When StarCraft first came on the scene in 1998, the real-time science fiction strategy game wasn't just a hit -- it was an awakening. Out of 11 million copies sold worldwide, 4.5 million were in South Korea, despite it not being localized into Korean. "PC bangs," pay-as-you-go gaming cafes stocked with food and drinks, grew from just 100 to 23,000 in three years. But as the mania took the country by storm, hospital check-ins involving computer games also dramatically rose. Young people were playing until their bodily functions began breaking down, occasionally even to the point of death.

In May of this year, after years of advocacy from medical experts and lawmakers, members of the 72nd assembly of the World Health Organization unanimously voted to recognize video game addiction as a disorder. The categorization, however, remains controversial. Despite years of concern and study about the effects of video games, conclusive evidence that they cause addiction or violence has been hard to come by. And in the numerous parliamentary forums, televised debates, and academic symposia convened, the same question looms large: Has a culture of intensive gaming really brought about a public health crisis, or is excessive gaming just a symptom of other problems?

The creators of Vim have released a game called "Killersheep" to show off two new features in Vim 8.2.

"Before I did the keynote at VimConf 2018 I asked plugin developers what they wanted from Vim," reads the announcement at Vim.org. "The result was a very long list of requested features. The top two items were clear: Popup windows and text properties." After more than a year of development the new features are now ready for the Vim crowds.

Popup windows make it possible to show messages, function prototypes, code snippets and anything else on top of the text being edited. They open and close quickly and can be highlighted in many ways... This was no small effort. Although the existing window support could be used, popup windows are different enough to require a lot of extra logic. Especially to update the screen efficiently. Also to make it easy for plugin writers to use them; you don't need to tell Vim exactly where to show one, just give a reference point and the text to display, Vim will figure out the size and where the popup fits best.

Text properties can be used for something as simple as highlighting a text snippet or something as complicated as using an external parser to locate syntax items and highlight them asynchronously. This can be used instead of the pattern based syntax highlighting. A text property sticks with the text, also when inserting a word before it. And this is done efficiently by storing the properties with the text.

In 30 minutes an exclusive clip from the yet-to-be-released Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will premier in the videogame Fortnite.

An anonymous reader quotes the Verge: We've known about the clip premiere since last week, but Epic disclosed some more concrete details Thursday night at the Game Awards. The studio says it'll open the gates of its virtual world starting at 1:30 p.m. EST. The clip will start airing at the Risky Reels drive-in movie theater at 2 p.m. EST. Speaking with Game Awards host Geoff Keighley yesterday, Epic's worldwide creative director Donald Mustard hinted that there would be some sort of involvement from director J.J. Abrams. We don't know if that means a live pre-show, or perhaps the director himself will intro the clip before it airs.
UPDATE: CNN has a report on the event, while also noting that its start was delayed 15 minutes "because of issues with logging in and making purchases.

"Even after 2:15 pm, players still took to social media to complain the game was crashing or they couldn't even open it."

Fortnite is also offering skins of Star Wars characters Rey and Finn, according to the article, with Mustard envisioning Fortnite as a world where all intellectual property "can live together." The Verge also predicts that the clip will eventually be available elsewhere online, while Business Insider believes "countless" Fortnite players will stream the event live on YouTube and Twitch.

Meanwhile, J. J. Abrams has also asked Lucasfilm to release the original Star Wars trilogy in its original pre-Special Edition format, according to Nerdist.com, but "I've been told that, for reasons that I quite don't understand, that that's not necessarily possible."

In an exclusive interview with Gamespot, Partner Director of Program Management for Team Xbox Jason Ronald revealed a new feature of the Xbox Series X: the ability to suspend and resume multiple games at once. Wccftech highlights what Ronald said: [From Gamespot]: "Today, we have the capability of instantly resuming the last game that you were playing. Why can't you do that for multiple games? Many players choose to play multiple games at the same time, being able to instantly jump right back where I was, those are things that we can do with the platform level to make the gaming experience better. It's really about ensuring there's less waiting and more time playing because that's ultimately what we all want to do with the consoles and with the services that we have."

For his part, Phil Spencer (Head of Gaming at Microsoft) wanted to highlight the goal to enhance the player's immersive factor thanks to the high refresh rate (the Xbox Series X supports up to 120 frames per second) and reduced input latency: "So when we talk about things like refresh rate and we talk about input latency, this is all about the most immersive experience game designers can create, where the visuals are stunning, my ability to get into the experience [is] very timely, it's as great as it's ever been with the I/O speeds and the load times we're going to see, and the input and the ability for just my control and activation of my character or of the game itself becomes a subconscious thing and not something that I think about."

At the 2019 Game Awards today, Microsoft revealed the name and console design of its next-generation gaming console: Xbox Series X. The Verge reports: The console itself looks far more like a PC than we've seen from previous Xbox consoles, and Microsoft's trailer provides a brief glimpse at the new design. The console itself is designed to be used in both vertical and horizontal orientations, and Microsoft's Xbox chief, Phil Spencer, promises that it will "deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way."

The Xbox Series X will include a custom-designed CPU based on AMD's Zen 2 and Radeon RDNA architecture. Microsoft is also using an SSD on Xbox Series X, which promises to boost load times. Xbox Series X will also support 8K gaming, frame rates of up to 120 fps in games, ray tracing, and variable refresh rate support. Microsoft also revealed a new Xbox Wireless Controller today. "Its size and shape have been refined to accommodate an even wider range of people, and it also features a new Share button to make capturing screenshots and game clips simple," explains Spencer. This updated controller will work with existing Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 PCs, and will ship with every Xbox Series X.

