The question of transparency is always a hot topic in the Youtube and livestreaming community. There are rules set out for what constitutes as proper disclosure, but even then not all content creators follow it fully and it doesn’t cover all eventualities. I mean, it didn’t stop this year’s big CS:GO gambling scandal that seemed to have its roots spread all over the place for instance. At the same time, with the widespread use of adblockers, many content creators need to do these sponsorship deals to help them manage their bills and everything else. So there’s no question that promotional content is necessary, but not all creators will disclose things if they feel it’ll bring down audience numbers.

EA doesn’t have a great reputation with gamers right now, but it seems that the company is using proper transparency for their products to help win back some of the audience. They’ve just established a set of new rules that require streamers and other content creators to use special labels to indicate content that is promotional in nature or in some way supported by EA.

In an announcement on their German site, EA made an announcement about the new rules stating (in a rough translation):

“Gamers and viewers must be able to see whether they are independent and editorial content, supported placements of messages, or advertising. Any YouTuber, streamer or otherwise active influencer, who enters into a collaboration with Electronic Arts in their content creation and does not yet use their own labeling system, is now requested to use our Hashtags and Watermarks.”

The disclosure will fall into two groups – #supportedbyEA, which covers content that EA has supported (such as invitations to shows, covering travel expenses etc.) but has no direct influence over the creation of the content; and #advertisement, which is actual advertising and covers content that EA has had a hand in creating, had some editorial influence on or maybe even just they created themselves.

The hashtag must be placed directly in the message for things like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram; while video content needs to have the watermark displayed or EA’s involvement needs to be “explicitly mentioned” at the beginning of the video.

Although the announcement was made on the German site, it’s been confirmed that these rules are going to apply across the board. Given that Warner Bros. Interactive got off fairly lightly earlier this year and the aforementioned CS:GO scandal, we can only guess that soon people who fall foul of these rules will soon begin to try the patience of the authorities and get hit much harder.

There has been on shortage of speculation floating around about the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s new console looks to be something unique, but almost no information has been released about it, save that it exists and is a hybrid portable/tv based console. Eurogamer,  however, has picked up on a very interesting rumor. Many Nintendo fans are well aware that Pokemon Sun and Moon released today. Rumors have surfaced that the games may get a release on the Nintendo Switch under the moniker Pokemon Stars. If true, this would mark the first time that a mainline Pokemon game has appeared on a Nintendo console. While we won’t know anything for sure until Nintendo’s January conference focused on the Switch, we can certainly hope the rumor is true….

In Ubisoft news that isn’t about their ongoing fight to not be taken over by Vivendi, five executives of the company have been accused of using their insider knowledge to profit on the stock market. Of couse, the accused executives deny all these claims and some are even seeking damages against the people accusing them.

The accusing party are the stock market regulator for France – Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) – and have accused the CEO of Ubisoft Montreal Yannis Mallat and four other Ubisoft executives of selling up stock in the weeks before October 15th 2013. This was just before the publisher announced delays for two of their then-upcoming games – Watch Dogs and The Crew. After the announcement Ubisoft’s stock dropped by 25%.

The AMF have seen this and theorised that the executives sold up their stocks before the delay announcements were made, because they knew about them and wanted to get the money before their stocks were suddenly worth an awful lot less. Insider trading laws in France prohibit this by the way, so it’s a serious accusation to make.

On Ubisoft’s side, Mallat has told Canadian newspaper La Presse that he had no such insider knowledge to have acted upon. Ubisoft as a whole have answered with a statement that they’re well aware of the accusations and the individuals involved “vigorously dispute their implication in this matter and the AMF’s interpretation of the facts”; and the CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot, says the accused “have his full support and trust”.

In the statement the publisher said, “Ubisoft itself has not been charged by the AMF. Moreover, three of the Canadian team members implicated in the AMF’s action today filed a motion with the Superior Court of Québec demanding that the procedure be declared invalid and seeking damages against AMF France and AMF Québec.”

Proceedings will continue through this month at the Commission des Sanctions in Paris.

It’s time for another update in the world of gaming Kickstarter campaigns.

