In an article for The Conversation, Noah Wardrip-Fruin writes about how Computer Space marked the start of the $175 billion video game industry we have today when it debuted on Oct. 15, 1971 -- and why you probably haven't heard of it. From the report: Computer Space, made by the small company Nutting Associates, seemed to have everything going for it. Its scenario -- flying a rocket ship through space locked in a dogfight with two flying saucers -- seemed perfect for the times. The Apollo Moon missions were in full swing. The game was a good match for people who enjoyed science-fiction movies like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Planet of the Apes" and television shows like "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space," or those who had thrilled to the aerial combat of the movies "The Battle of Britain" and "Tora! Tora! Tora!" There was even prominent placement of a Computer Space cabinet in Charlton Heston's film "The Omega Man." But when Computer Space was unveiled, it didn't generate a flood of orders, and no flood ever arrived. It wasn't until Computer Space's makers left the company, founded Atari and released Pong the next year that the commercial potential of video games became apparent. The company sold 8,000 Pong units by 1974.

Nolan Bushnell, who led the development of both Computer Space and Pong, has recounted Computer Space's inauspicious start many times. He claimed that Computer Space failed to take off because it overestimated the public. Bushnell is widely quoted as saying the game was too complicated for typical bar-goers, and that no one would want to read instructions to play a video game. [...] At about the same time Computer Space debuted, Stanford University students were waiting in line for hours in the student union to play another version of Spacewar!, The Galaxy Game, which was a hit as a one-off coin-operated installation just down the street from where Bushnell and his collaborators worked. [...] Key evidence that complexity was not the issue comes in the form of Space Wars, another take on Spacewar! that was a successful arcade video game released in 1977.

Why were The Galaxy Game and Space Wars successful at finding an enthusiastic audience while Computer Space was not? The answer is that Computer Space lacked a critical ingredient that the other two possessed: gravity. The star in Spacewar! produced a gravity well that gave shape to the field of play by pulling the ships toward the star with intensity that varied by distance. This made it possible for players to use strategy -- for example, allowing players to whip their ships around the star. Why didn't Computer Space have gravity? Because the first commercial video games were made using television technology rather than general-purpose computers. This technology couldn't do the gravity calculations. The Galaxy Game was able to include gravity because it was based on a general-purpose computer, but this made it too expensive to put into production as an arcade game. The makers of Space Wars eventually got around this problem by adding a custom computer processor to its cabinets. Without gravity, Computer Space was using a design that the creators of Spacewar! already knew didn't work. Bushnell's story of the game play being too complicated for the public is still the one most often repeated, but as former Atari employee Jerry Jessop told The New York Times about Computer Space, "The game play was horrible."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, Nintendo of Europe announced a very region-specific -- and era-specific -- tweak for its upcoming collection of N64 games on Switch: an option to switch between the video standards PAL and NTSC. While the announcement may sound ho-hum to outsiders, anyone in Europe with a vested interest in classic gaming will appreciate what the toggle affords. The issue boils down to differences between NTSC and PAL, the leading video broadcast standards on CRT TVs during Nintendo's '80s and '90s heyday. North American and Japanese TV sets were configured for NTSC, which has a refresh rate standard of 60 Hz, while PAL sets dominated Europe with a slightly higher pixel resolution and a lower refresh rate standard of 50 Hz.

Should you merely watch TV series or films on both NTSC and PAL sets, the difference between each is noticeable yet mild. But for much of the '80s and '90s, many TV video games, especially the ones made by the largely Japanese console industry, suffered in PAL because they were coded specifically for NTSC standards. In order to port them to PAL, developers generally didn't go back and reconfigure all of the timings, especially in the case of early 3D games. Instead, their internal clock speeds were often slowed down to 83.3 percent to match European TV refresh rates. This meant both slower gameplay than originally coded and slower playback of music and sound effects. (These also often shipped with NTSC's pixel maximums in mind in such a way that they were squished to fit on PAL displays, as opposed to being optimized for them.)

