Valve on Thursday rolled out a new Steam Workshop feature that lets people charge for their Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mods. The program launches today with Bethesda's popular role-playing game while other supported titles will be announced in the coming weeks.
As part of the new program, anyone now has the opportunity to list their creations--mods, items, or maps--at whatever price they want (they can even change prices after release), or they can offer them for free just like before. And per the terms of Valve's user agreement, anyone not satisfied with their purchase can get a full refund, provided they file their refund request within 24 hours.
Steam users have had the ability to sell their items through the Steam Workshop for years now--creators have even earned $57 million since 2011 doing so--but this was limited to Valve games like Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2, among others. Only in January this year did Valve announce plans to open this up to third-party games.
The difference here that Skyrim is the first game with an open market--neither Bethesda nor Valve will have a hand in determining pricing or curation.
In its own statement, Valve's Tom Bui said: "User-generated content is an increasingly significant component of many games, and opening new avenues to help financially support those contributors via Steam Workshop will help drive the level of UGC to new heights."
As for why Valve is launching the new program with Skyrim, it might have something to do with the enduring popularity of the game and its devoted (and creative) players. There are currently more than 24,000 free Skyrim mods available in the game's Steam Workshop page, and these have seen more than 170 million downloads to date, Valve said. It will be up to the creators of these mods to determine if they want to keep them available for free or set a price for them.
"Modding has been important to all our games for such a long time," Bethesda wrote on its website. "We try to create worlds that come alive and you can make your own, but it's in modding where it truly does. Thanks again for all your incredible support over the years. We hope steps like this breathe new life into Skyrim for everyone."
You can see all the available paid (and free) Skyim mods here. More information about the new Steam Workshop paid mod functionality, including a comprehensive FAQ, is available on Steam's website.
In conjunction with this news, Bethesda has announced that it's updated the Skyrim Creation Kit--the game's free mod tools--with new features aimed at supporting the new paid mods. This includes things like the ability to upload master files, the removal of filesize limit restrictions, and more.
Not all Skyrim players are jumping for joy at the news that people can now charge for mods, however. One Steam user writes in the Skyrim forums, "Charging for a mod is wrong and should not be done." Someone else added: "Beyond ****ed up, Gaben has reached a new low."
For its part, Valve says: "By paying for mods and supporting the people that made them, you enable those artists and creators to continue working on their mods and inspire new modders to try their hand in creating new, higher quality items and experiences."
What do you think about paid mods on Steam? Let us know in the comments below!
Activision and Treyarch Studios on Thursday released a new teaser trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and it has a very Deus Ex-like vibe. Watch as Treyarch presents what it thinks the next 50 years of technological advancements will look like and, importantly, how the military will make use of those advancements.
All manner of genetic biohacking such as retinal implants and more are on display in the video.
The official Call of Duty website's source code previously revealed this futuristic setting, and teased how these genetic enhancements would affect soldiers and the military.
According to that leak, Black Ops III is set in a "dark, twisted future where a new breed of Black Ops soldier emerges and the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead, in a world where cutting-edge military robotics define warfare."
Activision and Treyarch will share more details on Black Ops III this coming Sunday, April 26. Check back then for lots more on the game, which is due out this fall for (at least) Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Today, we have a wide selection of videos that encompass some of the miscellaneous content that we weren't able to fit into our earlier features. Check out the videos below to see what's it like to battle things other than monsters, find out just how big the game's map is, and learn a thing or two about the game-within-a-game: Gwent.
The first clip in this video shows off the game in wonderful 60fps, while the other two were recorded at 30. We confirmed this is all PC footage, but the latter clips give a possible indication of what the game will look like on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.
We Unveil The Map of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The world of The Witcher 3 isn't just one, single open map. In this video of the PC version, shown in glorious 1080p/60fps, we zoom out from Geralt's position to reveal the full extent of Wild Hunt's map.
White Orchard in the east is the prologue area where you spend the first few hours. The areas marked Novigrad and Velen/No Man's Land are one giant, open-world even larger than the one in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. And the Skellige Isles constitute another open world of around the same, immense size.
A First Look at The Witcher 3's Card Game Gwent
Parlor games are a common element of many open world games, and The Witcher series is no different. But the popular dice poker game from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings sadly doesn't return in this installment. Instead, Wild Hunt features a card game familiar to those who have read any of The Witcher books: Gwent.
