UDP Broadcast

This week, we follow-up on the Smash World Tour/Nintendo/Pandas Global story from Episode 16, 

The saga of Callisto Protocol's rocky release and crunch culture, DidYouKnowGaming's Copyright Strike from Nintendo for a game pitch by Retro for Heroes of Hyrule on DS, and we talk about the game awards.

Sit back and enjoy the show. 

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UDP Broadcast E17

Callisto Protocol Crunch

- Dead Space Creator and Striking Distance Studios CEO Glen Schofield

- Game : Callisto Protocol

- Plagued with framerate issues on high end PCs

- Blame placed on "a damn clerical error"

-- "Being fixed. A wrong file was patched. Any minute. Just freakin error by someone rushing"

- Previous admission about Schofield and team working extreme overtime

-- "Exhaustion, tired, Covid but we're working,

-- "Lunch, dinner working. U do it cause you luv it"

- Later apologized to employees for glorifying crunch

Schofield outlook.

- "I'll take vacation when it's fixed. The fans are my priority"

sources:

https://kotaku.com/callisto-protocol-steam-ps5-bugs-glen-schofield-twitter-1849859440

https://twitter.com/GlenSchofield/status/1598798986277638144

https://twitter.com/GlenSchofield/status/1598799416965885952

https://kotaku.com/striking-distance-callisto-protocol-schofield-crunch-1849497041

Nintendo Copyright Strike against DidYouKnowGaming

- October, YT channel DidYouKnowGaming reported on failed 2004 pitch for a Zelda tactics game on the Nintendo DS

-- Heroes of Hyrule

- Contributor : Dr. Lava

- Nintendo used copyright strike to erase video

- Channel has made hundreds of videos about Nintendo games

-- First time they responded with a takedown notice

- DidYouKnowGaming tweeted:

-- This was a journalistic video documenting a game that Retro Studios pitched to Nintendo nearly 20 years ago. 

    This is an attempt by a large corporation to silence whatever journalism they dont like, and a slap in the face 

    for videogame history preservation.

- Sourced to the original 22 page pitch and interview with the retro programmer who crafted it, Paul Tozour

- no early build footage

- Some illustrations

- Video also told of hte Studio's burnout from Metroid Prime 2 and staffers wanting to try a different type of project. 

Sources

https://kotaku.com/nintendo-zelda-youtube-copyright-didyouknowgaming-legal-1849868808

https://kotaku.com/zelda-final-fantasy-tactics-nintendo-metroid-prime-1849614955

https://twitter.com/didyouknowgamin/status/1600696528120602625

https://twitter.com/DrLavaYT/status/1600877520865218562

https://twitter.com/Doctor_Cupcakes/status/1600683049619845120

=======================

Welcome to the UDP Broadcast - Where we discuss gaming related stuff and offer somewhat uninformed opinions.

This week, we talk about Smash World Tour canceling all future events, Last Pass security breech and the details about what it is and why, and #pilk

Smash World Tour was one of the largest Smash Bros esports tournaments in operation, 

with over 6,400 live events and 325,000 entrants across its 2022 activity alone.

- SWT is a grass roots Super Smash Bros esports competition

-- Next 2 events are shut down

--- San Antonio, TX and further 2023 events canceled

-- Issuing full refunds with travel arrangements for those affected

-- Notice came without warning

-- Hundreds of thousands of dollars lost due to abrupt cancelation by Nintendo

-- Requested to operate without a license as it had done previously

--- Was told those times are now over

-- SWT claims December's championship would have had the largest prize pool in Smash Bros history at over 250k

--- with plans to increase this to over 350k for the 2023 tour

- Panda Global

-- Nintendo chosen partner for first official SSB tournament

-- SWT alleges that Panda attempted sabotage

- Nintendo Statement

-- Did not request cancelation of 2022 Championship Events considering negative impact on the players who were already planning to participate.

-- solely based on assessment of proposals submitted by SWT and evaluation of unlicensed activites

-- Not influenced by external partners such as Panda Global

-- Decision to cancel SWT 2022 was their own choice

Sources:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-cancels-smash-world-tour-organisers-accuse-panda-global-of-sabotage

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-partners-with-panda-global-to-launch-super-smash-bros-circuit

https://medium.com/@smashworldtour/smash-world-tour-official-statement-f568a3d135c8#40d4

https://kotaku.com/nintendo-smash-world-tour-fgc-shut-down-panda-esports-1849833867

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-order-cancellation-of-smash-bros-tournament-over-mod-use

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/super-smash-bros-wont-be-at-evo-2022-next-month

https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-issues-full-statement-over-smash-world-tour-cancellation

Last Pass Security Breech

Who is Last Pass:

LastPass provides one of the most popular password management software in the world, 

with the company claiming that it's used by over 33 million people and 100,000 businesses.

