Gaming Thread 3/30/2014

Updated because I'm bad and just noticed that tsrblke had emailed me something

So yeah, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion. Personally non-plussed about it. On one hand, Oculus now has the cash needed to get into production without going hat and hand asking for more venture capital. On the other, Facebook way overpayed for them as they own no patents (outside of the look of the headset) and though their name is somewhat known, it wouldn't be hard to replace it. That being said, Michael Abrash has now joined Oculus so you can rest easy at least at the moment. Personally the biggest thing I got from it was me giggling at the prospect of John Carmack now working for Facebook (of course, he's probably laughing all the way to the bank).

Of course you also get the fun of dumb people being dumb on the internet, whining about how they gave them money on Kickstarter and didn't seem to grasp that they sure as hell didn't get enough money through that to fund this endevor and have been asking for money from venture capitalists for two years now so their pie in the sky thoughts of a small boutique company keeping that image was already busted for the most part. Then of course you get the biggest tard of the bunch with a writer on Bloomberg being completely clueless on the concept of Crowd Funding. Hell, I'm not a fan of crowdfunding (if I give you money for your venture, I would like at least some equity in the transaction [says the man who donated to Privateer Press's Warmachine: Tactics Kickstarter --editor's edit]) but at least I know the concept of it.

• Of course with the Facebook & Oculus news and Sony finally announcing their Project Morpheous headset, Microsoft has been quietly scooping up patents dealing with AR for what you would assume to be their long gestating Fortaleza glasses. Kinda reminds me of Microsoft's shopping spree before they announced the Kinect. Personally my stance has and will probably always be that while VR has potential, AR has a future till at least hologram tech is more real than theoretical. Considering that old Microsoft roadmap from 4 years ago only has the glasses left to come to fruition, I'm curious if they will get to hit their initial 2014 date. And of course with AR, you also have Google still waiting to actually release their Google Glass to the public instead of being Dev only.

• The Jace Hall Show keeps rolling as he is now the new head of Twin Galaxies. Frankly didn't see that one coming.

• So yeah, Freemium mobile app revenue is jumping by leaps and bounds.

• NIS put out a new trailer for the upcoming Demon Gaze. Remember, the less clothing you wear, the more armor you have on

• There were two and now there are none as Justin Richmond (Uncharted 3 director) has left Naughty Dog. So I guess the guys behind Last of Us are now going to be behind the fourth game? Eh, considering those are the two that wanted to kill off Elena in the second game before Hennig stepped in, I'm a little skeptical on if the pulp is still there in this upcoming game.

• So I guess 25 people or so is too big for Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer (founder's of Runic Games aka Torchlight) as they are leaving to start a new developer called Double Damage Games.

• Microsoft finds their new dev for Killer Instinct after Double Helix was bought by Amazon. Iron Galaxy (DiveKick and Wreckateer) gets to pick up the reigns for Season 2. Should be interesting in how they handle something kinda big.

• In the near future, UbiSoft has solved the mystery of shadows

• Creative Assembly's upcoming Alien: Isolation gets a release date, October 7th for the PC, PS4 and XBox One. Though CA has never had any success outside of their Total War games, I still hope this game doesn't suck (it probably will).

• What, you didn't think 3DRealms were done with the whole bloated dead corpse of Duke Nukem after selling it, did you?

• Though this Panzerhund vinyl statue is kinda cool looking, don't think it's $100 cool.

Age of Wonders 3 (PC) - In my humble opinion, this is the biggest release this week. It's been 11 years since the Shadow Magic expansion pack came out for AoW2 and I'm really curious on how well this is going to be considering in how much time I dumped into the games. Please don't suck.

Steins;Gate (PC) - JAST's release of Nitro+ and 5pb's time traveling visual novel is finally out after a few delays. The anime was good but the story works much better as a visual novel. I've got a copy of limited edition on the way, really loved going through it a few years ago with the translation patch. The story is awesome, the visual novel format doesn't grate on your nerves and it's just well put together.

Goat Simulator (PC) - Nice to see this finally come out after everyone has talked about it for the last few months. it looks goofy and it's only $10. You could do worse.

MLB 14: The Show (PS3) - The PS4 release is out next month and if you want a baseball, you have this or Out of The Park 2015 (which is out sometime next month) since there isn't any other baseball games being made after 2K Sports dropped the MLB2k series. Would love a new Power Pros game but nope, stuck with this if you don't want a a management game (and extremely awesome management game but management game none the less).

Ragnarok Odyssey ACE (PS3 and Vita) - This is an expanded version of the game that game out a few years ago which was a pretty good action RPG. You don't have to care at all about the Ragnarok Odyssey property to enjoy the game (frankly, the less interest in the property the better).

Elder Scrolls Online (PC) - Frankly, I really didn't care for this game in the betas. The zones are tiny, the combat is janky, the story sucked. I just don't see it being worth the $15 a month. I would wait till it's on sale if you need to play it but I dunno about launch price.

That's it, I'm done
Catch me on Twitter,
The Dude

Hey Gaming horde, The Dude is busy over the next few weeks, so I collected some links for you all to discuss/complain about:

the IRS is going to try and tax Bitcoins as property, not currency. Yeah, good luck with that. I'm sure all Bitcoin users are ready and willing to disclose their currency values.

In case you've been under a rock Facebook bought the Oculus Rift, a VR device startup and some people in tech are not happy about it.. Occulus VR Minecraft was even scrubbed over the deal.
This also exposes a bit of the tension behind the Kickstarter Crowd Funding Mechanism. It's clear that Minecraft Creator Markus Persson does not like that his substanial donation ended up being used "to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition".
But this is the rub, kickstarters are not investors, they're at best pre-orders, occasionally charity and at worst just handing over people money for no good reason. I still don't get it (but if anyone wants to support a crowd fund of my dissertation, let me know!)

That gun running politican story is actually connected to video games! That's right he tried to ban violent games. I'm not sure if this is Fen's law or just stupid. Either way. (H/T to Allergic2bull for that link).

Well that's it. I have to go play "Real Life Simulator" adios.

--tsrblke

posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 03:36 PM

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