Gwent is a 1v1 collectible card game that's basically Geralt's version of Magic: The Gathering. Cards can be won, purchased or found throughout the game. But perhaps the most exciting aspect of Gwent is that it has it's own quest line where you travel the world playing people, and eventually you enter a massive Gwent tournament in the city of Novigrad.
Sony San Diego has rolled out a new update for MLB 15: The Show that makes a long list of changes to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 pro baseball game, one of which is a much-needed haircut for Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen to match his real-world appearance.
"Andrew McCutchen's hair has been adjusted," reads a line from the patch notes. "We gave him a haircut to match his current appearance." T
The full MLB 15: The Show 1.02 patch notes are available below.
Online Gameplay – Game would occasionally hang following an Intentional Walk, a regular Base on Balls, a Hit by Pitch, or a Balk.
General – Batters would strikeout on the second strike when the performed certain check swings at pitches in the dirt.
Franchise mode – Edit Player screen was limiting users from editing generated players, and players on certain teams.
General – Specific "wall s****ing" home runs would result in a baserunner staying on 1st base, and not score correctly.
Online Franchise - Injuries were not occurring during Online Franchise games.
Online Gameplay – Guessing Pitches had a delay and users would occasionally fail to guess Location and Pitch Type when offering input quickly.
Online – Within Game Rooms, users were missing their rank logos that distinguished them as Rookie, Veteran, All-Star, Hall of Fame, or Legend rank.
Online – Play Now Rated and Diamond Dynasty – Home and Away team assignment was not random, resulting in some users always being the home team, or always the away team.
Online – Play Now Online rated – Controlling the KC Royals, user would be given control of the ace pitcher (Ventura) no matter who was chosen to be the starting pitcher in the Pitcher Select screen.
Card Collections – Redeem Legend button was missing after completing a collection.
General - CPU runners were not using correct lead off logic.
General – Specific edited rosters would cause the game to crash when loading into a Road To The Show Showcase game.
General – Andrew McCutchen's hair has been adjusted – We gave him a haircut to match his current appearance.
General – Wrigley Field had some collision/Home Run detection issues. Certain foul balls were being counted as Home Runs down the 1st base line.
General – Sounds of the Show issues have been resolved. Custom music was not being saved correctly where users intended them to.
General – Public Announcer audio was frequently incorrect (announcing the wrong name) during the end of game wrap up and also when bringing relief pitchers into the game.
General – Highlight Reel was added back into post game menus, by popular demand!
General – Tweaking and refining of in game sound effects.
General – Front End User Interface tweaking. Team colors on User's Player Card.
General – Tuning to trade logic, specifically how the CPU traded with other CPU teams in Franchise and Season modes.
General – Baserunning/Lead Runner windows were missing from Manager Mode.
General - Players will now wear sleeves when the game is played at lower temperatures.
General – Fixed many occurrences of consumer reported crashes, reported to us through the PS4 operating system crash reporting tool. Areas that encountered these rare crashes included: Exiting Amateur Draft in Franchise mode / Entering Diamond Dynasty / During initial boot-up / Using the Suggested Trade feature in Franchise mode / Specific in game scenarios.
Community Market – Changing pages in the marketplace completed order now works.
Gameplay – Animation clean up and tuning.
Gameplay – Adjustments to tagging sliding baserunners.
AI tuning – Bunt success rate was incorrect/too successful and accurate.
Year to Year Saves modifications – Properly handling a small batch of players who were not in the league in MLB 14, and how they transfer over to MLB 15.
By Rob Crossley on Apr 23, 2015 08:57 pm In January, Square Enix confirmed that it is preparing to reveal details of its new Hitman project this year.
Publisher Square Enix is joining the likes of Bethesda, Ubisoft, and EA, by hosting its own dedicated press conference at E3.
The media briefing is due to take place on Tuesday, June 16 at 9 AM, which is traditionally the time slot Nintendo uses for its own press conference. Whether the two will clash is not clear, for now, as Nintendo has yet to reveal its own timings.
As well as inviting the press to watch the conference on location in LA, Square Enix will be streaming the show live on Twitch and YouTube.
