A football team owned by FIFA streamer Edwin Castro has withdrawn from an inaugural football tournament after a team member allegedly used a racial slur against an opposing player during a match.

Dallas United took on West Ham United FC in the inaugural Football Tournament (or TST), a 7v7 tournament with a $1 million prize for the winning team taking place in Cary, North Carolina on June 1. The Dallas team, made up of “primarily Dallas-area amateur players,” according to ESPNwere leading 2-0 in the game against West Ham when the incident allegedly took place.

Video clips on social media show West Ham players gathered around the match referee, with centre-back and former English Premier League player Anton Ferdinand at the center of it all. A clip appears to show Ferdinand telling the referee “I’m here to set a precedent now”, before the whole team decides to walk off the pitch. While it’s unclear what was allegedly said, chatter on social media and on sites like The daily mail suggest word was thrown about Ferdinand by a Dallas United player.

The official TST Twitter account later shared an update, saying it had “[conducted] an investigation into the final moments of the match between West Ham United and Dallas United” and “concluded that Dallas United had breached TST’s code of conduct”.

“We have spoken with the leaders of both clubs and we all agree that the best way forward is Dallas United’s withdrawal from the competition,” the statement also read.

Although Castro’s Dallas team initially shared a tweet stating that they had launched their own internal investigation into what happened during the game and were “fully cooperating” with TST’s investigation, a subsequent tweet seemed to suggest the team’s position was that the “accusation” against them is false. “In light of the shadow cast by an opposing player’s accusation during tonight’s game, the Dallas United players have unanimously decided to withdraw from the rest of the competition,” reads the statement. a tweet posted just hours after the first. Kotaku has reached out to TST and Castro for comment.

Castro has 3.5 million followers on his Twitch account and over 1.5 million on Twitter. He is best known for his FIFA streams. In a March 7 video posted to Dallas United’s Twitter account, Castro likens owning the team to “[playing] FIFA in real life.

As reported by ABC 11, the North Carolina branch of the news agency, Ferdinand spoke to reporters after West Ham’s final game on June 2, praising TST’s quick response to the allegations. “I have to say publicly that the topic of conversation that came out yesterday is better than football. The way TST handled it so quickly, the sensible action, a lot of people around the world, organizations around the world, can take note,” he said.

West Ham and their opponents reportedly took a knee in solidarity ahead of Friday’s game, with Ferdinand’s side considering not continuing the tournament after the racist incident. “When someone of white origin hears someone of my origin talking about [such racism], it’s almost like it’s a broken record, we’ve heard that before. But when you hear it from someone who looks like you, it makes you take notice. So I think everyone needs to come together to fight collectively. And if we do, football can be the catalyst for change in society. But society is going to have to want to change with that,” Ferdinand said at the press conference.

As reported by the BBCFerdinand isn’t the only former professional footballer to take part in the tournament – Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan and Cesc Fabregas are also among them, and professional clubs Borussia Dortmund and Wrexham (owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) also have teams. who represent them.

It’s also, sadly, not the first time Ferdinand has faced racism as a black man in football. According to the BBC, a former Chelsea player was fined and banned from four matches in 2011 for abusing his race while defending Queens Park Rangers. Racism has no place in football, games or otherwise.

As was the case in Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom allows Link to use his shield as an improvised surfing device. It’s both fun and useful for getting out of trouble if you know how to do it. But TotK is adding a little twist to this fun mechanic with the game’s new Fuse ability. If you thought surfing shields was fun before, then hold on.

Tears of the Kingdom is quickly gaining notoriety for the playful and intuitive nature of its various physics and crafting systems. Fuse and Ultrahand are cool ways to combine various objects together, but combined with the game’s realistic physics, players discover all sorts of interesting ways to bypass the puzzles, fight, engaging in questionable activitiesAnd just having fun. One such possibility is the ability to merge random items with Link’s shield to boost his defensive characteristics or increase the game’s shield surfing ability depending on the items you attach it to.

