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Tag: Loot box

  • Call of Duty: Warzone Devs Worked Overnight To Fix Busted Update

    Call of Duty: Warzone Devs Worked Overnight To Fix Busted Update

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    Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare III’s Season 1 Reloaded update launched midday on January 17—and almost immediately broke both FPS titles. The Reloaded update promised anti-cheat improvements, adjustments to the Zombies mode, new cosmetics, new multiplayer maps, and more, but the launch was plagued by server issues and visual glitches. In the time since launch, the dev team has deployed multiple fixes to right the ship, even appearing to work overnight into the wee hours of the morning on Thursday, January 18.

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    Historically, ‘Reloaded’ updates come in the middle of Call of Duty seasons as a way to keep the game fresh between massive seasonal changes and adjustments. Notably, this is the first Reloaded update for Modern Warfare III, which launched back in November of last year (confusingly, every time a new Call of Duty title drops, the season count starts all over again, though the updates have remained tied to the free-to-play Warzone battle royale since Modern Warfare II). The update promised a massive new anti-cheat measure that automatically shut downs the Call of Duty PC application if aim assist is detected, MWIII ranked play, a new Rio-based map, an Operator based on The Boys TV series, new game modes, and much more.

    Unfortunately, from the moment the Season 1 Reloaded update launched, players began reporting serious issues across both Warzone and MWIII. Streamer fifakill shared a clip on X/Twitter of the game glitching just under half an hour after the Reloaded launch, writing “If you try to go to ‘create a class’ in the menu your game will bug and you’ll have to restart. If you try to hit loadout in game this happens.” He also shared a clip showing a strange dent in the topography of the Urzikstan map, which was definitely not intentional. MWIII Ranked was delayed, some weapon attachments were broken, challenge progress was bugged, interacting with in-game loot crates was freezing the game, and more. Call of Duty site CharlieIntel called it “the worst Call of Duty update of all time” on X/Twitter.

    In the face of the litany of issues, the dev teams (Raven Software, which works on Warzone, and Sledgehammer Games, which works on MWIII) have been rolling out fixes as soon as they’re ready to go rather than in one massive patch, so that nearly 24 hours after launch, many of the major problems have been fixed. Unfortunately, it also seems like the dev teams had to work overnight to ensure this, as some of the updates were shared as early/late as 3:40 a.m. ET. “I don’t think I can recall seeing updates going out in the middle of the night. Ggs,” wrote one commenter. While it’s great to see the dev teams responding swiftly to issues, I don’t think overnight work is ever worth a “gg.” Work/life balance is much more important than bugged loot crates, IMO.

    Kotaku reached out to Activision for details on how/when the dev teams were working on fixes, but did not receive a comment in time for publication.

    Updating live-service games like Warzone involves a ton of moving parts, and sometimes one little change can render the entire car undriveable. Luckily, if you’re a Call of Duty player, it seems that Reloaded is in a much better state just 24 hours after launch.

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    Alyssa Mercante

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  • One Of Gaming’s Most Hated CEOs Says Goodbye, Again

    One Of Gaming’s Most Hated CEOs Says Goodbye, Again

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    CEO John Riccitiello has retired from game development software company Unity after possibly its worst month of bad headlines ever. The tech company that’s slowly morphed into an in-game advertising firm announced a confusing and seemingly predatory new set of fees for game makers in September, only to walk the policy back after studios threatened to abandon the Unity engine moving forward.

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    James M. Whitehurst, former head of the IBM-acquired open source software company Red Hat, will take over from Riccitiello as interim CEO while Unity’s board of directors search for a new long-term replacement. “It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth,” Riccitiello said in a press release. “I look forward to supporting Unity through this transition and following the Company’s future success.”

    Riccitiello joined Unity back in 2014 shortly after leaving Electoronic Arts. He oversaw the game engine company’s shift from one-time licensing fees to an ongoing subscription model, launched the IPO in 2020, and made a series of acquisitions, including the in-app monetization firm IronSource in 2022. When Unity first went public, its stock price was around $68. Today it’s just over $30.

    Once synonymous with the explosion of creativity and experimental design in the indie gaming space, Unity is being left by Riccitiello a month after a bungled new monetization strategy rollout burned bridges with tons of game makers. The initial messaging made it sound like game developers might be charged fees every time their game was installed, including retroactively.