The publisher's bid to arrange and pay for its own press conference will trigger speculation regarding the scale of its announcements. Square Enix has not hosted a media briefing at E3 since 2012, where it showcased its next-gen Luminous Engine for the first time.
GameStop's special $225 Xbox One deal ends this coming Sunday, April 26, the retailer reminded shoppers today as part of an announcement for its upcoming Xbox One Weekend event. Starting tomorrow, April 24, and running through April 26, all GameStop stores across the United States will offer special Xbox One-themed deals, including the $225 Xbox One deal mentioned above.
To get an Xbox One for that price, you'll need to trade in an Xbox 360 (250 GB of greater) or a PlayStation 3 (120 GB or greater) to receive a $125 credit towards the purchase of a new console. This deal even works on the Halo: The Master Chief Collection Xbox One bundle, which also comes with a free faceplate skin.
Some of GameStop's other special Xbox One-themed deals available this weekend are listed below, courtesy of GameStop.
You can see everything on sale this weekend as part of GameStop's Xbox One Weekend event here.
Video games and government have a long history, one which is rooted in controversy around virtual violence. But now, someone who worked at the White House for nearly two years on its digital media team and sat in on meetings following the Newtown massacre, says the United States government is changing.
DeLoura
Video game industry veteran Mark DeLoura worked as White House senior adviser for digital media at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for just under two years, from 2013 to the end of last year. Before that, he held positions at a variety of gaming companies, including THQ, Ubisoft, and Nintendo.
He tells GamesIndustry International in an excellent, wide-ranging interview that the government is actually more interested in pursuing video games for their educational purposes instead of targeting violent games.
"My takeaway after having been in the White House is there's an interest in seeing if games can be used to address societal challenges," he said. "That's the primary interest in games--we've seen other modalities in other media have an impact in different ways over time as we learn how to use them to teach people or express concepts. Can games do that? If they're not doing that how do we get them to do that? If they're doing it a little, do they want to do it more? How can we encourage this? That's the interest."
"You don't get a ton of positive stories," DeLoura said. "They are out there, they are hard to find and they don't get huge press. In general, great feel good stories don't get huge press anyway. That's the challenge, as games are doing more and more great things."
The full interview is well worth a read, as it touches on a variety of other subjects, including DeLoura's thoughts on video game tax breaks, diversity in the technology field in general, and the 2013 White House meeting with US Vice president Joe Biden following the Newtown shooting. Read the full interview here.
Following yesterday's initial reveal, Codemasters on Thursday officially announced Overlord: Fellowship of Evil, the next entry in the UK developer's action-adventure series. The game is in development for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and is due to launch later this year for $20.
The most recent entry in the core Overlord series was Overlord II, released more than six years ago in 2009 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Fellowship of Evil is shaking things up.
Fellowship of Evil departs from the formula of past Overlord games in that you'll play not as one Overlord, but rather as one of four Netherghūls. These are described as "suitably nefarious" undead servants, who are "determined to bring evil back to a world overrun by the forces of good." How nice of them.
The game supports four-player co-op either locally or online. Another major change is that Fellowship of Evil is played from a top-down perspective, whereas the first two entries in the core series were presented in a third-person view. You can see some Fellowship of Evil gameplay in the video above.
One thing that's staying the same, however, is the voice actor for the minions. British voice actor Marc Silk is returning to voice the dastardly creatures for Fellowship of Evil.
And as suspected, Rhianna Pratchett--who worked on the original two Overlord games--has returned to write for Fellowship of Evil. For more on Fellowship of Evil, check out some images in the gallery below.
Will Bungie ever introduce a player trading system for items in Destiny? It's a question that Bungie is continually asked, including during yesterday's special livestream for upcoming expansion House of Wolves. Destiny creative director Christopher Barrett responded by saying that, although it's not a feature he'd personally like to see in Destiny, it's not been ruled out for sometime down the road.
Barrett said people have been asking about a Destiny trading system "since the beginning of time."
"It's something we're...there's downsides to it and there's upsides," he explained. Destiny community member Gothalion said a item trading system could diminish the appeal of Destiny's endgame if players could freely swap items between one another.
