Tag: australia

New VR, Metaverse Flops, NSFW Squids, and AGDA Winners

Valve VR

Valve has posted a job listing. Nothing new, except that it gives us a hint of what’s to come, with the listing looking for someone to ‘prototype, ship, and support’ a virtual reality headset, saying “At Valve, we are pushing the boundaries of virtual reality experiences… The main scope of this position is to prototype, ship, and support consumer gaming products leveraging visual-inertial tracking, camera passthrough, environment understanding, eye tracking, and hand tracking.”

This certainly isn’t Valve’s first foray into VR, but it does signal a push to get ahead in the VR headset market.

Metaverse Isn’t Popular

Decentraland, a Metaverse project, hasn’t exactly been flourishing. It’s a sandbox environment where users can buy and sell virtual real estate, and has a market cap of $1.2 billion. The number of active users over a 24 hour period? 38.

Dencentraland do point out that active users are defined as unique blockchain wallet addresses, which leaves out users who just use it as a place to socialise and hang out, which may bring numbers up to 8000 users per day.

Doom’s On Notepad Now

You’ve seen Doom on PC, consoles, calculators, pregnancy tests, and more. Now get ready for 60 frames per second Doom gameplay in notepad, the very same notepad you have at home. It is playable, using text to create the visuals, much like ASCII art. In very quick, simplified terms, notepad is being used as a monitor, with other software running in the background doing the hard work.

Splatoon Gets a Bit… Rowdy

Nintendo had to release a public statement recently, reminding players of Nintendo’s streaming guidelines, and more specifically, how open streamers are to legal actions. Why? Streamers had started a trend of using chroma-key to superimpose explicit adult videos over the enemy’s ink, essentially treating it as a kind of greenscreen.

As it goes against Nintendo’s streaming guidelines, they can now take down posts, videos, and streams, and even pursue legal action.

AGDA Winners

The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association has announced the winners of the 2022 Australian Game Developer Awards. Judging goes through 70 game industry professionals, with winners from 13 categories announced, plus an additional 4 cultural awards, resulting in this year’s awards being filled with the highlights of what Australia has to offer.

Cult of the Lamb has left with four awards, including Game of the Year.

Julian Wilton, Creative Director of Massive Monster, says “After experiencing our success overseas, it was an amazing feeling to see our game really resonate with Australians as well. We received such strong support locally and we love that it’s being enjoyed, not just for the gameplay, but also for the art and music.”

Raymond Corrigan, the creator of Earthlingo, won the Rising Star award.

Ryan McMahon, art director at Playside Studios, won the Ambition award.

Clara Reeves, CEO of Hipster Whale, has been recognised for her ongoing contributions to the Australian games industry with the Adam Lancman award.

Gameloft Brisbane has come away with the last cultural award with the Studio of the Year award.

And now for some upcoming games!

October 13

  • The Case of the Golden Idol – PC
  • The Darkest Tales – PC, XBO, Switch
  • The Eternal Cylinder – PS5, XSX
  • Fueled Up – PC, PS4, XBO
  • GOAL! The Club Manager – PC
  • Kao the Kangaroo: Oh! Well DLC – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
  • Lost Eidolons – PC
  • Sunday Gold – PC
  • Triangle Strategy – PC
  • Trifox – Switch
  • Winter Games 2023 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

October 14

  • Dragon Ball: The Breakers – PC, PS4, XBO, Switch
  • NHL 23 – PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
  • No More Heroes 3 – PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
  • PGA Tour 2K23 Standard Edition – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
  • Saint Kotar – PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
  • Scorn – PC, XSX
  • Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival – Switch
  • Trifox – PC, XSX, XBO

October 17

  • Destiny’s Sword – PC

October 18

  • A Plague Tale: Requiem – PC, XSX, PS5, Switch
  • Amberial Dreams – PC
  • Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
  • Marvel Snap – PC
  • Them’s Fightin’ Herds – PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

October 19

  • The Last Hero of Nostalgaia – PC, XSX, XBO
  • The Last Worker – PC
  • Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection – PC
  • The Valiant – PC

October 20

  • Batora: Lost Haven – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
  • Hell is Others – PC
  • The Jackbox Party Pack 9 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
  • Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope – Switch
  • The Pegasus Expedition – PC
  • Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

Activision Blizzard Settles with EEOC, Xbox Cloud Coming to Oz, & Game Trials Coming to UK

Activision Blizzard strikes $18 million settlement with US employment watchdog
Less than a day after the federal lawsuit from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the $18 million settlement, subject to court approval, will be used for payments to employees who have experienced sexual harassment, sex discrimination or retaliation while working at the Californian video game publisher.
Any remaining funds will be split “between charities that advance women in the video game industry or promote awareness around harassment and gender equality issues” Activision Blizzard said in a statement. This settlement is separate from a lawsuit filed in July by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against the publisher.

Microsoft launches cloud gaming in Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Mexico
After several months of testing, Xbox Cloud Gaming has been released in 4 more countries, expanding the service to 26 in total. This service allows members of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate access to over 100 titles over the cloud, meaning that you can stream titles such as Gears 5 or Sea of Thieves on something as simple as an android or apple device. No hardcore gaming PC’s or consoles required!
“Since cloud gaming is powered by custom Xbox Series X consoles, that means these games are being played by an Xbox in the cloud, bringing faster load times and improved frame rates to the gameplay experience” Catherine Gluckstein, Microsoft’s head of Project xCloud.

Playstation introduces a new feature – Game Trials
Sony has introduced an interesting new feature this week in the UK, offering timed trials on selected Playstation 5 titles. At this stage only two games, Death Stranding Director’s Cut, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are included, allowing players 5 to 6 hours to try them out before making the decision to purchase.
The feature is limited to Playstation 5 users, and can only be used once per account, per game. Should this feature make its way to our shores, there is one problem, the trial starts when you click download. Given our average internet speeds, that could pose a problem for some gamers.

Upcoming Gaming Releases
October 7
   • Age of Darkness: Final Stand
   • Far Cry 6
   • The Lightbringer
   • Moonglow Bay

October 8
   • Knockout Home Fitness
   • Lego Marvel Super Heroes
   • Metroid Dread
   • Tetris Effect: Connected
   • Nintendo Switch OLED

October 11
   • Book of Travels

October 12
   • Back 4 Blood
   • Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
   • Ori: The Collection

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 205

205

Dom and Chris of Ghostbox drop in to talk about their latest game, Dragon Season (Android/iOS). We discuss the unlikely origins of the game and talk about how some of the key features were conceptualised.

Jody and Candi review Freedom Fall, a “platform game set in a wickedly dark fairy tale”.

In studio: Razor, Jody Macgregor & Candi.

Aired 5 February 2014

Zed Games Podcast – Episode 205

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