    A follow-up apology by president and general manager Marc Whitten later clarified that the new terms would only apply beginning in 2024, and laid out much bigger carve-outs for smaller studios whose games don’t hit a certain threshold of income. But for many developers it was too late. Their trust in the company had already been irrevocably shaken. Re-logic, maker of the Steam hit Terraria, pledged $200,000 toward the creation of a Unity competitor, and Slay the Spire dev, Mega Crit, says it will still move to rival game software platform Godot.

    Rethinking monetization more aggressively was also one of Riccitiello’s legacies at EA. His seven years at the FIFA (now EA Sports FC) and Battlefield publisher saw it experiment with day-one DLC, microtransactions, and a focus on post-launch content. While there was no week-long crisis moment on the scale of what happened at Unity last month, it’s clear he helped usher in the company’s current live-service era, which many players now feel nickel-and-dimed by. Madden and FIFA’s lootbox modes were both added while he was head of EA, though they didn’t become the billion-dollar windfalls they are today until the tenure of his successor, current CEO Andrew Wilson.

    Perhaps nothing summed up Riccitiello’s time at both EA and Unity better than another controvertial incident last year. In an interview with Pocketgamer.biz in July 2022, he called developers who don’t think about monetization early in the process “fucking idiots.” He immediately walked the comments back the next week, calling articles about it “clickbait” that took his comment out of context, but later apologized, saying he should have chosen his words more carefully.

    That unforced error came shortly after the company revealed hundreds of layoffs at the same time it was buying IronSource in a $4.4 billion all-stock deal. Six hundred more were laid off at Unity earlier this year. Meanwhile, Riccitiello, in addition to the millions he has in Unity stock, will be kept on salary until April of 2024.

    Update 10/11/2023 4:50 p.m. ET: SFGate reports that Riccitiello is set to earn up to $8.4 million through stock options over the next six months. That’s in addition to the roughly $253 million he already holds in current Unity stock.

                

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    Ethan Gach

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  • MMO Introduces New Loot Boxes, Pulls Them Immediately After Fans Revolt

    MMO Introduces New Loot Boxes, Pulls Them Immediately After Fans Revolt

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    Image: Everquest II

    Late last month the developers of venerable MMO Everquest II introduced a new kind of loot box to the game that was, basically, a pay-to-win situation. It did not go down well with the long-running community!

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    As MMOBomb explain, the loot boxes, called Libant Evernight Heritage Crates, “bypassed lockouts and provided the chance to buy more opportunities at raid gear through the cash shop”. Fans quickly called them “pay-to-raid” items, and took to the game’s forums—which look as old as the game itself—to complain.

    Their pleas were loud and numerous enough for developers Daybreak to almost instantly backtrack on the decision, posting late last week:

    After listening to your feedback and having lots of discussions, we have decided to pull the Libant Evernight Heritage Crate from the in-game Marketplace store. The crate and most of its current contents will no longer be for sale.

    We heard you and understand that there were particular elements of the Libant Heritage Crate that run counter to our shared values. We will no longer be making any of these types of items available.

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    As a result of the uproar, Daybreak have decided that “in the spirit of community feedback” they’ll now be opening a dedicated forum where players can weigh in on stuff like balance changes before they go live, not after:

    I’d also like to announce that in the spirit of community feedback, we will be opening new Class Balance Forums for Everquest 2, look for these to arrive in the very near future. We want you, the community, the people who play these classes to help us decide what balance changes and bug fixes to prioritize with major updates. These forums will improve our communication with you and allow you to help us scope what changes happen. These forums will have a section for each class, and you will be able to propose changes, communicate with us, and vote on the fixes and balance changes you feel are necessary for your class. The goal here is to communicate with you the time and effort that these proposed changes will require, and openly discuss feasibility. We will make changes open for discussion as long as they remain within reason.

    Sucks to be posting about it under these circumstances, but man, an EverQuest II story! In 2023!

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    Luke Plunkett

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  • Game Removes Loot Boxes, Players Revolt Instead Of Celebrate

    Game Removes Loot Boxes, Players Revolt Instead Of Celebrate

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    A man with a cake hat sits near a logo for removed loot boxes.

