Ubisoft’s upcoming Call of Duty-like first-person online shooter, XDefiant, doesn’t have a release date yet, and now we know why. According to Ubisoft, the free-to-play arena FPS failed an important first-party certification test in August, delaying the entire launch process.
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First announced in 2021 as Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, it mixes various Ubisoft franchises like Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs, and Far Cry into a single, shared-universe online shooter. Earlier this year, I played a few hours of the game’s beta and walked away excited to play more thanks to fast, responsive combat that felt similar to the gunplay found in the Xbox 360 era of Call of Duty. However, after that test, XDefiant failed an important regulatory step in the process of bringing a game to consoles, and now Ubisoft can’t say when players will get a chance to play the online FPS.
On September 11, Ubisoft’s Executive Game Director Mark Rubin announced the failed test in a surprisingly open and transparent blog post. As explained by Rubin, games aren’t just released onto consoles and platforms without any checks. Companies like Sony and Microsoft test every game released for their machines to make sure they function properly and don’t break anything. To be clear, these certification and compliance checks aren’t looking at how well a game performs or if it has buggy cutscenes or audio. It’s just meant to make sure the game follows the platform’s rules, doesn’t brick your machine, and works with each vendor’s various built-in features, like friend lists and trophies.
According to Rubin, Ubisoft began the certification process at the end of July and got its first results back in August. XDefiant didn’t pass.
Ubisoft
“We realized then that we had more work related to compliance than we had anticipated,” said Rubin. “If it had passed, then we would have been able to ship at the end of [August]. But it didn’t and so we have spent the last 3-4 weeks fixing those issues and getting ready to do another submission.”
Rubin says the game is currently in the part of the process that involves the devs finalizing their submission build and expects it to be sent back for certification “in a little less than two weeks.” If that build passes certification with no issues, then Rubin suggests XDefiant could be released in September. However, he was clear that this might not happen, and the shooter could partially fail this new round of testing and get a “conditional pass.” In that scenario, which Rubin says is likely, the game would need a day-one patch to reach final compliance with the console makers. That would take extra work and time, pushing the game’s final release date into October.
Why Ubisoft is telling fans about the failed test
So why are Ubisoft and Rubin being so open and transparent about what is often kept behind closed doors? To be clear, XDefiant isn’t some weird outlier. Plenty of games fail “cert” and have to get resubmitted, we just don’t hear about it as delays like that are built into their timeframes for release.
According to Rubin, being open like this is by design, as he and the team have avoided the “typical route” most games follow during development, citing how they have let players hop online and play the shooter long before it was finished, calling the betas “real tests” and not marketing events.
“So, when it comes to when we will release, the real answer is ‘as soon as we can,’” wrote Rubin. “And we will continue to update you with more info when we have it.”
To conclude, we set out since the concept of this game to be more transparent with our community and to listen to our players and act on their feedback. We’ve even shown that we will add features in the middle of development based on player requests. Map Voting which is in now and an S&D-like mode that is coming later are two examples of this. We want this to be your game!
The Pokémon Company held a new Pokémon Presents showcase to talk about upcoming projects in the series. If you missed the show, you can catch the VOD right here, but if you just want to know the highlights, read on.
Streaming megasite Twitch has updated its community guidelines, and now prohibits streamers from promoting or being sponsored by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skin gambling sites. This new ban could impact many CS:GO streamers who have lucrative deals with these controversial websites.
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In CS:GO, trading and gambling of skins and other cosmetics has long been big business, with some rare, sought-after skins selling for hundreds or even thousands of dollars online. This has led to many players spending money on CS:GO skin gambling sites, effectively turning the in-game cosmetics and Steam’s trading system into a slot machine they can pull over and over again for a fee, rewarding players with items that can (sometimes) be very valuable. These skin gambling sites—which some players condemn due to accusations they prey on minors—often pay or sponsor streamers to promote their sites, with some players even streaming themselves spinning for rare cosmetics on Twitch itself. But now, it seems that might be coming to an end.
Is sponsorship of skins gambling, such as for CS:GO skins, allowed on Twitch?
No, promotion or sponsorship of skins gambling is prohibited under our policy.
This is bad news for streamers who have deals with any of these cosmetic gambling sites. One big-name example that might be impacted by this new ban is G2 Esports, a large-scale organization that employs numerous players and content creators.
