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Valve Welcomes Firewatch Developer Into City-17


Posted on April 24, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

*Clears throat and does best G-Man impression* 

 “Welcome Campo Santo. You have chosen or been chosen to relocate to one of the worlds’ largest digital distribution services. Valve thought so much of your talent they’ll probably relocate your headquarters to Washington state now that they are your benefactors. Whether you’re at Valve to stay or move on to parts unknown, welcome.” 

 Riffs on Dr.Breen’s Half Life 2 speech aside, yup it is true – Valve has purchased the developers behind last year’s critical success Firewatch. Members of the Valley of the Gods team will move to city 1… err Bellevue Washington as they join forces with the owners of Steam. 

Their next game, Valley of the Gods is expected to be released sometime next year. In The Valley of The Gods is a first person narrative driven title set in Egypt during the 1920s. As protagonist Rashida players will have one last chance to live a life of adventure exploring tombs, ruins and other remnants of the long gone Ancient Egyptian society. Players won’t alone in their journey to aid Rashida in her quest, a non-playable partner character Zora will aid her during the story. In The Valley of The Gods also features a working 35mm camera in-game! It can be added to your Steam wishlist here. 

 The Campo Santo team summed up their discussions with Valve in regards to the recent purchase thusly on their blog announcing the move:

“We had a series of long conversations with the people at Valve and everyone shared the satisfaction we take in working with people whose talents dwarf our own to make things we never thought possible. Both sides spoke about our values and how, when you get right down to it, we, as human beings, are hard-limited by the time we have left when it comes to making the things we care about and believe in. They asked us if we’d all be interested in coming up to Bellevue and doing that there and we said yes.”

 


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Steam’s Latest Free To Play Darling, Black Squad, Has Attracted Thousands of Concurrent Players


Posted on July 29, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

The world of free to play games can be daunting with the amount of sheer choice available and if you’re not careful you might end up choosing a game that is more advertisement for the in-game cash shop than a proper video game.

Thousands of Steam users – almost 8,000 concurrently at the moment of the writing of this article – have decided to download and try out this previously under the radar free to play shooter. On a weekend where Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is free to play for everyone, what could this imported and 3-year-old FPS from Korea offer players that Activision isn’t?

Black Squad’s gameplay feels like a throwback to the shooters of the 90s- eschewing recent staples like vertical movement, wall-running or peaking behind cover. In their place are the identical hit boxes for every player, fast movement / res-pawn time and a limited selection of weapons. As quickly as players die in TDM they respawn and are thrown back into the fray. Combine all of this with some trappings from Counter Strike: the previously mentioned role based selection of weapons, running animations featuring a knife and a loud announcer and you’ve got a recipe for a nostalgic throwback of a game that doesn’t really care for the current trends in the genre.

In terms of modes, there is the standard Free for All and Team Death Match (where I spent the majority of my three hours with the game last night). Also offered are two objective modes where special abilities can be used based upon the amount of experience you’ve accrued throughout the match.  These range from the mundane: placing down a sentry turret or ammo packs for your team-mates; to the spectacular: calling in a devastating airstrike that rains hellfire from above. XP rewards aren’t nearly as flashy or differentiated as the Kill Streaks in Call of Duty but in a game like this, they don’t really have to be.

With the gameplay being provided for free there has to be some form of monetization. Black Squad comes with the requisite cash shop and multiple forms of currency (one earned through completing matches, another purchased with real dollars and yet a third “medal” currency awarded for weekly challenges). Despite the onslaught of currencies available Black Squad doesn’t feel pay to win. Each gun has a number of different stats that are tweaked depending on what other options the gun offers – silencer, scope, laser sight etc. – but it all feels balanced enough. This isn’t a game where someone can put down $20 on the table and buy a super powered sniper rifle and one shot everyone. The minor difference in stats & armor don’t appear to give paying players any sizeable advantage; instead, the developers hope to earn cash through limited edition skins and weapon models sold through loot crates. It is great to see them prioritizing balance & fun factor for all players versus taking the easy route of offering a $99.99 USD Golden Gun that could kill anyone.

Who knows if the sizeable community that has formed around Black Squad will stick around for the long term. Steam fads have a tendency to come and go with the whims of the players- who is still playing The Culling? The thousands of people who flocked to the revamped Battleborn have all but left, leaving that game with similar to numbers to before the Free to Play transition. Then again, some thought (myself included) that Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was going to be a flash in the pan next to H1Z1: King of the Kill and PUBG has had considerable staying power – enough so that it has spawned imitators like Last Man Standing.


