Some additional info the article doesn’t address or skims over:
The accounts were suspended for 3 months.
They only suspended accounts that were overly abusing the system. Players that duped on accident, or a small number of times were not punished except for the removal of some of their in-game currency and maybe a ship or two that they bought with the earnings they made from duping.
This is the first time that Star Citizen players have had a wave of suspensions like this for an exploit.
This is most likely because of how this exploit affected the servers. In Star Citizen, abandoned ships stick around forever on a particular instance, so other players would need to hijack/tow/destroy/salvage them to get rid of them. The players abusing this exploit would duplicate ships with cargo (that could be sold) as fast as they possibly could, leaving more ships behind than what the servers can normally handle well.
This also happened around the time of a free fly event where anyone could try out the game for a bit without having to pay. So the game wasn’t performing as well as it could have been during this event. Although, tbh, this game usually struggles during free flight events anyway.
Besides updates where overall performance has tanked for a bit, if you generally have issues playing this game then that’s more likely a hardware issue.
This game is not optimized and requires a beefy CPU (Performs best using an AMD with 3D v-cache ), a fast SSD (HDD will tank your FPS with all the streaming of assets that needs to happen), and a decent GPU.
The game has been running well since they got rid of the dupers, even with Xenothreat running… now if they would just fix the UI so I can see who I’m shooting at when there are targets/friendlies all over…
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration:
100 games over different platforms spanning the 70s to 2000s as well as 6 new reimagined games.
Revival: Recolonization
Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries
Soulslinger: Envoy of Death
Bread & Fred
Grindstone
The article lists out the Steam Deck rating as well as the ProtonDB rating (if any). Direct link to humble bundle (referral link from article is still there): www.humblebundle.com/games/ign-live-at-home?partn…
Yeah, it looks like Nexon was trying to crush their competition (there was a lead developer that left Nexon and went to work on Dark and Darker).
The police didn’t find anything obvious when they investigated Nexon’s allegations. And they had already had an audit conducted by an external group:
Our code was built from scratch. Most of our assets are purchased from the Unreal marketplace. All other assets and all game designs docs were created inhouse. This has already been audited by an outside agency. As far as we know you cannot copyright a game genre.
It was on Steam, up until Nexon sued them because they suspected stolen assets were used.
So far it doesn’t look like that was true, and the case that was filed in the U.S. was eventually dismissed (since it should be handled by the courts in South Korea).
So hopefully we’ll see it back in the steam store, eventually.
Thanks! It helps to have a lot more background and i haven’t looked too deeply into this.
I was trying to keep my reply simple and directly to the point that they didn’t create their own launcher just because they wanted to.
I didn’t know the first point, now I’m wondering if both sides wanted it dismissed in the U.S. at least. From the article I read it sounded like this was being pushed from Ironmace’s side.
I had mentioned the founder’s involvement before, but only in a different reply on this same post.
On the second point, at least as far as U.S. law is concerned, I’m not so sure that this is such a straightforward case. We’ve already seen in previous cases with video games that it’s okay for games to have the same game rules, mechanics, ideas, and principles. That’s why anyone can create a game like Tetris, Monopoly, or Pokemon (such as Palworld). As long as they don’t copy over assets directly, (sprites/models/verbatim text for the game rules, etc.) it’s ok to create a very similar game or even to be inspired by other games. Mostly this is what I understood after listening to some YouTube attorneys that were discussing this matter for Palworld (Hoeg Law and Attorney Tom).
The difference here is that one of the founders did work for Nexon so it seems that a lot of the work was likely plagiarized (which is not illegal in the U.S. but it is unethical). It would have been interesting to see how this would play out in U.S. courts.
Do you have any idea how the courts in South Korea view cases like this?
On the third point, I had heard how they had recruited other employees, but I hadn’t heard about the founder agreeing to destroy the company info and failing to do so. Do you have a link/source for that?
Thanks for the reply!
Edit: asking for source, not because I’m doubting you, I just want to read up more on it.
Not just the U.S.
Avalanche Studios has their headquarters in Sweden and they’re closing their studio in Canada (per this article). Additionally, Phoenix Labs (Dauntless & Fae Farm) is a Canadian game developer and they just let go of a significant number of developers and cancelled all future projects (about 3 weeks ago): pcgamer.com/…/dauntless-developer-phoenix-labs-la…
While Microsoft was the one shutting down multiple Game Developers last month, those studios are also based all over:
Tango Gameworks - Japan
Alpha Dog Games - Canada
Arkane Studios - (Headquarters in France, but shutting down their Studio in the U.S.)