In May, the group announced a big partnership with CSGORoll, a site that calls itself a “CS:GO skins trading market” but also lets players win skins and other in-game items by placing bets and making rolls. It’s likely CSGORoll would be considered a skin gambling site by Twitch, which would—if the Amazon-owned service enforces this new rule—likely mean G2 Esports won’t be able to promote CSGORoll during its streams. Awkward, as the site’s logo is on G2 Esports’ jerseys, and its players appear on the CSGORoll homepage.
Unanswered questions about Twitch’s new rule
Beyond G2, many other streamers might be affected by the new ban, as pointed out in a popular video condemning skin gambling published in July 2023 by YouTuber HOUNGOUNGAGNE. In their video they report that an estimated 75 percent of the top 300 CS:GO Twitch streamers have skin-gambling sponsors. If this new guideline is enforced, all of these players would have to quickly cut ties with these sites and the lucrative sponsorship deals they offer or face a possible Twitch ban.
Of course, there are still some questions. Does this new rule ban streamers from streaming themselves using CS:GO skin gambling and trading sites? The wording is a bit vague and only specifies promotions and sponsorship deals. Another question some have is if this new rule takes effect immediately, and what that means for folks who might have signed deals with sites and have certain obligations to uphold.
While not (yet) officially announced, new leaks indicate that McDonald’s is once again teaming up with The PokémonCompany to offer fans a fresh collection of 15 Pokémon cards to snatch up and flip on eBay for hundreds of dollars, or enjoy quietly at home. But probably eBay.
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Since 2001, The PokémonCompany has, nearly every year, created promotional Pokémon cards that people can buy at local participating McDonald’s locations. These cards, which were only available in Japan until the 2011 promotion, have often featured unique symbols and are highly desired by collectors. In 2021, the McDonald’s X Pokémon promotional cards sold out quickly as collectors snatched up boxes at a time from the restaurants and sold them for hundreds apiece on eBay. And it seems possible that these newly leaked 2023 Pokémon McDonald’s cards might also sell out fast, too.
As PokéBeach reported on July 26, a reader sent the site images of the 15 cards from the upcoming (not officially announced) promotion, which apparently came out prematurely in Germany. PokéBeach claims these are all the cards that will be available during the yearly Pokémon event at McDonald’s. That makes sense, as in the past the number of promo cards was often around 12 to 15.
Here’s the full list via PokéBeach:
Sprigatito
Fuecoco
Quaxly
Cetoddle
Cetitan
Pikachu
Pawmi
Kilowattrel
Flittle
Sandaconda
Klawf
Blissey
Tandemaus
Cyclizar
Kirlia
All of the Pokémon featured, with the exception of Pikachu, come from Scarlet & Violet. It seems just six of the 15 cards will be holo, those being Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Cetitan, Pikachu, and Klawf.
When you’ll be able to buy these new Pokémon cards
As before, these cards will be available in four-card booster packs that will come with Happy Meals. The cards will also come with a “Match & Battle” toy that looks to be based on a similar toy that was part of last year’s McDonald’s X Pokémon promotional event.
As for when to expect these cards to show up in the United States, PokéBeach says that the cards will be available in Germany and Austria on July 27 and in the UK on August 23.
No date has leaked for the U.S., though based on past events and this year’s known dates, it’s believed that the cards will also come to the United States sometime in August.
In 2021 Mythic Games, with the backing of Ubisoft, announced a Kickstarter campaign for an officially-licensed board game adaptation of Rainbow Six: Siege. Two years later, Mythic are asking people who already paid for the game to pay a bit—and in some cases a lot—more.
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The game, simply called 6: Siege, is pretty much what you’d expect: two teams of operatives do battle on a tactical map, one side attacking, the other defending. And as you would also expect from an officially-licensed board game appearing on Kickstarter, it is supposed to be huge, promising all kinds of plastic miniatures, expansions, 3D buildings and terrain.
In 2021 you could get the game in three tiers: a basic $69 copy, a deluxe $199 version and an even more premium $269 edition. That last one came with a lot of stuff: five “years” of expansions, multiple map packs, extra units, a neoprene dice tray, 3D buildings and even a little laser pointer so you could quickly and accurately determine line-of-sight stuff.
