634190665871572?s=19
• Starfield Gets Review Bombed as Bethesda Upsets More Gamers
• Xbox's Phil Spencer Reflects On "Dark Days" During Microsoft-Activision Buyout Process
• Nintendo, Xbox, And PlayStation Have All Now Abandoned Twitter/X Integration
• Valve being sued for £656m in UK amid accusations of Steam market rigging
• Black Myth: Wukong Delayed On Xbox Due To Series S Optimization
• Until Dawn' Pic Sets Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino. To Star

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In our 26th episode, we talk about the following topics:

• Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Dev Blames Xbox Series S For Limited Scope
• Like a Dragon: Yakuza' Live Action Series Heading to Prime Video
• MultiVersus Charges to Buy Extra Lives Using Real Money Was a Bug, Claims Developer
• Why clicker game Banana — the 'legal infinite money glitch' — is going viral on Steam
• AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel next-gen GPUs most likely arriving in 2025
• Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Addresses Studio Closures - IGN Live 2024
• Summer Game Fest
• XBOX Showcase

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