Lemmie tell ya bout 'Tegrity

You know, there ain't a lotta respect going around these days within the gaming community. Creator's don't respect audiences, audiences in kind disrespect creators- devs are disrespected, community managers disrespect and under it all Journalists are the walking mats of the world. But then, Journalists have kind of earned that reputation for themselves. I remember reading a funny article wherein an obstinate little word jockey, whom I can assume comes equipped with a permanent raised eyebrow, insisted it was 'time to trust game Journalists again' because they actually are good at the games the play and actually- they're better than you, when they're not too busy to play the games of course. His evidence? Well, they navigate around these complex and often confusing games before they hit the mainstream without guides or walkthroughs, all with a deadline to meet and nothing but themselves and that massive intellect to guide them. (Guess he just conveniently forgot about the 'press guides' that review copies for games come distributed with in order to ensure that press can beat products before review embargo's lift, huh?)

But the funny thing about respect is that thing is such a slippery little eel to handle- it jumps outta your grasp every other day and there ain't typically a thing to do about it. And when that bugger is gone it's staying gone, cause that's the nature of the beast. Hard won, easily lost. And in order to retain respect, in order to remain with that high regard that earns the deference of those new and old, you have to have yourself a little thing called 'Tegrity. Now, 'Tegrity is all about a few key things. It's about being trustworthy. It's about being respectful yourself. It's about having the wisdom to decide beyond yourself. It's about putting back into the world more than you take. And now we've done talked about 'Tegrity, let me tell about how you lose it.

Now Valve ain't really a game development company. Not anymore. They had those days and they rocked those days with classic titles that still receive plaudits to this day but ever since the rise of Steam that really became their end point. Now they provide the most trusted launcher in the industry and facilitate a near unmatched market dominance. Actually, I think I'm being equitable as a lawyer would be with that statement- Valve is unmatched, at least on the PC market. Which is why it always comes across a bit weird whenever they actually put out a game developed in house by Valve. Like, do they even have game developers working there anymore? If so- why? What do those developers do 90% of the year? Contract out to other studios who actually make games?

It's within this light that many found the apparent open secret of Valve's next game somewhat amusing. Deadlock, as it has known to be called for that was how it was listed within Valve's own tracking software, has been playtested extensively over the past few months, has it's own reddit already open and just ran a closed beta. All before the thing has even been officially announced. In fact, some wonder if the game will ever be announced, or if it will just remain an open secret shared about by those in the know. A kind of cool-kids-club faux-exclusive story that naturally spreads by word for the very nature of who is involved and how atypically it's being handled. That vague and leak-culture-strewn mystery is it's greatest marketing gimmick. So trust some spotty, sweaty journalist to ruin everyone's fun with their stink.

Yes there was a closed beta event wherein many people from outside of the professional scene were invited to try out this new moba-esque hero-based game before so much as an announcement trailer had been cobbled together- and some of those invites went to journalists. Now there was an expectation to keep hush, hush for the sake of the bit- but no actual legal requirements were placed upon the event. No NDA. Just good old fashion honour. Well for gods sake never give a content hungry journalist a choice between good taste and a paycheck- because within hours an article was out detailing as much as humanly possible about Deadlock in a desperate bid for first story rights.

Now as many have argued- there was nothing legally binding anyone not to come out and talk about this game- but that was kind of the point. Valve seemed to be fostering this kind of 'outside the traditional media style of marketing were details about how the game played or what it even was trickled organically from community to community as people put this game together. Which means there's nothing implicitly illegal about a big journalist man slapping an article taking ownership of narrative with a shoddy article. But it's not really all that tasteful, is it? Doesn't really ring with any 'Tergrity, now does it? Knowing that when given a choice between taste and short-term profit the question of not reporting did not so much as cost this journalist's mind.

Of course I totally understand that so may look at my take on this matter and call me unrealistic for believing that a journalist with this sort of information at his disposal is not going to panic post in before some one else gets that scoop. But maybe I just a bit too much expected regard for the games journalism community to assume some small measure of nuance enters in the community when it comes to decision making. We're rarely dealing with life or death scenes in this industry and so much of the traditional journalistic code doesn't really come into play during the day-to-day. Which leaves the question of basic recognisable concepts of raw humanity- most of which have appeared to be entirely foreign to your everyday game journalist because lets me honest here- most don't really care beyond their weekly output. 

It's a small matter, I understand that. But the world of game's journalist is combined of purely 'small matters' that makes me wonder why there's even the expectation of this thing called 'respect' around an industry that clearly refuses to foster it. Those that actually benefit this space with either insight commentary or genuine journalistic work don't even work at any of the big gaming-centric companies but instead ply their trade for real news sites that happen to have gaming-poised departments. It's just a sorry state made ever more sorry and pathetic by the general gross sliminess encouraged by the daily going ons. All because we abandoned our 'Tergity. 

Valve: The Unicorn game developer

 Shooting stars are more regular

If we were to look at pure numbers, cold and calculating people that we are, then it would be pretty obvious to one and all that Valve, the big boys themselves, are perhaps one of the biggest game companies on the planet for how many people flock to their platform on a daily basis. They're like the solitary sparkling Oasis in the sandy dunes, set in a excruciatingly delicate garden half-weeded to eye-watering perfection, and half totally left to the brambles, weeds and asset-flip dandelions. (I hate Dandelions.) But for all their fame and size, Valve make precious little effort to really assert their position in the games industry to, you know, actually make games. In fact, Valve are pretty much content to let their library ride whilst they get rich off the backs of every other two-bit developer in the world that come scrabbling up to their doors in order to peddle some vial of snake oil. 

And this isn't because Valve themselves are solely a platform-delivery company. Sure, that's what their company has largely pivoted to after decades of supporting Steam, (I can officially say 'Decades' now, it launched on September 13th.) but their company used to make games. In fact, they used to make the best games. Titles that totally rewrote what the industry was working with at the time, the way they utilised new technology in order to craft ever-green works of art has laid the foundations of inspiration for hordes of indie to mid-level studios since. Valve is a company that never lost sight of the 'game' at the start of all gaming, and that ended up making them absolute legends in the industry, which they then utilised to make all the money in the world. At this point I honestly wonder if Steam technically has more purchasing power than even the anarchic cold terror of from the sightless seas- Embracer Group, only perhaps Valve covet the sense not to waste their funds and pointless frivolities swooping up game studios like their trying to complete a Game Dev Pokedex.

