gaming

Are Diablo fans getting too old for the old-school item grind?

Blizzard, Diablo, gaming, grind, items, loot / Ryan Harris / June 14, 2024

Time is money —

Devs say players no longer want the “very long chase” for rare drops.

Kyle Orland – Jun 14, 2024 3: 54 pm UTC

Do you have a few hundred hours to hear the good news about our lord and savior, <em>Diablo</em>?” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/d4-800×450.png”></img><figcaption>
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Longtime fans of Diablo II are deeply familiar with the extreme timesink that is the late-game grind for the very best loot. But when the creators of Diablo IV tried to re-create that style of grinding for the latest game in the series, they found that their players’ tastes had changed quite a bit in the intervening years.

In a wide-ranging interview with Windows Central, Blizzard’s general manager of Diablo, Rod Fergusson, said that they launched Diablo IV under “the assumption that D4 was meant to be more D2-like.” That meant, in part, increasing the length of time required to discover the game’s most valuable items after post-Auction-House Diablo 3 made rare item drops much more common.

“One of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular, because in Diablo II, it can go years,” Fergusson said. “You can go three years before you find the Uber you’re looking for… and so we were like, okay, this is what people love about the progression of D2, that idea of that very long chase.”

Once the game launched, though, Fergusson said the development team was surprised to find players complaining of how long it took to get some items—our own review expressed concern about the “‘loot treadmill’ approach to the endgame” and “loot drops [that] seem tuned a bit low for my taste.”

“We found out very quickly that if you don’t give me my Uber in my [months-long] season, then I’m upset,” Fergusson said. “And so we’re like, oh, wow, okay.”

Changing with the players

To help calm those upset players, subsequent Diablo IV updates have made it easier to earn Resplendent Sparks, which those players can use to craft high-end Uber Unique items they’ve been unable to find from random item drops. Having that option to skip the randomized item search helped satisfy the desires of modern players, Fergusson said.

“It’s just a kind of recognition of how much players have changed in 20 years,” he said. “You know… that consumptive nature of a live service and that time is money and I don’t have much time, so let’s go, right? And so that idea of like, oh, you’re going to get a unique every six months.”

Enlarge / Ah, the old-fashioned joy of finding an item with a wall of ability text.

That recognition of “how much players have changed” reflects how much the mere passage of time has changed the Diablo audience over the years. A 16-year-old who was sinking all their free time into Diablo II when it launched in 2000 is pushing 40 these days. That means the core, nostalgic audience for the series is now very likely to have a career, family, and/or other responsibilities eating into their playtime. There’s nothing like a few decades of aging to make the prospect of sinking hundreds of hours into a loot grind seem less appealing.

With Diablo III, Blizzard initially assumed that players with more money than time would simply bid up the game’s best items in the game’s real-money auction house, where players who had more time to grind would benefit from selling their rarest random finds. Instead, Blizzard soon acknowledged that the auction system “short-circuited [the] core reward loop” of the game, making it trivial to buy high-level loot that quickly made the entire late-game feel kind of irrelevant.

With Diablo IV, Blizzard seems to have struck a better balance for players who simply want a more reliable reward for any time investment they can make. With Resplendent Sparks, players willing to put in the in-game work can be confident that they’ll eventually get the top-level items they’re seeking. That consistency can be much more appealing for time-limited players than simply crossing your fingers for a low-odds virtual dice roll or opening your wallet to skip the gameplay grind process entirely.

The evolution of Diablo‘s item progression system is an important reminder of how the relative value of a player’s time can change as those players move between different stages of life. Who knows, maybe in 25 years Diablo VI will find success with ultra-rare item drops that soak up all the free time for a core audience of retirement-age players with nothing better to do than spend 500 hours grinding for a digital sword.

Are Diablo fans getting too old for the old-school item grind? Read More »

Gaming historians preserve what’s likely Nintendo’s first US commercial

ad, Game & Watch, gaming, history, mego, Nintendo / Mike M. / June 13, 2024

A Mega Mego find —

Mego’s “Time Out” spot pitched Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds under a different name.

Kyle Orland – Jun 13, 2024 4: 51 pm UTC

Enlarge / “So slim you can play it anywhere.”

Gamers of a certain age may remember Nintendo’s Game & Watch line, which predated the cartridge-based Game Boy by offering simple, single-serving LCD games that can fetch a pretty penny at auction today. But even most ancient gamers probably don’t remember Mego’s “Time Out” line, which took the internal of Nintendo’s early Game & Watch titles and rebranded them for an American audience that hadn’t yet heard of the Japanese game maker.

Now, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has helped preserve the original film of an early Mego Time Out commercial, marking the recovered, digitized video as “what we believe is the first commercial for a Nintendo product in the United States.” The 30-second TV spot—which is now available in a high-quality digital transfer for the first time—provides a fascinating glimpse into how marketers positioned some of Nintendo’s earliest games to a public that still needed to be sold on the very idea of portable gaming.

Imagine an “electronic sport”

A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo's Game & Watch games under the toy company's — Enlarge / A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo’s Game & Watch games under the toy company’s “Time Out” branding.