Barrett said he agreed. But while he wouldn't personally like to see player trading in Destiny, he says the team internally at Bungie is divided on the subject, noting that the studio's "investment designers" continue to explore the possibility.
"The investment designers, there's a lot of conversations I'm sure that happen about that," Barrett said. "We're always considering features like that. Personally, I'd prefer not to have player trading. But you'll get different opinions across the entire team."
Destiny publisher Activision does have a history with player trading systems, as the company's genre-defining MMO World of Warcraft has had such a system for years now.
Would you like to see player trading in Destiny? Let us know in the comments below.
We learned a lot more about Destiny's new House of Wolves expansion yesterday, and you can see a roundup of the key points here. The expansion itself arrives May 19 for all platforms.
But that ends today, as the developer has released an extended gameplay video, which shows off the game's car combat and customization, as well as its brutal melee features, and more.
As the video explains, Mad Max drops players into The Wasteland with no possessions at all. Players must first build a car, the Magnum Opus, which can be upgraded and customized. This customization extends to hand-to-hand combat as well, as players can also upgrade their character's armor and weapons.
The video also reveals that players will find valuable scraps scattered through The Wasteland that they can collect to forge new weapons and upgrades for their car.
Finally, the new gameplay movie teases that players should expect to perform dastardly deeds if they want to survive. "The Wasteland is no place for a conscience," the narrator says.
Eager for more information about upcoming open-world Wii U RPG Xenoblade Chronicles X? You don't have much longer to wait, as Nintendo has announced that it will hold a special "video showcase" for the game tomorrow, Friday, April 24, starting at 11 AM PDT / 2 PM EDT / 7 PM UK.
Following the "showcase"--which will be broadcast through the Nintendo Direct website--Nintendo will hold a Nintendo Treehouse live video presentation where developers will presumably go more in-depth into the game and its features.
Xenoblade Chronicles X launches for Wii U later this year. For lots more, check out GameSpot's in-depth interview with the game's creator, Monolith Soft.
Former Battlefield producer Gordon Van Dyke, who worked on a range of titles in the series including Battlefield 2142 and the Bad Company franchise before leaving to join Paradox Interactive, has launched a new video game startup. Together with former Paradox Interactive vice president of mobile Jonas Antonsson, they have launched Raw Fury Games, what the two are calling the first "UnPublisher."
"We might say it's a new breed of publisher for boutique and indie games," the company said on its blog today. "But we might just as well call it an UnPublisher--because of how badly the publishing term--or what it traditionally stands for--fits with what we're doing."
"We're all former developers. We used to run studios, design games, produce them, and ship them. We've seen all the shizzle, when it comes to developing games and dealing with all the traditional models. We've tried it all on our own skin. Now it's our time to help fellow developers to achieve their best work and get it out there. Into the hands of people that truly appreciate what they've striven to create."
In essence, Raw Fury is trying to "dismantle how publishing traditionally works." This is not to say the company is totally damning the traditional publishing model, as the company explains, "There are publishers out there that are nice, or at least there can be publishers out there that are nice."
Raw Fury says it will allow developers themselves to "run the show" while the company offers support and assistance. "We are fans and cheerleaders," the company said.
You can read Raw Fury's full blog post here. Raw Fury is based on Stockholm, Sweden.
The first two games Raw Fury will help publish are mystery-themed PC title Kathy Rain from Hilltop Games and "minimalist RPG" Kingdom from Licorice and Noio.
Game of Thrones Ascent, the mobile and web game from Boston-based independent developer Disruptor Beam, on Thursday launched its second expansion, Fire & Blood. The studio has also released new content themed around Season 5 of HBO's popular Game of Thrones, which debuted earlier this month.
Fire & Blood introduces a new gameplay system called Tales of Ice and Fire, a new dragon egg to hatch along with a new system that lets players grow and evolve their dragons, and a new new building called the Great Hall. You can learn more about everything Fire & Blood has to offer at Disruptor Beams' website.
In addition, Game of Thrones Ascent has introduced new quests and made new items available to buy based around Season 5 of HBO's Game of Thrones, which premiered on April 12. Disruptor Beam is using the tagline, "Watch on Sunday, play on Monday!" to promote this content.