So we know how this story goes, don't we? Scrappy studio with a heart of gold struggles and pushes their way to the top of the pack through years of iteration. The devs pat themselves on the back for finally reaching the height of the swing, and then as dissatisfaction with the size of the family starts gnawing at their pride, that dream team starts drifting off into smaller indie companies- addicted to the fight for the top. Management and founders stay with what they built and try to instil the same passions and hungry exuberance from all the sparkly-eyed new developers who signed up in reverence, only to find that the well-fed mouse to lack the same 'do or die' risk-taking drive of the rats fighting for food scraps. And so the unique little spark of creativity fades into a meek settling pattern, and a company once brimming with identity and purpose becomes chained in the prison of trying to match their faded selves. That's what happened to Valve, right?

Oh wait, no. It really seems that Valve just don't want to make games. Because when they are roused from their slumber across their dragon's hoard of market dominance by the shiny new treasure, the burgeoning world of VR, Valve waste no time in getting to work showing the world how it's done. When everybody was using VR to make quaint little experience pieces or port normally non-VR games into a VR format- (which has generally been the only solid type of VR game out there) the team at Valve came back together to blow everyone away with 'Half Life: Alyx'- the undisputed king of VR that made full use of the format, rode the very cusp of the technological wave and set an example that subsequent VR games are still trying to match today! They've still got it. When they want to.

This whole topic came to mind this morning when I woke up to the truly startling news that there was going to be a prequel chapter to Portal 2 releasing in the new year. "What a gift!" I thought, "A franchise some twelve years dormant finally getting what it deserves with some love from it's parent! Who could wish for a better way to wake up!" And I, like many others, love the crisp and meticulous puzzler wrapped in the officious style of an explorative mystery game, but without losing itself to metatextual philosophy like so many of the games it would go on to inspire often do. "No offence 'Turing Test' but you seriously diminish replayability rambling on like that." Of course, I was a rube like so many others, Portal 2 is not getting a prequel from Valve and is, in fact, still in process of gathering dust in their vault, right next to Disney's.

As you've likely guessed, this is a fans work to bring more life to the classic genre definer, and in that respect it is impressive in it's own right- but it's no Valve update. Valve actually stepping up to work on their evergreen properties is like spotting a Shiny Legendary Pokemon in a Master Ball with Perfect IVs- naturally spawned. That's what makes them Unicorn developers in my mind, you just never get the chance to see them work more than once a decade, and certain franchise lovers never get to see a follow-up. But then they aren't happy letting things lie, either. They want the mythos of their being to grow hit from longing. Why else would 'Half-Life: Alyx' contribute almost nothing to the overall narrative of 'Half Life' for all of it's runtime until the very last moment of pulling some momentous retcon that set fans ablaze. They feed the cryptid legend, keep people believing in the tooth fairy.

Now one theory I have of this; is that they are a victim of their own reputation. At this point it just really isn't possible for Valve to come out and make a straight sequel to a game like any other developer might. They came from an age of innovation constantly throughout game development, and they just happened to be equipped with a team of some of the most adventurous programmers to take advantage of that explorative developing age. Modern game dev-ing has already pushed all the limits, taking technology and manpower and funding to the very tips of possibility, and technological innovation is sparse. If Valve want to maintain their reputation, as needle pushers, they have to become so much more discerning about when they surface and which needles they want to tip. Hence the mysterious aura of the Unicorn.

So I guess that means one can both never be too sure when we'll ever seen another glimpse of their development talents, and also can't be entirely certainly they'll ever actually see them again with how the world of development stays stubbornly static with only brief stabs of excitement. Maybe once AI development becomes more robust we'll get a Portal 2.5 to warm us on cold nights, but until then we'll have to be our own friends. Of course, this does make Valve probably the worst narrative-based developers of all time- because they care more about all the details around a story rather than the story itself, but it sure does make them unendingly respected in an industry rife with old heroes living long enough to see themselves become the villains. So I guess that's worked out for the team at the very least, huh.

Indonesia Steam ban

Circling the drain

Who would have thought that as the modern age rolls around free and equitable access to video games would become less and less spread across the countries of the world? Like a backwards progression of availability as all of humanity slowly reverts into it's base most form, first China pulls back on the gaming market so hard that Steam might as well not exist in that country, than Russia is heavily restricted for reasons that should be fairly obvious, and now Indonesia has followed suit for reasons not quite nearly as obvious. One might feel warranted in donning the hat of speculation and wondering where exactly all this is going to stop! In this age of conflict and strife, how cruel does one have to be to try and deprive enjoyment from their few citizens who have the time to game? At least China has a, intellectually bankrupt, reason for their banning's; but considering China kinda has a history for making sweeping polices that are utterly uniformed and obviously disastrous, maybe that isn't the model you want to be emulating.

But indeed, over the past week we've seen bans rather suddenly descend upon the likes of Steam, Epic Games, Paypal, Battle.Net, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Origin and Yahoo. (Oh god; not Yahoo! Who will I consult for answers now? I jest, of course; that service is long dead...) At least, it was all rather sudden for the consumers who had no real warning to start backing up their games, or... honestly I don't really know what you do about losing Paypal. (That's more than a kick to the balls, that's a knife to the testes.) For the Indonesian Government this was probably a very drawn out and frustrating affair with a clear deadline laid out ages ago that a big portion of huge online companies just simply ignored. And the companies themselves, well they must have had some inkling that services would be revoked and yet refrained to tell their consumers until the date was upon them. What I'm saying is that this was a communal week of bad choices all around.