Starting off as we usually do with previously covered campaigns, there are no ends to report, but two projects – Agony and The Bird Told Me To Do It – have reached their goals with time to spare. Now it’s onto stretch goals for them both! A Little Less Desperation is also now within €1,000 of its goal with 17 days to go, meaning it could well end up finishing completing its raised amount.

However, on the other side of the balance, we’ve a lot of campaigns who are far short of their targets and are running out of time to reach them. Drawing Dead, Cloud Runner, Alone in the Woods and Death Witch: Bloodline are all struggling and probably won’t reach targets set without a major push; while Space Wars: Interstellar Empires has a little less ground to make up but still has a long way to go without much time time meet it.

Bears vs Babies

A card game starts us off, and it comes from the same people who created Exploding Kittens so… you know, funny stuff.

The point of Bears verses Babies is that you are building an army of Bears (and other creatures) to combat an army of Babies. ‘Bear’ cards drawn can be used to build up your army, while ‘Baby’ cards get played in the middle of the table as part of the army you need to fight. When a player uses a ‘Provoke’ card the Baby army then attacks the Bear army of all the players – and you want to Provoke when you’re ready but your opponents are not. Winning means you ‘eat’ the other army and the player who has eaten the most Baby cards wins.

Bears Vs Babies is already funded, having well exceeded it’s $10,000 target. Still, go check it out if you liked Exploding Kittens.

The Station

Next up is a game set in the future aboard a ship drifting powerless above an alien world.

The story of The Station is simple. Humanity has discovered another sentient life on a far planet, but it is in the midst of a civil war. A crew of 3 is sent to see if a peaceful relationship can possibly be established between this new species and humans, but before it can land the station loses all systems. You play a recon person sent to discover what happened and if the crew are still alive to tell their tale.

The Station has made $2,869 CAD of it’s $10,000 CAD target. It has 25 days more to go before the campaign ends.

Space Jammers

Another space based game next, and no it has nothing to do with basketball.

Space Jammers is a 1-4 player co-op shooter that sees you controlling a rock band of alien space kittens as they race across the galaxy towards the Galactic Battle of the Bands. Along the way they will face natural hazards, along with space pirates and rival bands. Weapons include both melee and ranged and are randomised as well as the upgrade pickups you can find. Even the bosses can be randomly generated!

Space Jammers has a $9,000 goal of which is has made $1,191 so far. It has 23 days to go.

Return to Earth

Lastly, and continuing the theme of games chosen this week (with the exception of the first) we have a sci-fi adventure game about returning the human home planet.

Return to Earth is a game that the developers want players to explore at their own pace, and make sure to really seek out all the hidden parts of the maps built. Exploration is key here. Combat is done through the many different weapons found in game, as well as through the bombs that can also be used to blast a way onwards for you. The Rewind ability allows you to skip back in time a few seconds as well.

Return to Earth has 29 days to go and has made £102 of its £2,000 goal.

Dishonored 2 released at last, after a long journey of teasers and trailers that all started with its premature announcement by accident on a livestream the day before it was due to be announced publicly. Unfortunately, quite a few people have found that the game has some major performance issues. Our station manager Digmbot did, and identified why as well – a CPU priority issue that couldn’t be changed.

Arkane did their best to help people get past these issues, but this still left a lot of people unable to play because all the suggested fixes weren’t relevant to them or they had tried them already. Fortunately, it seems Bethesda and Arkane are going to give the game a performance patch this week and finally free gamers to enjoy their time in Dunwall.

Speaking via the Bethesda news wire, Arkane Studios wrote: “We have been monitoring the PC forums and social channels and while we’re excited to hear that many of you are enjoying the game, we are disheartened that some of you are experiencing PC performance issues on some systems. We are actively working to provide an update to address your concerns. The patch and its release notes will be available in the coming days.”

The problem have mainly been reported in mid-range systems, although some higher-range systems (like our own Digm’s) are also finding themselves missing a lot of frames. Some console gamers have also been having problems. Hopefully we should have some word on the patch and when it’ll be available soon for those of you holding off until you can play with the amount of frames you expected from the new game.

Until then, some kind souls over on the Steam community forums are busy putting together a set of tips in how you can eke as many frames out of the unpatched version as possible. Give it a check if you’re up for giving the game another chance before Arkane patch it and (hopefully) solve a great deal of these problems.