- August 25th Security breech

-- Internal access for 4 days until detected

- investigation done internally and in partnership with Mandiant

- Dev environment access -- Prod is separate so no customer data was  accessed

-- Developer endpoint compromised

-- Dev is exclusively separate

-- attack after review did not find poisoned code or malicious injection

Nov 30 update

- Detected unusual activity within thrid-party cloud storage service.

- Determined that an unauthorized party using information in aug 22 incident was able to gain access to certain elements of customer information.

--Passwords remain safely encrypted using LastPass's Zero Knowledge architecture.

- No Specifics as to what information was accessed.

Sources:

Earlier this year:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/lastpass-says-hackers-had-internal-access-for-four-days/

https://www.securityweek.com/lastpass-found-no-code-injection-attempts-following-august-data-breach

https://www.govinfosecurity.com/hacker-accessed-lastpass-internal-system-for-4-days-a-20098

LastPass blog post 22 Nov 2022:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2022/11/notice-of-recent-security-incident/

This week, we talk about User interfaces spawned by the conversations of how bad Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's user interface is hard to navigate. We even compare this to something similar that happened to elden ring but by other game designers.   We touch on Capcom's report of 50% of their revenue actually came from PC sales and they are going to focus on that more.  Mitsuda describes their freelance gig with Nintendo after leaving Square Enix to begin the conversation on artistic guidance. Along with Sega's decision to focus on their massive IP library with remasters and remakes of titles.

Chapters 0:00 Intro and Topics 

1:24 CoD MW2 UI 

13:52 Cross-platforming 

29:15 Mitsuda Mario Party Tweets 

44:19 Sega Remaster/remake 

51:15 Outro and wrapup

This week we hit up some hardware topics dealing with NVIDIA's 4090 series cards and the 12VHPWR cables included. Apparently it is a fire hazard if you bend too close to the connector!  We also talk about a test done by a TikToker, Mryeester, testing if salt mixed with thermal paste could be a useful cooling solution for your PC.  

Disney has a gacha rhythm game, Disney's Twisted Wonderland where the announcement of the character Frollo, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was not a good choice as their movie counterparts differs in ways they are a villain from other Disney IP.  

After that, we get completely tangental on World of Warcraft Classic and the experiences we have had in our time playing both retail and classic offering. Dragonflight is coming soon!

NVIDIA Meltdown

-Cable company CableMod 

--Bending cables too close to the connector

--RTX 4090 melting power cables

-Cable type 12VHPWR

--Introduced as part of the ATX 3.0 specification

--reported by Aris

--PCGamer trusted PSU expert

--Aris link testing the bending https://youtu.be/jNreBLVP6NU

--Leads to an uneven load across across the other wires which increases overheating damage. 

--any bend should occur 35mm from the connector

-Avoid the cable distributed with the 4090

--PSU vendors are selling alternate connectors that ditch the bulky connector for a single cable that terminates itoo two 8-pin power connectors on a PSU.

https://www.pcgamer.com/dont-bend-600w-rtx-4090-power-cable-to-reduce-risk-of-overheating-says-cablemod/

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/25/23422349/nvidia-rtx-4090-power-cables-connectors-melting-burning

Salty Thermal Paste

-TikToker Mryeester

--does weird termal paste designs on the regular

-tested with adding salt to thermal paste to try to "unlock" super cooling

--it doesnt

--theory

---Iodized salts thermal conductivity is higher than some thermal pastes, mixing the 2 would produce a miracle gloop with better heat transfer. 

--results: Temps spiked at 20 degrees above normal

-quote from cooling experts Noctura

--"The thermal conductivity of salt is much lower than that of traditional filler materials such as aluminum oxide or other metal oxides," a rep tells me. "Also, salt particles keep the cooler from making good contact with the CPU, so that thermal performance will be poor due to poor contact. Last but not least, there's a high risk of corrosion issues."

https://www.pcgamer.com/cpu-cooling-company-definitely-doesnt-recommend-adding-salt-to-your-thermal-paste/

Disney Twist

-Mobile game : Disney Twisted Wonderland

--Gacha rhythm game where players spend gems to roll for studen characters based on disney villains.