Now, in 2023, with the pandemic having wreaked havoc on the board game industry, Mythic (via Wargamer) have posted an update on their campaign website stating that, as things currently stand, the money that people paid during the initial campaign isn’t going to actually cover their manufacturing costs.
As a result, they’re giving backers three choices: they can pay more money, they can wait for prices to come down and receive their games at some point in the future, maybe, or they can ask for a refund. Backers of the $69 edition are being asked to pay an additional $39, $199 backers will need to pay $99 more and the $269 backers are being asked to pay an extra $129.
…the combined crises of COVID and the war in Ukraine, which we had not anticipated, have changed the international situation. Prices have literally exploded in all areas, and the estimates on which we based ourselves before and during the Kickstarter campaign are absolutely no longer relevant.
To give you some examples, the cost of paper and cardboard has increased by 50 to 100% on average (the paper we use for example has gone from $600 per ton to $1200 per ton), the cost of labor in China where our games are produced, assembled and shipped has also doubled from $4 to $8 per hour. The cost of energy, plastic and raw materials has increased by almost 50%. Finally, while container fees have recently dropped from their ridiculous highs (but not back to pre-crisis prices), the cost of the Last Mile has skyrocketed and has never been higher. On our side, it must be said, we spent much more than expected in the development of the game, with more people than we expected working on it and longer than we originally estimated (which caused extra costs, but also has the advantage of having an optimal, well-tested, varied and balanced game in the end).
Wildly, this isn’t the first time Mythic has had to do this; their Darkest Dungeon adaptation had to ask for extra money as well, something that 20% of backers refused to do. In this case Mythic’s update says that “If we do not reach the commitment rate, we commit to reimburse all contributors for these additional costs by the amount of their contribution”, and that “At the end of the fundraising period, if we have reached the minimum commitment to go into production, we will start printing.”
While I have a lot of sympathy for board game publishers and manufacturers right now, these conditions aren’t new; I wrote “Board Games Are Having A Bad Time” in April 2020, and this game was Kickstarted a year later. For Mythic to have not gone overboard with allowances for pricing variations during such tumultuous times reflects poorly on their campaign planning, and fans are right to be upset at being not only asked to pay more, but to pay so much more.
It’s also yet another example of the dangers inherent in the arms race so many board game publishers are trapped in on Kickstarter, offering increasingly obscene amounts of plastic miniatures and other luxuries with their games in an effort to appeal to backers, all the while making their projects far more expensive—and thus risky—to actually make.
I’ve contacted Mythic to clarify what exactly happens to the whole campaign if the “commitment rate” isn’t met, and will update if I hear back.
Roadhog is one of Overwatch 2’s quieter heroes. Where some characters like Tracer and Junkrat are real chatterboxes, the chain-slinging, shotgun-toting Tank is a man of few words. That changes with the game’s latest limited-time mode, which makes him the announcer. Not only is he the one to declare your team the victor, but he also has nicknames for several members of the cast at the hero select screen. They’re delicious roasts of nearly every character that also offer a deeper look at a character who doesn’t usually get a ton of spotlight in Overwatch’s grander story.
The PachiMarchi event includes several cosmetics based on the in-universe Pachimari mascot that Roadhog is a big fan of, a few of which originate from when a similar event ran in the first Overwatch back in 2021. However, the new 3v3 deathmatch mode Catch-A-Mari is the real treat because Roadhog voice actor Josh Petersdorf delivers a concise, pitch-perfect roast of most of your faves as you build your team before a match. Unfortunately, there isn’t one for every character. According to senior writer and narrative designer Justin Groot, the nicknames in the mode now were part of an hour-long brainstorming session before deadline, which means a few favorites didn’t get a nickname. But the ones that are here are delightful.
A few standouts include:
Cassidy – Cactus Bootbuckle
Doomfist – Largefist
Genji – 500 Edges
Mei Princess Icicle
Ramattra – Thunko, the Metal Man
Sigma – Gravity Frank
Zarya – Gravity Janice
Soldier: 76 – Legs of America
Widowmaker – Scopetta Baguette
Winston – Mister Nanners
All of these are very funny caricatures of each of these heroes, but my favorite one is Sojourn, who gets her full government name “Former Overwatch Acting Commander Vivian ‘Sojourn’ Chase.” It shows she is not to be fucked with and that Roadhog, despite roasting everyone else, respects her. 500 Edges is such a good name for Genji because he’s got a bunch of sharp weaponry at his disposal, but he’s also an edgelord, and it’s fun to see Overwatch poke fun at itself like this. Legs of America points to Soldier: 76 being from the US of A, but the character’s history has always made him feel like a Captain America analog for the series, so needling his patriotism is a good gag. They could have called him America’s Ass if they really wanted to lean into the comparison, but Soldier famously has no ass.
