League of Legends Community Scrutinizes Riot for Censorship Choices

With the new release of Xayah and Rakan in League of Legends, Riot has had to remove some quotes from the duo because of the risk of League of Legends being given the rating of Mature. Xayah and Rakan were expected to have quotes featured in the game using words such as “shit”, which would require Riot to change the rating of League of Legends to Mature.

League of Legends has kept its Teen rating since conception, and Riot works hard to keep it that way, but Xayah and Rakan’s quotes had the potential to push League’s rating into a Mature category, which would change a lot for League of Legends, but Riot removed the quotes to keep the game friendly to younger users.

I am sure many are wondering why Riot would want to keep League of Legends rated for teens, but Riot’s choices in game and champion development, to adhere to specific rating requirements, have been scrutinized by players a lot over time.

Let it be known that Xayah and Rakan are not the first champions in League of Legends to use swear words. Kled uses “shit”, but when the word is said it is covered with the typical ‘bleep’ noise.

League of Legends walks a fine line between being mature, but also charmingly childish, which is why the company needs to be able to market to both teens and adults. If Riot’s rating changed to Mature, then they wouldn’t be able to market to younger players.

In many reviews, parents online complain more about how addicting the game is for their teenage children and not about how violent it is. In fact, many state that it isn’t violent at all despite the warning in the rating for the game.

Players have even created a message board discussing why the game is even rated Teen since the themes described, tobacco, blood and gore, use of tobacco and violence aren’t overtly obvious.

However, some decisions made by Riot to keep League of Legends teen friendly have left players with more questions than answers.

In the early years of League of Legends tobacco was present in at least one champion, Graves. He was known for having a cigar in his mouth, but Riot has removed this iconic symbol to end any suggestion that smoking is okay and to adhere to tobacco usage laws.

While this seems fine and dandy, there are still champions with skins, which are different variations of the characters that are capable of being purchased in game, that show champions with cigars and even suggestive beer kegs.

Many players were upset when Graves lost his iconic cigar and don’t understand why it’s okay for skins to be featured with tobacco, but not the Graves actual splash art.

RiotSilver explains it best in a Riot forum. The company has many regions to appeal. While the rating is extremely important, the game must adhere to the different regions that play the game, but even with this reasoning from two years ago, League of Legends players are still salty about Riot’s decisions to remove certain characteristics , which I am sure more scrutiny will surface with Riot’s new decision to remove Xayah and Rakan’s quotes.

 

 

Scholarships Help Transform College Students to Professional Gamers

E-sports has been steadily growing and with its rise in popularity, universities are now rewarding students that play. A new college has just been added to the list of universities that give scholarships to players that excel. With colleges supporting these athletes, they will be better equipped to excel beyond college and become professional players.

Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois has just started offering  scholarships to students. The program is expected to start in the fall, and the university has hired Christian Matlock to coach two e-sports teams.

The most popular competitive collegiate games are League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch.

While it may all seem like fun and games (pun intended) these students are just like other college athletes. They practice roughly 20 hours a week and study professional plays to help improve their own performance.

If you are reading this, you may be wondering what other universities offer scholarships.

Most gamers know about UCI and its reputation for recently opening a gaming arena at its university, but it is also the first public university to offer a League of Legends e-sports scholarship. This program was also supported by Riot.

Robert Morris University was the first college in the United States to offer scholarships. The university is a non-profit private college. RMU has had its scholarship program for almost three years and specifically rewards League of Legends players. The university’s scholarships pays for up to 50 percent of tuition and room and board.

There are plenty of other universities that offer similar opportunities and 27 schools have committed to collegiate e-sports associations.

Teams practice roughly 10 hours a day for competing in national competitions. Other student athletes are typically restricted to 20 hours per week. A lot of the time these players push themselves to 40 hours of training per week, which is a normal week for e-sports teams.

It is argued that e-sports isn’t really a sport, but IMG Academy argues that e-sports players require stamina, concentration, finely tuned motor skills and focus. IMG has its own e-sports division to help train players by coaching them on concentration, nutrition and mental focus.

Students such as Derek Micheau at RMU (Robert Morris University) play for scholarships, so tuition can be covered, but they never intend to go pro. Micheau told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m using my level of skill to put me through school,” he said. “Next year is my final year of school and ‘League of Legends.’ I’m going to hang it up and get a real job.”

Others have used their time as e-sport college athletes to pursue careers as professionals. With universities helping to support students, it is only becoming easier for college students to pursue actual careers playing video games professionally.

What’s With Supergirl’s Face and New Pivotal Role?

In a previous post I touched on the continuous issue that NetherRealm runs across— Female faces. It seems that the reoccurring fault has shown it’s ugly head once again.