-Issue with Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

--racist in the original Disney Movie

--known  for calling Romani character a racial slur and claming that her people are "not capable of real love"

-The Twisted Wonderland characters are not the same as their original inspirations

--lore: Twisted Wonderland vilains did exist at some point inthe past though they are known for positive qualities rather than the crimes they may have commited in the movies.

--creating narrative distance from movie counterparts.

https://kotaku.com/disney-twisted-wonderland-frollo-hunchback-ios-android-1849694445 

Chapters:

0:00 Intro and Topics

2:45 NVIDIA 4090 Fires

15:13 Salt and Thermal Paste -DONT DO IT-

19:46 Twisted Wonderland - Frollo

28:30 WoWpourri

58:23 Roundtable and Outro

This week, our discussions are on NDAs and Leask with respect to Diablo 4, Art theft using AI - specifically NovelAI.  And Netflix considering a game streaming service?  Really? On the back of Stadia shutting down?  Well lets see what is going to happen after opening 2 studios and buying 3 others. 

References:

Diablo 4 NDA breech

-End Game Beta 

--oct 21ish

--Invites were sent out to players who spent a lot of time in other Diablo games' end-game

--users who recieved the email immediately posted to reddit that they are invited

--Invites had CONFIDENTIAL written on it

--Diablo subreddit had to work hard to remove posts about being invited.

--Screenshots, commentary, and gameplay video is already out about Diablo 4s post campaign.

-friends and family beta

--August 8

--build numbers also contained an id number that referenced the user that the build was issued

---means screenshots can be tracked to the leaker

Diablo 4 Leaks

https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-endgame-beta-asked-testers-not-to-leak-it-so-they-leaked-it-immediately/

https://www.dualshockers.com/diablo-iv-endgame-beta-testers-leaking-footage/

https://exputer.com/news/games/diablo-4-closed-beta-footage-leaked/

https://www.xfire.com/end-game-beta-test-for-diablo-4-has-been-leaked/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/diablo-iv-leaks-send-blizzard-161000016.htm

--------

Genshin Impact Fanart Finished by AI

-Streamer - AT - Korean language anime artist

-october 11

- Thief - Musaishh

-AI involved - NovelAI

-Thief took an in process work streamer was working on and ran it through NovelAI's IMG2IMG generator

-Thief posted work 6 hours before the streamer finished

-Thief demanded credit be given to them from the streamer for a proper reference from the AIs work

-Thief no longer has a social media account

https://kotaku.com/genshin-impact-fanart-ai-generated-stolen-twitch-1849655704

https://twitter.com/GenelJumalon/status/1580401094454222848

https://sea.ign.com/genshin-impact/191499/news/art-thief-stole-wip-art-from-artist-demands-credit

----------------------------------

Netflix considering Game Streaming

- Topic bundled with their fifth game studio opening

-- Will not be a service by itself. Will be value add to current sub

-- not to replace a console, just a way to play games wherever you are

-Fifth game studio info 

--new studio in Southern California

--Lead by Chacko Sonny, former Overwatch executive producer who left last year

---article mentions they did this after the harassment and discrimination scandal

-games available

-- Oxenfree

--Into The Breach

--Desta: The Memories Between

---New title from the Monument Valley studio  Ustwo Games

--14 more games in development

--Ubisoft partnering for

---Valiant hearts 2

---Mighty Quest

---Assassins Creen spinoff

--Netflix hopes to see that at least 50% will represent its own franchises

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/netflix-opening-fifth-studio-and-seriously-exploring-cloud-gaming 

https://www.pcgamer.com/netflix-is-seriously-exploring-cloud-gaming/ 

---------------------

Chapters 0:00 Intro and topics 

1:47 Diablo 4 NDA Incidents 

24:30 Netflix Exploring Gaming Service Offering 

37:57 Viewer Steals art with AI 

56:05 Wrap up and Raid

Guest Host - Bombredeemer! 

https://twitch.tv/videoredeemer 

https://youtube.com/videoredeemer

This week, we talk about the 2k Helpdesk Data breech, the implications of this data breech and how to protect yourself, and the sale of your data on the dark web. 

https://kotaku.com/2k-hack-scam-malware-support-desk-email-1849640771

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2k-confirms-user-data-stolen-and-placed-on-sale-after-recent-security-breach

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/2k-support-platform-offline-after-being-illegally-accessed-by-third-party

https://support.2k.com/hc/en-us/articles/10169782591635-EMAIL-NOTIFICATION-OCTOBER-6

From last week, Mackenzie Clifton and Nintendo finally settled at a dollar amount. This also forced Nintendo's hand to post up notices in the QA department that they will not stop you from talking about unions.