Game of Thrones Ascent was released in 2013 and has attracted more than 10 million players, who have together created more than 15 million characters. The game's first expansion, The Long Night, was released in October 2014. You can download the free game today on iTunes and Google Play, or play it on Facebook, Kongregate, or DisruptorBeam.com.
For a closer look at Fire & Blood, check out some images in the gallery below.
Disclosure: Former GameSpot editor Rich Gallup is an executive producer at Disruptor Beam.
On shopping sites such as Tecsco, Amazon, and Argos, both black and white PS4 units are listed at £289.99, down from the previous standard price of £330 (the official RRP remains £350). Meanwhile, retailer GAME is offering a PS4 bundle with Minecraft for £290.
These retailer deals were not enacted independently from Sony; The platform holder has even promoted the offers on its official Twitter account.
The deal arrives nine days after Microsoft reduced the price of the Xbox One from £330 to £300. Both platform holders say their respective discounts are a "limited time" offer; Sony states its promotion will cease April 28, while Microsoft has not yet provided a clear date for when its deal will end.
Such offers also arrive during a seasonal reduction in video game sales, as Britain crawls into the summer months. According to NPD data, total game retail sales across the US declined 20 percent in February.
Daybreak Game Company's PC zombie MMO H1Z1 is aiming to introduce female characters models in the next two weeks, CEO John Smedley said in a post on Twitter. Once female avatars arrive, H1Z1 will catch up with another popular zombie title, DayZ, which already has female avatars.
"Hoping to get the female model into H1Z1 in the next two weeks," he said. "Trying for late next week."
Development on female H1Z1 character models began in March as part of a wider effort to overhaul the look and diversity of both male and female avatars. As you can see in the image below, Daybreak has designed its female characters to look "relatively typical," if not somewhat athletic.
"The female model will be relatively the same height as the male model, so there will be no advantage in terms of hit target space," Daybreak art director Sebastian Strzalkowski said. "We are also creating male and female equivalent clothing. If you find a pair of jeans in H1Z1 as a male PC and wear them, you'll have the male version visually; if you find that same pair as a female PC, you'll have the female version visually."
Strzalkowski added that in-game H1Z1 clothes will be "basically" the same, though modified slightly to fit each gender. "Nothing will be restricted to either gender and there will always be a 1:1 equivalent for each one," he explained.
H1Z1 released through Steam Early Access back in January. Though the game experienced some server woes at launch, it has since gone on to sell more than 1 million copies in its unfinished state.
With just two months to go before Rocksteady Studios releases Arkham Knight, the final entry in its Batman trilogy, the developer has now revealed the game's PC system requirements.
As listed on Nvidia's website, Arkham Knight will require at least 6 GB of RAM and 45 GB of hard drive space for the minimum settings, while players will need 8 GB of RAM and 55 GB of space to run the game at the recommended or ultra benchmark.
The full minimum, recommended, and ultra PC system requirements for Arkham Knight are listed below.
By Rob Crossley on Apr 23, 2015 04:11 pm Patrice Desilets resigned from Ubisoft in 2010, rejoined the publisher in 2013, and was dismissed by the company several months later.
Patrice Desilets, the man credited with creating the first Assassin's Creed game, has revealed first details of his new independent project since his departure from Ubisoft two years ago.
His new game, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, appears to be an episodic series based on various milestones in human progress and evolution. On Thursday, during his speech at the Reboot Develop conference in Croatia, Desilets aired a trailer showcasing key breakthrough moments in human history. No game content was shown, but the trailer showed a message that appears to explain the purpose of the project.
Blockbusters won't die. Triple-A won't die. They will transform and change themselves.
Patrice Desilets
It read: "The minds that made you jump from rooftop to rooftop. Climb a campanile with your brother. Run on walls to avoid traps. And rewind time for your love. After having fought millions of templars, hidden in haystacks, and chased a pope, it is time for something new. For the greatest adventure of all is our own."
This message contains many references to the Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia series, though it's unclear how closely Ancestors will resemble these flagship Ubisoft series. Desilets' new studio, Panache Digital Games, currently employs about half a dozen developers, meaning it's highly unlikely that Ancestors will retain the scale of the Assassin's Creed series.
According to the game's description on the Panache website, Ancestors is a "third person action-adventure survival episodic game."