As gaming sites are reporting it (I'm referring to PCgamer for their succinct summary of the situation) this comes as the consequence of a law passed two years ago that requires online platforms to summit user data to the government and comply with Indonesian take down requests for unlawful content. Which seems... utterly misguided and shortsighted but at least their heart is in the right pl- oh wait, and content that "disturbs public order"? Yeah, that's some straight dystopian talk right there, no wonder people didn't want to comply. This actually reminds me of a certain law that passed down here in England at one of the many heights of public distress against our government, when an overnight law was passed to prevent 'loud protest' outside the House of Commons. 'Disturbing public order' so easily leads into 'silencing dissenters' that the mere performative action of referring to it as such is a sheer insult. I don't care how 'well intentioned' and 'morally strong' someone claims these orders to be, if the current administration doesn't exploit it, a following one will. It's a game of when, not if; and the only way to win is to not give them the playing pieces.

And this is absolutely a hill worth dying on, when it comes to discourse, at least. (This should never have gone as far as outright bans. Paypal was banned so abruptly that the government had to temporarily unban it to let people get their money out. Clear evidence how horrible of an idea this is.) If there's one thing that co-existing with the terminally greedy has taught me, it's that if you give an inch you'll lose the country side. The second that Indonesia gets away with juggling user data at will and banning 'objectionable content', everyone is going to want in on that band wagon. Which is to say nothing about the very idea of handing out User Data, which is not only a huge personal violation, but also just not in the best sound interests of the companies who manage them.

I have to be honest, I know nothing about Indonesia and how they run their government, nor would I make any suppositions even if I did; this isn't a blog for that sort of stuff; but I know a fair bit about optics, albeit through the eyes of the entertainment industry, and this ain't good. The Indonesian public are already taking to Twitter to voice their utmost displeasure, as so they should having so many liberties wrest from them in a cynical power move by government officials. But the disgrace spreads even further. To the outside world looking in, this sounds like the beginnings of a twist towards nanny state regulating; and being from England trust me when I say we know all about over regulation. It's a constant struggle to defang overzealous regulators most of the time over here.

But whereas you might think this was some sort of grand standing kick-back statement by these companies, a conclusion I even tried to lead you towards with my own carefully placed rhetoric. (What do you mean I misunderstand the definition of 'careful'? Why I oughta...) I have some sobering news for everyone. Much as I suspected when I first read the details behind this, in truth the problem is that none of the companies got the memo that this was happening, not that they objected to the increadibly questionable stance of these laws and the provisions they force upon website providers. I can say this with confidence because Steam, not too long after their ban, turned around and signed up for the program without kicking up a fuss. As did Paypal and, thank god, Yahoo.

You see, when it's all said and done none of these companies wants to accept any more responsibility than they absolutely have to; and if that means ratifying and justifying increadibly suspect terms just so that they continue business they'll bite each other's arms off for that opportunity. Yes, there's no such thing as moral upstanding; unless you literally declare war because that's just plain bad for business. Fiduciary duties cut above all else. It's just funny to acknowledge the fact that Indonesia published this little questionable snippet into their law books and it would have gone pretty much entirely unnoticed by most people if it hadn't been for this abrupt kerfuffle. One might even suppose that maybe some of these companies intentionally bungled the dates they had to sign up to this law in order to draw attention to it's contents. That's bunk, though; they were just lazy.

There's no such thing as mister good guy business who's there for you and has your back, and there's no shades of grey in this morality tale. It's all muddy brown for the faeces stains the represent all the crap we have passed off onto us because everyone with the wealth and size to do something and make a stand don't give a damn to. Steam is back and functional, which means that will be the end of this conversation in the eyes of the many, and Steam will pretend it never had anything concerning grace their desks and reap all the free publicity. Just like when they 'banned' NFT games but really just banned integration with their API; not caring even slightly for Steam games that use NFTs outside of their API. No one's on your side, that's just the truth of it.

The Wake of Team Fortress 2

 Hope you prepared a speech.

When we think about what we come to know as the Legends of the video game industry, few games out there who have lived as long as Team Fortress 2 has. Team Fortress 1? Never heard of it, couldn't pick it out from a line up? Mario? The guy has some staying power, but people go back to his games out of nostalgia, not to be routinely challenged. (That's what Kaizo and Cat Mario reimaginings are for) Counter-Strike? Well that is a game with some hefty legs on it but even then, TF2 beats it in the long stride by a clear stretch of 5 or so years. We're talking an online multiplayer shooter that has remained active and played throughout the entire lifespan of some newer online games in recent years. Elder Scrolls Legends lived and died, Anthem came and went, every Call of Duty since Modern Warfare has expended countless online lifecycles (with obvious exception to Warzone), and all the while Team Fortress 2 has remained open for business, run by the enigmatic purview of what I can only assume is an obsessive yet detached online AI operating system who lives to watch humans whittle away their lives killing themselves again and again in an online infrastructure that never significantly shifts.

It seems that TF2's lifespan is a spit in the face towards all the grounding core principals that modern gaming has established to determine what makes a long lasting online game stick. Especially in recent years with the whole 'live service' movement, everyone has been brainwashed into thinking that the only way a fanbase will put up for the long haul is if the game is inundated with new content every few months so that the game they play tomorrow is not the same as the one they own today. It is the philosophy of a huge sector of the industry, with entire studios now taking it as part-and-parcel that they'll have to shave off an active part of their operating structure to nobly warden over released Live Services whilst the rest of the team move on to newer shores. A genre that began being mocked as 'MMO light' in it's inception is now one of the core tenets of the industry.

But is that all a lie? I mean, Team Fortress 2 beats out the longest spawned Live Service style game ever, and that game is practically static and has been for large chunks of it's life. Sure it enjoys a few evergreen properties, from the subject of the gameplay (competitive team deathmatch never gets old) to the ageless cartoony visuals of the characters themselves. (No amount of Unreal Engine 5 power is going to render these models any better than they already are rendered.) 'Halo: Infinite' is sputtering and dying over the fact it's team can't squeeze out new comprehensive content within a 'reasonable' time frame, Overwatch, a game fashioned off of TF2 and thus sporting a similar but better realised visual style, has lost popularity so much that a proposed sequel is meeting with unimpressed scepticism following every review event. What made Team Fortress such a timeless franchise?