In a more recent release of a new trailer, viewers can see what appears to be another facial reconstruction for Superman’s cousin.

So far, Supergirl has undergone at least two facial reconstructions since the announcement of her character being available for play in Injustice 2.

With the design of Supergirl’s face, we can see less shadow, slender cheek bones and more light reflecting on her cheeks, but with the new release of Shattered Alliances, It seems that her face has become the original concept design once more.

There could be a logical explanation for this. The company could have already created this trailer prior to her most recent rework, or NetherRealm’s designers could have changed their mind after the new look and decided to change it once more.

Some comments attached to the new trailer are focusing on the poor quality of facial construction.

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Aside from looks, fans are raising discussion over whether Supergirl will become like Cassie Cage from Mortal Kombat.

Cassie Cage

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Cassie ended up being a key, pivotal, character in Mortal Kombat, which now NetherRealms has shown that Supergirl could also be a key character in the story associated with Injustice 2 and fans are drawing connections between the two.

If Supergirl happens to be the leading lady to this story line, hopefully they settle on an official face design.

It’s hard to tell if fans are excited, neutral, or upset about this comparison to Cassie Cage, but they are aware that Supergirl will be a central character to the plot.

The release of Injustice 2 will be coming this May and more trailer releases are expected, so keep your eyes peeled for more curve balls from NetherRealms.

Why Ads on YouTube are Important Now More than Ever Before

In most recent news, several U.S. companies have chosen to pull their advertisements from YouTube due to their ads being placed near content promoting terrorism and extremism. Some of these businesses are Johnson and Johnson, Verizon, and AT&T. A YouTube account with extreme views that ran these companys’ ads was that of American white nationalist David Duke.

YouTube has been in the media a lot recently with the release of controversial material such as the Anti-Semitic references from PewDie Pie and JonTron’s  Alt-Right comments. So, how will these ad drops affect you and maybe even your favorite streamers and why are advertisements important for YouTube?

As gamers, it’s not unusual to get on YouTube to check in on streamers,  commentators, game reviews and game theories. Often these channels are supported by advertisements, but now that some of these ads have been pulled what does this mean?

Well, YouTube streamers that rely on their channel for income rely on advertisements, but it takes a lot of views to make a small amount of money. According to Investopedia, in 2013, YouTube channels could make $7.60 per one-thousand views. This means that the owner of the channel would have to set their channel to allow advertisements to be displayed before their videos, and for each one-thousand views (those watching would need to see the ads) the YouTube owner could generate income.

I am sure that you are wondering what they make per one-thousand views now, but it is hard to pin point this number unless you know how much their income is. Quora explains how to calculate ad revenue for a channel.

Now, back to the most recent news regarding companies pulling out from ad participation. These companies are ending their ties with YouTube because they don’t want their businesses associated with these extreme views, but most users like JonTron and PewDiePie rely on ads for money.

Will this effect YouTube?

Many are unaware that YouTube doesn’t make or lose a profit, but with businesses deciding to pull ads, the company could see a loss in profit for the first time, which could mean trouble for YouTube. Google, who owns YouTube, is one of the largest advertisement sellers and the company generated more than $22 billion in ad revenue during the fourth quarter of 2016.

Will channel owners suffer?

A lot of internet users use ad-block to avoid long ads and save phone data, and when ad-block is used, YouTube channel owners do not generate ad-revenue. So, prior to businesses pulling out, ad block was used by 26% of desktops users alone, which means that YouTube channels were already losing a minimum of 26% of revenue. Now that these businesses have chosen to abstain from supplying ads, YouTube will lose revenue from those businesses. With the loss of that revenue, YouTube channel owners could see a decrease in how much they make per view. If they were still receiving, $7.60 per one-thousand views, that amount would most likely decrease.

How will users suffer?

Once channel owners start to  lose revenue, they will lose funding for creating content. Some might even lose motivation to create content if they lose the ability to generate adequate amounts of revenue to live off of. Once content ceases to be created, users will have no reason to be on YouTube.

Summing it up

With  YouTube and channel owners relying so heavily on advertisements, this sudden pull out from big companies, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe, is going to have a major impact, but mostly the impact will probably be felt by YouTube first since the company’s revenue would fall and then channel owners ad revenue per one-thousand views would decrease, and once both parties are effected, YouTube users will suffer by loss of content from channel owners.

Who would have thought an ad could mean so much?

Are Open-World Games the New Norm?

The most recent game that has been receiving huge praise for its exceptionally well done, open-world concept is “Zelda: Breath of the Wild”. The concept of having an open-world game is nothing new, but it seems to be growing in popularity, but do people even really understand it?

