Bluepoint tech boss suggests Sony’s scared of Valve, not Microsoft, and that’s why it’s pulling back from PC: ‘It would be quite ironic if Valve ultimately ended up winning the console war’

Our six-year stint of feeling very smug about getting pretty much every game on PC (excluding Nintendo, which will forever be Nintendo about it) came to an end last week, when a report from Bloomberg said that Sony has decided to pull back from its strategy of releasing its console exclusives—after a suitable delay—on PC….

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Asus thinks ‘high-end brand value and high-end product mix’ will help it weather the memory crisis alongside AI

The memory crisis appears to be hitting almost everyone, from PC gamers to PC suppliers, but Asus doesn’t seem too worried. Addressing concerns in its latest financial earnings report, Asus reckons it is uniquely positioned to survive it. Opening the topic, Asus CFO Nick Wu says, “I would like to briefly add that as investors…

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Ever complained about Overwatch matchmaking? There’s a chance Jeff Kaplan checked your account and all he has to say is: ‘There’s gotta be winners and there’s gotta be losers’

Matchmaking in Overwatch, the boulder to my Sisyphus. This is something that haunts me and every other poor sod still clambering to get out of Elo-hell. It may at times seem like a horrid place to be but ex-Overwatch boss Jeff Kaplan still assures players that it was the best it could be. “The matchmaking…

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Garry’s Mod creator says programmers over-relying on AI is like using too much porn: ‘You lose your ability to ejaculate using your imagination’

I got the rare chance this week to sit down with Garry’s Mod creator and Facepunch Studios founder Garry Newman, whose next project, game creation platform s&box, is preparing for launch in April. Among other topics like his original expectations for G-Mod and what price s&box will (probably) launch at in April, I also asked…

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A terrible quest in vanilla WoW ‘holds a really special place in my heart’, says Jeff Kaplan, but was also ‘the hubris of a junior game designer who thinks he’s clever but is actually a dipsh*t’

The original World of Warcraft—no bells, no frills, no expansions—was a very special videogame. It was also occasionally insufferably annoying. Part of the reason it was so successful is because it was less annoying than the competition at the time, sure, but it also had some real stinkers when it came to quest design. One…

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One of Jeff Kaplan’s ‘regrets about Overwatch’ was making it so team-orientated: ‘I would downplay the team factor and try to put more focus on individual contribution’

One of the biggest issues I’ve had since Overwatch first launched 10 years ago has always been just how much coordination the game demands from five or six complete strangers. For better and worse you live and die by your team, a feature that ex-Overwatch boss Jeff Kaplan seems to regret. “One of my hindsight…

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