I think a lot of that comes from it's time and place in history, because it would be straight disingenuous to divorce nostalgia entirely from this equation. When Team Fortress 2 first launched it was at the height of Valve's popularity as a video game developer and everything they put out was destined to earn a legendary status. Remember this is a game that launched with the legendary Orange Box, a game collection that also featured 'Half Life 2: Episode Two' and 'Portal'; you could have shoved 'Ride To Hell: Retribution' into that package and it would have come away with fond well wishers all these years later. Back then Valve was the 'Rockstar' developer, the industry movers and shakers who's games were coveted by the vast majority of active gamers for the time, easily. Sure, the game industry and consumer base was a mere fraction of what it is today, but that just made it easier for a hit to bleed out of it's niche into the headlights of everyone who played games. TF2 was a legend before it ever had serious competition to fight for that title.

Which is what makes it all the sadder that after all this time, that game is dying. Remember when I hypothesised that Team Fortress 2 was overseen by an apathetic AI? Well just like another AI from popular culture, GLaDOS, this is a caretaker who has happily and uncaring watched the ecosystem and viability of Team Fortress 2 rot from the inside out with a detached professionalism and utter lack of interjection. Because you see, Team Fortress 2 isn't dying because the world has moved on from it, as is is destined one day, for sure. Team Fortress 2 is dying because it is a garden without any gardeners, with pervasive weeds that have spread and embedded themselves in every nook and cranny, sucking the life out of the expected crop and strangling the remaining community until they leave. Team Fortress 2 is another one of Valve's dirty little after thoughts.

Bots have overrun the Team Fortress 2 ecosystem with a vengeance, to a point where most people literally cannot find a game free of virtual robot players hunting around the map, killing for orders long gone cold. They fill every public lobby, litter every public match, and make it impossible for players without a big enough gang to run their own matches, to have some casual fun with the game they love. And whatsmore, although Team Fortress 2 never enjoyed the breadth of regular new content that modern Live Service's demand in order to establish themselves, it did get the odd bit of small scale updates here and there, just to let the player base know that the team still cared. Maybe it would be a new set of hats for the public to hunt for and trade with, maybe it was a thematically tipped event, and if you were exceptionally lucky it might even be a rare new character, Just enough so that the game wasn't a completely forgotten liability. Until those updates dried up.

But TF2 is a monolith in the industry, and unlike many other titles who have sunk under such pressures, this is a game with community willing to band together and fight for their game. Fans of the beloved mainstay reached out to one another across the wide maw of the internet, on Twitter, Reddit and- well, mainly just those two platforms. (They're great for that whole 'reaching out' business afterall.) And they established between themselves a peaceful protest to ask Valve to return to the game they forgot and the fans they left behind. No angry picket fences, no overly verbal diatribes into the failings of the gaming giant; just a demonstrative coming together of fans across the Internet to show everyone exactly what they're missing by letting the TF2 community be drowned in this deluge of inequity. And you know what; they actually got themselves a response!

I mean it was a pitiful and non-committal sliver of a response. Valve's lazy equivalent of 'we see your feedback'; but that's better than nothing at all! And how could they not respond when a surge of another 10 000 players logged onto the game at the same time to... just stand around in the lobby, I suppose? Nah, they could probably organise some private games between them, right? Have some fun?  Regardless, the community proved that they cared about the game and Valve can see that. "We love this game and know you do, too" says the official TF2 Twitter. "We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things." So that's... well it's lip service but that's a milestone and a half. Given that this is a game that averages about 70,000 players a month according to Steam Charts, it really is quite amazing the problem was allowed to get this bad to begin with. And if this influx of interest inspires Valve to start treating TF2 as an active franchise again, then maybe there's hope for any game out there. Maybe even for Anthem! (Hah- I'm kidding of course. Anthem will always be a lost cause.)

The Steam Deck

 The library in your hand

The history of handheld gaming is a long and perilous tale of false starts, shooting flares and almost total dominance from the Nintendo end of the market. Pretty much from the very second that Nintendo dips even the slightest foot into the handheld market they instantly become the undisputed champions of all they survey and everyone else who wants even a slice of that pie can just go wither. And a lot of that comes from Nintendo's size and market power, because creating a handheld device will always come with setbacks and limitations that require ports of games built specifically for these handhelds. Unless you're swinging the sort of income that Nintendo is, it's more likely that prospective handheld developers are going to cater to the team with the most spare revenue and audience, thus no one really had a chance in this market. The PS Vita had the staying power to hold on for a while, but distinct lack of support from Sony themselves killed off that dream. So if you want to compete on the handheld market you're going to need a console capable of securing as many ports as possible, to draw in a crowd, or simply make a machine powerful enough to play even more games than the Switch. Steam Deck, it seems, is heading the latter way.

That's right, like a Wrestling Heel in the twilight hours of that tournament bout he was eliminated from in the first round, the arbiters of PC are back around once again with a proposition that they know, this time, is going to just blow the market away. It has to, because the fact they haven't already is inexplicable. Valve have owned the PC gaming market for yonks, they know what gamers look for, putting out their own hardware shouldn't be this much of a hassle. And yet you've got the Steam Machine, a little box with limited support that, in hindsight, feels like an expensive beta test. The Steam controller, which seemed like it was poised to change the world, until it wasn't. And then there's the Valve Index, by all reports an absolute premium option to the VR world that works fantastically, but is prohibitively expensive and so will never win the common man over like the executives would want. What Valve needed was a middle ground, an affordable console with a great value proposition. And that seems to be where they're aiming right now.

Though I'm not a hardware enthusiast who can rattle on for ages and ages about 'console specs' and just how powerful my mean-bean machine is under the hood, I can at least follow along when Valve tell us that their inhouse technology has been constructed to play more than 8,000 titles. Wait, I even wrote that and I don't believe it. 8,000? Valve seems to be shooting for big AAA titles, which of course leaves room for all the smaller independent titles which, should the guys in the high tower wish it, this platform could become an absolute champion for. To their word it will run Doom Eternal, Control, Jedi Fallen Order, freakin' Death Stranding; and run these games in a screen decently bigger than the switches at a 720p resolution. The only downside being that there's no way for the footage to be instantly sent to a 1080p screen through  a dock. There is a dock, however, to which keyboards and alternate screens can be attached. (But it won't be instant and smooth, Valve wants us to 'take the initiative' or some such rot.)

