An anonymous reader writes: When the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) debuted in 2010, the kill screen was the game's final, unbeatable boss. Players pushed to get the highest score possible before level 29, at which point the game's pieces started falling at double speed. It seemed humanly impossible to keep up with the falling shapes, which would pile up on players' screens and spell death for their game. But in the past four years, what once seemed an impossibility has become the norm in competitive classic Tetris. In the 1989 NES version of Tetris, which is still standard at competitive tournaments, players make it well into level 30 and beyond. This new generation of talent, made up of mostly teenagers, has not only breathed new life into a 30-year-old game, but also completely upended expectations of what's possible within it.

From the beginning, competitive players of classic Tetris tried to push the game past what its developers imagined possible. The first frontier of competitive Tetris was the maxout, when the score was pushed past 999,999 and the game would no longer show an accurate score. Because playing in level 29 and beyond was out of the question, players aimed to break 1 million before the game would inevitably beat them. This meant maintaining "maxout pace" where players would complete enough "Tetrises" (when a player drops a straight I-block vertically, clearing four lines simultaneously and earning more points than single line clears) before the kill screen.

In 2010, players organized the first CTWC, largely in response to the world's first indisputable maxout, accomplished by Harry Hong (other players like Thor Aackerlund and Jonas Neubauer claimed to have maxed out as well, but the proof wasn't definitive). The desire to find out who the best Tetris player in the world was on, and soon, Neubauer began building a very strong case for himself. In the final match of this 2010 tournament, Neubauer, who went on to win seven of the first eight world championships, beat Hong, the only player to interrupt Neubauer's reign by beating him in 2014. Over the first eight years of CTWC, maxing out before level 29 shifted from being an impossible frontier to a badge of honor for the game's elite. It was still a notable accomplishment until the scene began to shift in 2018, when Joseph Saelee, a then-16-year-old from Visalia, California, began dismantling records and set the stage for a new generation's influence on the game. "In March 2018, only five months after picking up the game, Saelee maxed out for the first time," reports Polygon. "As The New Yorker reported, he set records for most lines cleared in one game and fastest time to 300,000 points. Then he started to achieve what other experienced players had deemed impossible. He survived past the game's kill screen, becoming the first player to make it to level 31 and 32 -- then 33 through 35."

If you have been on Steam, the world's largest PC gaming platform, you might have noticed an anomaly on the chart of the top 20 most popular apps: Wallpaper Engine. The software is pretty cool -- it lets you download animated and interactive wallpapers for your machine's monitor -- but it's hard to explain why an obscure wallpaper app consistently ranks alongside global blockbuster franchises like Counter-Strike or Dota. From a report: The epiphany will come when you begin to read Wallpaper Engine's many reviews. More than 200,000 of them are written in Chinese, stretching from 2016 to 2022. And these reviews almost all talk about one thing: porn. Or more specifically, about using the software as a cloud drive and a video player for exchanging adult-only content.

Online porn is banned in China, so people there have to get creative to access it. Steam is one of the only popular global platforms still available in the country, and its community features, international high-speed servers, and increasingly hands-off approach when it comes to sexual content have made it an inevitable choice. Chinese users now make up at least 40% of Wallpaper Engine's global user base, MIT Technology Review estimates. Last year, users in China suddenly needed to use VPN services to access certain Steam services. As the reviews show, now they are afraid they may soon lose this rare community, either because of platform content moderation or the possibility that China might block Steam altogether.

Nvidia has just announced that GeForce Now is picking up support for 120fps gameplay on all Android smartphones, after previously limiting the functionality to only a few select models. 9to5Google reports: GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service that allows players to stream PC games from marketplaces such as Steam and the Epic Games Store, among others, to virtually any device. It's a great way to expand the gaming experience on your PC over to a mobile phone or your TV, or just to play games that your PC isn't powerful enough to run on its own. The service is free, but you can pay to get longer sessions and better quality.