Founded in the 1950s, Mego made a name for itself in the 1970s with licensed movie action figures and early robotic toys like the 2-XL (a childhood favorite of your humble author). In 1980, though, Mego branched out to partner with a brand-new, pre-Donkey Kong Nintendo of America to release rebranded versions of four early Game & Watch titles: Ball (which became Mego’s “Toss-Up”), Vermin (“Exterminator”), Fire (“Fireman Fireman”), and Flagman (“Flag Man”).

While Mego would go out of business by 1983 (long before a 2018 brand revival), in 1980, the company had the pleasure and responsibility of introducing America to Nintendo games for the first time, even if they were being sold under the Mego name. And while home systems like the Atari VCS and Intellivision were already popular with the American public at the time, Mego had to sell the then-new idea of simple black-and-white games you could play away from the living room TV (Milton Bradley Microvision notwithstanding).

The 1980 Mego spot that introduced Nintendo games to the US, now preserved in high-resolution.

That’s where a TV spot from Durona Productions came in. If you were watching TV in the early ’80s, you might have heard an announcer doing a bad Howard Cosell impression selling the Time Out line as “the new electronic sport,” suitable as a pastime for athletes who have been injured jogging or playing tennis or basketball.

The ad also had to introduce even extremely basic gaming functions like “an easy game and a hard game,” high score tracking, and the ability to “tell time” (as Douglas Adams noted, humans were “so amazingly primitive that they still [thought] digital watches [were] a pretty neat idea”). And the ad made a point of highlighting that the game is “so slim you can play it anywhere,” complete with a close-up of the unit fitting in the back pocket of a rollerskater’s tight shorts.

Preserved for all time

This early Nintendo ad wasn’t exactly “lost media” before now; you could find fuzzy, video-taped versions online, including variations that talk up the pocket-sized games as sports “where size and strength won’t help.” But the Video Game History Foundation has now digitized and archived a much higher quality version of the ad, courtesy of an original film reel discovered in an online auction by game collector (and former game journalist) Chris Kohler. Kohler acquired the rare 16 mm film and provided it to VGHF, which in turn reached out to film restoration experts at Movette Film Transfer to help color-correct the faded, 40-plus-year-old print and encode it in full 2K resolution for the first time.

This important historical preservation work is as good an excuse as any to remember a time when toy companies were still figuring out how to convince the public that Nintendo’s newfangled portable games were something that could fit into their everyday life. As VGHF’s Phil Salvador writes, “it feels laser-targeted to the on-the-go yuppie generation of the ’80s with disposable income to spend on electronic toys. There’s shades of how Nintendo would focus on young, trendy, mobile demographics in their more recent marketing campaigns… but we’ve never seen an ad where someone plays Switch in the hospital.”

Gaming historians preserve what’s likely Nintendo’s first US commercial Read More »

New Steam Deck competitor lets you easily swap in more RAM, storage

gaming, Tech / Blake Jones / June 8, 2024

Plug and play —

Adata embraces the CAMM2 memory standard for its intriguing handheld prototype.

Kyle Orland – Jun 7, 2024 8: 17 pm UTC

A slide-up screen is just one of the novel features for Adata's Steam Deck clone. — Enlarge / A slide-up screen is just one of the novel features for Adata’s Steam Deck clone.

For PC gamers used to the modular design of a desktop rig, there are pros and cons to the all-in-one, pre-fab design of the Steam Deck (and its many subsequent imitators in the growing handheld gaming PC market). On the one hand, you don’t have to worry about pricing out individual parts and making sure they all work together. On the other hand, the only way to upgrade one of these devices is to essentially throw out the old unit and replace the entire thing, console-style.

Korean computer storage-maker Adata is looking to straddle these two extremes. Lilliputing reports on Adata’s XPG Nia prototype, which was shown off at the Computex trade show. The unit is the first gaming handheld so far to embrace the CAMM (Compression Attached Memory Module) standard that allows for easily replaceable and upgradeable memory modules, as well as a number of other mod-friendly features.

CAMM on down

Enlarge / Samsung shared this rendering of a CAMM ahead of the publishing of the CAMM2 standard in September.

If you’ve read our previous coverage of the emerging CAMM standard, you know how excited we are about the ultra-thin modules that can simply be screwed into place on a laptop or portable motherboard. That offers a viable replacement for the now-standard soldered LPDDR RAM, which saves space but is incredibly difficult to repair or replace.

The CAMM standard brings the same easy-to-swap design as the older SO-DIMM RAM stick standard but with a smaller footprint, thermal design, and power usage specially made for portable devices. Reports suggest the XPG Nia will use the low-power LPCAMM2 version of these RAM modules, which will be easily accessible by lifting up the kickstand on the back of the XPG Nia. Alongside a standard M.2 2230 slot for adding more storage, that should make the new handheld much easier to upgrade than the likes of the Steam Deck, which requires some serious hacking to push above the standard spec.

Enlarge / A Dell rendering depicting the size differences between SODIMM and CAMM.

Dell

The only real downside to CAMM2 memory modules, at the moment, is the price; a recent CAMM2 offering from Crucial runs $175 for 32GB or $330 for 64GB. That’s significantly more than similar, bulkier SO-DIMM modules, but those prices should come down as more device makers and RAM manufacturers start supporting the standard.

A “circular computing device”?

Thus far, the XRG Nia’s modular design doesn’t seem to extend to the planned AMD Phoenix APU or Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor. That said, users will reportedly be able to remove the entire motherboard from the portable case, which can then be inserted into a smaller, screen-free enclosure for a potential second life as an Arudino/Raspberry Pi-like mini-PC.