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GDC 17: Hands-On With VR Sports & Front Defence


Posted on March 1, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Vive Studios will introduce three brand new entertainment experiences for the HTC Vive this spring for owners of the headset. During the first day of the Games Developer Conference I got the chance to sit down with Joel Breton to discuss the three new products – VR Sports, a collection of room scale enabled mini games. Make VR, a tool that helps bridge the gap between Virtual Reality and the real world by bringing support for 3D printers into the virtual space. Finally, Vive Studios also announced Front Defense, a World War II inspired shooter that uses Valve’s room scale technology.

The ten-minute demo of VR Sports and Front Defense that I tried at GDC was my first experience with room scale. Previously I had played Elite Dangerous in VR at E3 2016, set up my own sitting VR experience with motion controllers and played a few demos that used the Xbox 360 controller but this was my first time being able to move freely in the real world while strapped to a VR headset.

VR Sports is exactly what the title implies– table tennis using both room scale and the HTC Vive motion controllers. I was able to use one of the Vive wants to position the ball in front of me and smash it with the paddle in my other hand. It took me some time to adjust to the Vive wands and I found myself smashing the ball just a little hard, sending it flying out of bounds. After a few attempts and some coaching from the helpful HTC staff I was finally besting my computer controlled opponent. While the VR Sports demo at GDC17 was limited against an AI opponent the final game will also support online multiplayer against friends who also have HTC vive setups.

The second, and last, demo that the Vive team had on display was the tutorial level for Front Defence. In this World War II inspired first person shooter players have to fight off waves of enemy soldiers after learning the ropes against stationary cardboard targets. Front Defense gives provides players with a number of different tools of destruction to defeat their enemies – a standard machine gun is wielded in the right hand and reloading is performed by gripping the ammo clip with the left controller and then grabbing a replacement clip from your belt and inserting it into the gun. Rocket launchers also make use of a similar reloading mechanic where I had to reach down and grab a new projectile from an armored case on the ground and then insert it into the back of the rocket launcher. All of these movements added to the immersion and realism that you just don’t get when playing with a standard controller. It did take me some time to adjust to the idea of moving around a virtual space when using the HTC Vive but this is not a limitation of the platform and more getting used to not having to control my movements with an unnatural input device.

I’d like to thank Joel and the Vive Studios team for letting me go hands-on with their upcoming games. For my fist taste of room scale, the GDC demos showed me how impressive premium VR could be with technology as immersive as room scale. Make sure to watch my interview with Joel Breton in the embedded player below:


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Counter Strike Global Offensive Takes On Gambling & Dust Remake In New Interview


Posted on February 14, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Counter Strike Global Offensive

Valve News Network got the chance to sit down with members of the Counter Strike Global Offensive development team during their recent trip to Valve’s offices.  During the over 20 minute interview VNN got the chance to talk to dev team members about their opinion on the gambling economy that have sprung up around tournaments and skin. Also brought up is the remake of the map Dust which Valve briefly teased.

The interviewer brought up Valve’s role in providing third parties such as gambling sites with access to Steam’s login platform through Open ID. As members of the development team point out, Valve really doesn’t have an opinion on the use of their login system for such sites as user inventories are publicly available through Steam Profiles without the use of an Open ID sign in. This means that even if Valve were to revoke a site’s access to the platform that would not stop them from facilitating trades between users or gathering inventory information from publicly available pages.

Want to know more about what the CS: Go team has been working on including a remake of the classic map Dust? Watch the video in the embedded player below to find out. Counter Strike GO gambling and skin trading has been at the forefront of e-sports coverage, especially after well-known streamers like TMartin & others were implicated over the whole CSGoLotto scandal and the Washington Gambling Commission seeking an end to CS:GO gambling through legislative means.


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Half Life 3 Confirmed…. To Be Prototyped With RTS Elements


Posted on January 7, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Half-Life might as well be a mythical unicorn that poops rainbows and that could even the oldest video cards into a GTX 1080 by the simply being loaded. One journalist from Games Informer attempted to track down the elusive 10 year old piece of vaporware as revealed at the end of the most recent Game Informer video podcast.

Interestingly enough according to his sources Half-Life 3 never really made it out of the prototype stage, with no more than a handful of developers working on each prototype. One of these prototype used Real Time Strategy mechanics, could Gordon Freeman have commanded entire armies of Ant Lions at some point? Another idea that Valve reportedly experimented with was adventure game mechanics that used real life actors. Could this have been some sort of advanced performance capture technology?