Sure enough, last month's announcement of N64 games on Nintendo Switch Online put fear into European classic-gamer hearts. That region's reveal video included slightly slower timings of classic N64 games compared to videos posted by Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan, since they were emulating the original European retail releases. At that time, Nintendo of Europe did not immediately reply to social media questions about whether European Switch owners would get an option for 60 Hz N64 gameplay -- especially in an LCD TV era, where such CRT-related restrictions no longer technically apply to most EU and UK TV owners. Monday's announcement confirms that European players will get a 60 Hz option by default for every N64 game in the Nintendo Switch Online "Expansion Pack" collection, along with the option to access a game's original 50 Hz version if it launched with multi-language support. Reading between the lines, we believe this means that if a European N64 game only had English language support, its Switch Online version will be the North American NTSC ROM.

Epic Games is considering launching an entertainment division focused on scripted video programming, The Information reported Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. From the report: The maker of hit videogame Fortnite is looking to diversify amid legal battles with Apple and Google that have hurt its ability to expand in the mobile market. The division could develop projects including a feature film based on Fortnite, the people said. Such a film has already been discussed. Planning for the entertainment division follows the hiring in 2021's first two months of several executives from Lucasfilm, including Jason McGatlin, formerly vice president of Physical Production at Lucasfilm and now president of Special Projects at Epic. McGatlin was executive producer of all the "Star Wars" films released under Disney. Other hires from Lucasfilm are Lynn Bartsch, Epic's head of Business Affairs, and Chris Furia, Epic's vice president of Production Finance, according to the executives' LinkedIn profiles.

"The recently released Far Cry 6 video game from Ubisoft has drawn the ire of the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)," reports ComicBook.com: While PETA has been known to issue statements on the handling of animals in video games over the years, and Far Cry 6 includes a variety of animals and instances that might have been the subject of such a statement, it is the cockfighting minigame in Far Cry 6 that has been specifically called out.

"Turning a horrific blood sport like cockfighting into a Mortal Kombat-style video game match is a far cry from real innovation, as today's society is strongly opposed to forcing animals to fight to the death," the statement from PETA Latino Senior Manager Alicia Aguayo reads. "Roosters used in cockfights are fitted with sharp spurs that tear through flesh and bone, causing agonizing and fatal injuries. PETA Latino urges Ubisoft to replace this reprehensible minigame with one that doesn't glorify cruelty."

PC Building Simulator is currently free on the Epic Games Store until October 17th. The Verge reports: Like the majority of sim games, PCBS speaks to a very specific type of fantasy. If your idea of a good time is overclocking your computer while managing a small business, this is a game that does exactly that. My favorite feature has to be making your work computer in-game look exactly like your computer IRL. The game will even adjust the RGB lighting and wallpaper of your machine to match. However, depending on your level of experience, the game can actually serve as a worthwhile educational tool for anyone who wants to learn more about... well, building PCs.

PC Building Simulator has received its fair share of DLC, mostly in the form of different workshop environments that are entirely cosmetic. However, it did get an esports expansion that's a little more narrative-focused and plays more like a timed puzzle game rather than a business simulation. It's also worth noting that the game regularly receives free updates that add new hardware to the already massive roster of cases, CPUs, GPUs, and other bits and bobs. There are really only two things this game doesn't simulate: misplacing that last thumbscrew and getting thermal paste on absolutely everything.

Speaking to The Verge, representatives for Microsoft confirmed that Xbox cloud gaming now runs entirely on Xbox Series X hardware, wrapping up a backend upgrade that quietly kicked off over the summer. Kotaku reports: So, what's that mean? For one, the Xbox Series X can output games in 4K resolution. Though cloud gaming currently streams games at 60 frames per second, the service only outputs games at a resolution of 1080p. Moving the whole operation to an Xbox Series X framework could theoretically bring that in line with what's available on Microsoft's highest-end model. But the switch could also open up access to games that are otherwise inaccessible to gamers gated out of next-gen hardware. Obviously, it's still tough as hell to get your hands on an Xbox Series X these days (and, to a lesser extent, its computationally scrawnier cousin, the Xbox Series S). Don't expect it to get any easier any time soon. Just last week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said as much.

After Take-Two Interactive sent a legal letter to Github referencing a copyright infringement lawsuit against the people behind the popular re3 and reVC Grand Theft Auto fan projects, Github has now removed the repositories for a second time. Take-Two has also demanded the removal of many project forks and wants Github to take action under its repeat infringer policy. TorrentFreak reports: Just before the weekend, a new entry in Github's DMCA repository revealed the existence of a letter (PDF) sent to Github from Take-Two's legal team. Dated September 9, 2021 (a week after the copyright lawsuit was filed) it informs Github that legal action is underway and it has come to the company's attention that the contentious content (and numerous 'fork' repositories) continue to be made available on Github's website. "We request that Github take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the materials [in the attached exhibit], together with any other instances of the same materials available within the same primary 'GTAmodding/re3' fork network (e.g. in 'private' or newly-created repositories)," it reads.

