Plus Bungie sacks 220 devs and bad racing sim mod hacks Disney
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia for their support of SIFTER.
GIANNI: Hi I’m Gianni Di Giovanni
KYLE: and I’m Kyle Pauletto
GIANNI: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
KYLE: European gamers want the EU to pass a law to preserve online games, Bungie sacks 220 developers and will lose their independence, and a poisoned mod for a racing sim caused Disney to be hacked.
Here is the news for Sunday 4th of August. Let’s go!
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PROMO: Join the SIFTER community on Discord at sifter.com.au/discord
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KYLE: A group of video game activists are proposing a new law for the European union that would stop developers from permanently taking games offline once their popularity drops.
It becomes inevitable that the servers eventually get shut off, they cost money to maintain, but games like Ubisoft's The Crew, which had a playerbase of at least 12 million when it was shut down earlier this year.
Well that doesn’t sit right with some passionate game preservationists, who want to see the hard work of the developers live on, and for consumers to continue having access to a product that they paid for.
That’s where the Stop Killing Games movement comes in.
GIANNI: Stop Killing Games, currently fronted by Youtuber Ross Scott, is hoping to rally the European gaming community, with the end goal of proposing a new law.
Their first task is using the European Citizens Initiative a petition process that gets it in front of lawmakers.
They need one million signatures from European citizens, if they can do that it has a pretty good chance of becoming an actual law.
Here is Ross Scott explaining how the law would work.
[Scott audio]
KYLE: It’s a lot to unpack, particularly the specifics around the EU petition system, so be sure to head to stopkillinggames.com, or check out the link in the show notes to find out how best to get involved.
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GIANNI: The layoffs have returned and this week it’s Bungie cutting down on numbers.
In a post on the Bungie website CEO Pete Parsons said that 220 people have been laid off and 155 people will be ‘integrated’ into Sony Interactive Entertainment, and according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier another 75 will be moved to a new studio.
In the blog Parsons said over the last five years their goal was to create games in three global franchises and to do that they set up several incubation projects.
However as time continued they realised that this model stretched their talent too thin too quickly and it became too big to realistically support.
KYLE: Parsons also contributed economic conditions such as rising costs of development and industry shifts, as well as the ‘quality miss’ of Destiny 2’s expansion Lightfall as some of the causes of the layoffs.
Bungie have said they will support the employees that they’re laying off through a exit package including severance, bonus and health coverage.
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KYLE: Last week we saw Humble Games announce their restructure, or shutdown depending on who you ask, but now we’re starting to see more devs speak about the lack of communication and support, especially around porting to consoles.
However, Humble Games representative Michael Brown said to Polygon that ‘nothing has changed and no developers have had to change their porting plans’ and that ‘every project is moving ahead’.
When asked about why various studios have spoken out about what’s been happening, Brown responded saying that some of the studios were still in the process of connecting with their new points of contact.
GIANNI: But as always, you ask the devs and you get a completely different response.
More studios have spoken out saying their console porting plans are also in limbo and those that do have console ports can’t access the backend for patches, so now those versions are several updates behind Steam.
The devs behind Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, which released only a couple of weeks ago, have also joined in on the conversation saying the restructure was a blow to their post-launch support, with their success and joy for the game being overshadowed by Humbles announcement.
We’ll keep you updated as we get more information.
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GIANNI: We were pretty excited about the massive mod Fallout London last week but now we’ve got a timely reminder that not all mods are safe.
Beam NG a driving simulator which is famous for its modding scene was poisoned by a malicious trojan that hackers planted which gave access to player’s computers.
Including a software developer at Disney…which exposed personal details and unannounced games in development
KYLE: All up around 1 terabyte of data was stolen before it was noticed… damn.
The hackers claim it was a retaliation to shutting down online games portal Club Penguin and Disney's attempt to lock down a performer's likeness forever.
But for all of us, make sure you stick to the major mod platforms like Nexus or ModDB if you want to play it safe.
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GIANNI: That’s it for the big headlines, here are the games coming out this week.
KYLE: Pepper Grinder, the side-scrolling platformer released on Switch and PC earlier this year is now available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox one, and Xbox Series S and X. Grab it on the 4th.
GIANNI: The 80’s inspired action side-scroller Volgarr the Viking 2 is out this week. Its 2013 predecessor was a massive hit for fans of the genre, and this entry looks like it could have been worth the wait. Pick it up on all platforms on the 6th.
KYLE: Out on the 7th is Creatures of Ava, a third person action adventure where you are tasked with saving weird and wonderful creatures on planet Ava, before the world is taken over by a devastating infection. That's exclusive to PC this Wednesday.
GIANNI: Next up we have Cat Quest 3, which will see our cat hero set sail on the high seas in a brand new pirate setting. Play solo or co-op when Cat Quest 3 arrives on all platforms this Thursday.
KYLE: Preserve is a super chill nature-building puzzle game where you create an ecosystem by hand picking plants and animals to create perfect symbiosis. It’s out on PC on the 8th.
GIANNI: Also out on the 8th is SteamWorld Heist 2, building on the original with new combat systems, classes, and a heap of new maps to explore. That’s coming to all platforms this Thursday.
KYLE: And finally we have Gianni’s most highly anticipated game of the year, The Crush House. It’s a self-described THIRST-person shooter, where the player picks out cast members for a 90’s style reality dating show that grows more sinister the longer it remains on air. This game looks bonkers. It’s out on PC this Friday.
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PROMO: Articles to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to on sifter.com.au
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GIANNI: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Gianni Di Giovanni.
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
GIANNI: You can follow SIFTER on YouTube, we put every episode up as a video and you’ll also see gameplay clips, shorts and more, find us on youtube.com/sifterHQ make sure when you subscribe you hit the bell icon to get alerts, that address again is youtube.com/sifterHQ
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by Fiona Bartholomaeus, myself, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. The episode is edited by both Senior Producer Mitch Loh and Executive Producer Gianni Di Giovanni, who is also Walkthrough’s script editor.
GIANNI: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday. See you then.