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It’s a small touch, but it feels like Overwatch 2’s writing has leaned harder into both fleshing out how characters relate to each other and into the fandom’s perception of them, as well. And it’s nice to get a sense of how Roadhog views other heroes, even if the relationships aren’t quite as overt. Hopefully the next time this mode rolls around, the team will add more nicknames for the whole cast.
There’s a phenomenon in the Overwatch community that has persisted through the original game’s 2016 release, its gradual decline, and the launch of the sequel. This phenomenon is an interesting one, a sort of “IYKYK” situation that requires membership in a specific community in order to recognize its members: in Overwatch, a lot of queer players choose to play as healers. Maybe you haven’t noticed this—maybe you’re straight (I’m sorry) and can’t spot an alphabet army soldier in your lobby, but if you’re in the LGBTQIA+ community and play Overwatch 2, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Mercy mains with rainbow player icons, Moira one-tricks wearing her Bowie skin, two-stacks who instalock support with some iteration of “-ussy” in their gamertag—if you pay attention, you’ll see that the gays are everywhere in Overwatch, and most of the time they’re playing healer.
But this is all anecdotal evidence, right? Surely gays don’t gravitate to playing healers that disproportionately, do they? After hundreds of hours logged in Overwatch 2 comp , most of which I played as a healer, I felt a burning desire to delve deeper into this phenomenon and figure out why I kept encountering fellow gays in the support role. I had my theories: queer people are used to supporting their found families in the real world, support roles are notoriously less toxic, many of the healer characters are femme or androgynous—but I needed more.
So, I put out a call for “gay people” on Twitter, I interviewed players and peers, and I spoke to a queer-identifying counselor, all in an attempt to properly investigate Overwatch’s gay healing agenda. The result is a fascinating look at a subculture within a subculture, one marked by real-world social queues, kink play, emotional connections, and, unfortunately, a frustrating lack of scientific research.
Gay icons
Image: Blizzard / Nico D.
The most obvious answer (and one of the more common ones I received on Twitter) as to why queer people play healers in Overwatch is that the characters themselves are gay icons. Even though the only two openly queer characters are both DPS heroes, the lineup of support characters looks a lot like the line outside of Happyfun Hideaway on a Saturday night: the uber-feminine and soft Mercy, the muscular and bold Brigitte, the sweet but strong Baptiste, the spunky and sarcastic Kiriko, the calm and collected Zenyatta, the androgynous and tall Moira, the soothing and maturely sexy Ana. Compared to your typical FPS lineup, and even most of the other Overwatch characters (save for outliers like Zarya and Mei), the support squad in this game feels demonstrably queer.
Overwatch player and freelance writer Nico D. echoes this sentiment via email, saying the characters “are designed in such a way to be desirable to queer communities—Moira is a REALLY good example of this, but I also know a lot of queer women or other queer people who are attracted to women that love Mercy, Ana, and Brig.” Nico suggests this has to do with the futuristic, sci-fi fashions depicted in the game “that also happen to be on characters with typically queer-coded appearances like slightly more atypical body types/silhouettes/haircuts.”
That definitely describes most Overwatch support heroes. And though Mercy is slim and white and traditionally attractive (Blizzard does, after all, historically have a problem with portraying women’s bodies), she still doesn’t feel as aggressively sexualized as someone like Widowmaker, whose impossibly long legs and massive tits scream The Male Gaze everytime she runs (in heels) across the screen.
Others who identify as queer and play Overwatch predominantly as healers tell me that the support characters are “gay icons” whose presence/vibes suggest queerness even though it’s not outright stated. “They feel queer” is a sentiment that, while scientifically impossible to prove, is consistently echoed in both messages to me and Overwatch community spaces. But “feeling queer” is a helluva lot different than being canonically queer—so why doesn’t it seem like members of the community play Tracer and Soldier: 76 as much as they play healers?
