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In case you’ve been under a rock, heres a quick heads up: GameSpy Technology is shutting down on May 31. GameSpy has been around since 1997, when it was debuted as the server listing service for Quake server IPs. The service provides multiplayer matchmaking, leaderboards and cloud storage across a range of platforms including Xbox 360, PC, Wii, Vita, PS3, Mac, Nintendo DS, iOS and Android. This technology has been integrated into over 1,000 games. And at the end of next month, GameSpy is coming to an end.
This certainly marks the end of an era. But, more importantly, it could mark the end of access to a significant amount of games, at least on the multiplayer front. While I don’t normally put a lot of stock in Reddit articles, one sub-forum has been busily compiling a list of games affected by the shutdown. The list is quite impressive. Here are a few highlights:
Arma, Arma 2, Borderlands, Halo: Combat Evolved, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Saints Row 2, Dungeon Defenders (Non Steam version).
Those are just games that are confirmed to be affected. The “Status Unknown” sections is much longer, and MUCH scarier. Now, before you run about screaming that the sky is falling, a number of companies and publishers have come out stating that solutions are either in the works or already waiting to be implemented. These companies include Bohemia Interactive, Activision, Capcom and Epic. Still, a wide array of publishers including EA, Bethesda, 2K Games, Sega and Ubisoft have not announced plans to deal with the sudden cessation of GameSpy services.
For the Reddit thread detailing games and their current (probably) status, click here.
Farewell GameSpy, we hardly knew you. (But I hated you while I did.)
Net Neutrality is kind of a big deal. While the battle over net neutrality rages in the United States, the European Union has just voted to close loopholes that might have created a two-tier internet. The proposal still has to be approved by EU members states, but if it is it will soon be illegal for Telecoms to block internet traffic or charge more money for data-intensive services.
In a nutshell, Net Neutrality is the idea that service providers cannot artificially prioritize one type of traffic over another, or force customers/companies to pay fees for faster access to certain services. The EU proposal is built around the idea of creating safeguards that will keep start-ups, hospitals, universities and those without millions of dollars to draw on from being pushed out of the market. By contrast, the United States has just seen Netflix pay large fees to cable company and internet provider Comcast to ensure the best possible service is available to those using Comcast internet. The darker side of this is that, if unchecked, companies could eventually block access to sites in order to drive views to their own competing services. The EU has taken a step that closes many of these loopholes and is already being embraced by digital rights activists.
In addition, the new law also makes mobile contracts much simpler, in what is termed “plain language contracts”, as well as adding more consumer protection rights.
In an unsurprising reaction, the European Telecommunications Network Operators association has already warned that these changes could limit user choice in the long run, stating “The text approved today would introduce far-reaching restrictions on traffic management, which would make an efficient management of the network almost impossible, resulting in a lower quality internet for all.” While this remains to be seen, it does highlight the cast difference in perspective between telecommunications companies and consumers.
If the proposal is approved by EU member states, the European Union will have taken a firm stance on maintaining the free and open nature of the internet. The same, however, cannot be said for the United States. And if things don’t change in the US quickly, this writer might just be willing to relocate. Anyone in the UK have a couch I can borrow?
The Internet backlash over Facebook buying out Oculus has been varied to say the least. Ranging from those thinking that the extra investment can only speed progress of VR to those saying simply ‘Oculus is dead now – game over.’ One reaction though has gotten an awful lot of notice purely because of what it means and who was saying it.
Shortly after the announcement of Facebook’s purchase of Oculus, Notch the creator of popular sandbox game Minecraft tweeted that Minecraft on Oculus was now a dead thing. Not many people knew at that point that Notch had only two weeks earlier been at the Oculus offices talking about bringing a simplified version of Minecraft out that would be made specially to work with the Oculus Rift.
In a lengthy blog post on his website Notch outlined his joy at virtual reality becoming a feasible concept in the modern age and his trip to see the makers of Oculus.
“I felt like we were on the cusp of a new paradigm… I could be part of the early efforts to work out best practices, and while I have no doubt that in ten years we’ll look back at the problems with early VR applications in the same we look back at GUI problems with early PC games, it still felt exciting to me.”
