“The Sega Saturn Was Truly Ahead Of Its Time” – Here’s Why Modern Games Use ‘Dithering’ Instead Of Transparency

Sega does… If you’ve played a modern 3D video game recently, then you will almost certainly have noticed an effect known as “dithering”, which allows an object to become semi-transparent when it obscures your view of the action. While it’s certainly effective, the dithering effect can often look somewhat ugly, which has led many to…

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‘It was supposed to be the greatest time ever’: Jeff Kaplan only got 6 weeks to come up with and pitch Overwatch: ‘We were probably the most demoralised we’d ever been’

Before the rise of Overwatch there was the fall of Titan, a cancelled Blizzard MMO which was stripped for parts and used to craft the foundation of the team-shooter we all know today. Ex-Overwatch boss Jeff Kaplan had been working on Titan and was the driving force behind redirecting the team to something new. It…

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The first thing Arc Raiders’ devs did during its extraction pivot was to reduce the speed of everything by 60%: ‘All the craft that was in the game was kind of background noise’

Arc Raiders looked very different in its early stages of development, and even compared to its initial reveal trailer. While the team was flip-flopping between genres, one thing was clear: your goal was to kill a boss as fast as possible. Naturally, there was a lot of mobility in these early prototypes. You’d move fast…

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Major copper foil supplier raises prices by 12%, potentially ushering in a fresh wave of spikey prices for PCBs and plenty of PC components besides

If, like me, you’ve been watching the memory supply crisis escalate from between your fingers, then I don’t need to tell you just how expensive some key PC components have become. Well, it’s not just silicon wafers seeing runaway pricing these days, but even more foundational materials like copper foil. Mitsui Kinzoku is arguably the…

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Fortnite players revolt over V-Bucks changes as Epic devs appeal for calm: ‘Paying the bills frees up our teams to continue driving stories and building stuff you love’

Fortnite announced this week that V-Bucks—the last remaining currency with any goddamn dependability around here—were about to get more expensive. “The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills,” said Epic. I’m not a Fortniter (no reflexes at my age, you see), but given the…

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