Shield Surfing 101: How to Master the Technique

You may have accidentally triggered the Shield Surf technique if you’ve ever tried to jump while holding your shield up. To protect the surf, you’ll want to perform this button combo in this order: X + ZL + A. (You can also swap the order of X and ZL for this combo). Note that only shields with smooth surfaces will work. So something like the Armor-Shard shield with its spikes will knock you down.

It is best to practice when stationary at first. Once you get the hang of it, a running start will give you some momentum. The steeper the slope you descend, the further you will go. Note: This damages your shield. So save the cheaper ones for the thrill or use the technique as a quick evasive maneuver to mitigate damage to your shield.

Also, when paragliding while surfing on a shield, your shield will stick to your feet, so feel free to chain surfing with paragliding to get back to surfing. Additionally, hitting the surf shield combo while paragliding will place you in a surf shield, so the next time you paraglide back to the surface, you can now land in style.

Merge your shields to Zonai Carts and Sleds for more fun

Zonai devices can be found all over Hyrule. Two in particular can be fused to your shield to increase its surfing capabilities: carts and sleds. You can find Zonai Vending Carts above the Upland Zorana Skyview Tower, which is also highlighted in this guide). Sleds can be found at the Zonai Distributor in the East Gerudo Sky Archipelago. Note that these aren’t the only places to find such items, but we had the best luck getting them here. You can hover over the distributors on the map to also see what items are available.

Learn more: This Tears of the Kingdom Paragliding Ride Essentially Lets You Fly Forever

Once you get these items, drop them in front of you, then press L to summon your abilities. Highlight the item you want to merge, then press ZL to bind it to your shield. Fusing a cart to your shield will essentially give you a skateboard to move around with. This provides far greater movement distance and control than a simple shield. You can also ollie with a cart shield.

Merging a sled essentially gives you a snowboard (but you can use it on grass and other surfaces). You can surf with galloping horses, which is almost as fun as swimming with tigers (don’t ask).

It does not make your shield invincible. Surfing will still wear down your shield, even if it’s fused to something, and it will break. So use it where it makes sense. It’s a pretty fantastic way to get away from Gloom Hands.

Shield surfing is just one of the many fun tricks Tears of the Kingdom offers, allowing for both fun and strategy. And the fuse only increases the shenanigans you can get into. Just queue appropriate music and look at those steep falls!

Do you like Nintendo’s new open-world game? Be sure to check the tricks we wish we had known before playingsome advice on can’t miss side questsTHE duplication issue breaking game economyAnd all the latest news on Hyrule’s Korok Murder Crisis. Unless you’re still stuck in tutorial areaOr missing the paraglider you should pick it up the best shield in the game as soon as possible.

I was on board with 2K Lego player by the time I heard we were getting an open-world Lego racing game, with the ability to build your own vehicles. And after playing almost 12 hours so far, I’m still having a lot of fun with the game. But it’s impossible to ignore the nagging feeling that he really wants me to spend money on his in-game store .

Announced in March, Lego 2K Drive is the first game resulting from an agreement between 2K and Lego back in 2022. The two companies apparently decided to glue their names together and add “drive” to the end to create what might be the most boring video game title of 2023. Luckily, the video game itself is much, much more fun than its lackluster title, which feels less like a wacky open-world racer filled with cool bonuses and more like a bad sports game featuring a sport I’ve never heard of but is popular nonetheless.

Bland name, but fun Lego racing

Get past the bland name and Lego 2K Drive comes out of the gate firing on all cylinders with thrilling CG cutscenes and a fairly short but fun tutorial. It makes a good first impression. And the moment the game gave me full control, I was impressed with what I saw. Lego 2K Drive takes place in a brick-built world filled with side missions, mini-games, collectibles and so on, so many Lego vehicles. It is very colorful and beautiful. And massive! 2K Drive’s open world is divided into a few different biomes, each with their own theme, characters, missions, and vehicles. Playing this game is like playing in the basement of the rich kid you knew in elementary school who owned all the Lego sets. Lucky bastard. But now I, Zack, have all the cool bricks and sets to play with!