Gender roles
Image: Blizzard
Venture into the Reddit or TikTok trenches in search of an answer as to why gay people play healers and you’ll likely stumble across the “I can’t aim” meme. Like many internet fables, this one is somewhat rooted in reality. Evie Mae Barber, writer and narrative designer, tells me via Twitter DM that when she played Overwatch, she mained Lucio and Mercy because she finds healers in FPS titles “require less precision and more strategy,” whereas the DPS characters’ effectiveness are largely rooted in accuracy.
A desire to avoid roles that require accuracy could be a side effect of traditional multiplayer FPS titles being largely unsafe spaces for women and non cis-het men—it’s hard to feel comfortable or competent in these roles when the skills you need to excel at them should have been honed in the dark and scary servers of Halo 3 or CS:GO, during a time when the mere hint of “otherness” was met with viciousness, slurs, and threats.
The boys’ club of FPS titles may not exist in such severity today as it did in the early 2000s, but its effects linger. “There was a meta-analysis done that had several results, specifically about Overwatch,” says Dr. Sarah Hays, a queer-identifying counselor at nonprofit org Game to Grow and director of programming at Queer Women of Esports, during a video call. “Of course, it was on a gender binary, but male esports competitors are seen as more competitive than female competitors. Female players believe support to be the easiest position to play and prefer to play it because they don’t want to be blamed for not doing well.” She pauses. “That meta study has a whole bunch of data. I just hate that it’s done on a gender binary.”
It’s clear that the lack of adequate research around LGBTQIA+ gamers and the roles they choose to inhabit in multiplayer titles frustrates Dr. Hays. “My plea is: ‘people, let’s do research on this because it’s so cool,’” she says earnestly before returning to the meta study, combing through it to try and find some more connections to the theory at hand: “Non male-identified people tend towards picking a character that they can feel confident in. So they reduce harassment and they reduce some of that input. ‘It’s easier to play support because I’m not getting as much shit, I’m not getting blamed for that.’ That’s something we’re seeing both based in research and generally: people want to look and appear and feel like they know what they’re doing, so they’re not going to receive flack for being another ignorant non-dude. Which sucks. But it’s true.”
Dr. Hays doesn’t say this word during our chat, but it lingers overhead: toxicity. “I think queer folks trend toward support as it feels like the least toxic role or at least one that has less toxicity associated with them,” says Threshold Games’ community manager Colin Cummings in a DM. So, part of the reason queer-identiying gamers may be choosing healers is to avoid the rampant toxicity that comes with playing competitive FPS games. But how much do real-world experiences outside of gaming tie into choosing the support role?
Support systems
Image: Blizzard / Nico D.
I’m pleased when one of my theories is echoed by a few fellow healers: queer people, so often forced to protect themselves because the government won’t protect them, so connected to found families made up of supportive friends, would naturally gravitate towards characters who provide safety and security.
“I don’t think that it’s a far stretch to imagine that the fantasy of support or healers is appealing to groups of people who require communities around them for safety and affection,” Nico writes.
When I mention my theory in a DM with Eric Ravenscraft, product writer and reviewer at Wired, he’s on board, too. “Honestly, that wouldn’t surprise me too much,” he writes. “Support is very much herding cats, keeping your precious babies alive while they’re getting chased down by a mean dude with a hammer…most of the LGBTQIA+ folks I know live in a very found-family kinda space that becomes very protective of outside threats. Every single person I know in that space knows what it’s like to protect their friends—or even randos—from a bigoted parent or institution or whathaveyou. That kinda mindset maps pretty cleanly onto keeping four randos you just met safe online.”
This social connection between support roles IRL and in Overwatch is something Dr. Hays “loves” during our chat—it clearly sparks her interest, and I can see her cogs turning on our video chat as she begins pondering the larger ramifications of this idea. “I wonder if there isn’t a correlation between oppressed identity and feeling better as a person in the position of healer, because it means that you get to avoid the blame, but also you get to be reinforced as someone who’s helpful and supportive, and more effective in that role? Yeah, because of the way that our real-life experiences have catered to that, as well.”
While Dr. Hays is clearly inspired by these ideas, she reiterates that there’s just not enough research about this kind of stuff to provide us with much concrete evidence. She does, however, bring up a scientific study that leaves my jaw on the floor.