Last year, the service picked up its RTX 3080 tier, which offers the power of the still-hard-to-find graphics card, but through the cloud. While it's a pricey option, it was quickly found to be the gold standard of cloud gaming thanks to minimal input latency, higher resolution, and faster refresh rate. It's that faster refresh rate that's boosting GeForce Now for Android players this week, with 120fps expanding to all Android phones with faster refresh rates. If your phone has a 120Hz display, you can now stream games at 120fps. The official list of supported devices can be found here.

Nvidia says that the expanded support will arrive "over the coming weeks" and that the experience could vary from device to device.

After trying, and failing, to acquire the popular chat platform Discord for $10 billion, Microsoft has opted for the next-best thing: directly integrating Discord's voice-chat capabilities into Xbox consoles. Ars Technica reports: The news arrived on Wednesday on Xbox Blog, and it clarified that for the time being, Discord access would be exclusive to the optional "Xbox Insider" tier of early, beta, and preview console OS updates. That update is already going live in waves to Xbox Insiders today, and it adds a new tooltip to the system's "chat" sidebar: "Try Discord Voice on Xbox today!"

[...] Sadly, this week's rollout of Discord on Xbox is a bit limited. The biggest issue is that there is no formal Discord app or interface on Xbox. You will need to keep a smartphone handy to initiate a "handoff" of your Discord session. Get ready for an annoying first-time setup process. Should you have an updated Xbox on the Insider OS track, its new "Try Discord Voice" prompt will initiate an account-sync process, which requires using a mobile Discord app to take a photo of a QR code displayed by your Xbox. (You'll need to re-do this if you've done so before, due to it adding a new level of credential for voice chat.) With this in place, when you are about to join a voice channel on Discord, a new "try voice chat on console" prompt will appear. Tapping through this will then, ugh, create another handover to Microsoft's dedicated Xbox app on either iOS or Android. Yes, if you want this to work, you need to install the Xbox app on your mobile device (and Discord will suggest you do so, if you haven't yet). This facilitates the key technical aspect of forwarding all Discord audio to your Xbox hardware.

With all that in place, presto: You can now talk to any participants in the Discord voice channel you chose directly on your Xbox. Its menu interface supports either muting or changing the volume level of every other user in the voice chat channel you chose, which is appreciated as a quickly accessible option during frantic gameplay. A one-button toggle in the menu allows chatters to switch between Discord voice chat and a particular game's dedicated voice-chat channel. (This is useful when you're talking to friends while in the midst of random online matchmaking, then need to turn on in-game voice chat for a second to confirm a strategy to your current teammates before going back to discussing souffle recipes with buddies.) All greater Discord control, sadly, goes back to your smartphone...

Mojang has drawn a line in the sand against NFTs in Minecraft, saying in an update posted today that NFT integration with the game is "generally not something we will support or allow." From a report: The update begins with a quick rundown of what NFTs are, including a note about their extreme volatility, before laying out the current policies on Minecraft servers. The overall goal of those policies, Mojang said, is "to ensure that Minecraft remains a community where everyone has access to the same content." NFTs, on the other hand, are specifically designed to "create models of scarcity and exclusion," which obviously conflicts with that principle. And so, they're out.

"To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our client and server applications, nor may Minecraft in-game content such as worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods, be utilized by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset," Mojang wrote. The update was apparently prompted by the fact that numerous Minecraft-associated NFTs and play-to-earn servers are already available, taking advantage of the gap in official policy and dividing the community into "the haves and the have-nots," Mojang said.

The UK government has decided video game loot boxes will not be regulated under betting laws, despite it finding a link between them and gambling harms. From a report: In a long-awaited call for evidence, it instead told the video game industry to take action to protect young people. It says it will step in if firms do not act, and also wants loot box purchases to be restricted to adults, unless approved by a parent or guardian. One academic said he was "dismayed" by the government's approach. Loot boxes are an in-game feature involving a sealed mystery "box" -- sometimes earned through playing a game and sometimes paid for with real money -- which can be opened to reveal virtual items, such as weapons or costumes. They have come under fire in recent years, with consumer groups in 18 European countries backing a report calling them "exploitative" in May.

Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, is now officially a part of Sony. The Verge reports: The PlayStation maker had announced its intent to acquire the gaming studio in January, and now, that acquisition is complete. At the initial announcement, Sony said (pdf) the deal was worth $3.6 billion, but in an SEC filing on Friday, it said the deal was worth "approximately" $3.7 billion. Though it's now under the Sony umbrella, Bungie will "continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games," Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said in a blog post from the original announcement of the acquisition. And future games in development won't be PlayStation exclusives, Bungie's Joe Blackburn and Justin Truman said.

But Sony does plan to lean on Bungie for its "world-class expertise in multi-platform development and live game services," which "will help us deliver on our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers," Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan said in January. Sony views live service games as a critical part of PlayStation's future, as it plans to launch more than 10 new live service games by March 2026.

A Twitch streamer has crowdsourced the manuals for upwards of 850 unique Super Nintendo games and made them free on an online archive. From a report: Video game consoles have come a long way since the Super Nintendo arrived in the U.S. in 1991 and launched a new generation of gamers, but sometimes there is no beating the classics. The console was wildly popular, with more than 700 games released for the system in the U.S., and Kerry Hays (aka "Peebs" on the Twitch streaming platform) has been working on beating every. single. one. "We had wondered, some of these games, had anyone ever even beaten them before? They were so weird and obscure or difficult," he said. And so, Hays turned to the manuals.

For those who weren't playing a lot of video games in the '90s, almost all of them came with a manual inside the case that had lots of helpful information. The manual was where you would find the buttons to push and how the console works. It could also include your lore, backstory, and maybe even a map. "And if you're really lucky, you get a little bit of a walkthrough that would tell you, like, the first 10% of the game," Hays said. [...] The collection is hosted on the Internet Archive and contains upwards of 850 unique Super Nintendo manuals -- and it's all free. Hays says he's not in it for the money.

Bandai Namco, the Japanese video game publisher behind titles including Pac-Man, Tekken and Elden Ring, has admitted that hackers accessed its systems and potentially made off with customer data. TechCrunch reports: In a statement shared with TechCrunch, Bandai Namco said it detected "unauthorized access" to its systems by a third party on July 3, adding that it has since taken measures, such as blocking access to the affected servers, to "prevent the damage from spreading." The confirmation comes days after the Alphv ransomware gang, also known as BlackCat, added the Japanese company to its dark web leak site. Bandai Namco declined to elaborate on the nature of the cyberattack or how hackers were able to access its systems, but warned customer data may have been stolen, all but confirming that it was hit by ransomware.

"There is a possibility that customer information related to the Toys and Hobby Business in Asian regions (excluding Japan) was included in the servers and PCs, and we are currently identifying the status about existence of leakage [sic], scope of the damage and investigating the cause," Bandai Namco said. The Alphv ransomware group -- believed to be the latest incarnation of the DarkSide ransomware gang responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack -- has threatened that the stolen data will be released "soon," but no exact deadline has been given. Bandai Namco declined to say whether it had been given a ransom demand. "We will continue to investigate the cause of this incident and will disclose the investigation results as appropriate," Bandai Namco added. "We will also work with external organizations to strengthen security throughout the Group and take measures to prevent recurrence. We offer our sincerest apologies to everyone involved for any complications or concerns caused by this incident."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: In 2020 [EndeavorRx] became the first such game to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the treatment of ADHD in children. Currently only available on prescription from doctors in the US, EndeavorRx at first glance looks very similar to countless other games. You control a little alien that races on a spaceship through different worlds having to collect things. But the app-based game was developed in conjunction with neuroscientists, and is designed to stimulate and improve areas of the brain that play a key role in attention function. The idea is that it trains a child with ADHD to both better multitask and ignore distractions, with a computer algorithm measuring his or her performance and customizing the difficulty of the game in real time. When doctors prescribe it, the child's parents get sent an activation link that is needed before the game will play.