Refs:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-settles-with-qa-tester-who-filed-labor-complaint

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-and-former-qa-worker-reach-settlement-over-labor-complaint

https://kotaku.com/nintendo-switch-smash-bros-ultimate-union-busting-1849652308

Hottest this week was Helena Taylor being replaced by Jennifer Hale in Bayonetta.  Helena broke their NDA to set the record straight as to why they were not voicing Bayonetta in the upcoming sequel.

https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1581289084718227456

https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1581289973210574859

https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1581290543619112960

https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1581291176073707520

Finally we discuss misleading pricing practices and the lawsuit that is currently underway for the makers of the game State of Survival.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/lawsuit-accuses-state-of-survival-makers-of-misleading-pricing

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/mobile/-i-state-of-survival-i-creators-sued-for-misleading-in-game-prices

Chapters 

0:00 Intro and Topics 

2:51 2K Helpdesk Data Breech 

25:34 Nintendo QA Unions 

29:09 Helena Taylor - Bayonetta 

52:23 Misleading Pricing 

1:00:30 Trainwreck Outro

This week, we condense some of the most impactful items that have happened since we went on break.  

Stadia is being shut down and that leaves a lot of questions for not only the users - who have a sunset date in mid January 2023 - but the developers that have lost a whole revenue stream.  To make matters worse, they did not notify the developers before announcing the sunset over twitter.

Nintndona-nigans

-- CG Company Acquisition - Dynamo Pictures

--- Creating rendered content with iconic Nintendo Characters

--- Mocap services to nintendo

--- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-completes-dynamo-pictures-acquisition-relaunches-as-nintendo-pictures

-- Labor Complaint - Mackenzie Clifton

--- Contractor - Aston Carter - Contract - Nintendo QA testing

--- Unionization question was during a Q & A portion of a meeting with Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser

---- Question asked dealt with the trend of QA unionizing across the game dev industry

---- question was not addressed, contracing firm supervisor called and said was downer question and to contact Aston Carter for such inquiries

--- Month later was fired. 

--- Nintendo said that firing was due to disclosing confidential information

---- evidence presented was a tweet talking how all textures must have been removed because EVERYTHING was red when rendered. 

--- https://www.axios.com/2022/09/29/nintendo-tester-union-busting-whistleblower

other points of interest

--- Clifton wanted a signed apology by Bowser

--- Nintnedo countered with talking to HR then offered a letter of reference

--- NLRB said letter was not required as part of the settlement

--Nuzelocke Stuff

--- Pokemon Company officially stated that the company does not have a problem with Nuzelocke runs.

--- Content creators Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang in their podcast revealed that the Pokemon Co has been against it

Lewd Kerbo Card Game

-- https://kotaku.com/kirby-chef-kawasaki-mini-bikini-hal-laboratory-nintendo-1849592983

-- https://automaton-media.com/en/news/20220928-15926/

-- Card game named Chef Kawasaki's Microbikini Karuta featuring Chef Kawasaki from the Kirby Series.

-- Some believed that the standard atire - Naked save for an apron - is already rather raunchy -- lead to microbikini memes.

-- memes gave birth to card game "Chef Kawasaki's Microbikini Karuta.

-- Game is based on the Japanese card game Karuta.

-- went on sale for about 890 Yen (6 bucks USD). 290 yen for digital (2 bucks) PDF/JPG

-- After 2 days sales ceased as a warning from HAL Labratory was issued. 

-- Creating a product based on a Nintendo IP and selling it without permission is illegal to begin with (Maybe a japanese rule - I think this would fall under a transformative work)

Welcome to the UDP Broadcast - Where we discuss gaming related stuff and offer somewhat uninformed opinions.

