Monthly Archives: September 2019

NIffelheim Arrives on Consoles Today

 

When a Viking warrior receives a noble, glorious death, the Valkyries guide that warrior to Valhalla, and that is a key element of Niffelheim. A warrior is trying to earn his way into Valhalla in a 2D survival-adventure title, now on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. After falling in a fierce battle, this warrior is denied entry into paradise, so he sets out on a quest to earn his way into the promised land.

Andrey Arutyunyan, Co-Founder of Ellada Games talks about Niffelheim:

“Niffelheim is a game that combines crafting, survival, and combat, and it allows players to enjoy each element on its own, or as part of a greater whole. It’s the kind of experience lets you truly play it the way you like, and we can’t wait to introduce players to our dark Viking fable.”

Deck of Ashes Reveals New Character, Buck

Deck of Ashes Buck

At 11 AM EST today, Deck of Ashes has a new update that releases a new character: The deadly fighter known as Buck. Beast Rage Buck and his companion, Charon arrive and bring with them a new way to play the game. Buck’s debut will also unlock all previous in-game events, and their associated cards and skills. His skills are below:

Buck’s Skills:

  • Berserk: The less health he has, the more powerful his sword strikes become. His attacks cause agonizing wounds that lead to a terrible, screaming death for his foes.
  • Execution: Buck weakens his opponent and then can deal massive damage. He earns bonuses from killing opponents weakened with this attack.
  • Marks: Call out specific opponents via special marks that act as targets for your faithful companion Charon. Charon, who seems like a cute and fuzzy kitten at first blush, quickly levels up into a nightmarish hellcat, complete with special attacks all his own.

New character skins will also show up in Deck of Ashes in this update. Each of the skins has special stats that will change the flow of the game.

Barrage

Barrage is a 3D real-time strategy game where players will race against opponents to be the first to advance their planet and eliminate all enemies.

Business Model: Free-to-Play

Microtransactions: Yes, there are optional in-game purchases available.

Key Features:

Here’s the Plan: Matches start you off with a few basic buildings, but you will have to gather additional resources and fund research to order new projects. Minerals are used in gun manufacturing and construction, whereas Energy can be collected to create new energy-based weaponry.

No Escape: Physics will always need to be considered when launching an attack on your foes. The gravitational pull of stars, black holes, other planets, and more can all cause your artillery to stray off the mark.

Go Long: There are five unique Research Trees available for investment. One of the paths allows you to upgrade your headquarters, while the other four allow you to enhance your Laser, Missile, Solar, and Graviton weapons.

Competitive Play: Play online with friends in game modes like Team Deathmatch and Survival, or in singleplayer game modes like Free-play.

Funcom Announces Conan Steam Free Weekend

In celebration of the Conan franchise and in order to display the evolution of all three titles, Funcom has together with Steam to offer survival game Conan Exiles, MMO Age of Conan and the RTS game Conan Unconquered to play for free from now until September 23. Just log on to Steam to play the three Conan games and discover the gameplay improvements made in their lifetime! All titles will also be on discount.

 

We Stand with Kickstarter United

By Terris Harned (NWOrpheus)

Foreword: This editorial article is written by an American, from an American point of view, about American topics. Things might be different where you are, if you’re not in America, so please don’t take any generalizations about American history as commentary about issues where you are if you’re outside the US. Thanks!

The Hand That Will Rule The World: One Big Union Political Cartoon

The Hand That Will Rule The World: One Big Union Political Cartoon

What have unions ever done for us?

If you’re in the US and work an 8 hour work day, you have labor unions to thank for it (if you work longer than that, then perhaps you should consider unionizing.) If you enjoy the security that an injury on the job won’t make you destitute, thanks to workman’s compensation, you have labor unions to thank for it. If you cringe when you hear about child labor in South America, or sweat shops in Asia, and think “I’m sure glad that stuff doesn’t happen in my country!” You have labor unions to thank for it.

If you have to stop and ask, “What have labor unions ever done for me?” chances are you’re either very, very rich, and hate labor unions because they cost you money, or you’re so privileged to live a comfortable life that you simply don’t understand how much unions have done to protect your way of life. Even if the company you work for isn’t unionized, the protections that all workers enjoy – such as unemployment insurance, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), federal minimum wages, and even that bank holiday that you might get to celebrate the first Monday of September, Labor Day – all came about because of unions.