In common with the first DMCA notice, Github has responded by taking the project's repositories down. Given that the defendants in the case already stand accused of previously sending 'bad faith' counter-notices, it seems unlikely that they will follow up with another set of similar responses that will soon be under the scrutiny of the court. Take-Two also follows up with a line that is becoming more and more popular in copyright infringement matters, one that references so-called 'repeat infringers.' "Furthermore, it is requested that Github take appropriate measures to prevent further infringement by the parties responsible, including pursuant to any 'repeat infringer' policies maintained by Github."

This means that if any of the contentious content is reposted to Github, Take-Two would like the code repository to implement its own 'repeat infringer' process. It states that "in appropriate circumstances and in its sole discretion, [Github will] disable and terminate the accounts of users who may infringe upon the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of GitHub or others." The letter also provides a laundry list of repository forks that, on the basis they are also infringing, should be removed. While Github appears to have complied in many cases, there are two notable exceptions. After being targeted by earlier DMCA takedowns, Github users 'td512' and 'erorcun' filed DMCA counter-notices to have their repositories restored. The former previously informed TorrentFreak that he believed Take-Two's infringement claims to be incorrect. At the time of writing, both repos are still online.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The U.S. Navy has lost control of the official Facebook page for its destroyer-class warship, the USS Kidd. Someone has hacked the page and, for the past two days, done nothing but stream Age of Empires. The first stream went on for four hours. As first reported by Task & Purpose, the USS Kidd lost control of its Facebook account at 10:26 p.m. on October 3. The destroyer class warship then streamed Age of Empires for four hours under the headline "Hahahahaha." It's since streamed Age of Empires five more times, each time for at least an hour. Whoever is playing sucks, because they never make it past the Stone Age. As of this writing, the six videos are still up and watchable. The Navy confirmed to Task & Purpose that it had been hacked, adding: "We are currently working with Facebook technical support to resolve the issue."

As spotted by Kotaku, Sony has decided to discontinue credit card and PayPal payment options for both the PS3 and the PS Vita on October 27th, 2021, making it frustratingly difficult to use these stores. From the report: To actually buy video games on your video game device, you will need to go to a secondary location and purchase a physical gift card, which you can then use to purchase video games. Alternatively you can use the awkward wallet system to add funds via Sony's website, or by adding funds on your PS4 or PS5, and then spending them on the PS3 or Vita. Either way, this is extremely silly. Sony's complete lack of interest in games preservation, and for keeping games accessible to the people who bought the systems they run on, is deeply infuriating. The games industry has a short memory, made shorter by a constant focus on developing tech, and even shorter again by publishers with no interest in keeping their systems running. I've written before about the importance of libraries in game preservation, and I will take Sony's fuckery as an opportunity to get on my soapbox again. [...]

A Bloomberg report claiming 11 game developers have access to Nintendo Switch 4K development kits is sparking confusion about the existence of the rumored Nintendo Switch Pro. Axios: Bloomberg published a story yesterday in which it says that employees at the game companies, including Zynga, claim to have the dev kits. That system wouldn't be out until at least late next year, Bloomberg reports. Nintendo has disavowed the report on Twitter, saying that it has "no plans for any new model other than Nintendo Switch -- OLED Model." The report "falsely claims that Nintendo is supplying tools to drive game development for a Nintendo Switch with 4K support," Nintendo said. "To ensure correct understanding among our investors and customers, we want to clarify that this report is not true." A Zynga spokesperson told Axios that the company "does not have a 4K developer kit from Nintendo."

The head of Microsoft's games business told The Wrap that a shortage of chips wasn't the only thing stopping the company getting as many Xbox Series X/S consoles onto store shelves as it would like. From a report: "I think it's probably too isolated to talk about it as just a chip problem," he said. "When I think about, what does it mean to get the parts necessary to build a console today, and then get it to the markets where the demand is, there are multiple kind of pinch points in that process. And I think regretfully it's going to be with us for months and months, definitely through the end of this calendar year and into the next calendar year. The thing that's most disappointing is just the fan disappointment," Spencer continued. "People really want this new generation of consoles -- they're good consoles, both from us and the other platform holders -- and they want the new functionality. We're working hard to bring them to market but it's going to be a challenge that we'll work through for quite a while."

