steam – Page 2 – The Gaming News Corner

Can Discord Nitro Games compete with Steam and Twitch Gaming?

Discord, the popular chat, video, and communications app, will begin offering video games with their Nitro services. Nitro is a subscription platform for $4.99/month that offers users more abilities for chat such as gif uploads and custom tags. The price will still be $4.99 per month or $49.99 a year but will soon involve video games! Discord Nitro will have its own library of games available to stream or purchase. The beta will launch to 50,000 Canadians soon but expects to go to more regions at a later date.

How do they compete?

This is direct competition against Steam and Twitch. Twitch is becoming a PC game streaming service and has monthly free games. Discord is trying to differentiate itself by connecting it with their chat platform and community. Discord has always been greatly enjoyed by users because easy to set up and its developers are gamers too. They interact with fans and have a better social media presence than Steam or Twitch. Games are catered to you based on your interest but Discord employees can leave small recommendations about the game.

While they can’t compete with Steam’s library, Discord will have partnerships with THQ and Deep Silver. Having Nitro will also give you access to games without paying such as Saints Row: The Third, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, Super Meat Boy and Metro: Last Light Redux. You can buy games at their online stores.

They will start their own exclusives called “First on Discord.” They will be indie games that “pushes the boundary of creative game design and is important to innovation and the long-term health of the industry.” They will also have games from Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Overwatch) and Epic (Fortnite). The split between Discord and game is 30 – 70 which is similar to all platforms.

They won’t have every game out but if you’re looking to have a smaller library, perhaps this is an option for you! Steam is very cluttered in comparison but is widely used by all PC gamers. Whether Nitro can compete with them or Twitch will be interesting as game streaming becomes more popular.

Sources:

Valve adds the ability to see your Loot Boxes

As controversy continues regarding loot boxes in Video Games, Valve has taken the initiative to improve the process for their games. Dutch and Belgium have threatened to prosecute gaming companies regarding loot boxes in games. Their ruling stated

“Loot boxes contravene the law if the in-game goods from the loot boxes are transferable. Loot boxes do not contravene the law if the in-game goods from the loot boxes aWhre not transferable.”

Dutch declared four games were guilty and two games are from Valve. The government declared loot boxes had monetary value content but didn’t properly showcase what you earned as it is based on chance. Earlier in June, Valve disabled opening loot boxes and trading gear in the Netherlands, Belgium and Deutschland in CS:GO (Counter-Strike: Global Operative) and DOTA 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2).

Now Valve has taken another step for those regions. For DOTA 2, Dutch players can see what the loot box will contain before purchasing it. The game now restricts players by only allowing one box purchase at a time and removing the box opening animation.

Why these specific changes?

The removal of multiple purchases to prevent players from potentially mass purchasing boxes. Previously, multiple box purchases gave you small discounts or extra bonuses for more boxes. Regarding the animation, many loot boxes had fancy animations that were designed to make players feel good about opening them. Psychologist defines the feeling as ‘variable rate reinforcement.’ The adrenaline rush and the dopamines in your brain affect you more if you are unaware of the rewards but they are delivered on a periodic basis. Each game has their own animation and developers put extreme effort to make it look, sound, and feel amazing.

Do you want to see these changes in North America? Or do you think these changes aren’t the right steps to change loot boxes?

Sources

PC Gamer – The Joys of Opening Loot Boxes

Valve: CS:GO Forum 7/11 Patch

PCGAMESN – Removal of Trade in the Netherlands

Eurogamer

Eurogamer – Removal of Box Trading

Valve Brings the Ban Hammer

With the Steam sale finally ending, people can finally spend their summer playing their new games. Unless you’ve been using hacking tools, then you’re banned. In fact, Valve has banned over 40,000 people on July 6th. This is a record high ban since October 2016 where 15, 227 accounts were banned. Anybody who was caught by Valve Anti-Cheat was instantly banned although 5000 of them are based on normal ban reviews.

Many of the accounts were banned after purchasing cheaper copies of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. All the accounts banned had an approximately $8,674 worth of cosmetic items for the game. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the few games made by Valve whose cosmetics can be sold by other players due to the rarity of certain designs. Some of them go for over $100 depending on the limited release of the item. The real lesson is to not hack to earn real money in video games. Especially not for cosmetics.

How much have you ever spent on a free game? Personally, I’ve probably spent over $200 on MapleStory in my middle school days.

Sources:

Eurogamer

Polygon

SteamDB