It’s also worth noting that as of the 1980’s, union power began to decline. It is also around this time that wage disparity in the US began to increase to where it is today. As the influence of unions wanes in the United States, so too does the percentage of profits that go into worker’s paychecks.

 

Downsides

That’s not to say that unions haven’t seen some issues. As Lord Acton said in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt.” In the US, the ability to control people is power. The ability to control people often comes through money, and unions certainly control a great deal of it. The way that money is spent isn’t always in the best interest of employees, who pay into unions to create the pool of funds with which unions are meant to impact change.

Very recently, the United Auto Worker’s current and former union presidents were charged with embezzlement, according to NPR. In 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, who was at one time President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It is alleged that organized crime (mafia) was involved in Hoffa’s disappearance, and it is believed that there are places where organized crime still influences unions.

 

Tech and Union Friction

Labor unions and technology have a longstanding history of not getting along. Union workers tend to be intrinsically anti-technology, as often the tech industry’s goal is automation, which in turn reduces the value of human workers. This obviously puts labor unions and technology at cross purposes. Freelance employees, who work on individual tasks and receive pay only for what they complete, are also difficult to unionize, and they are an integral part of the tech industry.

There is also a belief that unions generally are against innovation, especially where that innovation reduces workload for workers. After all, if there’s no work to do, then how are workers supposed to get paid? If workers aren’t getting paid, then how does the union get money? Whether this is true or not I cannot comment on, but it is something that is spoken of.

Pinatas in the Epic Games office. Photo by Sergey Galyonkin (flickr.com/photos/sergesegal/)

Pinatas in the Epic Games office. Photo by Sergey Galyonkin (flickr.com/photos/sergesegal/)

Tech Industry Labor Issues

Let’s face facts: one of the largest tech industries, and the largest entertainment industry in the world, is gaming. In the fiscal year ending in 2018, the CEO for Activision, Robert Kotick, earned over $30 million dollars in compensation. For reference, that is approximately 1,000 times the American median income. So one man made as much money as 1,000 other average US citizens. It was also a 306:1 ratio to the average Blizzard/Activision employee. That means Activision could have doubled the compensation of its employees across the board, and Robert Kotick still could have made $15 million dollars in compensation.

The gaming industry is also one that loves its crunch. If you’re unfamiliar with crunch, it’s the practice of having your workers putting in more than 40 hours per week for more than two weeks at a time. Sometimes employees are expected to work 7 days a week for up to 12 hours a day (84 hours/wk). Previously in the game industry, crunch was something that happened occasionally in order to meet a deadline, and usually only lasted a month or two. Increasingly, this is becoming standard practice.

A 2014 survey by the International Game Developers Association showed that around 81% of employees in the gaming industry had experienced crunch at some point in the two years prior. There are several articles from 2019 alone talking about the crunch experienced by Fortnite developers Epic Games – a company that made $3 billion dollars in profits last year.

Why employees are asked to work such excruciating hours when the company clearly has the revenue to hire more people is clear: employers put their incomes before the health and welfare of their employees, who they view as disposable resources.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, is 223 of 500 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (as of the writing of this article), by the way, with a net worth of $7.2 billion dollars. So far in 2019 he’s made over $50 million dollars. What is the likelihood that he works 84 hours per week for months on end?

Kickstarter United Header

Unionization efforts at Kickstarter

Employees of Kickstarter, probably the most well known and widely used crowdsourcing platform, began unionization efforts in March of 2019. It was also around this time that Aziz Hasan took over as CEO of Kickstarter, after the resignation of its former CEO, Kickstarter founder Perry Chen. Hasan has taken an anti-union stance since May of 2019, when he stated that Kickstarter would not voluntarily recognize unionization efforts.

More recently, Kickstarter has come under fire for the termination of two employees who were heavily involved with organizing the union: Clarissa Redwine and Taylor Moore. Both employees were offered what they claim is an inadequate severance package (one month’s pay). This severance was contingent on them signing an agreement to not speak poorly (a non-disparagement agreement) against Kickstarter, which both Redwine and Moore refused.