Amazon has been successful in nearly every industry it has entered, from books and grocery shopping to cloud computing and movie streaming. So it has been puzzling to many that success in the lucrative video game business has eluded the tech giant. On Tuesday, Amazon gave producing its own video games another try. From a report: After more than a year of delays, it released New World, an online multiplayer game in which players join factions, fight monsters, fight one another and colonize a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The $40 computer game, which received generally positive reviews as players tested early versions over the past few months, arrives at a crucial time for the tech giant's disappointing gaming efforts.

After spending by some estimates hundreds of millions of dollars, neither of the other two big-budget games that Amazon announced it was producing in 2016 alongside New World exists today. Some of its top gaming hires have departed over the years without putting out any notable titles. Last year, the company also removed another game from storefronts after a poor reception. New World "has to be our breakthrough game -- there's no doubt about it," said Christoph Hartmann, the vice president of Amazon Games. "Just for morale of people, at some point you want to see some success." Amazon's biggest accomplishment in the gaming industry so far has been the acquisition of Twitch, the livestreaming video site, which the company bought in 2014 for about $1 billion. Amazon has also forged ahead with a new gaming subscription service, Luna, and recently announced a new development studio in Montreal.

Newsweek reports: Chris Pratt is in a celebratory mood, following the announcement that he's set to voice lead character Mario in an animated movie adaptation of the enduring video game Super Mario Bros. The Guardians of the Galaxy star joins a star-studded cast in the movie, which includes Charlie Day as his brother Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy [from The Queen's Gambit] as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key [co-creator of Key & Peele] as Toad, and Jack Black as villainous turtle Bowser... Also included in the cast are Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong and Fred Armisen [from SNL and Portlandia], who will take on the role of his grandfather, Cranky Kong....

The producers said that the actors were selected for their ability to capture the spirit of each of their characters, per Variety.
Kotaku adds that future-voice-of-Mario Chris Pratt "isn't exactly instilling confidence right now." "It's ah me, ah Mario," he said in an Instagram video posted last night in the exact same voice I would use if I were pretending to be Chris Pratt pretending to be Mario. "That's not the voice, you'll have to wait to hear the voice, but we've been working hard at it and I'm really excited to announce that I'm the voice of that video game that I dreamed of playing as a kid."

For decades, Mario has been voiced in the games by Charles Martinet who is also not Italian but is an theatrically trained and experienced voice actor who specializes in accents and dialects. He will be involved in the new movie in some way, but at this point just as another avenue for Nintendo to troll longtime fans, it seems.

Sony has released a new software update for the PlayStation 5 that will let you expand the console's internal storage and use the PS5's 3D audio effects on external speakers. CNET reports: The PS5 update will also let you view PS4 and PS5 versions of the same game separately -- particularly useful after you upgrade to a next-gen version -- plus it gives you more options for customizing the Control Center and lets you use it to write messages to other players. PlayStation Now subscribers will also get the ability to choose between 720p and 1080p streaming options, or use a streaming connection test to identify and fix connection issues. The PS4 is also getting a software update, letting you see PS5 trophies on your profile and those of other players.

An Nvidia GeForce Now server has leaked a confidential list of thousands of games, some of which have never been seen before, like the PlayStation exclusive God of War seemingly coming to Windows PC via Steam. Developer Ighor July has published the list to GitHub. The Verge reports: Here's a screenshot of what that looks like in the GeForce Now client, according to the developer. There are reasons to believe the list is legit. We know graphics giant Nvidia has access to games long before they're released -- and we know Sony in particularly has been banking on banking on PlayStation games on PC. It quietly revealed Uncharted 4 was coming to PC, after seeing a 250 percent return on its investment porting Horizon: Zero Dawn to the platform, and it was just Thursday that Sony announced it would be part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection -- a name that we'd never heard of before then, but already appears in Nvidia's list as well. So too do Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy XVI -- the games where Sony had to retroactively retract all mentions of PC to make them sound like PlayStation exclusives. PS5 exclusive Returnal appears as well, as does a Final Fantasy VII Remake for PC.

