News of the Week

Nintendo stikes again

Nintendo stikes again

  Earlier this week, Nintendo issued DMCA takedowns to SteamGridDB, a community site that hosts user-created images to be used in on Steam. Although the site is primarily meant to provide an aesthetically-pleasing alternative for fans, Nintendo games are not available on Steam and therefore would only be there as emulated ROMs downloaded without Nintendo’s […]

Walmart + Roblox = Advertising to Children?

Walmart + Roblox = Advertising to Children?

In a puzzling (to me) PR move, Walmart has created two “experiences” in the popular meta-verse game Roblox. Roblox has an overwhelmingly young player base and the Walmart experiences are designed to target the “next generation” of Walmart shoppers with celebrity cameos and games featuring popular children’s toys. I can’t help but feel that the […]

Video games -> Conspiracy theories?

Video games -> Conspiracy theories?

Yesterday’s New York Times included an article regarding the suspect in the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. David DePape, the suspect in the attack against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, apparently “had an obsession with video games as a boy.” At a low point in life, DePape “retreated into isolation, spending hours each day in the […]

New Pokemon Game facing performance issues – is this false advertising?

New Pokemon Game facing performance issues – is this false advertising?

The new entries into the main-series Pokemon franchise, Scarlet & Violet, officially release worldwide tomorrow but with reviews starting to be released, there seem to be one main sentiment emerging: the current Nintendo Switch console has difficulty processing the game. Frame-rate drops, leading to visuals and characters resembling still photos more than active pieces of […]

Pokemon dethroned?

Pokemon dethroned?

Japan’s game industry has seen some change over the past months — while the Pokemon games have been been the best-selling games since the 90’s, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) has displaced their long reign and has become the most sold game according to Nintendo’s latest financial report. The success of ACNH can be heavily […]

“Contract Jail” in Esports

“Contract Jail” in Esports

After the League of Legends World Championship concluded, many of the pro esports teams have begun to restructure their rosters for the next season. Restructuring in this sense refers to adding players that have performed well and dropping/benching players that have not performed well. A recent topic of conversation has been the way that one […]

Call of Duty Moderators Can Permanently Mute Toxic Players

Call of Duty Moderators Can Permanently Mute Toxic Players

More on Call of Duty, and in follow up to the previous post about Call of Duty’s Code of Conduct, I found it interesting to see recent articles about Activision adding a system where moderators can permanently mute toxic players with its new “overhauled” reporting system. Players being muted on text and chat functions is […]

Call of Duty removing maps due to their similarity with real life places?

Call of Duty removing maps due to their similarity with real life places?

Modern Warfare 2 (2022) just released a few weeks ago. Many players are upset that a map (and supposedly another is about to be removed for similar reasons) in the multiplayer was removed due to legal issues. For reference, a map is the virtual battleground that multiplayer matches are played on, typically the game has […]

Founder of Oculus Creates Murderous VR Headset

Founder of Oculus Creates Murderous VR Headset

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/11/08/oculus-founder-makes-vr-headset-that-will-actually-kill-you-if-you-die-in-a-game/?sh=1e3d07c75a16 Founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, announced that he has created a custom VR headset that will kill the user if they were to die in a game they are playing. The headset has charges that will explode upon death of the player which will result in the “destroying the brain of the user”. I […]

The Chronicles of Elyria Lawsuit and its Virtual Real Estate Controversy

The Chronicles of Elyria Lawsuit and its Virtual Real Estate Controversy

On October 3, 2022 the United States District Court, Western District of Washington dismissed a class action complaint made by lead plaintiff James Falls against Soulbound Studios LLC, the developer of a would-be MMO  Chronicles of Elyria. Falls spent over $20,000 on in-game content in support of the development of the game, which was cancelled […]