The basic setup behind the main story mode is that an evil racer hates you – for reasons the game doesn’t jokingly state – and you have to earn the big trophy to prove you’re the best driver. To stand a chance of that big win, you’ll need to earn a bunch of flags by beating your rivals, leveling up to unlock new races, rank up, and eventually advance to the big final tournament. There’s not much to the actual story, but the writing is similar to recent Lego movies, sometimes making me smile and rarely boring. And I think kids will enjoy the wackiest moments.

But to win the big trophy and prove yourself to your evil rival, you’ll have to do more than drive Lego-built cars on different tracks, as piloting boats and mastering off-road vehicles are also on your agenda. And like cars, all are built of bricks. However, you are not actively choosing between each type of vehicle. Instead, when you race, the game automatically switches between your car, boat, or off-road ride of your choice. This streamlines what could have been a boring part of 2K Drive, and also means you can explore the entire Lego-filled world of Bricklandia at your leisure.

Driving really fast and hitting a river? Keep driving and you’ll turn into a boat! Take a sharp turn on a paved road and over dunes? Don’t worry, the game will swap your car for a jeep in no time. It takes the open-world driving of Forza Horizon and makes it even more arcade and exciting because you can literally go anywhere at any time.

All the bricks and cool stuff in the world can’t save a racing game with bad driving physics or poor controls, and thankfully Lego 2K Drive avoids those pitfalls and is a joy to play. Once I mastered the drift and jump controls, I was masterfully dipping, swinging, and soaring around the world like a Lego pro. And on Xbox Series X, performance was smooth as butter, making it easy to enjoy all the high-speed action.

Lego 2K Drive’s disappointing microtransactions

The moment the bricks start to fall from this creation is when you start digging into the menus, where you’ll come across a full store with a season pass. While the game features an amazing, in-depth, and easy-to-use vehicle builder, allowing you to create almost anything you can imagine, it also has some disappointing microtransactions.

Technically, you can just drive, have fun, unlock cars, build your own creations, and never really interact with the in-game store. But, if you don’t want (or can’t) build something like an ambulance or a giant hamburger car, the store has official Lego builds that you can buy and use in the game. However, all of these cars cost $10,000 Lego Bux. And after playing for 12 hours, I only reached around $8,000.

This is the part where 2K Games, while twirling its mustache, would probably say: don’t worry, you can buy Bux if you want. That’s true, of course, but it’s so out of place in this otherwise colorful game of creativity and madness.

And the way the economy is balanced, it really does feel like you’ll have to shell out the cash if you want to buy more than one of these premade cars without grinding for hours. It’s also unfortunate that the in-game store has packs of Lego pieces for sale. These are cheaper than cars (luckily) and the game builder offers lots of free coins (and you earn more by completing missions), but the fact that some bricks and items are locked behind a paywall, even the one you can bypass via grinding is frustrating.

Screenshot: 2K Games / Lego / Kotaku

The other big part of Lego 2K Drive is the multiplayer, which I barely pushed as there weren’t many other players online while I was playing the game before it was released. Online racing is similar to single-player racing, but with the added drawback that your opponents may have spent hours figuring out how to build the ideal, perfect racing car. Or a giant cock. Or maybe they just spent real money and bought a car using Bux. Until the game is released in the wild, it’ll be hard to say how multiplayer will shake out, but I have a few concerns.

It’s such a shame that such an enjoyable and fun open-world sandbox is tied to things like a season pass, premium currencies, and expensive in-game purchases. Maybe 2K will tweak some levers to make it easier earning and unlocking new cars – which would be nice – but until then the specter of greed will still be there, nagging me as I build, smash and race.

Last night I was browsing TikTok in the middle of an edible descent, and I came across something so ridiculous, so grating, so shiny, that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. It’s called Maverwatch, and it’s a 2018 buzz video for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks that features its star players as Overwatch characters.

