Indie dev defends criticism of Steam refund abuse amid review bombing of his game: ‘It’s wrong to refund a game after having fun with it and completing it’

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Developer Mateo Covic, who went viral for complaining that thousands of people had refunded his game after finishing it in less than two hours, says he’s not actually unhappy about the number of refunds or money he lost, or even Steam’s policy in general—he was merely expressing frustration with players who “bragged about having a … Read more

id Software provides proof of life, says it ‘still has the crew we need to build the games and tech we’re known for’ after massive layoffs

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Microsoft’s cuts across Xbox studios, totaling 3,200 by later this year, included a massive reduction at id Software. The team lost 136 people (over half of the studio) just a day before its Doom: The Dark Ages expansion released, a bloodletting that had remaining and newly laid-off employees seriously concerned about the studio’s capacity to … Read more

Microsoft responds to racist Xbox layoff conspiracy theory, says CEO Asha Sharma is ‘American born, raised, and educated’

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I’ve seen a lot of complaints and concerns about the layoffs at Xbox that put 3,200 people out of work and resulted in the spinoff of four studios—eventually five, once the Arkane situation is sorted. One I haven’t run across is a claim that it’s all part of an effort to take jobs away from … Read more

One of my favorite Warhammer 40,000 books is getting an unexpected sequel

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Plenty of Warhammer 40,000 novels have been written from the perspective of humans and space marines, but it took a while before Games Workshop really got into publishing books from the perspective of 40K’s many alien species. If you’re into orks I recommend Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh, and for swashbuckling aeldari pirates there’s … Read more

Bethesda union staff to march outside studios over Xbox layoffs: ‘The company wants us to accept this as a done deal and quietly disappear’

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Xbox’s ‘reset’ layoffs have hit Bethesda hard, with long-term institutional talent shown the door—Zenimax Online Studios, which is part of the same studio family as Bethesda and works on the Elder Scrolls Online, was also particularly dismantled by Xbox, with over 60% of its staff laid off in the past year. Understandably, Bethesda developers are … Read more

Arc Raiders has targeted yet another duplication exploit just a couple of days after celebrating a drop in suspicious player accounts

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The first hotfix since Arc Raiders’ 1.36 update has rocked up, and while it may be small it does tackle some important issues, namely a new duplication exploit which has popped up recently and saw mountains of explosives spawn even faster than the throwables glitch. “We have just pushed a hotfix on all platforms to … Read more