Eddie Martucci, chief executive of Akili, the Boston-based tech firm behind EndeavorRx, says the game has been designed to boost cognitive progressing. "It is something that's very difficult to get through molecular means, like taking a pill. But it turns out that sensory stimuli can actually directly stimulate parts of the brain controlling cognitive function." His company now plans to launch the game in Europe in the next few years. Akili is one of only a handful of companies with clearance to offer a digital therapeutic as a prescription for medical conditions. Late last year, the FDA approved a virtual reality-based treatment for children with the visual disorder amblyopia, or lazy eye.

GameStop on Monday announced the long-awaited debut of its online marketplace for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in a bid to reinvent its business and cash in on consumer adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. CNBC reports: The platform, which is now open to the public for beta testing, allows users to connect their own digital asset wallets, including the recently launched GameStop Wallet, the company said in a press release. They will then be able to buy, sell and trade NFTs of virtual goods. Over time, the marketplace will expand to offer other features such as Web3 gaming, GameStop said. "Currently, the marketplace plays host to an array of artwork projects that run on the Ethereum mainnet as well as Loopring, a layer-2 scaling solution," adds Decrypt. "GameStop previously announced a partnership to use the Immutable X layer-2 scaling network, but the marketplace notes that Immutable X support is 'coming soon.'"

"GameStop and Immutable X launched a $100 million token grant fund to bring game developers onto the marketplace. A press release notes that gaming NFTs will be added in the future."

Further reading: Game Developer On 'Why NFTs Are a Nightmare'

Alex Battaglia from the YouTube channel "Digital Foundry" was able to use the "RetroArch" software emulator to run Windows 98 on the Xbox Series X, along with several PC games of the era. "Technically, you're supposed to be an Xbox developer to access this, and you will need to sign up to the paid Microsoft Partner program and turn on 'Developer Mode' for your system to activate it," notes Pure Xbox. "In DF's case, rather than directly playing emulated games through RetroArch, they used the program to install Windows 98 software." From the report: Beyond the novelty of actually booting up Win98 on a modern console the channel then decided to test out some games, running through the older version of Windows. Playthroughs of Turok, Command & Conquer, Quake 2 and more were all pretty successful, although the act of loading them onto the software requires a bit of messing about (you have to create ISO files and transfer them over -- sadly, Xbox's disc drive can't read the original discs). Of course, this wouldn't be a Digital Foundry video without some performance comparisons, so the team did just that. The video compares hardware of the era with Xbox Series X's emulation, and while the console often lags behind due to the fact that it's literally emulating an entire version of Windows, and then a game on top of that, it fares pretty well overall. You can watch Digital Foundry's video here.

Game developer Mark Venturelli received a spirited ovation at Brazil's International Games Festival on Friday after he surprised the audience for his "Future of Game Design" talk with a new title: "Why NFTs are a nightmare." PC Gamer reports: Venturelli, who is best known for the game Chroma Squad, didn't just push back against those talks by calling NFTs a nightmare: He argued in detail that they're bad for gaming and run directly counter to his vision for the future of game design. In a follow-up interview with PC Gamer, Venturelli said the event's blockchain sponsors needed "to buy their relevance, because they're not relevant." [...] NFT projects in particular quickly became savvy enough to use phrases like "environment-friendly technology" in their press releases, but none of them grapple with the deeper criticisms of their ideas. That's what Venturelli zeroed in on in his talk and in our follow-up interview. There's the uncanny resemblance between these profit-driven grifts and pyramid schemes, but there's also the philosophical concern that things like cryptocurrency represent a libertarian ideal founded in paranoia about institutions, and about other human beings. That, Venturelli says, is in part why they're so inefficient in the first place.

"Computationally, like in real life, if you don't trust the people that you're working with, you have to spend a lot more energy to achieve the same things," he says. "If I'm living with you in the same house and we don't trust each other, I have to, every time before I leave my house, hide my valuables. I have to make inventory of the things that I own, and maybe put cameras or locks inside of things. When I come back home I need to check everything and see if you messed with any of my stuff, and make sure that you don't get into my room when I'm sleeping and all that shit. It's so much energy that I have to use just to exist in a room with you, because I don't trust you. That, I feel, is a very good metaphor about how computationally blockchain works, and what is the underlying philosophical idea behind it, which is, 'We want a world without any sort of centralized authority because we cannot trust any of them ever.' And that is the opposite of what we want as a society, in my opinion." [...]