Piss play
I have used this image three times on Kotaku.com.Image: Blizzard / Kotaku
When I wrote about how Overwatch 2’s shorthand is a specific brand of twisted, the slang term for Moira’s healing (pee) was at the top of my mind. So when Dr. Hays starts talking about a scientific study about Overwatch’s “healsluts,” I am, as the kids say, gagged—the connections are there, drawn together by queer players who are, in fact, little freaks.
Assuming the role of a healslut, according to the study from Finnish academic journal Widerscreen, “[invites] players to deploy elements of BDSM kink and sexuality not merely within the vocabulary and design of the game, but also in a communal paratext surrounding the game involving forums, voice chat, and viral fan-designed images.” Kotaku already wrote about this kinky phenomenon almost eight years ago—a r/healslut moderator toldwriter Luke Winkie that healsluts take classic dominant and submissive roles that are synonymous with traditional BDSM and apply it to the roles laid out in Overwatch.
The tank (dom) protects and compliments the healers (subs), occasionally scolding them if they fail. Healsluts have one main duty, and it’s to protect their doms (DPS characters are considered darker, more violent versions of tanks, which makes sense if you’ve ever tried to pocket heal a Genji). Though much of the writing about this community was published several years ago, I can confirm that r/healsluts is still an active subreddit.
In many cases, the Venn diagram of kink and queer communities is a circle, with kink playing an important role in Pride events and in the history and legacy of LGBTQIA+ people. Kink play in Overwatch is a “a way for resisting ‘masculine-normative hegemonic fandom’ in video games,” according to the aforementioned study, and it persists even after Overwatch 1 was sunset in place of a free-to-play sequel.
So whether it’s because of cishet-y FPS pressure making support a more attractive role, social roles within found families that translate to games, the indefinable but still somewhat tangible queerness of the healer characters, or a preternatural need to heal big, dommy tanks, it’s very clear that there are a lot of LGBTQIA+ people playing support in Overwatch 2.
I could happily unpack this phenomenon in another 2,000 words, but maybe I should just leave it at what Kaitlin Jakola, managing editor at The Trace and former Gizmodo employee, had to say about it:
“I assume we all heal because gays love to be both extremely powerful and woefully unappreciated in our own time????” Work, bestie.
The Pokémon Company will print its first new Kadabra card in over 20 years. According to a report by PokéBeach, the Pokemon Card 151 set due out in June will feature the psychic spoon-bender alongside the series other original Pokémon, something that would have previously been blocked by illusionist Uri Geller’s lawsuit accusing Kadabra of being based on his own likeness.
PokéBeach (via IGN) said it was able to confirm Kadabra’s return after viewing a leaked sell sheet for the upcoming set. While on its face it seems obvious that number 64 would be included along with the 151 other original Pokémon, Kadabra has been excluded from the card game since the early 2000s. That’s when Geller, best known for performing conjuring tricks ostensibly revolving around physic abilities, such as bending spoons, first discovered Kadabra and tried to take Nintendo to court over the Pokémon’s similarities to his act.
While the most obvious example was Kadabra’s signature bent spoon, its name in Japanese, Yungerer, also bore clear similarities. Geller reportedly took special issue with the Team Rocket Kadabra card which featured “Evil Yungerer.”
“I’m very angry about this,” he told the BBC back in 2000. “I wouldn’t have given permission for an aggressive, and in one case evil character to be based on me. This is not even anything to do with the old question of if I’m a magician or a real psychic. It’s straight theft of my persona.”
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Geller didn’t stay angry though. Following years of failed lawsuits, pleas from fans, and even his own granddaughters, he eventually relented. In 2020 he sent a letter to Nintendo giving permission for Kadabra to continue being used. Pokémon company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara wrote back at the time to thank him. Geller even started teasing Kadabra’s possible return to the card game last year.
“Look, I want to thank the Pokémon fans who reached out to me over the last [few] years,” he told PokéBeach in a voicemail yesterday. “Including the ones from PokéBeach, who kept contacting me nonstop. So basically, it was you and my granddaughters that got me to change my mind.”
The illusionist went on:
Now we can all see Kadabra reunited with the original Pokémon in the card game this summer. I love you all. And I admit, totally open and honest. I was a fool. It was a devastating mistake for me to sue Pokémon. [Kadabra] was basically a tribute to Uri Geller. But it’s back now. Forgive me. I love you all. Much love and energy.
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?
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.
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.