That, honestly, is pretty impressive given that a lot of the games we see hit the Switch takes herculean efforts to port something that'll actually run on the piddly little thing. CD Projekt still insist their porting partners conversed with black devils in order to conjure up the Witcher 3 Switch port, yet apparently Valve can rock that game up to their machine with nary an effort. So how is it working? My first guess was game streaming, but that's apparently not the case; all these games are said to be native. (Which certainly speaks of a severe memory cap headed for excited future users) It's just a kickass machine built to run better than my gaming machine. (which isn't saying a great deal, considering my machine is held together by rubberbands and toothsticks.) And with that heft comes a hefty price, Newton laws dictate such, thus you're looking at 350 to 550 if you want PC gaming in the palm of your hands.

But in honesty, that isn't really all that bad at all. I mean, I couldn't source a PC for that money which could run all the games that this is said to be capable of, so something tells me that Steam is really taking a hit in the gut to be able to offer these prices and that makes them sort-of onpar with the recent next gen. (At least price wise. Again, not here to talk specs.) Oh, and if you're wondering why the price gap is so large, that 350 model only comes with 64 gig storage and not SSD. Basically meaning they'll be some AAA games that you just won't be able to play on it. (It's actually a little criminal that the base model doesn't have 256 gigs, anyone can see the way that game sizes have been ballooning in the past few years, this model could be practically nullified in less than two years time.) The big spenders get everything they could want, from 512 GB (still kinda skinny, I wonder if the Deck takes add-ons?) SSD, and a carry case. (As well as the longest wait, given how that version of the console is slated for late 2022)

And do you want to hear the best part of this console, at least to me? The fact that Valve are aware of potential scalpers and are making active attempts to cut them off at the pass. Can you believe that? When the big two companies are still doing nothing amid a wake of low stock numbers, Valve have done the bare minimum and made it so that brand new accounts can't mass pre-reserve copies for Ebay. I mean, that's happening anyway for whatever reason, but it's not an apocalyptic wave of resellers literally threatening to drown the market with scarcity. Now part of the reason this is possible is because Valve is handling purchases in house, but that's just more reason why it was stupid for the console developers to stop doing that. Shame on you Series X and PS5, you've been out-consoled by a PC store handler, shame on you.

Of course, for others the best part of the console will be getting the chance to play their massive steam libraries in a much more comfortable setting as they take their game with them, and these games are coming off of existing libraries, so you won't be forced to deal with insane handheld prices that dragon's like Nintendo force over their ecosystems. If only something could have been done about the design to make it less... objectively boring. Maybe add some colours, a little pattern on the back, some ergonomic handels, a maliciously sentient AI personality; I don't know, just give me some reason to put this on my desk with pride next to my Switch, instead of hiding it in my beside table alongside all those classic books I'm totally going to read one day. (I'm trying Tolkien, but you put in so many darn songs!) But if you've half a mind more than me and don't care about appearance, this does seem like the handheld solution that all those third party defenders have wanted to be for so very long. I wonder how the launch will inevitably bungle the whole thing up. (it's the way of things. It is- inevitable.)

Many will tell you that the reason why the Steam Deck is going to absolutely win this time around is because it's not competing with the Nintendo Switch, and whilst I don't think that's objectively untrue, I can see the argument. Nintendo have developed their niche and Steam is welcome to seek out theirs on the same platform, so long as they don't steer to closer to the plumber man's turf. I do see competition in the Steam Deck, but beyond all that I see potential, more than has ever existed for previous failed Valve ventures and more than Google Stadia ever had. I think it ties into the response, people seem eager to embrace this new handheld, excited for a new toy to play with, and that spirit of anticipation is just infectious even to lil ol' me who wouldn't pick up one of these if they were last weirdly affordable, undeniably powerful, proposedly comfortable Valve-branded boxes on the market. At least not yet, my vote is we give the things room to market to us before we start making advanced dinner plans and go picking out the bunting. But until then, quality first moves, Valve, lets see if they can keep their good string of press up until next year and the actual launch,

Oh, EA was hacked? I hardly noticed

 Let me fetch my Violin

Cybersecurity, the basis of many an instructional video and a topic being bought up with more and more frequency every passing day. If it isn't some huge company being blackmailed for bitcoin it's some even larger municipality breach that causes blackouts over half a city, or several cities in some cases. Just like the classic Ubisoft videogame Watch_Dogs, only if it actually lived up to the hype Ubisoft set for each entry. (We won't be 'hacking the planet' in those games anytime soon.) The message is clear, more and more the importance of staying cyber secure is ramping up as more nefarious parties conjure up new and exciting ways to breach into private data. Imagine the 90's race against virus's, only if the threat really was as scary as shysters like John McAfee and the like successfully make it out to be. And the best part of this virtual arms race? No one can be bothered to take the required Cybersecurity steps that they should. I can't. I'll bet you can't. And company's who make their living doing the absolute bare minimum wherever possible, such as EA, certainly aren't going to be doing it.

Yeah, you know where this is going don't you? Seems Aiden Pearce and crew made a little stop off to the EA offices in order to abscond away with a stupid amount of Data that they then went and tried to blackmail the company with. If this is given you any slight nagging of Deja Vu, that'll be because this exact same thing happened earlier on in the year with CD Projekt Red and the Source Code for Cyberpunk. Of course, they chose not to give into the hackers and nothing too bad came out of th- oh wait, somewhere in the source code it was discovered that CDPR had labelled all content that had to be censored for China with 'Winnie the Pooh'? Okay that's hilarious, but it also likely has cost them all future business in the entirety of China, or at least until their current head of state is replaced by someone without the self esteem of a highschooler. But EA aren't going to be that stupid, so what's the worst that could happen?