    Popular free-to-play mobile game Brawl Stars is doing something a bit different. In an era where it seems every game is trying to nickel and dime you with more and more stuff to buy, instead it’s removing loot boxes and all random rewards entirely from the game. It’s yet another sign that loot boxes are likely to become a relic of the past as lawmakers and players push back on the random rewards. But that doesn’t mean Brawl Stars players are universally happy about their removal.

    Released in 2019 for phones and tablets, Brawl Stars mixed cute characters with MOBA-like gameplay and some battle royale elements. The end result was a fun top-down competitive action game that I played for weeks and weeks. But since I stopped playing, millions have continued to enjoy it: Brawl Stars has made over a billion dollars in profit for Supercell and still has an active player base and community. Now, Supercell has removed all loot boxes from the game, and reaction to the change is oddly mixed.

    Announced in a Brawl Talk video posted last week, Supercell’s latest update to Brawl Stars has removed all random rewards from the game. These boxes were mainly used to unlock new characters in the game. Since its release three years ago, Brawl Stars has heavily featured loot boxes as part of its rewards. But with yesterday’s update, that’s no longer the case.

    Supercell / Brawl Stars

    “No more probabilities, no more random rewards, and no more playing the guessing game when you unlock Brawlers,” said the game’s lead designer Frank Keienburg in Supercell’s Brawl Talk video.

    Yesterday, as part of this update, all unclaimed boxes were automatically opened and all the rewards were given to players accordingly. Moving forward, Keienburg and Supercell say that all rewards—including its battle passes—will be replaced with “different, deterministic rewards, some of which are new to the game.” Now, players have a new battle pass-like feature, The Starr Road, which lets them unlock all characters for free via grinding. Players can now just buy any brawler they want with gems, instead of randomly buying dozens of loot boxes to maybe get a specific hero.

    “We’re making this change for a few reasons,” continued Keienburg. “Mainly, moving away from probabilities and chance, which will make things more fair and predictable for you. It also gives you clear and exciting goals every time you play the game.”

    Of course, there’s also the possibility that Supercell and other devs are removing loot boxes as various governments around the world begin cracking down on them with proposed new laws and regulations.

    While I think removing loot boxes is a good thing and something worth celebrating—especially as mobile games continue to be some of the worst offenders with even good games like Marvel Snap including predatory purchases of over $100 or more—the community reaction is far less positive. While some players seem happy about the removal of random reward crates, others expressed disappointment. The comments on the Brawl Talk video has players rallying against the devs and demanding boxes return to Brawl Stars.

    Why? For some it seems that the excitement of a loot box outweighed the frustration that often accompanies them. Others suggested they now have little interest in playing the game since random rewards are being removed. (I think some of these people need to stop and think if they really like Brawl Stars or just like pulling a virtual lever on a slot machine…) We saw something similar to this happen with Overwatch 2’s release, where some players were angry at the removal of loot boxes and demanded they be returned to the game. And while I agree that progression in Overwatch 2 sucks at the moment, I’d rather Blizzard figure out a way to fix that doesn’t involve bringing back loot boxes, even if it did give you a lot of free ones before.

    The reality is that as games continue to become more and more popular, more countries will begin investigating the industry and how it makes money. And loot boxes are likely never to return in vogue as long as so many governments are leading crusades to regulate or outlaw them.

     

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Loot Boxes Would Be For Adults Only, If Australian Bill Passes

    Loot Boxes Would Be For Adults Only, If Australian Bill Passes

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    Image for article titled Loot Boxes Would Be For Adults Only, If Australian Bill Passes

    Image: Blizzard

    Following the example set by governments in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, an Australian politician has put forward a bill that would, if passed into law, massively restrict the use of loot boxes in video games aimed at children.

    Federal politician Andrew Wilkie, an independent, introduced the bill into parliament yesterday. He proposes that loot box mechanics—where players use actual money to buy random in-game items—prey upon the same impulses that gambling does, and that they can serve as a pathway to get kids hooked. He suggests that any game with loot boxes (or similar systems) should not only be restricted to those over the age of 18 (the legal gambling age in Australia), but should also carry warning labels specifying the reason for the rating as well.

    While Australia has a reputation for being incredibly heavy-handed with its classification of video games—mostly down to a broken old system from decades past that has since been overhauled (but which still has some drug-related kinks in the pipe)—I think this is a no-brainer?