Investors see potential value in South America right now due to exploitable political and economic instabilities, which for Venturelli means that presenting his counterargument is more important than ever. "If we don't take up some spaces, and we let these kinds of people take these spaces, suddenly they're dictating what's the future, suddenly they're taking the investments so that they are building our next big projects," he said. "That's when it starts to get really dangerous, because it can jeopardize our future as an industry, in my opinion. Because I don't feel like these things have long legs. I feel like they might be successful in the short term, but they are going to fall on the long term for sure." [He went on to say:] "Right now we are living in a crisis of trust in Western society -- trust in each other, in institutions, and even in our future together is in decline," Venturelli says. "We should be building systems that help connect people and build trust, build sustainable solutions, and build infinitely scalable human solutions. We should not be shifting away from culture, entertainment, and storytelling towards economic activity. We should not just be eliminating the final hiding places that we have to run away from the oppression of capitalist society." You can watch Venturelli's The Future of Game Design talk on YouTube. An English version of the slides accompanying it is available here.

In a move that will undoubtedly draw severe criticism, movies from Studio Canal that customers have purchased on the PlayStation Store will be completely removed next month. From a report: The legal notice is published on PlayStation's German and Austrian websites where it reads (translated): "As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library. We greatly appreciate your continued support."

In other words, customers will lose access to movies such as Apocalypse Now, Django, John Wick, La La Land, Saw and The Hunger Games that they purchased on the PlayStation Store. Not rented, but purchased.

Video game sales are set to decline annually for the first time in years, as another industry that boomed in the coronavirus era faces the grim prospect of a recession. From a report: The global games and services market is forecast to contract 1.2% year-on-year to $188 billion in 2022, according to research from market data firm Ampere Analysis. The sector expanded 26% from 2019 to 2021, reaching a record $191 billion in size. Sales of video games have consistently grown since at least 2015, Ampere data shows.

Gaming got a huge boost from Covid-19 shutdowns in 2020 as people spent more of their time indoors. The launch of next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony that same year also bolstered the industry's fortunes. However, the arrival of Microsoft's Xbox Series X and S machines and Sony's PlayStation 5 proved something of a double-edged sword -- logistics disruptions and shortages of vital components have meant that shoppers are facing great difficulty finding any of the new consoles on store shelves or online.

As noted by a Reddit user and confirmed by Ars Technica, Microsoft's xCloud game streaming looks noticeable worse when running on Linux than Windows. From the report: With the Linux User-Agent, edges are generally less sharp and colors are a little more washed out. The difference is even more apparent if you zoom in on the Forza logo and menu text, which shows a significant reduction in clarity. Interestingly, the dip in quality seems to go away if you enable "Clarity Boost, an Edge-exclusive feature that "provid[es] the optimal look and feel while playing Xbox games from the cloud," according to Microsoft. That's great for Linux users who switched over to Microsoft Edge when it launched on Linux last November. But Linux users who stick with Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers are currently stuck with apparently reduced streaming quality.

That Linux quality dip has led some to speculate that Microsoft is trying to reserve the best xCloud streaming performance for Windows machines in an attempt to attract more users to its own operating system. But using a Macintosh User-Agent string provides streaming performance similar to that on Windows, which would seem to be a big omission if that theory were true. Microsoft also hasn't published any kind of "best on Windows"-style marketing in promoting xCloud streaming, which would seemingly be a key component of trying to attract new Windows users. (The quality difference could be a roundabout attempt to get Linux users to switch to the Edge browser, where Clarity Boost offers the best possible quality. But that still wouldn't fully explain why Windows users on other browsers, without Clarity Boost, also get better streaming quality than their Linux brethren.)