Mass Effect Andromeda has taken stage over the last few weeks, and many are talking about its “open-world concept” but, would it surprise you if it wasn’t an open-world game at all? Mass Effect’s producer, Michael Gamble, says that it isn’t open world or linear. He is calling it an exploration-based game. With all of the confusion, it might be helpful to look into what defines an open world game.

An open-world concept allows more freedom when playing through the game and gives players a feeling of control. Most open world games have large, expansive maps with a wide variety of areas, structures, missions, tasks, etc., which gives the player more choices and leeway for the path of events they’d like to choose.  Basically, look for an “open world” not a confined space. It’s funny how the term “open world” is representative of the actual concept, isn’t it?

Not all games can benefit from an open-world concept and many of them would be better off without ever pursuing it. Open worlds are meant for games that want players to enjoy a feeling of never ending adventure and freedom, to begin quests when they feel like and to do so in what order that they prefer. Typically, open world games are guided to an end once all quests are completed.

Some gamers can’t get past the lack of an actual goal or set story line to guide them to the end of the game and now that open-world games have been catching on with developers, some gamers are growing tired of seeing companies force linear games/exploration games/dungeon games into open worlds, and expansive maps can be daunting for some. It’s a long distance to travel just to complete quests.

The sudden spike in open-world games has also left some believing that the concept is just a cash cow for developers. Virtuaaddict spoke out on Reddit when the question, “Why Almost Every Game Is Open World These days?” was posed.

Even though there are some who have negative feelings about open-world games, a poll was taken on Giantbomb.com in regards to whether people were actually getting fed up with these games and their more recent popularity. The results of the poll shows that 76 percent were not tired of open-world games.

Much like anything, there are pros/cons and while there are people who have opinions, both negative and positive, open-world games aren’t going anywhere. Developers generally make a lot of money from them and 76% did poll saying that they were not tired of seeing the open concept, but learning to distinguish between open-world, linear, etc. is important because if you categorize all games, such as Mass Effect Andromeda, into an open-world category, of course you will get sick of seeing open-world games, because they will all be labeled as open world.

Just because everyone says its open world, doesn’t necessarily mean it is.

 

 

 

 

 

Breath of the Wild Reviews: How Metascores are more than just a number

Recently ‘Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ (BOTW) was released for Wii U and the Nintendo Switch. Reviews rave over the game saying that Nintendo has created another adventure game that will be hard to beat.

A feature that is loved by many is the open concept that is immediately experienced upon playing. IGN.com even goes as far to say that the landscape of Hyrule itself is the actual main character for this game.

BOTW was tied for second place for a Metacritic score of 98, but after Jim Sterling, a video game narrator, gave the game a 7 out of 10, the game was knocked down to a score of 97 which is tied with eight other games instead of the three that BOTW could have been tied with.

After this review, Sterling’s site suffered from DDOSing since fans of the game were pissed off.

But not all fans of the game felt that DDosing was a good way to handle their anger or that a 7 out of 10 was necessarily a bad score.

Owen S. Good (Polygon) wrote about this drop in Metacritic rating, but what seems even more important than the argument over whether the game was a 7 out of 10 or not is that there are game developers who actually get paid bonuses based on these scores that are released, so for them, it is a very serious thing.

In 2013, Kotaku.com published an article discussing these scores and the bonuses attached. Bethesda promised money to Obsidian if ‘Fallout:New Vegas’ received a score above 85. A team of 70 was expected to receive $14,000 each, but the game received a metascore of 75.

Kotaku Interview with Kim Swift:

“Typically, when you go into pitch meetings and whatnot, publishers are going to want to know your track record as far as Metacritic,” said Kim Swift, a game designer best known for helping create games like Portaland Quantum Conundrum. “As a company, what is your Metacritic average? As an individual, what is your Metacritic average?”

These scores are more than just a rating. They impact developers and whether people want to buy the games. This is something that many have strong opinions on.

Some are simply defensive for Jim Sterling and others have voiced their opinions on the rating system itself, but in a way gamers rely on the rating system to decide on whether they want to purchase a game. Is there a better solution that won’t impact developers’ jobs and pay? What are your opinions?

Consumers Respond to Oculus Rift’s $200 Price Cut

In the last blog post, I mentioned the price drop of Oculus Rift and that responses had yet to be seen from consumers. Now that it has been about a week since that post, let’s check in on what’s being said.

Generally people don’t seem to be overly upset about the price reduction, but there is at least one buyer with harsh feelings.

Darkrune commented to an Oculus forum expressing his/her anger about the price drop since he/she had bought it at full price.

Others quickly chimed in to point out that all products eventually drop in price, and it was to be expected. Others, who paid full price, expressed that they did not experience the same anger as Darkrune.

Reddit discussions address the problem for those who bought the VR system more recently. It would really suck to have bought the Oculus Rift days before the price drop, but Facebook has offered a $50 store credit to those who purchased the Oculus Rift within the last 30 days.