Adata says it also plans to release the system’s 3D design files and pinout details publicly, letting modders and third-party manufacturers design their own cases and accessories. It’s all part of what Adata is calling a “circular computing design” that’s part of its “sustainable future” initiative.

GGF Events talks with the makers of the Adata XPG Nia prototype at Computex.

There are a few other features that set the XRG Nia apart from the waves of me-too Steam Deck clones. In addition to the rear kickstand, the entire screen enclosure slides up on a sort of pivot, providing a shallower viewing angle that requires less neck tilting when holding the device in front of your chest. Adata is also promising a front-facing camera that can be used for streaming as well as eye-tracking, which could theoretically power some fancy foveated rendering tricks for extra graphics horsepower.

It’s way too early to know how all of these features will shake out in the move from prototype to final device; reports suggest the company is aiming for a release sometime in 2025. Still, it’s nice to see a company trying some new things in the increasingly crowded space of handheld PC gaming devices that Valve has unleashed. If Adata can deliver the portable as an actual consumer product at its target of 1.5 pounds and $600, it could be one to keep an eye on.

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Marvel’s Midnight Suns is free right now, and you should grab it (even on Epic)

card battler, epic games, epic games store, firaxis, gaming, marvel's midnight suns, turn based strategy game, X-Com, x-com enemy unknown, Xcom / Ryan Harris / June 8, 2024

The Midnight Suns also rises (on a different storefront) —

Sadly overlooked on release, the card/turn-based battler is a real bargain.

Kevin Purdy – Jun 7, 2024 7: 32 pm UTC

Characters in battle, with cards in the forefront, in Midnight Suns — Enlarge / All these goons are targeting Captain America, as shown in icons above their heads. Good. That’s just how he likes it. (No, really, he’s a tank, that’s his thing.)

2K/Firaxis

I fully understand why people don’t want multiple game launchers on their PC. Steam is the default and good enough for (seemingly) most people. It’s not your job to compel competition in the market. You want to launch and play games you enjoy, as do most of us.

So when I tell you that Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a game worth the hassle of registering, installing, and using the Epic Games Launcher, I am carefully picking my shot. For the price of giving Epic your email (or a proxy/relay version, like Duck), or just logging in again, you can play a fun, novel, engaging turn-based strategy game, with deckbuilding and positioning tactics, for zero dollars. Even if you feel entirely sapped by Marvel at this point, like most of us, I assure you that this slice of Marvel feels more like the comic books and less like the overexposed current films. Just ask the guy who made it.

Tactical deckbuilding is fun

The game was very well-regarded by most critics but was not a financial success upon release in December 2022, or was at least “underwhelming.” Why any game hits or doesn’t is a combination of many factors, but one of them was likely that the game was trying something new. It wasn’t just X-COM with Doctor Strange. It had some Fire Emblem relationship-building and base exploration, but it also had cards. The cards blend into the turn-based, positional, chain-building strategy, but some people apparently saw cards and turned away.

“Before, I never had an experience where people had expressed disappointment before playing, you know,” Jake Solomon, the now-departed director of Midnight Suns and XCOM, told Rock Paper Shotgun in an interview. “As we told people from the beginning, it’s not an accident, we don’t share a single mechanic with XCOM. … And so I think when people play it, they get it, it’s really fun, and you can get as addicted to this as you can to XCOM. But I also totally get it when people look at images coming out and go ‘What the fis that? Are those… are those cards? Cards!?’ So yeah, I can sympathise with people for that reason, I guess.”

Blade is in charge of training, i.e. upgrading your cards. He’s tough, but fair!

2K/Firaxis
As with XCOM, you’ll eventually get mission choices, with different rewards and expiring deadlines.

2K/Firaxis
Most battles are in big arenas, but some make you figure out the best angles very up-close.

2K/Firaxis
Socking goons into each other, and into that ambulance over there, is real fun.

2K/Firaxis
In X-COM fashion, the moves and bad guys occasionally get a close-up.

2K/Firaxis

Folks, the cards are fun. The resources you gather go into upgrading your cards, which are all your moves in combat. There are strategies inherent to each character, like chaining attacks, moving enemies through portals, area-of-effect attacks, and the like. But then you can min-max heroes’ abilities, focus on your favorite heroes, and laugh when things go horribly awry or ridiculously in your favor.

You don’t build one deck in Midnight Suns, you build a whole team of little decks. As a designer for deckbuilder Cobalt Core told Ars, deckbuilding puts you “in this space where no two turns are ever exactly the same, so players get to keep figuring out new optimal solutions. But even though the options are always huge, they’re made up of pretty simple building blocks, so it’s not overwhelming.”

The other big change from XCOM and similar games is a rich use of both a destructible environment and rag-doll enemies. Having Magik set up a portal, then Iron Man blasts a goon through it, then seeing that enemy fly through the exit portal into an overloaded battery that explodes, knocking out two more baddies—it’s a great feeling.

Even devout Marvel fans will find some characters they'd never delved into previously, like Nico Minoru of the Midnight Suns crew. — Even devout Marvel fans will find some characters they’d never delved into previously, like Nico Minoru of the Midnight Suns crew.