Sadly Andrew Reiner didn’t really offer up any more concrete information save for this truncated soundbite regarding what he knows about the previous state of Halfe-Life 3:

“I was actually chasing a story on Half-Life 3 … I talked to one developer who told me it was a hot mess. There were so many proto-types with four or five people working on them that went no where. Two of the ideas was an RTS game that would have changed the script. Another would have been a version with live actors, like NightTrap… I reached out to 10 – 15 people who worked for the company and they just didn’t want to talk about it all.”

To watch the Game Informer crew chat about Half-Life 2: Epsode 3 head-on over to the 5:45 mark of the embedded video below. Perhaps in some alternate universe the Combine have successfully enslaved humanity simply because Half-Life 3 is a reality.

 


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Resident Evil 7 PC Demo Released


Posted on December 19, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Capcom’s viral success for Resident Evil 7 is now no longer contained to the PlayStation 4 as the publisher releases the completed Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour for PC via Steam. This demo lets you experience everything that PlayStation owners had to wait months for – as Capcom rolled out several updates to the demo throughout 2016.

When you find yourself in an abandoned farmhouse, what will you do to survive? Here is the official synopsis of the demo from Capcom:

“A thrillingly immersive horror experience for the five senses. This full model change to the frightening “Isolated View” player perspective, and photorealistic graphics of the cutting-edge RE Engine mark a new beginning for survival horror. Enter a terrifyingly new world of horror and survive.”

Now PC players can finally experience the mystery of the severed dummy finger and other riddles that plagued the Resident Evil fanbase for months. The Steam demo of beginning hour does not support VR in any capacity – as PlayStation has a year long exclusive on VR content for the game.

Here are the minimum specs:

MINIMUM:

OS: WINDOWS® 7,8,8.1,10 (64-BIT Required)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4460, 2.70GHz or AMD FX™-6300 or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 or AMD Radeon™ R7 260x with 2GB Video RAM
DirectX: Version 11
Sound Card: DirectSound compatible (must support DirectX® 9.0c or higher)

RECOMMENDED:

OS: WINDOWS® 7,8,8.1,10 (64-BIT Required)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 3770 3.4GHz or AMD equivalent or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: TBA (4GB VRAM)
DirectX: Version 11
Sound Card: DirectSound compatible (must support DirectX® 9.0c or higher)

Resident Evil 7 will be released on PC, PS4, PSVR and Xbox One on January 24th 2017.

 


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Free Version of Project Cars Available On Steam In North America


Posted on October 31, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Project Cars Pagani Edition allows players to enjoy a limited racing experience featuring cars from vehicles from manufacturer Pagani. This free version allows racers to experience the thrills of Project Cars with access to three unique tracks and five cars.

In terms of vehicles available the following Pagani cars will be available in Project Cars Pagani Edition –  They are the Pagani Huayra, Huayra BC, Zonda Cinque, Zonda R, and Zonda Revolucion. Driving these supercars gives drivers just a small taste of some of the fast paced action that the full version has to offer.

Three different courses from the full version of Project Cars are selectable -the Nürburgring and Nordschleife combo, Monza GP, and Azure Coast.

Full VR support for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive is available in Project Cars Pagani Edition and it can be downloaded in North America via this Steam Store Page.

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Digital Homicide filing lawsuit against Valve


Posted on September 20, 2016 by Meghan Kass

Indie developer, Digital Homicide has been under hot water recently. The developer is currently looking to raise money and seek legal representation to sue steam users due to poor reception of their games. While Digital Homicide states they are fighting against harassment, Valve had a different perception.

Digital Homicide has produced over a dozen games, such as Galactic Hitman (as pictured above), using the steam platform. These games have received numerous poor reviews and have gained the attention of the Steam community and YouTube personalities. They have been accused of using paid assets and having very little effort put into their games, which is reflected in those poor reviews, along with a reputation of putting out games fast and low quality. Because of these accusations and comments, founder James Romaine filed an $18 million “personal injury” claim and a subpoena with the demands that the data of 100 steam users who are part of a consumer advocacy group. According to the Digital Homicide website, they are still currently raising the money and seeking legal representation.

[Ed Note: This video explains just how publishers like Digital Homicide make their money off deeply discounted bundles and Steam Trading Cards.]

Valve’s response to Digital Homicide’s claims was to discontinue business with the developer due to “[hostility] towards Steam customers” and ban them from using Steam to produce their games. Digital Homicide had in turn, released a response on their website stating that Valve was “disgusting” and they were excusing harassment of not only the development team, but the customers who were legitimately interested in their product.