There are both positives and negatives to Facebook’s decision. While some who purchased it for full price feel like they got slapped in the face, others who were waiting for a lower price so they could afford it have finally gotten what they wanted.

In general, fans of VR seem to be happy and hopeful of seeing more people using the technology, thanks to the cut in price, despite any harsh feelings they may bear.

 

 

Oculus Rift Price Cut was Predicted in 2016

Facebook recently cut the price of the Oculus Rift headset and motion controllers by $200. The headset was originally $599 and the controllers were $200. Now the kit can be purchased for $600,  but we shouldn’t be surprised that the price went down.

The reasons given for the price reduction are the lack of sales for the Oculus Rift, new improvements to manufacturing and a desire to get people engaged with VR.

The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were struggling to make sales last year and one of the main reasons was due to price.

In 2016, many online discussions began as VR became introduced to consumers. Those worried about the initially high prices went to Reddit to discuss when price drops could be seen. 

 

Others got on Steam to start a discussion.

 

In March of 2016, VRTalk.com released a post discussing the high prices of VR systems, and even went as far as saying that Oculus Rift would plummet in price just before releasing a new VR model. A new model hasn’t been mentioned yet, but this post predicted the exact amount that the Rift would drop by.

A price drop in VR hardware was always expected, but not without the production of a second generation system.

This price reduction has been heavily debated over the last year and consumers were eager to see the system’s cost decrease, but since the announcement, not many consumers have chimed in with opinions. Over the next few days, expect to see discussion boards fill with new opinions and responses.

 

 

 

 

Nintendo Switch and Indie Games

Nintendo recently announced more than 60 indie games (independently developed games) that will be available for the Switch.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, Nintendo will be opening The Switch to third parties so that the new console will offer game variety and is now opening the console to indie developers, but what do indie games have to offer Nintendo Switch users and Vice-Versa?

With Nintendo branching out to indie games, it shows that the company sees indie game developers as being serious.

Indie games are developed by independent developers that are typically limited on funds/resources because they aren’t supported by a production company. An example of a highly successful indie game is “Minecraft.”

With Nintendo opening the Switch to third parties, which would allow games such as “Madden Football” to be featured, a different classification of gamers will be introduced to the Nintendo console that hadn’t really been present in the past. Gamers who are more likely to play indie games will also be introduced to the Switch.

Nintendo’s outreach is widening to not just one specific type of gamer, but a mix of all gamer types and with this expansion we are likely to see gamers of all groups testing out games that they typically wouldn’t.

Here is where the Switch can be beneficial to indie games and developers. With Nintendo supporting indie games, they are likely to see an increase in revenue and players. Minecraft was originally released for PC, but when it was released on Xbox 360 it allowed the game to reach those who weren’t accustomed to PC gaming;console gamers.

Aside from an increase in outreach, the portability offered by Nintendo Switch has the potential to work well with these expected indie games, and the Switch is one of the most programmer friendly consoles to develop for.

Polygon features an interview with  President Tyrone Rodriguez of Nicalis, which has been developing indie games for the Switch, about the console and whether it is indie friendly.

Rodriguez said, “The Switch is, by far the easiest and most programmer friendly so far,” he said. “I know this sounds like lip service to Nintendo, but it’s actually not. If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t be able to get these games up and running as quickly as we have, and we wouldn’t be able to have a launch title. It’s light years ahead of what we were doing with Wii U.”

Nintendo is revamping its reputation with indie developers and becoming more programmer friendly, as well as offering new options to its consumers.

The Switch has the potential to bring together a community of people that were divided by taste in video games and unite them through one console that is portable and can link to other Switch devices. If Nintendo’s marketing, advertisements and other efforts pay off then the Switch should be a big hit for indie video game lovers and other console users.

Only a few days until we see the results.

How “Legend of Zelda” was Celebrated After 31 Years

This week, on February 21st, “Legend of Zelda” turned 31 years old. Nintendo already celebrated with a new “Breath of the Wild” commercial released in Japan.

On the 21st, a book called “Art and Artifacts” was released containing a collection of art, interviews with designers and rare pixel art. Many celebrated the game’s birthday by pre-ordering this beautiful book, which is now available for purchase.

When fans received their books, they took to social media to share their joy.

“Legend of Zelda” was created by designer Shigeru Miyamoto and it was first featured on a Famicom Disk System in 1986. Later it was converted into a cartridge game.

It was first released in Japan and since it’s birth, Link, the main character, has appeared in more than 20 games and has even had a TV show in the late 1980’s.

In just a few weeks the new “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” game will be released on the Nintendo Switch and Wii U. It will be the 19th installment in the main “Legend of Zelda” series.