2K/Firaxis

Comicbook Marvel, not movie-stars Marvel

The thing that most often happens in between missions is talking. You seek out and talk to your teammates, respond to things they say, go on excursions with them. It gets to the point where you can join a book club with Captain America, Blade, Captain Marvel, and, reluctantly, Wolverine.

It can be a bit much, but the dialogue and voice acting is well-done, in my estimation. In some comic-book-but-also-movie games, the lack of rights to an actor’s face can be hard to get past, if you’re used to seeing them in that superhero getup. Midnight Suns has both pretty close approximations of various heroes, or alternate faces that didn’t bug me after the first few sightings. And if none of the world-building/friend-making stuff is for you, you can hold a button and skip through toward more goon-bashing.

Solomon noted in that same RPS interview that he is a “really, really, like, super Marvel Comics nerd.” That comes through in how each character is framed, how they interact, and their motivations. There’s still a good bit of the modern Marvel quip quotient, but it’s palatable. Going on friend dates with the Scarlet Witch may not be something you seek out in your turn-based tactics, but give it a try. It gives you some motivation to see your heroes succeed and work together.

Epic has the base Midnight Suns game free through June 13 at 11 am. You could add on some DLC if you like, with new characters like Storm, Venom, Morbius, and Deadpool (if you’re _really_ okay with quipping). You’ll see various costumes and in-game currencies available for sale, too, but none of them are at all necessary to play and succeed at the game. If you’re enjoying the game, and wish it ran a bit faster, consider disabling the 2K launcher in the Epic Games version.

A lot of games release every day, and some of them end up being games I wish I could have written about and recommended. Midnight Suns has long resided in that mental space for me. For the price of zero dollars, plus whatever level of commitment is required for an Epic Store download, it’s an easy game to recommend.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is free right now, and you should grab it (even on Epic) Read More »

Civilization VII looks like 2K’s next big game announcement

2K, civilization, firaxis, gaming, Sid Meier, simulation / Ari B / June 7, 2024

Tell Gandhi to prep the nukes —

Logo drop comes amid publisher’s “beloved franchise” tease for Summer Games Fest.

Kyle Orland – Jun 7, 2024 3: 52 pm UTC

2K Games is expected to show the first trailer footage of the upcoming Civilization VII as part of this weekend’s Summer Games Fest marketing extravaganza after a logo for the game leaked on 2K’s website this morning.

Eagle-eyed gamers at ResetEra and Reddit both noticed the Civ VII banner atop the publisher’s official site early this morning, alongside a “Coming Soon” label and inactive links to a trailer and wishlist page. The appearance comes just ahead of the trailer-filled Summer Games Fest livestream, which will premiere at 5 pm Eastern Friday afternoon.

In May, the Summer Games Fest Twitter account teased that 2K would be using the event “to reveal the next iteration in one of [its] biggest and most beloved franchises.” Civilization VII now seems primed to fill that pre-announced slot, which may be unwelcome news for fans of 2K-owned franchises like Borderlands, Bioshock, and NFL2K (which was first publicly mulled for a revival in 2020).

Last year, developer Firaxis announced that it had started development on the “next mainline game in the world-famous Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise,” under the guidance of Civilization VI Creative Director Ed Beach and newly promoted studio head Heather Hazen (who previously worked with Epic Games and Popcap). “We have plans to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world,” Hazen said in a statement at the time.

Civilization namesake Sid Meier holds forth with fans at a Firaxicon fan gathering in 2014.” height=”426″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/firaxicon39-640×426.png” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Civilization namesake Sid Meier holds forth with fans at a Firaxicon fan gathering in 2014.

Kyle Orland

Civilization VII will be the first entry in the storied strategy franchise in at least eight years, a historically long gap for a series that has seen a new numbered entry every four to six years since its debut in 1991. When Civilization VI hit in 2016, we praised the game for its smoother, more easily accessible interface and focus on fraught decision-making.

In an interview with Ars just after the launch of Civ VI, series namesake Sid Meier said his official role as franchise director has evolved over the years into more of a support structure for younger designers. “I’m there to kind of represent the history of the game,” Meier told Ars. “My role is just to be supportive. Designers have huge egos, and they’re easily bruised. Making a game can be a painful process. Part of my role is to be encouraging—’that idea didn’t work, try something else.'”

Elsewhere in early Summer Games Fest leaks and announcements, we can expect more info about Meta Quest VR-exclusive Batman: Arkham Shadow, a Lego-fied version of Sony’s Horizon series, and new footage for cinematic survival game Dune Awakening, among many other planned announcements.

Civilization VII looks like 2K’s next big game announcement Read More »

Sony removes still-unmet “8K” promise from PS5 packaging

8K, gaming, graphics, packaging, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, promise, resolution, Sony / Mike M. / June 6, 2024

8K? We never said 8K! —

Move could presage an expected resolution bump in the rumored PS5 Pro.

Kyle Orland – Jun 6, 2024 5: 00 pm UTC

The new PS5 packaging, as seen on the PlayStation Direct online store, is missing the “8K” label in the corner.
The original PS5 packaging with the 8K label, as still seen on the GameStop website.

When we first received our PlayStation 5 review unit from Sony in 2020, we reacted with some bemusement to the “8K” logo on the box and its implied promise of full 7630×4320 resolution output. We then promptly forgot all about it since native 8K content and 8K compatible TVs have remained a relative curiosity thus far in the PS5’s lifespan.