    I’ve got a nine-year-old son who plays a lot of games, and the extent to which this stuff is rampant inside platforms like Roblox is terrifying. Then consider the popularity of sports games like FIFA and NBA2K, both of which feature extensive focus on what’s basically gambling, and you can see how this is a regulatory (and psychological!) timebomb that just keeps ticking away.

    Here’s the full outline of the bill, which in some cases wouldn’t just restrict the sale of these games, but in some situations just straight up ban them (“RC” means Refused Classification, and games without classification can’t legally be sold here):

    Loot boxes are features of interactive games containing undisclosed items that can be purchased with real currency. They can take the form of a virtual box, crate, prize wheel or similar mechanism and contain a prize or item which may or may not benefit the player. For example, a loot box might contain a particular character, additional play time or access to levels and game maps. As the rewards contained within these loot boxes can offer competitive advantages within the game, they carry significant value for players and may hold resale value.

    By tempting players with the potential to win game-changing items, encouraging risk-taking for possible reward, delivering random prizes on an intermittent basis, and encouraging players to keep spending money, loot boxes give rise to many of the same emotions and experiences associated with poker machines and traditional gambling activities. This is especially concerning as many games which contain these features are popular with adolescents and young adults. Despite this, loot boxes are not currently required to be considered in classification decisions nor are games required to advertise when they contain this feature.

    This bill remedies this by requiring the Classification Board to consider loot boxes when classifying a game. Further, the Board must set a minimum classification of R18+ or RC for games containing this feature, which will restrict children from purchasing and playing these games.

    The amendments also require a warning to be displayed when games contain loot boxes or similar features, so that they can be easily identified by parents and guardians.

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    Luke Plunkett

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  • Steam Game Bails On Loot Boxes To Win Back Players

    Steam Game Bails On Loot Boxes To Win Back Players

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    A character figurine sits on the playfield in Moonbreaker.

    Screenshot: Unknown Worlds Entertainment

    These days it’s rare to see an online game without built-in live-service monetization, let alone one that’s getting rid of that stuff. But that’s exactly what the Subnautica devs behind Moonbreaker are doing. Recently launched in Early Access on Steam, the tabletop RPG is throwing out both its premium paid currency and its loot boxes, and refunding players who have already bought in. Whether the game will remain monetization-free after its full release is a different question.

    “Early Access is a time for us to experiment and improve the game, and the monetization in its current form was affecting that goal,” Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the studio behind Moonbreaker, posted on its blog yesterday (via RPS). “So we’re removing it to focus on making the best game that we can, before we leave Early Access.”

    Revealed during Gamescom 2022, director Charlie Cleveland described Moonbreaker as a “digital miniatures game” inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy and Firefly. Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (best known for the Mistborn series) was brought on to write, and the D&D-inspired strategy combat looked like an intriguing mashup of Hearthstone and XCOM. Lofty comparisons aside, players have largely been receptive to the game’s mechanics and lore while slamming the microtransactions.

    Moonbreaker is priced at $30, with a “founder’s pack” that raises it to $50. While this includes enough booster boxes for players to unlock most of the game’s units, PvE matches were previously locked behind premium currency, meaning players have to pay or grind to play solo. And as a miniatures game, much of the fantasy revolves around cosmetically customizing units, which also costs money. Most of the negative reviews on the Steam page all cited the free-to-play monetization of a paid game as their biggest issue.

    Pulsars, the game’s paid currency, will now disappear, as well as the paid booster boxes. Players’ purchases will be refunded, and all units will automatically unlock at the start of each new season. “In celebration of this business model change, I’m gonna be purchasing the base game for some friends tomorrow,” one player wrote on Discord following the announcement. “Thanks so much for listening to community feedback and being willing to make big (potentially scary) changes so early on in development.”

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    That’s exactly what Early Access is for, and it’s good to see Moonbreaker not only backing off the free-to-play monetization, but also refunding players. That might change in the future, with some players suspecting Unknown Worlds might make the game free-to-play by launch and bring back some form of live-service microtransactions. In the meantime at least, players can enjoy the evolving TTRPG without all the other bullshit. It might even help Moonbreaker win back some of the players who bailed shortly after Early Access began.

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    Ethan Gach

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