Kickstarter has made claims that these firings were unrelated to unionization efforts, citing expectations of employees regarding performance issues (at least in the case of Redwine) and poor performance reviews in a general manner. Redwine flatly denies these allegations:

Clarissa Redwine has meanwhile filed a complaint with the National Labor Review Board about her termination, as well as the non-disparagement agreement that Kickstarter attempted to bribe her into signing.

We Stand in Solidarity

Wage disparity between game developers and other software engineers doing similar work can be quite large. Many speculate because of the “dream job” factor: being able to tell your friends that you’re a game designer is a little bit like being able to claim you’re a rock star. There is also a massive glut of employees in the field, which is one reason why employers feel they are able to treat their workers as disposable commodities. There is always another person eager to work insane hours for low pay, just so they can brag about their cool job.

MMOHuts and OnRPG’s creative content staff is a small and motley crew. We’re all considered freelancers, and a union just wouldn’t be practical for us. That being said, we do fully support unions, and condemn crunch and other unfair labor practices, as well as the wage disparities in the gaming industry.

Kickstarter United, in its efforts to organize with the Office of Professional Employees International Union, (OPEIU) could pave the way for other tech related industries, such as gaming, to organize unions and improve the working situation of its employees. The refusal by Kickstarter to recognize the union and this latest round of apparent and alleged union-busting behavior is prohibitive to those efforts.

We are calling upon Kickstarter to recognize the union, and to cease any alleged union busting activities. Because we’re acting in solidarity with Kickstarter United, and they have asked for the continued support of the creators who use the page, we will, for the time being, continue to do so. Should Kickstarter United send out a call for further action, we will consider that on a case by case basis. However, any new articles posted by us about Kickstarter or Kickstarter projects will be directed to this article to bring awareness to the issue.

 

Editor’s Note: The opinions here are those of the creative staff serving MMOHuts and OnRPG and may not reflect the views of our parent organization.

Enemy on Board Announced as Asymmetric Strategic Multiplayer Title

Windwalk Games announced their debut title today, Enemy on Board as an asymmetric tactical multiplayer title. Inspired by games like Mafia and Werewolf, players will have to guess who is a friend, and who is a foe. In each round of Enemy on Board, six players wake up on a spaceship, and two are selected to be aliens. The innocent crew members will need to use weapons, tools, and voice communication to identify and slay these aliens. Aliens will have to keep their identities hidden and kill the crew. Last side standing wins. Enemy on Board is coming later this year to Steam.

Enemy on Board Features:

  • Action-packed matches with online multiplayer and real-time combat

  • Deeply strategic game play where hidden roles and deception abound

  • Round-based game play with short 6-8 minute matches

  • Asymmetrical threats, find out who the enemies are while maintaining the ship or get blown to smithereens

  • Communicate with fellow crew members or be a master of deception with integrated voice chat

  • Use your creativity and deliver mass damage with highlight-worthy hit combos

  • Easy to stream, your viewers can play detective and figure out who the aliens are themselves

  • Choose from a vast and constantly growing arsenal of weapons and character skins

Code: Realize – Guardian of Rebirth – To Receive Nintendo Switch Collector’s Edition

Code Realize

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ from Aksys Games revealed that it is coming to the Nintendo Switch in February 2020, developed by Idea Factory. Players will head to a Steampunk version of Victorian England and will control Cardia as she adventures, and meeting a wide cast of gentlemen, based on characters in history as well as literature. The Collector’s Edition was announced, which includes the game, an acrylic keychain featuring beloved characters from the game, and, for the first time in a Code: Realize release, a 60-page art book, and a soundtrack CD. The Collector’s Edition is expected to be available at retailers and on the Aksys Games store for $59.99.

Citadel: Forged with Fire Reveals November Release Date

Citadel: Forged with Fire had a bit of a hiccup that slowed down its release, but now we can confirm it launches on November 1st, 2019. Coming to Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC, the 1.0 release of Blue Isle Studio’s game is on the way. This is the last chance Citadel can be purchased for 14.99 (at a 40% discount). On September 24th, it goes to 39.99. Attendees of Twitchcon will be able to check it out as well, and see the latest updates for the upcoming game.