But on Wednesday, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman discovered that Sony has quietly removed that longstanding 8K label from the PS5 box. The ultra-high-resolution promise no longer appears on the packaging shown on Sony’s official PlayStation Direct store, a change that appears to have happened between late January and mid-February, according to Internet Archive captures of the store page (the old “8K” box can still be seen at other online retailers, though).

A promise deferred

This packaging change has been a long time coming since the PS5 hasn’t technically been living up to its 8K promise for years now. While Sony’s Mark Cerny mentioned the then-upcoming hardware’s 8K support in a 2019 interview, the system eventually launched with a pretty big “coming soon” caveat for that feature. “PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software,” the company said in an FAQ surrounding the console’s 2020 launch.

Well over three years later, that 8K-enabling software update has yet to appear, meaning the console’s technical ability to push 8K graphics is still a practical impossibility for users. Until Sony’s long-promised software patch hits, even PS5 games that render frames internally at a full 8K resolution are still pushing out a downscaled 4K framebuffer through that HDMI 2.1 cable.

Enlarge / A slide from TV manufacturer TCL guesses at some details for the next micro-generation of high-end game consoles.

At this point, though, there’s some reason to expect that the promised patch may never come to the standard PS5. At the moment, the ever-churning rumor mill is expecting an impending mid-generation PS5 Pro upgrade that could offer true, native 8K resolution support right out of the box. If that comes to pass, removing the outdated “8K” promise from the original PS5 packaging could be a subtle way to highlight the additional power of the upcoming “Pro” upgrade.

Enlarge / A slight majority of participants in a double-blind study saw no discernible difference between a 4K and 8K image video clips.

So will console gamers be missing out if they don’t upgrade to an 8K-compatible display? Probably not, as studies show extremely diminishing returns in the perceived quality jump from 4K to 8K visual content for most users and living room setups. Unless you are sitting extremely close to an extremely large display, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll even be able to tell the difference.

Sony removes still-unmet “8K” promise from PS5 packaging Read More »

What kind of bug would make machine learning suddenly 40% worse at NetHack?

AI, bugs, CUDA, gaming, imitation learning, machine learning, moon phase, nethack, reinforcement learning, roguelike, roguelikes, software bugs / Ari B / June 4, 2024

Large Moon Models (LMMs) —

One day, a roguelike-playing system just kept biffing it, for celestial reasons.

Kevin Purdy – Jun 4, 2024 6: 52 pm UTC

Moon rendered in ASCII text, with — Aurich Lawson

Members of the Legendary Computer Bugs Tribunal, honored guests, if I may have your attention? I would, humbly, submit a new contender for your esteemed judgment. You may or may not find it novel, you may even deign to call it a “bug,” but I assure you, you will find it entertaining.

Consider NetHack. It is one of the all-time roguelike games, and I mean that in the more strict sense of that term. The content is procedurally generated, deaths are permanent, and the only thing you keep from game to game is your skill and knowledge. I do understand that the only thing two roguelike fans can agree on is how wrong the third roguelike fan is in their definition of roguelike, but, please, let us move on.

NetHack is great for machine learning…

Being a difficult game full of consequential choices and random challenges, as well as a “single-agent” game that can be generated and played at lightning speed on modern computers, NetHack is great for those working in machine learning—or imitation learning, actually, as detailed in Jens Tuyls’ paper on how compute scaling affects single-agent game learning. Using Tuyls’ model of expert NetHack behavior, Bartłomiej Cupiał and Maciej Wołczyk trained a neural network to play and improve itself using reinforcement learning.

By mid-May of this year, the two had their model consistently scoring 5,000 points by their own metrics. Then, on one run, the model suddenly got worse, on the order of 40 percent. It scored 3,000 points. Machine learning generally, gradually, goes in one direction with these types of problems. It didn’t make sense.

Cupiał and Wołczyk tried quite a few things: reverting their code, restoring their entire software stack from a Singularity backup, and rolling back their CUDA libraries. The result? 3,000 points. They rebuild everything from scratch, and it’s still 3,000 points.

<em>NetHack</em>, played by a regular human.” height=”506″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/13863751533_64654db44e_o.png” width=”821″></img><figcaption>
<p><em>NetHack</em>, played by a regular human.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<h2>… except on certain nights</h2>
<p>As <a href=

What kind of bug would make machine learning suddenly 40% worse at NetHack? Read More »

Ridiculous, inventive party pack Sportsfriends is now free on PC and PlayStation

bennett foddy, gaming, sportsfriends / Blake Jones / June 3, 2024

Good things for tough reasons —

Couch co-op collection lets you compete on the screen and in each other’s face.

Kevin Purdy – Jun 3, 2024 6: 24 pm UTC

Enlarge / How well do you know your friends and family? Can you smack a 2010-era controller in their hands to win intangible points?

Die Gut Fabrik LLC

If there is any reason to head into your garage or attic and dig out that PlayStation Move controller, it’s Johann Sebastian Joust. Actually, there’s a second good reason: that game, and three others with the same spirit, are all free now on Steam for PlayStation, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The reason and timing are unfortunate, as Die Gute Fabrik, the Danish developer collective behind Sportsfriends, can no longer support or update the 10-year-old game. But the group is doing the right thing, making the game free on all platforms, including Steam, transferring ownership of the game to Bennett Foddy (Getting Over It), and working to open-source a version of the JS Joust game for Linux so that perhaps it can be fit to work with other motion-sensitive controllers or through some other scheme.