Learn more: NBA Star Luka Doncic Is Overwatch Grandmaster Mains Zarya

Edited to look like an Overwatch gameplay clip, which highlights a particularly gnarly play (usually a multi-kill) at the end of each match, this minute-long video looks like something my high brain concocted in a dream. But it’s not. This clip is real, and every second is piercing, a weird mix of car crash tragedy and knee-high comedy. You can’t deny, however, that the editing is top-notch, with the all-too-familiar sounds pointing to an Overwatch kill, Overwatch police showing rival player ‘kills’ getting delayed, and the game playing music. swelling between each delivery by a wooden NBA player of a line of heroes.

Athletes are, on the whole, not known for their acting and line-reading skills. In the rare chance of having an athlete with a bright personality who can actually say dialogue without sounding like a kid having to read aloud during class, teams will push him to the forefront of marketing materials and business opportunities (Eli Manning, Tom Brady) or even letting them star in a movie (LeBron James, Michael Jordan). I can say with some confidence that none of the 2018 Dallas Mavericks players have the same je ne sais quoi as James or Brady, but that only makes the Maverwatch experience better.

The man behind Maverwatch

The clip begins with Dirk Nowitzki aping Soldier: 76’s ultimate ability line (“I’ve got you in my sights”) while pretending to activate an imaginary visor before moving on to clips of him sinking three.

“Dirk got Soldier because he’s the tough former leader of the team,” Austin Guttery, former in-game media designer for the Dallas Mavericks and creator of Maverwatch, told Kotaku via email.

The second player highlighted is former Mavs center Deandre Jordan, who claims to pop a Lucio ultimate (“oh, let’s break it down”) under the nickname “Shootscio.” Help me. “Jordan got Lucio because of his great defensive plays and his ability to keep the team alive,” Guttery explained.

But when it came time to assign a character to Mavericks point guard and Grandmaster Overwatch player Luka Doncic, things got a little heated. “Luka really wanted to be Hanzo, since he’s the one he usually plays against, but there was one player on the team, Wes Matthews, who was known to pretend to shoot a bow and arrow after every shot during matches, so naturally we HAVE to make him Hanzo,” Guttery said. “I chose Luka to be Junkrat because of his blonde hair. Luka was the least bit salty and tried to convince us to make him Hanzo, but we had already shot the role of Wes, and we only had one quick hit with each player each year.

“Luka really, really wanted to be Hanzo” – Austin Guttery, video creator

Other players were assigned based on how much connection Guttery could make between them and an Overwatch hero — or if he thought they could mimic a character’s movements well enough. No, I can’t help but laugh at Luka pretending to fire a Junkrat RIP-Tire.

Aside from the drama that accompanied Mavs players being assigned their Overwatch counterparts, Guttery says it took him ages to get the video approved because his boss “didn’t really know what Overwatch was.” . But telling him that Doncic was a huge Overwatch fan “really helped sell him.” The clip was shot during the team’s media day and played on arena screens during a lull in the game to a “pretty good reaction” from fans.

But when Guttery shared the video on Redditwhich is probably where this TikToker found it, it got in quite a bit of trouble.

“I almost got fired!” he said happily. “Once our videos are released in-game, we generally don’t upload them until the end of the season, or unless we get permission from [owner Mark] Cuban to lead them. But I was so excited with how this one turned out that I really wanted to see how the Overwatch community would react to it. So I posted it on Reddit and within a day it exploded… It finally caught the attention of my boss who was, uh, pretty upset that it was there, and he was afraid that if Cuba saw, we wouldn’t no longer be making videos for them, so I deleted it. Luckily, Cuba never got wind of it, so it wasn’t a problem.

But Overwatch developer Blizzard actually saw the video and sent Guttery a “really nice Widowmaker figurine” which the team kept in the office. And now that same video is making the rounds on social media again. Time is a flat circle, but Luka Doncic is no longer a main Hanzo. It’s Zarya now.