Roundhouse Studios - U.S.
If you’re trying to compare “AI” and electrical use you need to compare every use case to how we traditionally do things vs how any sort of “AI” does it. Even then we need to ask ourselves if there’s a better way to do it, or if it’s worth the increase in productivity.
For example, a rain sensor on your car.
Now, you could setup some AI/ML model with a camera and computer vision to detect when to turn on your windshield wipers.
But why do that when you could use this little sensor that shoots out a small laser against the window and when it detects a difference in the energy that’s normally reflected back it can activate the windshield wipers.
The dedicated sensor with a low power laser will use far less energy and be way more efficient for this use case.
On the other hand, I could spend time/electricity to watch a Video over and over again trying to translate what someone said from one language to another, or I could use Whisper (another ML model) to quickly translate and transcribe what was said in a matter of seconds. In this case, Whisper uses less electricity.
In the context of this article we’re talking about DLSS where Nvidia has trained a few different ML models for upscaling, optical flow (predicting where the pixels/objects are moving to next), and frame generation (being able to predict what the in-between frames will look like to boost your FPS).
This can potentially save energy because it puts less of a load on the CPU, and most of the work is being done at a lower resolution before upscaling it at the end. But honestly, I haven’t seen anyone compare the energy use differences on this yet… and either way you’re already using a lot of electricity just by gaming.
Yes, but with DLSS we’re adding ML models to the mix where each one has been trained on different aspects:
Interpreting between frames
For instance, normally you might get 30FPS, but between the frames the ML model has an idea of what everything should look like (based off of what it has been trained on), so it can insert additional frames to boost your framerate up to 60FPS or more.
Upscaling (making the picture larger) - the CPU and other hardware can do work on a smaller resolution which makes their job easier, while the ML model here has been trained on how to make the image larger while filling in the correct pixels so that everything still looks good.
Optical Flow -
This ML model has been trained in motion which objects/pixels go where so that better prediction of frame generation can be achieved.
Not only that but Nvidia can update us with the latest ML models that have been trained on specific game titles using their driver updates.
While each of these could be accomplished with older techniques, I think the results we’re already seeing speak for themselves.
Edit: added some sources below and fixed up optical flow description.
Well… good thing I’ve been buying what I can through GOG… but this is terrible news, especially with the way Microsoft has been shutting down gaming studios recently.
Edit: meh, this just sounds like clickbait:
The leak comes from an unknown and unreliable source in the gaming industry.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard faced regulatory challenges, making the merger with Valve unlikely.
There’s a place for AI in NPCs but developers will have to know how to implement it correctly or it will be a disaster.
LLMs can be trained on specific characters and backstories, or even “types” of characters. If they are trained correctly they will stay in character as well as be reactive in more ways than any scripted character could ever do. But if the Devs are lazy and just hook it up to ChatGPT with a simple prompt telling it to “pretend” to be some character, then it’s going to be terrible like you say.
Now, this won’t work very well for games where you’re trying to tell a story like Baldur’s Gate… instead this is better for more open world games where the player is interacting with random characters that don’t need to follow specific scripts.
Even then it won’t be everything. Just because an LLM can say something “in-character” doesn’t mean it will line up with its in-game actions. So additional work will need to be made to help tie actions to the proper kind of responses.
If a studio is able to do it right, this has game changing potential… but I’m sure we’ll see a lot of rushed work done before anyone pulls it off well.
@sugar_in_your_tea proposed this theory the other day, and I think it makes a lot of sense. A lot of journalists are feeling threatened by the onslaught of LLMs so I would expect to see a lot more news attempting to shine a negative light on LLMs in any way possible.
That makes sense, but I haven’t seen any official announcement from Steam saying that they did this. Only speculation from random people. Any documentation I can find just seems to point to this being a decision that’s made by the company releasing the game (or in this case Sony as the publisher).
I doubt that Steam is still trying to block additional countries given that Sony has already announced that the PSN account requirement is being withdrawn.
“Generally it’s not a good idea to tell people to refund and leave negative reviews when you’re a community manager. TIL,” Spitz said. “I appreciate all the support and I appreciate even more that everyone can play the game again without restrictions. I knew I was taking a risk with what I said about refunding and changing reviews. I stand by it. It was my job to represent the community, that’s what I did.”