Sportsfriends launch trailer.

Sportsfriends, previously described at Ars as a “stellar pack of multiplayer-only gems,” are four games meant for “couch co-op,” i.e. playing in the same room as other folks holding controllers (or glowing Move sticks, in the case of JS Joust). Each one is a little masterwork of clever design and hard to encapsulate briefly, but if you don’t have time for the deeper dive, here goes:

Super Pole Riders, by Bennett Foddy, has you use the left PlayStation stick for your feet, and the right stick to angle and pivot a vaulting pole, then attempt to knock a ball through a hoop to score points or knock an opponent off their pole. (There’s an early web version.)
Baribariball is a one-on-one or two-on-two Smash Brothers-like experience, but with more old-school arcade dynamics and in-air movement.
Hokra, a kind of soccer game with Atari-esque visuals and deceptively simple controls.
JS Joust, in which you try to not get your Move controller jostled while goading or physically nudging other players’ controllers, with your ability to move dictated by Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

Johann Sebastian Joust.

There are no solo versions of any of these games, and Joust does not work with Windows, because Windows does not support the Move controller. With any luck, this can be worked around. And while no controller may yet provide the kind of perfect combination of motion sensitivity and glowing colored orb that the Move controller does, opening Joust up to more hardware can only be beneficial. More people need to try to lightly assault their friends in the name of camaraderie.

Don't say they didn't warn you. — Don’t say they didn’t warn you.

Die Gut Fabrik LLC

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11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

gaming, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, ps4, ps5, Sony / Ryan Harris / May 30, 2024

Gone, but not PS4-gotten —

But PS5 users spend more money and gameplay time on their consoles.

Kyle Orland – May 30, 2024 2: 39 pm UTC

Enlarge / After nearly four years of the PS5, a lot of people are still using their old PS4s.

If you’re still getting use out of your aging PS4 after nearly four full years of PS5 availability, new data from Sony shows you are far from alone. The Japanese electronics giant says that both the PS4 and PS5 currently have about 49 million monthly active users, suggesting a significant number of PlayStation players have yet to spend $400 or more to upgrade to the newer console.

The new data comes from an extensive Game & Network Services report presented as part of Sony’s most recent Business Segment Meeting. Those numbers suggest that about 42 percent of the 117 million PS4 units ever sold are still in active use, compared to 86 percent of the 56 million PS5 units sold thus far.

Despite the parity in active consoles, Sony also points out that the PS5 is responsible for significantly more gameplay hours than the PS4: 2.4 billion for the new system compared to 1.4 billion for its predecessor (it’s unclear what time period this comparison covers). Sony’s monthly user numbers also include any console “used to play games or [access] services on the PlayStation Network,” so an old PS4 that serves as a convenient Netflix box in the spare bedroom would still inflate the older system’s numbers here.

Still, it’s pretty impressive that nearly 50 million people are still regularly using a console first launched in 2013 (even considering 2016’s Pro upgrade). That could be in part because the PS4 is still seeing plenty of software support well after the PS5’s release; Sony’s PSN Store listings currently include 189 “just released” PS4-compatible games, including many “best-selling” titles that don’t require a PS5 at all. The fact that those PS4-compatible titles are also playable directly on the PS5 has probably helped convince some publishers to target the older console for their less graphics-intensive games.

Enlarge / PS5 owners are spending less money on full games and a lot more money on “add-on content.”

The PS4’s longevity doesn’t seem to have had a significant negative impact on the PS5’s bottom line, either. Sony’s gaming division has already earned $10 billion in profit off of $106 billion in sales across the nearly four years of the PS5 generation, compared to $9 billion in profit off $107 billion in sales across seven years of the PS4.

PS5 owners have spent an average of $731 each across games, services, peripherals, and add-on content. That’s up significantly from $580 in nominal spending from the average PS4 owner at the same point in that console’s life cycle, though what sounds like a big increase is actually pretty flat when you take inflation into account.

That per-console gaming spending is now concentrated less on “full game” purchases—which are down 12 percent between the PS4 to PS5 generation—and much more on so-called add-on content—which is up 176 percent between generations. We’re guessing that big-spending, loot-box-chasing “whales” have something to do with that increase.

Listing image by Sam Machkovech

11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5 Read More »

Sony apologizes for interview it says “misrepresented” a Last of Us creator

druckmann, gaming, interview, last of us, Naughty Dog, PR, Public Relations, Sony / Blake Jones / May 29, 2024

Who said what now? —

Move comes after Druckmann publicly disavowed some quotes: “This is not quite what I said.”

Kyle Orland – May 29, 2024 4: 51 pm UTC

Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, seen here not questioning the accuracy of a PR interview. — Enlarge / Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, seen here not questioning the accuracy of a PR interview.

Sony has taken down an interview with Naughty Dog Studio Head Neil Druckmann (Uncharted, The Last of Us) that the company now says contains “several significant errors and inaccuracies that don’t represent his perspective and values.” The surprising move comes after Druckmann took the extreme measure of publicly questioning a portion of the PR interview by posting a lengthy transcript that conflicted with the heavily edited version Sony posted online.