I have saw again A lots of board games adaptations video games on This site, and for good reason: it’s the most intimate intersection of our board game and video game coverage. In almost every case, the key consideration has been how the board game feels compared to the original. What kind of concessions were made, how does it differ, does it match the video game in terms of mood, if not exact mechanics.

Frostpunk is different. It’s a massive board game that seeks, in almost every meaningful way, not to fit the video game to the table, but to bring it big, warts and all. It’s an ambitious undertaking if nothing else, but I’m also not sure if it’s worth all the effort.

And it’s an effort. When I first went to play the game I had at least 30 minutes to set it up when I started having sweats. I had spent half an hour painstakingly punching cards, reading the manual, and placing chips on the table and it looked like I had barely started. Did I do something wrong ? Was I just a very slow guy? After reading this Dicebreaker story titled “I spent an hour not setting up a board game and it made me question everything“It turns out not, luckily I’m fine, it’s the game that’s slow.

Frostpunk is one of the most complex board games I’ve ever played, let alone put together (and that’s not just me talking, it has a 4.32/5 “weight” rating on BoardGameGeek, which is very high). There’s a seemingly endless array of tokens, several decks of cards that look alike but aren’t, and loads of different rules that bend and swing for each player. The most infuriating thing is that there are eight tables that you must follow.

Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.

If you’re wondering why the board game version of a (relatively) simple city-builder must be so complicated, it’s because this edition of the game, for some reason, didn’t want to vaguely recreate the spirit of playing Frostpunk. He wants to recreate the whole thing, replacing table components with mouse clicks. Almost everything you can do in the video game, from politics to resource gathering to city-building quest expeditions, is here, and it works pretty much the same as it does on PC.

This is, in many ways, a staggering achievement. Once you’ve (eventually) mastered the game’s vast array of components, maps, and rules, it truly feels like playing Frostpunk, the nagging pressures and responsibilities of the digital wasteland seamlessly transplanted into the physical world. . Indeed, some of those pressures are even better here, as Frostpunk is a cooperative game, which means that you can be 2 to 4 of you (there is also a single player mode, but I didn’t play it) taking on different jobs in the city, working together while discussing every decision. If you thought social and political stuff was cool in video gaming, it’s great here since you’re basically acting out a lot of those debates in the flesh.

Yet in other ways it all seems a bit pointless? The board game cuts so close to the fabric of the video game that you sometimes wonder why you bother at all, since the video game does it all for you, without the arduous setup time or the constant consulting of the rules. Sure, it’s a more solitary experience, but there’s a time when that trade-off can be worth it, and for a lot of people, myself included, that time can come when you’re hours into a single game and you’re not even close to finishing it.

Photo: Luke Plunkett | Kotaku

At least some of this setup is worth it. The game comes with a huge plastic recreation of The Generator, which not only looks amazing in the middle of the table, but also has real gameplay use, as players have to drop coal into it almost every turn while they play, an act that rivals the robotic mining of Deep Rock Galactic as one of the most satisfying physical actions in recent board game history.

And, in a very rare case for these reviews, I want to salute the game’s documentation. For some reason, most board game rules in 2023 still suck, but Frostpunk, despite the complexity and scale of the game, never let us down.

There’s a very specific type of person for this game. Someone who loves Frostpunk but feels lonely while playing, or someone who’s never played video games but is intrigued by density and politics offered here. Sadly I was neither of those people, I found its setup time and length too long, but as I said I can at least appreciate the effort of exhaustive design that has been devoted to the approach taken here, if nothing else.

Although the Diablo IV Early Access beta ended on March 20, another one will run from March 24-26. This window gives you access to the five classes, two of which, the Druid and the Necromancer, were initially unavailable. Although neither has anything in common, other than their propensity to kill evil shit, one thing you might have noticed if you jumped into Sanctuary last weekend is how unbalanced they were. According to Blizzard, that’s quite the point.