Well my suspicions were first raised when EA came out and assured everyone that there was no danger to players whatsoever. Which knowing EA probably means that the hackers have everything from EA player's home addresses to their banking details; they also claimed that the source code stolen doesn't hold any potential to hurt EA either, which is questionable. Okay, so apparently nothing that was taken is a danger to anyone? So EA just had 1.3 GB (once compressed) files worth of junk data lying around that some ne'er-do-well ran off with, presumably before checking the floppy disk and kicking a trash can whilst proclaiming "Curses! Foiled again. I'll get you next time, Andrew Wilson, Next time!" Who knew that EA were such Anime-level geniuses? You may pick up on the slight sarcasm in my tone and take that to mean I'm accusing EA of telling fibs, and I kind of am, but I'll believe them when they say the entire company isn't going to combust and fall apart from the hack. Sure enough.

Where I found myself utterly gobsmacked in this EA news, was where it was detailed that hackers tried to reach out to EA in order to demand a pay for the data back. First off, they tried to reach out through a third party they weren't associated with, obviously that wasn't going to work, what sort of reputation would be accrued by a company who goes around handing out ransom notes? Secondly, they tried to blackmail EA? Were they high? If ADVENT were to come to this timeline's Earth and start pulling off abductions, EA wouldn't even wait for the XCOM project to be activated, let alone for them to lose. EA CEO's would be selling off family members to the Aliens in order to curry favour and make a quick buck by the end of Week 1 at the latest. EA have no loyalties to any thing in this earthly existence beyond the mighty dollar bill. Who on earth thought they had a chance at blackmailing EA out of their money and where do I have to train to earn that level of numbskull confidence? 

So enough of taking EA's word for things, what exactly was effected by this hack? Oh well, just the source code for Frostbite game engine. You know, the game engine that EA mandates all of their games must run on no matter how badly it fits the genre? Just that engine. No biggie. As well as the Source codes for Battlefield, (no idea which ones) Star Wars Squadrons and, surprise surprise, Fifa? Oh god, no matter which year's Fifa they got, these hackers will have the source for at least the next fifty years of Fifa games, get ready for Fifa Online to get even worse than it already is. (Hacks are coming) Oh, and as a little Easter egg tucked in there, to make anyone smile, apparently the Anthem Source code was nicked too. Wow, that's the most attention that code has gotten in years. Heck, if that makes it into the public maybe those Anthem loyalists can get ahold of it and make Anthem into a better game than EA could. 

So I'll be honest with you, I couldn't really care less about EA in this story, they could have had their actual brains hacked off of their stems and I wouldn't shed a tear for those wastrels. What I think is more interesting is the trend of high profile hacks hitting game developers all over the place nowadays and the sort of trend which is being set up. I already mentioned Cyberpunk, but Capcom was hit with another big hack last year, which is how the existence of Dragon's Dogma 2 was revealed, alongside Nintendo, Valve and Ubisoft themselves. Now the sizes of these hacks vary, of course, but the result is still the same; confidence is being hurt across the board regarding the cyber savviness of an industry literally built around computers. If game companies can't keep out the hackers, who rightly can?

For the hackers themselves I'd imagine that what they seek is probably just a little fame and attention, because quite honestly no one in their right mind would expect to make a profit from an EA hack, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on. Keeping up a trend like this might really start to create an atmosphere of anxiety around the AAA studios, where people become actively worried that each new big release will attract some sort of Cyber attack. I know EA and friends have insisted that consumers aren't in trouble, and perhaps they're right about that this time; but all it takes is one unlucky hack to breach the wrong folder of some popular game and we could be looking at a catastrophe.

What I'm saying is that someone up in their multimillion dollar studios need to get it together, because I'm sitting here with shaken faith syndrome and I'm not even an investor. Most of these big names we see on the 'hacked' list are generating stupid money a month, EA in particular makes annual billions, is there any real excuse then why a group of basement-based hackers should be able to slip in their confidential files? Not really. But what do I know? From the way EA themselves have been spinning this lately, they make it sound like it's almost good for business to have this happen, so perhaps I'm just out of the loop and my depth on this topic. I'll admit that possibility. Or perhaps the gaming industry is proving itself to be easy targets for groups like this time and time again, and until something's done about it we'll be seeing more and more obstructing hacks until some form of, as of yet unknown, tipping point. Guess the Deep Web data-markets will decide when that happens, huh

Third Half-Life confirmed.

Couldn't resist.

Here's one of those long running gaming memes that you forgot about; "Half life 3 confirmed". For the longest time the Internet joked about the possibility of Valve overcoming their fear of the number 3 and finally finishing the story that they left unfinished with 'Half Life 2: Episode 2' back in 2007. It was a little inside joke between fans who tried to draw light from the throbbing pain that inflicts anyone who's presented with a story that has no ending. Everytime Valve so much as sneezed people would report about an imminent release, all the while knowing that the game would never come to fruition.

And how could it? In the beginning, Valve were very much credited as a game developer. Much in the style of the gaming companies that came before it, Valve knew that the best way to make money was to produce and sell quality games, and so they did that to great success. During their time as an active developer, Valve established a reputation for the development of cutting edge tech and software that pushed gaming tech leaps and bounds beyond where it was at. It is with the utmost sincerity that I assert that, without Valve, gaming would not be where it is today. However, I use the past tense appropriately as at some point Valve became aware of a much more profitable way to make their fortunes; by becoming a supplier.

Actually, that's a misnomer, they didn't just become a supplier, they were the supplier. Before Valve, PC games were almost all acquired as disks and downloaded onto a computer, similar to how consoles operate today, but that wouldn't be the case forever. After releasing their first dedicated online video game, 'Counter Strike: Global Offensive', Valve realized that they had an issue with updating the game for all users, and so they began development on a platform that would house all of their online products and unite them online, similar to how Battle.net worked with Diablo. This would allow for Valve to update their games regularly and quickly, allowing them to stay on top of anti-cheat measures and bugfixing. They called their baby; Steam.