Currently, the subpoena has not been signed by a judge and therefore has only been proposed, not granted. Should the subpoena be granted, Valve can contest the claim at a hearing. Along with this, there are also plans to bring a lawsuit to YouTube personality, Jim Sterling over videos criticizing the group’s development practices and quality of their products. Whether any of these lawsuits are successful, only time can tell.


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Tekken 7 Confirmed For Early 2017 Release On PC


Posted on June 26, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Bandai Namco’s Tekken 7 PC Release will be available in Early 2017 via Steam. Confirmation of this comes as the official Steam Page for the game has gone live – you can view it right here.

During Microsoft’s E3 press conference the game was confirmed for both Windows PC & Xbox One with a trailer showcasing a battle between long time series antagonist Heihachi and new guest character, Street Fighter’s Akuma.

Tekken 7 is also expected to be released on PlayStation 4, although the publisher only had the Xbox One version of the game on display at E3, which we got the chance to play.

Here is the official description of Tekken 7 from the Steam Page:

Love, Revenge, Pride. Everyone has a reason to fight. Values are what define us and make us human, regardless of our strengths or weaknesses. There are no wrong motives, just the paths we choose to take.

Experience the epic conclusion of the Mishima clan and unravel the reasons behind each step of their ceaseless fight. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, TEKKEN 7 features stunning story-driven cinematic battles and intense duels that can be enjoyed with friends and rivals alike through innovative fight mechanics.


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Steam Dev Days Returns


Posted on June 9, 2016 by Renee Gittins

Members of Valve’s Steamworks program, which provides game developers and publishers the tools needed to publish their games on Steam, received emails today announcing that the much coveted Steam Dev Days is returning.

email

The first Steam Dev Days was held January 15-16 in 2014 and was regarded as a highly informative conference with quality talks and networking. While Valve used it to heavily market their struggling Steam Machine and Steam Controller, they also showed their virtual reality headset, now known as the Vive.

While the first Steam Dev Days was invite-only and cost-free, it looks like Valve is intended to expand their audience, allowing even non-Steamworks members to sign-up for notification when registration goes live. However, it does seem that Steamworks partners will get preference.

The registration fee is noted to be $95, though the cost is almost certainly more to discourage people who may not attend from signing up rather than to offset the costs of the event. While some talks will pitch Valve’s products and services, all of the sessions last Steam Dev Days were well done and contained valuable knowledge.

Though the Steam Machine was the focus of the first Steam Dev Days, it looks like the Vive and virtual reality has taken its place as the hot topic for discussion.

topics

As Valve gave away a BRIX Pro Steam Machine and prototype Steam Controller at the previous Steam Dev Days, and gave a Vive Pre to each attendee of the Vision Summit 2016, some are wondering if attendees of Steam Dev Days this year might find a Vive in their bag of goodies.

Free Vive or not, this is a conference worth attending.

 


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Knight Squad PAX East Guided Demo & Video


Posted on April 28, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

ChinsawAwesome’s 8 player indie brawler Knight Squad had their own booth at PAX East and we were able to get a guided tour of the mayhem filled multiplayer title from one of the developers. Players take to the arena was one of several colored Knights with the objective of capturing a chalice placed within the arena.  Just don’t think it will be easy to capture because every player has access to different power-ups and ability pick-ups placed throughout the map!

Last man standing style death match isn’t the only activity isn’t Knight Squad’s only mode – players can also test the strength of their friendships with Medieval Soccer, Capture the Flag, Capture the Grail and more. Knight Squad also supports up to 8 players for chaotic evil online times!

Knight Squad is currently available on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace.

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Weekend Steam Deals: Activision Publisher Sale


Posted on April 14, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

This weekend’s Steam deals include a number of deals on several Activision titles across a number of genres. Everything from several Call of Duty titles, multiple Transformers games and Platinum Game’s recent Legend of Kora title have been heavily discounted until Monday morning. If you’ve wanted to jump in on older Activision games like 2012’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which seems to be several times better than last year’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 now is the time time to do so for less than $5!

Here’s the some of the better deals in the Activision Publisher Sale (in Canadian Dollars):

  • Call of Duty Black Ops III (Full game) – $47.99
  • Call of Duty Blacks Ops III Multiplayer Starter Pack Upgrade – $29.99
  • Call of Duty: Blacks Ops – $21.99
  • Deadpool – $21.99
  • Timeshift – $5.49
  • Prototype 2 – $10.99
  • Singularity – $8.24
  • The Legend of Korra – $4.24
  • Prototype – $5.49

More deals on the Official Steam Store page

Tony_Hawk_HD


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Valve Found Guilty for Breaking Australian Law


Posted on March 29, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

An Australian court has found Valve is in violation of Australian consumer protection law by  not having a refund policy in place for Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has ruled that Valve had no refund policy in place which ran contrary to Australian Consumer law. This has since been corrected but this suit was filed in August 2014 before the current policy was put in place. Valves main defense was that it does not sell consumer good in Australia rather its selling a digital product, and that product comes from their headquarters in Washington state.