Others have suggested that the downgrade could simply be a bug caused by Microsoft's naive parsing of the User-Agent strings. That's because the User-Agent strings for Android browsers generally identify themselves as some version of Linux ("Linux; Android 11; HD1905," for example). Microsoft's xCloud code might simply see the "Linux" in that string, assume the user is running Android, then automatically throttle the streaming quality to account for the (presumably) reduced screen size of an Android phone or tablet.

Microsoft is planning to remove Xbox 360 games from its monthly Games with Gold offer in October. The Verge reports: The software maker has started emailing Xbox Live Gold subscribers to warn them of the change, noting that the company has "reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalogue." Games with Gold is a monthly benefit for subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Microsoft hand picks free games each month, and all Xbox 360 titles are playable on the latest Xbox Series X / S consoles and Xbox One.

Microsoft's Xbox backward compatibility program briefly returned with 76 new games last year, but the company made it clear it had "reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints." That would explain why it has now reached the limit on new Xbox 360 titles for Games with Gold. If you've already downloaded or redeemed Xbox 360 games through Games with Gold, this change won't impact those titles. This just means starting October 1st, Microsoft won't be adding any additional Xbox 360 titles to the Games with Gold offering.

A collection of over a dozen games from Ubisoft will see their online elements shut down on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in September, "which means players won't be able to play their multiplayer components, access their online features, link Ubisoft accounts in-game, or install and access downloadable content," reports The Verge. From the report: "Closing the online services for some older games allows us to focus our resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles," Ubisoft's help page reads. With Assassin's Creed Brotherhood having originally released in November 2010, it's had almost 12 years of online support. But it's always sad to see a piece of gaming history become inaccessible, especially given the game's multiplayer element was missing from its remaster on the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Alongside Brotherhood, the online services associated with 2011's Assassin's Creed Revelations on PS3 and Xbox 360 are also being shut down, as well as 2012's Assassin's Creed 3 on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. [...] Other games set to have their online services decommissioned across various platforms this September include Driver San Francisco, Far Cry 3's 2012 release, Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands, Rayman Legends, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. You can view the full list of games here.

An anonymous reader shares a column: The promise of cloud gaming is that you can do it from anywhere using any device with internet access and a good enough browser (each cloud gaming service seems to have its own requirements on the browser front). You should be able to play super demanding games whether you're on a work trip with nothing but a work laptop or at home and the main TV is being hogged -- or even if you just don't feel like sitting on the couch. But the biggest promise of cloud gaming is that, no matter where you are, if you've got a phone then you've got all your games.

In practice, this is a bad idea. After spending the last few weeks rapturously using my Steam Deck near daily to play games in the cloud, I am never going to willingly attempt cloud gaming on my phone again. Valve's enormous do-anything handheld PC has made me realize that, actually, sometimes dedicated gaming hardware is good! The Swiss Army knife approach to mobile gaming promised by cloud gaming on your phone is about as useful as the saw on a real Swiss Army knife. I appreciate the effort, but I don't actually want to use it.

I've tried to make cloud gaming work on my phone a lot. I've attempted Red Dead Redemption 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Halo and Gears of War and plenty of other games. Each time, I'm hit with wonder because, holy shit, these are demanding AAA games that usually require tons of expensive (and noisy) hardware playing on my phone. That feels like the delivery on a promise tech companies made me decades ago. But the wonder wears off when you cloud game on your phone for an extended period of time. Cloud gaming drains the phone's battery quickly, which means you can and will be feeling the battery anxiety.

Riot Games will begin background evaluation of recorded in-game voice communications on July 13th in North America, in English. In a brief statement(opens in new tab) Riot said that the purpose of the recording is ultimately to "collect clear evidence that could verify any violations of behavioral policies." From a report: For now, however, recordings will be used to develop the evaluation system that may eventually be implemented. That means training some kind of language model using the recordings, says Riot, to "get the tech in a good enough place for a beta launch later this year." Riot also makes clear that voice evaluation from this test will not be used for reports.