Learn more: Diablo IV is the perfect empty head, shitty game

Diablo IV is the fourth entry in Blizzard’s long-running isometric action-RPG. Following the events of Diablo III, this new game puts you in control of a baby angel-demon bent on putting a lid on the flaming bottle of Hell. He’s not totally reinventing the wheel. Instead, it’s the perfect podcast game, something you can skim through with your brain at the end of a long day. I enjoyed the handful of hours I put into the early access beta, and I’m thrilled with the progress I’ve made with what I’ve dubbed my Shadow Rogue to carry over to the open beta this weekend. But maybe the reason I had so much fun with Diablo IV was because of my class choice, and Blizzard seems to reaffirm that.

All that muscle and yet no power

In an interview with the British culture and entertainment site NME, Diablo General Manager Rod Fergusson said that not all classes in the game should be equal in power at the same time. Some are better than others, but not forever.

“There’s a lot of balance there, but the thing about balance is that it’s a balance in time, not a balance in the moment,” Fergusson said. “Not all level five classes should have the same power. Due to the enchantment specialization, wizards will have the most skills of all classes because [with] Barbarians having four weapons, they will have the most legendary slots of all classes. When you take this for each of them, there will be different moments in time [where] a barbarian is in some ways a bit underpowered compared to some of the other classes in, say, the first 10-20 levels. Phew. Ouch, even.

However, Fergusson’s comment makes some sense – “some” being the operative word here. There’s no reason for a wizard to feel as strong as, say, a druid in the early levels of the game. departure. Still, that the Barbarian is an idiot at the start of Diablo IV is a bummer, especially considering that the course starts with the strongest.

Muscles will get a buff, however

The community also seems to feel this, essentially noting that Barbs muscles are all for show. On the game subreddit there were people saying the barbarians for to feel weak, have trouble beating bossesAnd lack of mobility. Twitter gamers echoed the same sentiment, saying the class is “grossly malnourished.” It will not always be so. Fergusson clarified that when the Barbs reach the middle and end of the game, especially with the number of legendary weapons they can hold, the tanky class can begin to embody demons and fiends.

“But when you get to level 30-40 and legendaries drop a lot, barbarians can be super strong,” Fergusson said. “Then there are things around the skills gap, which I think are built into it. I think the agility and mobility of a rogue is harder to play than a necromancer who has 12 skeletons fighting alongside him that he can just dispatch and fight.

Learn more: Report: Diablo IV devs say June release date will lead to more crunch

And talk to GamesRadar+, game director Joe Shely reiterated Fergusson’s point, saying Barbs players will see a few tweaks that should make mid-to-late play less frustrating and more satisfying in the long run. Bless.

“We don’t want a player creating a Barbarian to feel weak at low levels,” Shely said. “So we have to balance the class so that their strength at the end of the game is realized in that they are powerful, but not make the game unfair at low levels. Of course, with a game like Diablo IV, the classes aren’t balanced so everyone has exactly the same power level 35, 36, 37 and beyond. Their set [power] need to be balanced against each other, and they need to be balanced, especially late game, midgame in general, and early game.

Learn more: Let’s talk about Diablo IV’s most controversial change

Kotaku has contacted Blizzard for comment.

There’s comfort in knowing that the class known for its strength should see some tweaking to prove that muscle doesn’t make up for something. Still, it sucks to know that players who opt for the Swole class will struggle in the early levels of Diablo IV. Sorry to all the Barbs out there.

The good days (if there ever were) of the covid pandemic are still being felt today with the growing popularity of online chess. However, the world’s largest chess website has fallen victim to the king’s game success as its servers struggle to keep up with the game’s online popularity.

Yesterday, Chess.com, the first platform for online chess games, published a official statement in a blog post which explains why their servers are struggling, why the game has become so popular, and how they plan to fix website database crashes, according to Gamer on PC.