The Australian Federal Court ruled that Valve had made “false or misleading representations in the terms and conditions contained in three versions of its Steam Subscriber Agreement and two versions of its Steam Refund Policy”. These include:

  • Consumers were not entitled to a refund for digitally downloaded games purchased from Valve via the Steam website or Steam Client (in any circumstances);

  • Valve had excluded statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality; and

  • Valve had restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties of acceptable quality.

the ACCC seemed pleased with the decision as Chairman Rod Sims said “The Federal Court’s decision reinforces that foreign based businesses selling goods and/or services to Australian consumers can be subject to Australian Consumer Law obligations, including the consumer guarantees,” and went on to specifically mention digital goods “This is also the first time Courts have applied the extended definition of ‘goods’ to include “computer software” in the ACL. It will provide greater certainty where digital goods are supplied to consumers through online platforms.”

The ACCC had asked Valve in the initial court documents to:

• Provide an email address that specifically deals with refunds as per Australian Consumer law.
• Provide a 1800 number to help consumers address any refund issues.
• Provide a PO Box address for consumers to deal with refunds.
• Appoint representatives (the ACCC refer to this person as a contact officer) to reply to consumers regarding refunds.

The judgement by the courts means that Valve will need to pay out for pocket some damages, and all of the legal fees that the ACCC have inured during the two year long trial.


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HTC Vive Pre-Orders Go Online @ $1200 Canadian


Posted on February 29, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

HTC Vive

The impressive VR system that is aware of your movements across an entire room, the HTC Vive is now available for pre-order and they ship to Canada! If you’ve got $1200 dollars laying around then you too can be one of the first to experience consumer ready Virtual Reality.

HTC VIVE Canada

In terms of hardware specs the Vive’s head mounted display contains two 1080×1200 displays each set for 90Hz – meaning your VR games should no at no less than 90 FPS for an optimal experience. Your movement in 3-D space is calculated thanks to an onboard camera and a separate “lighthouse” sensor pods that is placed within your room.

Anyone have a spare $1200 I can borrow?

Here are the official minimum specs for the HTC Vive:

HTC Vive

  • Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better
  • CPU: Intel Core i5 4590 or AMD FX 8350 or greater
  • RAM: 4GB or more
  • Video port: HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2, or better
  • USB port: 1 USB 2.0 or faster port
  • Windows 7 SP1 or newer

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HTC unveils Vive consume edition and pre-order info


Posted on February 21, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

HTC Vive

Begun the VR wars have.

Today HTC has announced their final consumer production model of their VR headset the Vive. In a blog post on their website, HTC announced that the Vive pre-orders will open Monday Feburay 29th (yes that’s leap day) at 10am eastern time. The price will be $799USD, the unit will ship in April of this year. Also important to note is that HTC’s post says

“Vive will be delivered as a complete kit allowing users to instantly jump into a fully immersive virtual environment using two wireless controllers, 360 degree tracking and room scale movement sensors”

This is different from the choice made by their nearest competitor Occulus whom chose to price their unit at $599 (200USD less), but with out the inbox sensors, and controllers. Getting the touch controllers for Occulus will set the consumer back another chunk of change(price has not yet been announced), probably bringing the prices for the two units closer together.

The HTC Vive will also ship with two VR games, Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption, and with the recent addition of the front facing camera HTC is stressing that this is not just a gaming machine. They are targeting multiple sectors including entertainment, retail, education, design, healthcare and automotive that will ultimately transform people’s lives.

Cher Wang, chairwoman and CEO, HTC is quoted in the blog post as saying

“From the beginning, Vive has been at the forefront of virtual reality, with HTC pioneering several ground breaking technologies, Since announcing Vive this time last year, we have worked tirelessly with Valve to deliver the best VR experience on the market, winning multiple awards and receiving critical acclaim from media, consumers and the industry. With the Vive consumer edition we are now able to realize our ultimate vision; bringing Vive into homes around the globe so that people can experience immersive virtual reality in a away that fires the imagination and truly changes the world.”

So what do you think? Is HTC going to take down Occulus or vice versa? Hit the jump to see their intro video that was also in the blog post

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