The odd media saga began last Thursday, when Sony published the interview (archive here) under the heading “The Evolution of Storytelling Across Mediums.” The piece was part of the Creative Entertainment Vision section of Sony’s corporate site, a PR-driven concept exploring how Sony will “seamlessly connect multi-layered worlds where physical and virtual realities overlap to deliver limitless Kanto—through creativity and technology—working with creators.” Whatever that means.

Druckmann’s short interview started attracting attention almost immediately, primarily due to Druckmann’s apparent promotion of using AI tools in game development. Such tools “will allow us to create nuanced dialogues and characters, expanding creative possibilities,” Druckmann is quoted as saying. “AI is really going to revolutionize how content is being created, although it does bring up some ethical issues we need to address.”

Not so fast…

By Friday, though, Druckmann ended a months-long drought of social media posting by noting that, in at least one case, the words posted by Sony were “not quite what I said. In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with Sony, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost.”

As evidence, Druckmann posted this “rambling” 457-word response to a question about a “personal vision or dream project” he hoped to create:

Well, I’ve been very lucky, in that I’ve already had that. I got the chance to make several of my dream projects. I am working on a new one right now. And it’s maybe the most excited I’ve been for a project yet. I can’t talk about it or our bosses will get very mad at me.

And I guess in general, there is something happening now that I think is very cool. Which is there’s a new appreciation for gaming that I’ve never seen before. Like when I was growing up, gaming was more of a kid’s thing. Now it’s clearly for everyone. But it’s like, if you’re a gamer, you know about the potential of games, and non-gamers, they don’t really know what they’re missing out on.

But my hope was, when we made The Last of Us as a TV show that we could change that. And why I became so involved with it. I wanted so badly for it to be good, because I wanted this to happen, which is like someone who will watch the show and really like it. And fall in love with those characters the way that we have fallen in love with those characters and their story. And then realize at the end, “Wait, that’s based on a video game?” and then go and check out the game and just see the wealth of narratives and everything that’s happening in games.

So now I feel like there’s kind of a spotlight on gaming. And you know, Fallout just came out. And that’s a big success for Amazon. And I find that really exciting. Not because games need to be movies, or they need to be TV shows, but I think it just kind of opens the eyes of a bunch of people that just weren’t aware of the kind of experiences that exist in games. I think right now we’ve hit a tipping point where it’s about to take off where people realize, “Oh my God, there’s all these incredible moving experiences in games!”

So, I’m not only excited for this game that we’re making—and it’s, it’s something really fresh for us—but I’m also excited to see how the world reacts to it. Because of The Last of Us, and the success of the show, people even outside of gaming are looking at us to see what it is that we put out next. I’m very excited to see what the reaction for this thing will be—and l’ve already said too much about it. I’ll stop there. So, you’re asking me for my dream projects. I’ve been very lucky to have worked on my favorite games with incredible collaborators and I’m very thankful for them.

For reference, here is the 127-word summary of that answer posted by Sony:

I’ve been lucky to work on several dream projects and am currently excited about a new one, which is perhaps the most thrilling yet. There’s a growing appreciation for gaming that transcends all age groups, unlike when I was growing up. This shift is highlighted by our venture into television with The Last of Us, which I hoped would bridge the gap between gamers and non-gamers. The show’s success has spotlighted gaming, illustrating the rich, immersive experiences it offers. This visibility excites me not only for our current project but for the broader potential of gaming to captivate a global audience. I’m eager to see how this new game resonates, especially following the success of The Last of Us, as it could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.

While the gist of Druckmann’s original answer is more or less preserved, the condensed version loses a lot of the specific details and flavor Druckmann highlighted in his answer. The edited version also inserts some key phrases and ideas that Druckmann didn’t use at all, such as his supposed hope that his new project “could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.”

Though we don’t know how much Druckmann’s other answers were clipped or amended in the editing process, Druckmann’s public annoyance with the edits was apparently enough to get Sony’s attention. Sometime after Tuesday night, the PlayStation-maker replaced the public interview with the following message:

In re-reviewing our recent interview with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, we have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don’t represent his perspective and values (including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects). We apologize to Neil for misrepresenting his words and for any negative impact this interview might have caused him and his team. In coordination with Naughty Dog and SIE, we have removed the interview.

Journalists often edit interview responses for concision and clarity, but this interview skips the usual step of noting the existence of those kinds of edits near the top of the piece. And while press releases often contain executive quotes that have been carefully crafted in consultation with PR professionals, there was no indication in this article that the responses here were anything other than Druckmann’s own thoughts and words.

Game publishers and console makers have a long history of sharing developer interviews directly with the public rather than having those developers’ views filtered through the press. This is the first instance we can remember where the promotional process itself has become a source of controversy.

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After you die, your Steam games will be stuck in legal limbo

death, estate, gaming, inheritance, steam, vaslve, will / Blake Jones / May 24, 2024

Pushing digital daisies —

So much for your descendants posthumously clearing out that massive backlog…

Kyle Orland – May 24, 2024 4: 15 pm UTC

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With Valve’s Steam gaming platform approaching the US drinking age this year, more and more aging PC gamers may be considering what will happen to their vast digital game libraries after they die. Unfortunately, legally, your collection of hundreds of backlogged games will likely pass into the ether along with you someday.