According to Chess.com, website traffic has doubled since December, propelling the app to the second most popular free game on the iOS App Store in the United States. For five days in January, Chess.com set new site records for active members and hit one million visits from Google for the first time on January 19. Chess.com set a site record of 31,700,000 games played on January 20. shows no signs of slowing down as the site regularly has over a million games played per hour.

Chess.com said the chess boom was the result of “lockdowns, Pogchamps and The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix.” The stars of the popularity of the game over the past three years are the photo of football players, admittedly baller Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo play the gamethem infamous anal beads scandaland hosting popular streamers wacky chess tournaments.

“Back when chess started to explode during the COVID lockdown, our servers were struggling to handle the traffic. We made a lot of investments in hardware and other improvements that allowed us to scale “Wrote the Chess.com statement. “When the Queen’s Gambit boom happened, we experienced another massive increase in traffic, mostly without service interruption.

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Image: Chess.com /Kotaku

To further explain how much stress the Chess servers are under, Chess.com added a chart of the site’s daily active members. According to the site, there are more than 250,000 new accounts created each day. In addition to servers having to account for thousands of players commenting and chatting during matches, the Chess.com database must also contend with the staggering 16,000 chess moves made per second on average.

Read More: Learn to play chess in 4 easy steps (without starting your own scandal)

While Chess.com technically has a good problem on its hands, it’s nevertheless a problem that causes its databases to warp under the stress of its concurrent player base. Indeed, when writing this article, the Chess.com the landing page was down due to data overload.

I was going to look for a chess related pun and forgot lol. I’m part of the problem. Ah, Eto… Bleh. Screenshot: Chess.com/Kotaku

“To address the challenges our databases face, we separate database tables, partition databases, and in-memory services. We are also working on dividing our most problematic database with users and gameplay. Each of these things takes time because there is SO MUCH DATA to move,” wrote Chess.com. “We’re also working on more ‘graceful’ failures so that if things go wrong and everything runs out, we can recover faster and with fewer interruptions.”

Chess.com ended its blog post by reassuring players that it would be rolling out “more short-term fixes today” which should stabilize players’ online experience and have a much better and more stable experience by now. the end of the week. Other major updates will be implemented in the next two to three weeks.

“We love you, we feel you, we’re sorry and we’re working as hard as we can to get back to stability and provide the best possible experience now and in the future when we hit 15 million or even 20 million. people playing chess in a day,” Chess.com wrote. “Chess is amazing, and it’s a joy to share this game with you all.”

Critically acclaimed base building success Factorio is a funny duck. Since its Steam release in 2016, the game has never been released for sale. And now the developer behind Factorio is changing the price of its popular game, but it’s not getting a discount. Instead, the price jumps $5 the next week. The developers blamed inflation for the sudden price increase, and interestingly, the overall community reaction has been mostly positive.

Since its release seven years ago on Steam, Factorio has been a popular game, even if it never went on sale. On the game’s Steam page, it has a warning right away letting people know that its developers have no plans to “enter into any sale or reduce the price for the foreseeable future”. This will still be the case after it fell from $30 to $35 on January 26.

“This is an adjustment to account for the level of inflation since Steam was released in 2016”, the official Factorio Twitter account tweeted. You can expect a flood of angry responses from gamers, but it looks like the devs have done a good job of being transparent with their community, such as giving them lots of information about the price change at to come. Factorio also avoided microtransactions and other exploitative or costly DLCs. The bottom line is that not only are people okay with this price increase, but many are suggesting that the studio is providing more ways for gamers to financially support the game.

“Good, but now give me extra to spend more money [on] this game!” tweeted one player. “Honestly would like to see more ways to support the game as I already own it,” another fan tweeted.

Wube Software

You might be wondering why a studio would never let their game be part of a Steam sale for almost a decade. According to the creators of Factorio in a Forum post 2016it’s about respecting the players who bought the game, not rewarding people who “hesitate” to buy it at a lower price.

