Yesterday, we covered the recent layoffs at GOG due to financial troubles at the PC games digital storefront. Today, GOG has announced an end to its Fair Price Package program. GOG says it used the program to make up the price differences between various countries as some games on GOG.com have regional pricing. Those games cost more due to regional pricing and GOG was giving their customers GOG Wallet funds to make up the difference. In some instances, GOG was absorbing up to 37% of added cost. GOG says it was able to cover these costs by turning a small profit, but recent changes to the percentage of revenue split that it gives developers would mean that the digital game storefront would be operating at a loss. The Fair Price Package will end on March 31, 2019. The Epic Games store has shaken up the PC games digital storefront economy with its 88/12% revenue split.



In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss. Removing FPP is not a decision we make lightly, but by making this change, we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators, which — in turn — will allow us to offer you more curated classic games and new releases. All DRM-free.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – GOG Ends Its Fair Price Package Program

While Fortnite is the current king of the hill in the PC gaming world, and Apex Legends is one of the hottest new releases, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is still immensely popular. The game regularly has hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam alone, and according to a recent post, PubG Corporation is addressing one of the most common criticisms of the game. The Steam post details just how cheat programs tend to infiltrate the game, and outlines what the company intends to do about it. On top of using BattlEye and Uncheater simultaneously, they say they’ve “applied a machine learning technique that analyzes our players’ usage patterns and have built a system that can detect abnormal game patterns or actions that interrupt the normal operations of the game coming from hack users.” In addition, PubG is attempting to address vulnerabilities in Steam itself, and in cooperation with local authorities, they’ve made at least 252 arrests in China and Korea in 2018 alone. While I doubt PubG Corporation will ever catch everyone, it really does seem like they’re moving heaven and Earth in their attempt to fight cheaters.



We currently have over 100 people monitoring the places that sell these hacks (websites, messengers, discord etc.) all over the world 24/7. Various communities that exchange information on hack programs are also being monitored closely so any elements that threaten PUBG’s security can be detected and dealt with as quickly as possible. The end goal is to ramp up preemptive action so these hackers are no longer active within the game. We also recently added a system message that sends real-time alerts to players in a game if someone from the same session is banned. Whenever an abnormal gameplay pattern is detected in real-time or a user is proven to be a hacker mid game, that account will be banned as the game is still going on and announced to all other players in the kill feed.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – PubG Corporation Patches Vulnerabilities and Arrests Hackers

Anthem had a rather complicated release schedule, so complicated that EA had to publish a 4 by 5 chart just to let players figure out when they can play the game. But as of February 22nd, Anthem is out for pretty much everyone, and the gaming press has had a whole weekend and a few weekdays to digest Bioware’s latest RPG. While a “day one” patch has addressed many of the issues earlier reviewers had with the game, it seems that other still aren’t satisfied with with the title’s core features. IGN’s review, for example, says that “Only during two major plot developments during the approximately 15-hour storyline do the things being discussed here appear to have actual consequence beyond the gates of Fort Tarsis, pairing unique mission gameplay with story elements in a meaningful way – even though there are no meaningful decisions to be made that affect outside gameplay.” This stands in stark contrasts to Bioware’s previous titles, and seems to get in the way of the story aspects Bioware tried to insert into the multiplayer action. Combat is generally a positive point, as it was in Andromeda and Mass Effect 3, but overall I get the impression that the core combat loop feels grinder and less diverse than it did in previous games. The “repeating waves of enemies” The Guardian mentioned in their review are reminiscent of Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode, but I’ve seen more than one journalist draw unfavorable comparisons to the WoW-like repetition of Star Wars: the Old Republic.



Anthem has been built to serve its audience long-term, so it is probable that the game will improve in the coming months. An exhaustive list of technical hitches are due to be fixed imminently, for instance. But even where it is strongest, Anthem rarely stretches beyond the derivative. The combat, while well-designed, is little more than Gears of War with jetpacks, and narratively it veers between inconsequential and downright irritating. This anthem is, sadly, a tedious and conservative dirge that we’ve all heard before.

After the commercial failure of Mass Effect: Andromeda, many view Anthem as one of Bioware’s last chances to keep the themselves afloat, but the studio does seem committed to the long-term support of the game. Thanks to gamesindustry.biz for the helpful review roundup.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – Post Release Reviews of Anthem are Still Mixed