The issue of digital game inheritability gained renewed attention this week as a ResetEra poster quoted a Steam support response asking about transferring Steam account ownership via a last will and testament. “Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable” the response reads. “Steam Support can’t provide someone else with access to the account or merge its contents with another account. I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will.”

This isn’t the first time someone has asked this basic estate planning question, of course. Last year, a Steam forum user quoted a similar response from Steam support as saying, “Your account is yours and yours alone. Now you can share it with family members, but you cannot give it away.”

Potential loopholes

As a practical matter, Steam would have little way of knowing if you wrote down your Steam username and password and left instructions for your estate to give that information to your descendants. When it comes to legal ownership of that account, though, the Steam Subscriber Agreement seems relatively clear.

“You may not reveal, share, or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account except as otherwise specifically authorized by Valve,” the agreement reads, in part. “You may… not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account, nor may you sell, charge others for the right to use, or transfer any Subscriptions other than if and as expressly permitted by this Agreement… or as otherwise specifically permitted by Valve.”

Eagle-eyed readers might notice a potential loophole, though, in the clauses regarding account transfers that are “specifically permitted by Valve.” Steam forum users have suggested in the past that Valve “wouldn’t block this change of ownership” via a will if a user or their estate specifically requests it (Valve has not responded to a request for comment).

Donating all those 3DS and Wii U games to someone else might be difficult for Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil.

There also might be a partial, physical workaround for Steam users who bequeath an actual computer with downloaded titles installed. In a 2013 Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal article, author Claudine Wong writes that “digital content is transferable to a deceased user’s survivors if legal copies of that content are located on physical devices, such as iPods or Kindle e-readers.” But if that descendant wanted to download those games to a different device or reinstall them in the case of a hard drive failure, they’d legally be out of luck.

Beyond personal estate planning, the inability to transfer digital game licenses has some implications for video game preservation work as well. Last year, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil spent nearly $20,000 to purchase and download every digital 3DS and Wii U game while they were still available. And while Khalil said he intends to donate the physical machines (and their downloads) to the Video Game History Foundation, subscriber agreements mean the charity may have trouble taking legal ownership of those digital games and accounts.

“There is no reasonable, legal path for the preservation of digital-born video games,” VGHF’s then co-director Kelsey Lewin told Ars last year. “Limiting library access only to physical games might have worked 20 years ago, but we no longer live in a world where all games are sold on physical media, and we haven’t for a long time.”

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The ROG Ally X leaks, with twice the battery of the original and way more RAM

ASUS, asus rog ally, gaming, gaming handheld, handheld pc, ROG Ally, steam deck / Blake Jones / May 24, 2024

Handheld gaming PCs —

This handheld has more RAM than my gaming PC, though the chip stays the same.

Kevin Purdy – May 24, 2024 3: 44 pm UTC

Heavily altered image of a ROG Ally X, with — Enlarge / VideoCardz’ leaked image of a ROG Ally X, seemingly having gone through the JPG blender a couple times.

Asus’ ROG Ally was the first major-brand attempt to compete with Valve’s Steam Deck. It was beefy and interesting, but it had three major flaws: It ran Windows on a little touchscreen, had unremarkable ergonomics, and its battery life was painful.

The Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Ally X, which has been announced and is due out June 2, seems to have had its specs leaked, and they indicate a fix for at least the battery life. Gaming site VideoCardz, starting its leak reveal with “No more rumors,” cites the ROG Ally X as having the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU as the prior ROG Ally, as well as the same 7-inch 1080p VRR screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate.

VideoCardz' leaked image, seemingly from Asus marketing materials, with the ROG Ally X's specifications. — VideoCardz’ leaked image, seemingly from Asus marketing materials, with the ROG Ally X’s specifications.

The battery and memory have changed substantially, though. An 80-watt-hour battery, up from 40, somehow adds just 70 grams of weight and about 5 mm of thickness to the sequel device. By increasing the RAM from 16GB to 24GB and making it LPDDR5, the ROG Ally X may be able to lend more of it to the GPU, upping performance somewhat without demanding a new chip or architecture. There is also a second USB-C port, with USB4 speeds, that should help quite a bit with docking, charging while playing with accessories, and, I would guess, Linux hackery.

How does it feel? Only Sean Hollister at The Verge knows, outside of ASUS employees. The sequel has lost the weirdly sharp angles on the back, and more of your hand fits around the back, without the rear buttons being accidentally triggered so easily. The triggers and buttons all seem to have received some feedback-based upgrades to durability and feel.

If Asus sticks close to the $800 price point (that was also leaked), it could compete with the Steam Deck OLED on features and flash, if not library and polish. But as I’ve said before, perhaps somewhat defensively, bring on the flashier handheld PCs.

Expanding the viability of handheld PC gaming means more developers targeting these systems, in specs or just accessibility. More demand for new types of handhelds makes the whole field more interesting and competitive. Microsoft, which is keenly aware of this developing market and is contemplating a more cloud-based and less Xbox-centered gaming future, can only make Windows better on handhelds because the bar is pretty low right now.

All of that gives me more games to play on the couch while the rice is cooking, whether or not the device I’m holding has more and faster RAM and better USB-C ports than my gaming PC.

The ROG Ally X leaks, with twice the battery of the original and way more RAM Read More »