It adds: "Through each episodes, we want the player to relive the greatest moments of mankind with a documentary twist. Our civilisation is one idea away from extinction... or evolution."
So far, the only official art for the Ancestors project is the logo
When back with Ubisoft, Desilets' relationship with the publisher appeared to have broken down. In May 2013, several months into his new role, Desilets claimed he was fired by Ubisoft, and went on to sue the company.
Speaking to a gathering of games industry professionals on Thursday, Desilets explained that his independent studio wanted to deliver triple-A quality, but not to the scale of his previous projects.
"What's too short?" he asked, as quoted by Gamasutra. "These days with my team this is the question, what's too short? Why do games need to be 35 hours? Right now we're using big TV shows as examples, so episodic is 2 hours, now. Why is 30 minutes too short?"
"We're at a crossroads," he said. "In fact we're always at a crossroads. Don't do what was popular last year. Blockbusters won't die. Triple-A won't die. They will transform and change themselves."
A new update to the PlayStation 4 exclusive Bloodborne has significantly reduced loading times, with the wait between deaths now cut by as much as 15 seconds.
Previously, waiting times in areas such as Central Yharnam lasted between 40-45 seconds, which has proven to be a patience-testing number given the frequency of deaths that players were subjected to. From Software, the Tokyo based studio responsible for the game, announced in March that it was "exploring" possibilities to expedite wait times, the result of which is this new patch that reduces loading screen durations by 5-15 seconds.
The 1.03 update, which has begun to roll out across North America, Japan, and Europe, weighs 2.7GB and brings a number of other improvements and tweaks.
Among the new changes is the implementation of text pages displayed during loading screens. Whereas before loading screens used a basic image of the Bloodborne logo, now they cycle through various descriptions of items that players encounter throughout the game.
Bloodborne's patch notes can be found below:
Reduced loading times (approx 5-15 seconds; May vary by circumstance)
Fixed bug that left certain lifts and elevators inoperable
Fixed bug that resulted in bosses becoming immobilized
Fixed bug that left players unable to advance NPC events during multiplayer
When the PS4 is put into Rest Mode during online play, the game will now return to the main title screen upon resuming play. This will resolve matchmaking issues related to Suspend/Resume.
Less than a week after a second place finish in the North American League of Legends Championship Series, team Cloud 9 has announced the retirement of Mid Laner Hai Lam. Citing health issues related to a wrist injury and team atmosphere as the primary reasons for his departure, the organization has yet to officially announce a replacement.
While the change does mark the end of his professional run as a player, it will not mean the end of his time on Cloud 9. The former team captain will be staying on to assist owner Jack Etienne with partner management and team expansion.
Hai has led Cloud 9 since its entry into the LCS in 2013, garnering fame with some of the greatest successes in competitive North American League of Legends history. These include a record 25-3 performance in the 2013 summer split, and qualifications into both the 2013 and 2014 World Championships.
Despite a shaky start to the 2015 NA LCS Spring Split and a poor placing at IEM Katowice, Cloud 9 managed to finish second in the final standings and in the playoffs. However, the last-minute recovery was not enough to prevent analysts from speculating that roster changes might occur before the start of the summer split, especially following a report from the Daily Dot that famed (and newly unbanned) European Mid Laner Incarnation had been acquired by Cloud 9.
Hai's retirement occurs days after the team set the record for the longest unchanged roster in the history of League of Legends esports (via Reddit).
In the coming days, GameSpot will be interviewing Hai to discuss his career, retirement, and what's next.
Microsoft has announced that it gave some members of the Project Spark community early access to the Conker assets, and they've already created 10 Conker games. Most of these games, which you can see in the video montage below, will release tomorrow as well.
Some of the user-created games include:
Conker Multiplayer Arena, where four players can face off in a free-for-all deathmatch
Bad Fur Day Homage, which recreates the first 10 minutes of Conker's Bad Fur Day
The Great Mighty Poo, which recreates a memorable boss fight from the original game
Conker's Big Reunion episode 1, as Team Dakota is calling it, was made with the same Project Spark tools that are available to players, and is meant to play like what you'd expect from a Conker game, an action-platformer with a dirty sense of humor. If you want to make your own Conker content, you can purchase the Conker Mega Pack, which includes the Conker Creation Pack (containing more than 350 Conker assets), Conker's Big Reunion, and Champions Quest Episode 1 for $10.