During this time, Valve realized that they had a player base worth of individuals with high-speed Internet (around 75%, according to their own polls) and that number would only increase as broadband coverage began expanding worldwide. (An initiative that was being spearheaded by those early Internet providers who would become the titans they are today. I guess it pays to get in on the ground floor.) This showed them that their service had the potential to deliver game content directly to consumers without having to worry about traditional retail channels. As time went by Valve began requiring games to install the Steam client in order to play them, even with retail copies; a practice which, married with the high adoption rate of their quality games, meant that Steam was rapidly becoming a staple on all gamers computers. This was potential that would not go to waste as in 2005, Valve realized that they could retool Steam as a online retailer (Which was a novel concept back then) and started negotiating contracts to sell third party titles on their storefront. Steam began offering small titles from lesser known studios, but their success soon drew in the big boys like Id, Eidos and Capcom.

Throughout the long years of Valve's lifetime, many pretenders have tried to start up their own platform in competition, but until the Epic Store launched last year there were no serious competitors. (Yes, I know Origin and Uplay existed before then, but none served as replacements for Steam. And 'Microsoft Store' still kinda sucks.) This gave Valve the sort of market dominance that is typically illegal by most trade laws, but I guess they found a loophole around that. (Or trade laws are so lethargic that they still haven't caught up to Internet retailers yet, I dunno I ain't a lawyer.) And so for the last 15 years or so Steam has been making Valve money hand-over-fist, giving the former developer no further need to donate resources and talent towards making games, the money just rolled up to their door anyway.

Of course, the consequence of this was that Valve steadily began relenting on their video game development board until they stopped making games altogether. Development talent either shifted focus or moved onto other jobs and the beloved Valve franchises of yester-year (I.e. Half Life, Portal, Left 4 dead) were left by the wayside to gather dust. And yet, Valve were always adamant that this not the end for them. Never once did Valve officially announcement their departure from game development, despite it being bleeding obvious, and they never graciously licensed out any of their IP's to company's who would happily work on them. No, these were their babies and Valve would stick with them. Admittedly, Valve never could relay exactly what it would take to make the conditions 'just right' for them to create a new game, but they always kept the door open for themselves.

One thing that everyone always ensured to make abundantly clear about the future of Valve development, was that they were determined to put their Half-life development efforts behind some sort of brand new tech. (Just as Half-life 2 did with their groundbreaking inhouse physics engine) They didn't want Half-life to become another yearly franchise, chock-full of half baked releases. (Looking at you; Assassin's of Duty) Thier franchise stood for the name of innovation and that was a legacy they would not tarnish. With that in mind, most folk were certain that we would get some sort of Half-Life content in these late 2010's now with the advent of VR, but Valve sure did take their time. Even once commercial VR first started hitting shelves, eyes looked towards Valve for their grand resurgence, but we got nothing for so long that eventually we stopped paying attention. And that, apparently, was our own inattentive faults.

For you see, we exist in an auspicious age of wonder and magic, for that is the only possible excuse for the fact that Valve announced their return to game development and thier next Half-life game in the space of a couple days. (What a ride!) What we now have to look forward to is a VR exclusive Half-Life outing called 'Half-Life: Alyx' which looks to take place between the first and second game with series heroine Alyx Vance taking the lead for the first time. Of course, some folk are going to grumble about how this is both technically not Half-Life 3 (or Half-Life 2: Episode 3, to be precise) and the fact that this game will not resolve the decade long cliff hanger that fans have been waiting on; but it's a start, okay?

Not content with a mere announcement, Valve went out of their way to put together a brief trailer showing fans what they've been working on, presumably ever since VR Dev kits started being sent out. And the results are... incredibly impressive, honestly. 'Half-Life: Alyx' appears to be transcending the 'fixed movement' restriction that a lot of VR games have and allowing players freedom of movement in an environment that looks both loving rendered and particularly high poly for a VR title. The trailer even began with a little bit of active object physics to tease how the company hasn't forgotten their routes. Truth be told, if the final product turns out as polished as this trailer implies, we could be looking at a genuine VR system seller. (Never thought I'd say that.)

Everything about this trailer positively exudes 'quality' from the tight and fluid animation, clear textures and actual grand scale that appears to have gone into it. The amount of intricacy that goes into the loading of the weapons is impressive enough on it's own. Valve may have finally created the very first fully realized VR game that isn't a adaption of an existing title or is forced to take some sort of compromise in terms of gameplay. This is a game that promises to modernize Half-life, finally give G-man a new skin and push VR gaming into that place that everyone has been waiting for it to get to.

Valve haven't forgotten about their patented 'player first' approach either, with their early information on the title revealing how their game is designed to work for every kind of VR player. That means player's will be able to move using the traditional teleport functionality, the recently-popular shift mode, or the classic traditional movement through an analog's direction. This also bleeds into the room set-up which can be sitting down, standing up and in an open space and the controller style, which can be trigger based or utilize the finger tracking tech exclusive to Valve's own VR system; The Index. (Plus if you've already shelled out for the particularly expensive 'Index', you get 'Half-Life: Alyx for free, which is certainly nice.)

I've been a huge doubter for the VR movement ever since it's inception. There were always a few cool titles that I kept my eye on, but for the most part everything seemed to be little more then tech demos and showcases that weren't worth anyone's attention. (I even wrote an entire blog on that exact subject.) But some otherworldly force must have switched my consciousness in the night because I find myself uncharacteristically excited for this new VR future spearheaded by Valve. I know that seems a bit premature to say seeing as how we've only seen a single trailer, but this is clearly a project that Valve have taken great care in creating and, acknowledging their history for consistently creating high quality games, I believe in this project. I'll be watching this as it pans out like a hawk, but I must admit that a VR headset is looking like my next big purchase... (Not the Valve Index, though. Have you seen how much that thing costs? £1000 for a headset? Pfft! Who'd you think you're fooling? I'll just get the Quest or something...)