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“If you think [Factorio is] priced too high, then it’s your choice not to buy, and hopefully with enough time and further development, we’ll be able to convince you of its value.

Factorio isn’t the only game on Steam making changes to make more money as the economy continues to crash. Military shooter Squad is backtracking on a promise made by its developers to never make paid DLC or cosmetics. In a future update, Squad will receive its first paid DLC in the form of new in-game emotes.

Here’s what the team behind the online milsim shooter had to say on steam about new upcoming paid cosmetics:

As we look to the future, we see a long and healthy life for Squad. It has a large and dedicated player base. We have plans for more updates and to support the game beyond 2023. While many of these planned updates will be free, we also realize that we need a way to continue funding the squad development. Paid content like emotes is one of those ways to help fund this development and continue our work to improve the game.

Compared to how people reacted to Factorio’s price increase, the response from the Squad gaming community was far less positive, with some feeling betrayed after being promised that it wouldn’t happen. However, some were more open to the new option, understanding that developing a game isn’t easy or free and that at some point studios need a way to generate more revenue to help keep the lights on. lit. This is especially true as inflation continues to be a problem around the world.

I have played many games in my life. I say “lives” because I’ve lived many different lives, all of which have been incredibly quiet and mostly revolved around different games.

Features are what makes a game. A lot of people say that. If you talk to a game developer and ask, “What constitutes a video game?” it will reply: “Features”. Come on, ask one of them. If they don’t have that answer, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just spitting here. Sometimes I just say stuff. It makes no sense.

If you don’t have a game with features, what do you? I don’t know, a movie? But even movies have special features if you buy the DVD, Blu-Ray or 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray. Sometimes in these special features you will find games. It’s funny how life works like that.

Anyway, I have played a lot of games and enjoyed a lot of features in the games. On that note, I’d like to tell you the features I think every game should strive to include in their experience, based on the games I’ve played over my many lifetimes.

I’m not asking much of you, I’m just asking God’s love that you take a look.

An ugly little guy who is annoying and everyone hates

You see this in video games all the time. A little guy who is just terrible to look at, usually with a squeaky voice, and always with a lot to say. I believe that even though he already exists in many games, a horrible little asshole should exist in all video games.

I suggest this guy. His name is Beremy, and he’s said to be the most common character in the game. He’s incredibly rude, always around, will give you advice that doesn’t help, and there’s literally no part of the game he doesn’t. ‘is not. Moreover, he is in love with you.

Press a button to scream

Do you know that in Dog’s Life, there is a button that allows you to shit/fart? I think that’s great. However, I think it’s really gotten a bit old, and every game having a shit/fart button would probably be a bit isolating for anyone who doesn’t shit/fart.

That being said, I think every game should have a Scream button. Why not? There’s not a single game that wouldn’t benefit from being able to start screaming. Not only would it be a relief in stressful games, but it could also be used to scare things away in times of desperate need.

Realistic autoplay

Idle games are all over the autoplay feature, and I think that’s really overkill and unrealistic. These autoplay modes always seem to benefit the player and most of the time do not reflect how a player would actually play the game.

For this reason, I think games with and without autoplay should have realistic autoplay, which automatically plays the game very poorly. I also think there should be a warning in advance that says: ” DISCLAIMER: This is how we think you would play the game. If this hurts you, you may want to try playing the game.

Inevitable calls to your personal mobile from the worst character in the game

Remember how Overwatch 2 wanted people to be forced to add their cell phone numbers to their accounts? I think it’s a great idea, just for the purpose of this feature. I think all games should include unavoidable 3 hour phone calls on your real phone with the worst character in the game (see Feature 1).

In this phone call, you need to audibly respond to the character with things like “Wow!” and “That’s really insightful!”, and you have to mean it. The 3 hour phone call will consist of the character talking about a putrid growth that has appeared on their inner thigh, and they will go into detail about all the “natural remedies” they have used that didn’t work. You cannot hang up.

This story originally appeared on australia.