But then he goes on to explain why he withdrew the offer of a Minecraft game for the Oculus after Facebook bought them out, stating that as a company he really doesn’t trust Facebook. He also points out that Facebook is about engaging users, building numbers and social media. Notch points out that while VR and social are a good match he doesn’t wish to work with social, but games; adding that he didn’t fund the Kickstarter for the Oculus Rift “to build value for a Facebook acquisition.“. He ended the post by congratulating both companies on the ‘business deal’ and stating his respect for the engineers and workers at Oculus. He also linked a mod for those who really needed their Minecraft fix in a VR setting.
While this is sad news, as a long-time Minecraft player I must admit for all my excitement at VR technology I can’t really see the sandbox game working well in VR. Not for me at least. And this might be a good thing, imagine your first VR creeper…
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement about Disney buying Maker, comes another announcement about a big company acquiring a smaller, very popular company. Facebook have just issued a press release stating their intention to buy VR innovators Oculus.
More information will become available soon, but for now take a look at the press release that was issued:
“MENLO PARK, CALIF. – March 25, 2014 – Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR, Inc., the leader in immersive virtual reality technology, for a total of approximately $2 billion. This includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock (valued at $1.6 billion based on the average closing price of the 20 trading days preceding March 21, 2014 of $69.35 per share). The agreement also provides for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones.
Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company’s virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. While the applications for virtual reality technology beyond gaming are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend Oculus’ existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas. Given these broad potential applications, virtual reality technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform.
“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.”
“We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world,” said Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR. “We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it’s only just the beginning.”
Oculus will maintain its headquarters in Irvine, CA, and will continue development of the Oculus Rift, its ground-breaking virtual reality platform.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.”
It will be interesting to find out what Facebook could possibly have in store for Oculus when more information becomes available. Facebook’s creator has given us some idea though in a post which talks about using the VR technology of the Rift to extend beyond gaming and into places such as seats at a game and more. Either way, it does sound rather exciting but I can’t help but feel that the Rift is a long way off yet from taking us to the theatre from the comfort of our own sofas.
VR fans take note! Oculus have announced today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that they are working on a second-generation version of their hardware the Oculus Rift, currently available only as a developer kit (called the DK2) for the moment.
The Oculus Rift has recently been making waves in the gaming community for actually being a fairly decent step forward in the process of developing Virtual Reality gaming into something that is actually feasible and attractive to both developers and customers. The apparatus is worn across the eyes and actually does a decent job in throwing the player into the middle of the gaming environment of the number of games that have support for it built in. However, there were still some issues experienced, chief of which was ‘simulation sickness’ which although mostly absent couldn’t be fully removed from the first-generation version of the hardware as well as still being somewhat bulky and wired up. The second-generation Oculus Rift is being developed with the feedback in mind.
For a start the resolution of each of the two fields of vision in the Rift have been upped to 960×1080 and includes a custom built camera that faces the player to track motion depth, which also reduces the number of wires required. There is only the one cable connected to the apparatus now which splits into a HDMI cable and a USB cable to provide both video and power through the one wire. The DK2 reduces the motion blur and judder that were pinpointed as the two main causes of simulation sickness by Oculus by employing low-persistence OLED. It will also ship with a built-in latency tester and an SDK with engine integrations available for the Unreal Development Kit, Unity 4 and Unreal Engine 4, which Epic Games has just made available to more developers through a subscription system.
Oculus say that the DK2 isn’t identical to the consumer version of the Rift that’s coming, but it is similar enough and has all the important pieces, so games that get developed using the DK2 will still play the same on the consumer version later, although Oculus is hoping to make the VR experience even better for the consumer Rift. Although there is no announced release date for the actual second-generation Rift, there’s a possibility that development might be sped up a little with the recent announcement from Sony that they are planning to make their own competing VR headset called ‘Project Morpheus’ although it too is still in development with no price or release date available.
Oculus are making the DK2 available to people who pre-order the developer kit for $350 and plan to start shipping it out to those people in July.