They added: “I wanted to work for Arrowhead because they’re my all-time favorite studio. I got that chance. I’m thankful for that opportunity. I’d happily continue working for them if I had the choice, but that isn’t up to me or anyone else in here. I can walk away happy and I don’t want anyone causing trouble on my behalf, especially not to people I still have a lot of care and respect for.”
This definitely sounds like Sony wanted them out and Arrowhead wanted them to stay.
Arkane Austin (Tap for list) Blade (Marvel game (not?) in development)
Redfall
Deathloop
Prey
Prey Digital Deluxe
Prey Mooncrash
Dishonered
Dishonered 2
Dishonered Death of the Outsider
Dishonered Dunwall City Trials
Dishonered The Knife Of Dunwall
Dishonered The Brigmore Witches
Dishonered Void Walker’s Arsenal
Arx Fatalis
Tango Gameworks Hi-Fi Rush
Ghostwire Tokyo
The Evil Within
The Evil Within 2
Alpha Dog Games Wraithborne (iOS, Android)
MonstroCity: Rampage (iOS, Android)
Ninja Golf (iOS, Android)
Mighty DOOM (iOS, Android)
What petition? The article didn’t mention any, and I haven’t seen anything about a petition posted in here…
A quick Google search doesn’t reveal anything either.
Shunning modders simply for signing a petition seems like a major overreaction. Most people signing a petition don’t really read the contents. They usually just go for the quick explanation which was probably sold to them as something like, “sign this petition to ask Larian Studios to better support mods/Script Extender”.
I do feel that modders need to chill out and accept that major changes to the codebase are still happening and that will cause conflicts with mods. It’s great that Larian Studios has expressed their willingness to support mods in the future. I think that’s certainly enough for me.
In 2018, the United States declared the Moon of strategic interest and refocused NASA on returning to the Moon sustainably under the agency’s Artemis program. The following year, NASA awarded Intuitive Machines its first task order to land a suite of payloads on the surface of the Moon. Over the next four years, Intuitive Machines built an entire space program[…]
They used SpaceX to get most of the way there, everything else was on IM, but the whole thing was tasked and funded by NASA.
'Cheating and exploiting undermine the integrity of our game': Over 600 Star Citizen accounts have been suspended for racking up in-game currency (www.pcgamer.com)
High on Life, Atari 50 Anniversary Celebration, MechWarrior 5 and more in this bundle [referal links in article] (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Palworld | Sakurajima Update Trailer | Palnews | Pocketpair | Summer Game Fest 2024 (yt.artemislena.eu)
Youtube
ZOTAC Zone is yet another AMD [Windows] gaming handheld (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Dark and Darker: Now free to play. (www.darkanddarker.com)
Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group is closing the Montreal studio it acquired just 8 months ago (www.pcgamer.com)
AMD's Dr. Lisa Su on the role of artificial intelligence in gaming: 'Not everything has to be rendered' (www.pcgamer.com)
Leaks Show Assassin's Creed And Rabbids Coming To Ubisoft's CoD-Like Shooter (kotaku.com)
Fae Farm Developer Phoenix Labs Lays Off Over 100 People (insider-gaming.com)
King under the Mountain (Mountaincore) went open source as developer shuts down (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Crazy rumour suggests Microsoft are preparing $16 billion offer for Valve (www.altchar.com)
Do we have someone on our side in the committee? O.o (StopKillingGames UK petition) (lemmy.zip)
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071www.stopkillinggames.com
Ubisoft insists yet again that its uncanny AI-generated 'NEO-NPCs' will make games 'more alive and richer', whatever that means (www.pcgamer.com)
Helldivers 2 remains delisted in 177 countries and territories even as Sony backs down on PSN requirement, Arrowhead CEO says 'I won't rest in my desire to have it available everywhere' (www.pcgamer.com)
Making good, profitable games 'will no longer keep you safe': industry expresses fury and heartbreak over closure of Hi-Fi Rush and Prey studios (www.pcgamer.com)
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Seemingly Gone After PlayStation Login Meltdown (kotaku.com)
Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda (www.ign.com)
'Please stop that': In the run-up to Baldur's Gate 3 modding support, Larian's head of publishing speaks out against 'threats and toxicity against our devs and community teams' (www.pcgamer.com)
"We need people to understand that these conversations take time."
US returns to lunar surface for first time in over 50 years: ‘Welcome to the moon’ (www.theguardian.com)
A Very Baldur's Gate 3 Christmas (advent.baldursgate3.game)