Warcraft 3 Reforged is not having a good time with users:
Warcraft 3: Reforged has arrived! Yay! Or not yay. The game itself has been reviewed well enough, but the real issues started once regular ole people, and mega-fans, got their hands on the thing and discovered that all those things they’d been promised, like new features and upgraded cinematics, were absent from the game. People were not very happy to say the least.
This game was pegged as a complete overhaul of the classic 2002 game, with both the Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne features and campaigns, and instead it’s been described as more of a remaster rather than a remake of the classic game. Now, full disclosure I’m one of those old-school Warcraft 3 mega-fans, but the original game still works just fine on my PC and so I saw no need to get this game (and still don’t), but a lot of other people definitely did want this game. They wanted it and they wanted what they were promised, and because of that the game got the worst Metacritic score of any game ever. It has a score of 0.5, at time of writing, out of a possible 10. So not so great.
Blizzard has come out to apologise, but also to make some excuses about why certain features aren’t in the game, and so it’s pretty much a non-apology in many ways. The company does seem to be offering instant refunds though, because Blizzard needs to get at least some positive press out of this whole debacle. The company has been riding high since the fantastic success of World of Warcraft Classic, and so probably thought this remaster of a classic game would net similar praise. They thought wrong.
Also, because it’s constantly worth noting, the company still hasn’t apologised for banning Blitzchung, the Hearthstone pro, for standing in solidarity with Hong Kong protesters. Blizzard still hasn’t apologised and still hasn’t taken a proper stance there either. So that’s something worth reminding everyone about whenever Blizzard does something good or bad.
Sources:
- Eurogamer – Warcraft 3 Reforged is the lowest user-scored game on Metacritic
- Eurogamer – Blizzard addresses fan complaints following controversial Warcraft 3: Reforged launched
- Eurogamer – Blizzard changes refund policy for Warcraft 3: Reforged to allow refunds upon request
- IGN – Blizzard responds to Warcraft 3: Reforged fan feedback
- IGN – Blizzard changes refund policy for Warcraft 3: Reforged
- Kotaku – WarCraft 3’s remaster is so unpopular Blizzard is offering instant refunds [update: Blizzard responds]
- Polygon – Blizzard is offering automatic refunds for Warcraft 3: Reforged
- Polygon – Blizzard apologises for the condition of Warcraft 3: Reforged, promises action
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun – Blizzard are fixingsome Warcraft 3: Reforged problems, but don’t expect dramatic changes
- VG247 – Warcraft 3 Reforged is not the disaster you think it is
- VG247 – Blizzard on Warcraft 3: Reforged’s cutscenes: “We did not want [them] to steer too far from the original”
Dan Houser is leaving Rockstar:
Dan Houser, one of the people who co-founded Rockstar and then went on to be the head writer on almost every Rockstar game, such as the GTA games, Red Dead Redemption, Bully, et cetera, is going to be leaving Rockstar on 11 March 2020. This news first came through an SEC filing by Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive, but has now been officially confirmed and commented on by Rockstar itself.
The man has been at Rockstar since the beginning, and that was more than twenty years ago, and since then he’s done remarkably well for himself. His games have garnered critical and commercial success, but he’s finally moving on. There’s no real news on where he’s heading off to, but he’s been on break from the company since spring 2019 and plans on extending that break until… forever.
The company was quick to come out and say that his brother, Sam Houser, who’s another co-founder and has also been there since the beginning, is still sticking around at the company. So there’s still gonna be a Houser around but it’s not the writer one, and that should make things interesting going forward because Dan Houser has been a major creative force at the company throughout its successful run. So let’s see how their future projects turn out.
Sources:
- Eurogamer – Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser is leaving the company in March
- Gamasutra – Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser is leaving the studio
- IGN – Rockstar co-founder and GTA writer Dan Houser leaves company [update]
- Kotaku – Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser is leaving the company
- Polygon – Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser leaving the company
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun – Rockstar co-founder and head writer Dan Houser is leaving
- VG247 – Rockstar writer and co-founder Dan Houser won’t be around for GTA 6 – he’s leaving
More male domination announced in UK game industry:
The video game lobbying group UKIE, the UK’s version of the ESA, backed a report by the University of Sheffield to see whether diversity had taken root at all in the UK’s game industry. Some of the results are a bit more on the side of surprising, but many of them are to be expected, especially the continued dominance of male workers in the industry.
Men continue to dominate by making up 70% of the total workforce, and that’s, sadly, not a surprise at all. What’s also to be expected, but was lower than I was personally expecting (which makes it even more depressing), is that only 10% were black, Asian or of other minority ethnicities. Not so great, but there are more LGBTQIA+ people than you might expect with them making up 21%.
Then it came to the hours. Hours, hours, hours. The sticking point of the industry. In an industry obsessed with crunch it’s nice to see that two thirds reported average work weeks of 33-40 hours, and only 3.5% reported 51 or more hours a week. A number that should be at zero, but we shouldn’t hope for miracles. Hopefully, the increased public pressure from the last few years has scared a few companies into laying off the crunch a bit. Hopefully.
Sources:
- The report
- Eurogamer – Report details how male-dominated the UK games industry still is
- Gamasutra – First ever UK Games Industry Census highlights need for more diversity
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun – UKIE report shows the UK games industry has an overwhelming lack of diversity
- VG247 – UK games industry is still dominated by white males, census reveals
Ubisoft plans to release five new AAA games in 2020-21:
Ubisoft, in its third quarter financials report, declared that its doings really well. Pretty much all the usual things you’d expect. Rainbox Six Siege is doing well, it reached record highs in December and it has 55 million registered users, Uplay and Uplay+ are getting even more support and engagement and of course, the thing that interests gamers the most, is that it’s releasing five AAA games over the next few years.
Three said games, Gods and Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine and Watch Dogs: Legion, are all coming in 2020 and there’s no real news on the others. Although it is nearly time for that reboot thing of Beyond and Evil, but we have no real info on that. So the whole report was essentially about how well the company’s doing. So that’s nice. At least the gigantic corporate entity is doing well.
Sources:
- Eurogamer – Ubisoft promises five triple-A games before April 2021
- IGN – Ubisoft confirms five AAA games planned for release in late 2020, early 2021
- VG247 – Ubisoft still plans to release “five new triple-A games” in 2020-21 – Q3 financials
Steam set a new concurrent player record:
Valve is probably pretty happy at the moment seeing as 2 February 2020 has been its best day yet in terms of concurrent players. The company’s last record-breaking concurrent player count was from January 2018, and so despite the Epic Games Store and everything else, Steam is still going along and raking in some record numbers.
This record is also particularly interesting because the high surge doesn’t seem to have been in response to anything. The platform just naturally had a peak player count, and that’s good news for Valve, because ever since the Epic Games Store came along the company has had some real competition for the first time ever. We’ll have to see if this trend continues or if Steam will eventually start going the way of the dodo.
Sources:
- SteamDB
- Eurogamer – Steam just hit a record-breaking 18.8 concurrent users
- VG247 – Steam has set a record after hitting its highest player-count ever