My Manuscript on the Monetisation of Modular Modifications

Take a little, give a little

Not too long ago I wrote a little piece about my opinion on mods; that practise wherein extra game content is made and played by members of the community without the involvement of the developers. In my years of active modding, I have found the experience to be involving and rewarding in providing scenarios that I could never have expected out of my favourite go-tos. Some games build entire communities around modding and others are maintained exclusively through the hard work of modders. All this perpetuates the spirit of sharing that dominated the philosophy behind, and the early life, of the Internet; wide spread sharing.

But it was not so long ago that the balance between creator and player was put in peril through the implementation of 'paid mods'. It has been a great many years since this incident and it feels as though the community's scars have mostly healed, the idea still lives on through a highly-curated storefront and most everyone has moved on. But as someone with far too much time on their hands, I find myself coming back to this time, now and again, tossing over this debate in my head. On one hand, some of these creators put in considerable amount of personal effort into creating fantastic content that sometimes surpasses the original creators; whilst on the other hand, the relationship fundamentally changes once money is involved. I find myself torn to this day. But let's ensure everyone is up to speed.

When I use the term 'Paid mods', I am specifically referring to the short-lived feature on Steam's personal mod hoster; Steam workshop. Valve wanted to try their hands at evolving this part of their service by including a paid mod feature, for which the platform would earn commission. In order to launch this in the strongest possible manner, Valve partnered with Bethesda in order to beta test this idea on, perhaps the single most modded game of all time, Skyrim. People have bought everything imaginable to Skyrim including, and I swear I'm making none of these up; Skyships, working wings, magic carpets, walking talking mushrooms, guns, a Super Mario land and a working train system. If any game was going to provide the perfect petridish of consumers to try out paid mods, it was going to be Skyrim.

Upon the first announcement, the reaction from the community was the very soul of conflicted. People spent their time discussing much of the same issues that I raised earlier; Some mods are so good that they deserve money but others simply don't. A lot of mod authors work on mods out of the love of the act, throwing money in there muddies the equation. And then there is the plain fact that when you try to throw a price tag on something that has always been free you'll get a lot of proud 'freeloaders' who don't want to hear about it. Few topics have wrought me to such a point where I find it impossible to pick a side, even just for myself. Valve and Bethesda watched all this discourse and then made the decision to go with it anyway. Afterall, this was a beta test, what was the worst that could happen?

In 2015, from April 25th to April 27th, (Right through my Birthday. Yay!) the paid mod service was up and running through Steam before being unceremoniously shut down. During that time, only 19 mods were made available to the public, with two being removed early due to copyright complaints, until the entire system was scrapped due to insurmountable backlash. We can still look back at the range of content available in order to get an idea for what we could have expected if they stuck with it. Chesko's Arissa was one the mods that I have actually played (when it was free.) Arissa is a well made, if short, companion mod that never got ported to Special Edition for some reason. Then there are some weapon mods, a few based of Valve properties (Dota 2 and Half life), a new location mod, a location redesign mod and a fishing overhaul.

As you can see there was nothing truly earth shattering in this initial rollout and as such we saw base prices fluctuate from $0.25 (For a sword) to $4.99 (For the companion). But the base price wasn't the be-all-end-all, because Valve introduced a pay-what-want system in order to allow purchasers to tip handsomely if they felt the content demanded it. This led to a slew misinformation campaigns, wherein people attempted to buy the fishing overhaul for $199, and then posted a screenshot of that price, pretending that is was the base. Efforts like this caused strain between the community and mod developers as unscrupulous elements tried to drum up false outrage. Valve and Bethesda likely saw the seeds of this behaviour and decided to pull out of the race quickly, in order to avoid causing lasting damage.

That doesn't mean that the practise went away, merely that they changed direction. (Here is were I start to get iffy about the whole scene.) Bethesda, independent of Valve, decided that they still wanted to try their hands at monetising mods, under creative supervision and protected through their storefront. In August, 2017, Bethesda introduced the 'Creation Club' into Fallout 4; a platform wherein minute pieces of content would be developed my Bethesda and certain partnered modders and then be sold for a small fixed fee. (Hello microtransactions.) The system was also included in their re-release of Skyrim; Skyrim: Special edition, at launch. At the time Bethesda sold this as a way to 'prepetuate your favourite games' but the general consensus is that this is an attempt to monetise an 8 year old game.

The Creation Club was created in order to ensure that all the content included in this new 'paid mod' initiative was entirely original and not pulled from being previously free. (Like a few of the original 19 were) This hasn't stopped accusations of plagiarism, like when they released 'Chinese stealth armour' and 'Enclave Hellfire Armour' for Fallout 4, not too long after an independent mod author had done so for free, but given that the assets do belong to Bethesda that argument didn't really hold much water. Since then the Creation Club has expanded on it's own to offer mods ranging from something as small as a collection of new alchemical ingredients, to something as elaborate as an indepth survival mode for Skyrim (That was a whole lot more fun than Fallout 4's free survival mode.) and a high-quality dungeon mod headed by some of the most imaginative minds in modding.

As you have likely picked up, I find myself at odds with myself over the Creation Club. On one hand it seems like a great way to prolong the life of these games with little pieces on inexpensive content that even supports modders. (Not directly, they are hired on commission.) On the otherhand, this may set a precedent for future Bethesda titles. I think part of the reason that the Creation Club's backlash has been fairly muted is because it was applied to titles that had already been released and came out in an acceptable fashion. What happens when new Bethesda games lack several small mainstays (Like the famous Daedric Artifacts)  in order to hawk them to us down the line? You may think that it would be insanely incendiary for Bethesda to do that, (not to mention short-sighted) but Bethesda have been on a roll of making bad decisions lately, what if that starts to seep into the main game's development?

I will always be on two minds about the topic of paid mods. I love the idea of being able to support modders and would appreciate it if more tools were implemented that made it easier to do so; but make it an obligation and things become questionable. Part of the fun of modding is scouring the web, looking for things you never though possible and then trying them out for yourself. It's an exploratory process with absolutely no strings attached. The Creation Clubs seems to be purpose-built not to challenge that, for the time being, but I find myself worried about how the future might manifest. But then, I am a habitual worrier, so I may being seeing smoke where there is none.