Watch us LIVE on https://Twitch.tv/luminariweekly Saturdays at 22:30 UTC -5 

Chapters

0:00 Intro and Topics

1:27 Stadia shutdown

23.30 Nintendo-Nanigas

48:30 Chef Kawasaki in a Micro Bikini

52:30 Final thoughts

This week, we talk about EAs executive wage cuts and Chucklefish's progress to a more worklife balanced enviroment by raising their wages while still maintaining a 4 day work week. 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ea-caps-cash-severance-plans-for-execs-but-stops-short-of-limiting-stock

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/uk-studio-chucklefish-boosts-wages-to-help-offset-cost-of-living-crisis

https://twitter.com/AlexisTrust/status/1566789742187905025

CD Project Red is not introducing expansion DLC to the previous generations consoles due to system limitations focusing more on the PC and Latest Gen consoles.  

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/cd-projekt-red-leaves-last-gen-consoles-behind-with-i-cyberpunk-2077-i-s-first-expansion

A familiar voice actor from Portal talks about her dreams...

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-voice-of-glados-says-she-dreams-about-murdering-people/ 

RIP Thurston - https://twitter.com/ThurstonWaffles/status/1567618309612240899

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Chapters:

0:00 Intro and Topics

2:50 EA Executive Wages

15:20 Chucklefish Wage Boost

38:57 CDPR Cyberpunk Expansion drops Last Gen Consoles

47:24 Voice of GlaDOS

56:20 Roundtable and wrapup

This week, we tackle Harassment, Scams and Bans.

Harassment tackles the events happening with Arc System Works and the Guilty Guear Strive character Bridget where gender is in question. 

We also talk about Keffals and the trials she faced against the Kiwifarms group hosted on Cloudflare. There is also the harassment of a female Call of Duty streamer,Nadia Amine, that faces harassment from the community for being genuinely good at Call of Duty Warzone. In this list, we cover a developer who decided to post their political commentary

and anti-transgender rhetoric in their patch notes and was completely wiped from the Steam catalog after being banned from their own community.

https://kotaku.com/guilty-gear-bridget-trans-arc-system-works-email-1849464307

https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=700,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/114/873/706/original/2c7d8ec18d77aa13.png

https://kotaku.com/keffals-steam-dev-rant-domina-sorrenti-patch-notes-pc-1849487860

https://kotaku.com/call-of-duty-warzone-nadia-amine-cheating-tiktok-1849462452

The Developer behind Brok came up with an ingenious way to deal with Curator Key scammers who review bomb developers until a key is granted. 

https://twitter.com/COWCATGames/status/1563957983884845056

https://kotaku.com/brok-dev-steam-curators-scammers-review-bomb-scam-1849471272 

Nintendo is in the news again with more bans for modding the demo of Splatoon 3 to access a test range for a game. 

https://twitter.com/OatmealDome/status/1563202850767118337

https://kotaku.com/splatoon-3-splatfest-mod-ban-nintendo-switch-online-1849476257

Finaly, we touch on Sony and Tencent acquiring stakes in FromSoft to stregthen the Dark Souls/Elden Ring developer production and publishing capabilities. 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sony-and-tencent-increase-stakes-in-fromsoftware

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/tencent-and-sony-increase-stake-in-elden-ring-developer-fromsoftware

Chapters

0:00 Intro

0:35 Harassment

24:06 Scams

34:56 Nadia Amine

45:18 Bans - Splatoon

59:00 Round Table and Outro

This week we tackle Denuvo's involvement with Emulation Protection for publishers looking to port to the Nintendo Switch:

https://irdeto.com/denuvo/nintendo-switch-emulator-protection/

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/denuvo-says-devs-don-t-get-refunds-if-its-anti-piracy-tech-is-defeated

https://www.howtogeek.com/400126/what-is-denuvo-and-why-do-gamers-hate-it/

The PS5 price hike in select regions:

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/08/25/ps5-price-to-increase-in-select-markets-due-to-global-economic-environment-including-high-inflation-rates/

https://kotaku.com/ps5-playstation-5-price-rise-raising-hike-increase-sony-1849455516

And we finish with talking about the 3 day weekend by only working 4 days a week:

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/07/1103591879/a-big-32-hour-workweek-test-is-underway-supporters-think-it-could-help-productiv

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/rogue-games-shifts-to-four-day-work-week

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/adopting-the-four-day-work-week

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/4-day-work-week-iceland-study_n_60e3e409e4b06fb1a6ee7f55 

Chapters:

0:00 Intro and Topics

1:05 Nintendo/Denuvo Emulation Protection

25:30 Sony PS5 Price Increase 

41:01 3 Day Weekend

55:00 Round Table and End