Project Spark, which lets players create their own game content, is free to download on Xbox One and Windows 8.1
At 6:55 PM on Monday, April 20, officers in Colorado Springs responded to shots fired in an alley. There, they found a man--Lucas Hinch--who had just fired eight shots into his computer with a 9mm handgun.
Image credit: Colorado Springs Police Department
In a police report titled "Man Kills His Computer," authorities report that their investigation revealed that Hinch, 37, became frustrated with his computer after it kept giving him the infamous "Blue Screen of Death."
"He took the computer into the back alley and fired 8 shots into the computer with a handgun, effectively disabling it," police wrote in their report.
Hinch was cited for discharging a firearm within city limits, had his weapon confiscated, and faces a possible fine. He wasn't arrested for firing the gun in public because Colorado Springs has no laws about machine homicide, authorities told The Los Angeles Times.
"It was glorious," he said of shooting and killing his computer, a Dell XPS 410. "Angels sung on high."
Hinch added that he was careful when blasting his PC, saying he made sure there was nothing behind it and that he set up the area so as to avoid any ricochets.
Video game retailer GameStop on Wednesday announced a new scholarship program to help its employees send themselves or their children to college. The program is called "Power to the Scholars," a riff on the company's popular "Power to the Players" slogan.
Power to the Scholars, which will operate through a partnership with Scholarship America, Inc., acts as an extension of GameStop's existing employee-focused Gamer Fund (more on that later).
GameStop's new scholarship program will begin accepting applications on May 1. Employees and/or their dependents can visit this website to submit their application for the 2015-2016 school year. In all, GameStop will award 40 scholarships of $2,500 each, which comes to $100,000 in total college tuition aid.
"There's no better way to invest in our company than by supporting our employees and their families," Gamer Fund president Mike Buskey said in a statement. "The 'Power to the Scholars' program will enable us to help employees achieve great things in their careers, their lives, and for their families."
In order to win a scholarship, applicants must have worked at GameStop for at least one continuous year and have a minimum GPA of 3.0 (or equivalent) on their most recent transcript. In addition, the following factors will determine who gets a scholarship:
Financial need
Academic performance
Demonstrated leadership in school and community activities
Work experience
Career and educational goals
Scholarship recipients will be notified of their award by July 20. These scholarships can be renewed for the next academic year, provided the receiver still meets the above eligibility requirements.
GameStop also today provided a status update for its Gamer Fund organization. Since launching in 2012, the organization--which provides financial grants to employees who face unforeseen emergencies and hardship such as a death in the family or loss of home due to a natural disaster--has doled out more than $400,000 in monetary assistance.
Below you'll find a roundup of some of the biggest news from the video broadcast, while we'll have a more in-depth video breakdown later today featuring commentary from GameSpot's Destiny experts. You'll also find some new images of House of Wolves in the gallery at the bottom of this post.
Keep in mind that today's Destiny broadcast was primarily focused on The Reef, one of the new social spaces coming to the game. The expansion doesn't have a new raid, but it will come with a new three-player cooperative arena called Prison of Elders and new Crucible event known as Trials of Osiris.
The new Ceres Galliot
Bungie will talk more about these new in-game activities through Twitch broadcasts in the coming weeks. For now, here are five major takeaways from today's Destiny broadcast:
Legendary armor and weapons can now be upgraded to max level with Etheric Light. Exotics can be upgraded separately without resetting progress.
New weapons can be reforged with new perks at Gunsmith. This feature was previously only available in Iron Banner, making the Gunsmith useful again for post-Level 20 players.
Speaker has an all purpose material exchange including Ascendant and Radiant materials, Glimmer, and Motes of Light
New social space: Vestian Outpost. New NPCs to be introduced include:
Petra Venj - Main story agent.
Variks - Warden of the Prison of Elders
Brother Vance - Trials of Osiris Handler
Tons of new ships, weapons, and armor, which should introduce greater player variety. Max level cap raised to at least 34.
Microsoft's latest Deals With Gold promotion is on, discounting a handful of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games--almost exclusively from the Call of Duty series. You can check out all the deals here.
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