And there are codenames for games in here that seem original, ones that bring up zero search results. Is "Platinum" the internal name for Bethesda's Indiana Jones games? But there are also a lot of mentions that seem rather out of date or out of place, like a whole host of Facebook-exclusive Oculus Rift titles that would make little sense on Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service, or a mention of a "Titanfall 3" which clarifies that it's actually "GAMEapex_legends_-_titanfall," aka Apex Legends, the popular battle royale game. And some of them may simply be guesses, like Kingdom Hearts IV, "BioShock 2022," and so on. All of that means you should probably take any given name on the list with a grain of salt...

According to Insider, Sony is charging a $10 upgrade fee to bring cross-generational games from a PS4 to a PS5. From the report: When new game consoles launch nowadays, a variety of games on that new console are also available on the previous generation of consoles. The next major PlayStation 5 exclusive game, for instance, is also headed to the PlayStation 4: "Horizon Forbidden West" launches in early 2022, and millions of players will get it on the last generation console. [..] Unfortunately, when PlayStation 4 owners do finally find and purchase a PlayStation 5, those cross-generational games don't automatically make the leap with them. Instead, Sony intends to charge $10 apiece for that upgrade -- and that's only after fans criticized Sony for an even stranger policy.

"Thursday was to be a celebration of 'Horizon Forbidden West' and the amazing team at Guerrilla working to deliver it on February 18, 2022," PlayStation leader Jim Ryan said in an update on a Sony blog post earlier this month. "However, it's abundantly clear that the offerings we confirmed in our pre-order kickoff missed the mark." Ryan was referring to a previously announced pre-order announcement for "Horizon Forbidden West" that revealed the only way to get both the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game was to order an $80 "digital deluxe" edition -- a $20 increase over the base level $60 price of a PS4 video game.

Sony had previously announced that any PlayStation 5 games in the "launch window" would only need to be purchased on one console to own both the PS4 and PS5 versions. "Horizon Forbidden West" has been delayed repeatedly, which pushed it out of the ambiguous "launch window" Sony set for the PlayStation 5 (which launched in November 2020). When PlayStation fans cited this, Sony caved. Moreover, Ryan laid out a clear upgrade path for the future -- albeit one that's still open to scrutiny. "Moving forward, PlayStation first-party exclusive cross-gen titles (newly releasing on PS4 & PS5) -- both digital and physical -- will offer a $10 USD digital upgrade option from PS4 to PS5," Ryan said. "This will apply to the next 'God of War' and 'Gran Turismo 7,' and any other exclusive cross-gen PS4 & PS5 title published by Sony Interactive Entertainment." Microsoft's policy, on the other hand, states that if you owned a game on a previous Xbox console, you own it on the current consoles. If there's a newer version of that game for your newer console, that's the version you get when you buy and download the game.

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Chinese authorities have banned all new video games from being released indefinitely, as the government attempts to tackle what it calls gaming addiction in the under-18s. The suspension was revealed at a meeting with game company Tencent.

The ban was reportedly revealed during a meeting between Chinese gaming companies Tencent and the authorities. Neither company has commented on the suspension, which has not yet been given an end date. The suspension comes as part of a wider bid by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on gaming addiction amongst children. Just last month, the Chinese government banned under-18s from playing online games for more than three hours per week, and restricted weekend play between 8PM and 9PM. Online gaming companies are required to enforce the ban, which came after state media labelled videogames "spiritual opium" and "electronic drugs" a few weeks prior.

slack_justyb writes: Unity has filed a patent with the USPTO for "Methods and apparatuses to improve the performance of a video game engine using an Entity Component System (ECS)."

ECS methods are something that some other open source game engines already use. One example is Bevy for Rust. Some are already commenting on the ramifications of this patent application and indicating that this could be a massive overstep by Unity to attempt to patent something already used by other lesser-known game engines.

New submitter Sauce Tin writes: In a blog post, Jagex announced the shutdown of a community-driven RuneScape HD graphics client. The announcement came at an inopportune time -- the community client was prepped for release this week and had been announced years beforehand, with 2,000+ hours of effort of a single individual behind it. The effort had been noticed by Jagex, however no opposition from the company was made -- until recently. Thousands of players vented on the game's subreddit, ultimately reaching the top of r/all. Jagex has had a past of infuriating its player base over the years, including the removal of free trade, PvP combat, and LGBT holiday content.

CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus, who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!