Sony has announced plans to launch PlayStation games on "additional console platforms beyond PlayStation platforms as early as 2021." The first announced series for the change is Sony's long-running baseball sim series MLB The Show. Ars Technica reports: The gazillion-dollar question, of course, is which other console platforms we might expect the series to launch on. Neither Sony nor MLB had any answers to that question as of press time. Sony also didn't hint to doing the same thing for any other current PlayStation-exclusive series. Since the series began life in 1998 on PlayStation 1, simply titled MLB '98, Sony's baseball games have launched exclusively on PlayStation platforms -- and, in fact, they've launched on every PlayStation-branded device. While other multi-platform baseball sim series have fallen by the wayside in the years since, most recently 2K Sports' MLB 2K13, Sony's PlayStation-exclusive take on the American pastime has persisted as an annual release.

"Sony" at large has published games on non-PlayStation consoles in recent years, mostly in the form of Sony Music Entertainment's UNTIES entertainment publishing group. But those games are rarely marked with "Sony" or "PlayStation" branding, let alone temporary exclusivity on PlayStation platforms. Today's news marks the first time a series from Sony Interactive Entertainment with loud ties to the PlayStation brand has been announced for other competing consoles. There are still way more questions than answers: "Might Sony go so far as to launch MLB The Show on Xbox, thus creating a tangled love triangle of who publishes on whose consoles? Or will this become a bizarre move on Sony's part to support Google Stadia, even though Sony has its own complicated sometimes-streaming subscription service? And either way, how far might Sony and the MLB milk this cloud of mystery, assuming that 'as early as 2021' could mean one, two, or even 4,000 years later?"

Game worlds can be blueprints for the real world, liberating spaces where rules can be reinvented and the invisible made visible. From a report: For architects, the sheer scope of this artificiality means video games can be both playgrounds and testing grounds. "In games, there is the idea that an object has a visual solidity and a material solidity, and it doesn't have to have both," says Luke Pearson, a lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. "It takes you right back to the start of having to construct a space. You have to invent your own rules and logic for how things work." Pearson and his colleague Sandra Youkhana run the Videogame Urbanism studio at Bartlett. They investigate the future of cities through video games, teaching students how to use virtual worlds to interrogate the ways they think about materials.

"We want to push beyond the idea that the future of game technology in architecture is only in making photorealistic, VR representations for developers to look at penthouses," Pearson says. At a time when it's perfectly normal to segue from navigating the real-world walls of a city into the fantastical vistas of a game, the realms of architecture and games are arguably closer than ever. There is growing interest in pulling one into the other. Architect and film director Liam Young recently called on young architects to apply their skills to designing digital environments "that a billion people play in every day" instead of cutting their teeth designing "rich houses for rich people."

The Global Times is a daily tabloid newspaper published "under the auspices" of the Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily, according to Wikipedia.

And this week Slashdot reader Tulsa_Time noticed that this official state-run newspaper "promoted a video game where users are tasked with hunting down the 'traitors' leading Hong Kong's ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations."

Here's an excerpt from the article by China's state-run newspaper: An online game calling on players to hunt down traitors who seek to separate Hong Kong from China and fuel street violence has reportedly begun to attract players across Chinese mainland social media platforms. The game, "fight the traitors together," is set against the backdrop of the social unrest that has persisted in Hong Kong. The script asks the player to find eight secessionists hidden in the crowd participating in Hong Kong protests.

Players can knock them down with slaps or rotten eggs until they are captured. Online gamers claim the game allows them to vent their anger at the separatist behavior of secessionists during the recent Hong Kong riots. The eight traitors in the game, caricatured based on real people, include Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Martin Lee Chu-ming and Joshua Wong Chi-fung, prominent opposition figures who have played a major role in inciting unrest in Hong Kong. There are also traitor figures in ancient China...

In the game, amid a crowd of black-clad rioters wearing yellow hats and face masks, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, another leading opposition figure, carries a bag with a U.S. flag, clutches a stack of U.S. dollars and holds a loudspeaker to incite violence in the streets.

MojoKid writes: At its Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii this week, Qualcomm unveiled the new Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform, which enable next year's flagship 5G Android phones with more performance, a stronger Tensor-based AI processor and a very interesting new forthcoming feature not yet offered for any smartphone platform to date. The company announced that it will eventually start delivering driver updates for its Adreno GPU engines on board the Snapdragon 865 as downloadable packages via the Google Play Store. This is big news for smartphones, as GPU drivers are rarely updated out of band, if ever, and typically have to wait for the next major Android release. And even then, many OEMs don't bother putting in the effort to ensure that mobile GPUs are running the most current graphics drivers from Qualcomm. The process, which would have to be pre-qualified by major OEMs as well, will be akin to what the PC GPU 3D graphics driver ecosystem has been benefiting from for a long time, for maximum performance and compatibility. Unfortunately, at least currently, GPU driver update support is limited to only the Adreno 650 core on board the new Snapdragon 865, which currently supports updating drivers in this fashion. Here's hoping this program is met with success and Qualcomm will begin to enable the feature for legacy and new midrange Snapdragon platforms as well.

sandbagger writes: BioShock: After Midnight is an original story detailing events that took place in Rapture before the protagonist of the first BioShock game arrived at the city of Rapture. It's a sprawling noir story, following a private eye, an Adam fiend whose fallen in love with Atlas, and the crazed cult members of Sofia Lamb.

In June, Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, a new iteration of the Xbox that the company said would "set a new bar for console power, speed and performance." What Microsoft didn't say is that it is also working on a lower-cost, disc-less version of Scarlett, code-named Lockhart, Kotaku reported Wednesday, citing four people briefed on the company's plans. From a report: If those names sound familiar, that's because they've been floating around for a while. The earliest rumors about Microsoft's next-gen roadmap, circa 2018, suggested that Project Scarlett would consist of two Xbox models: the high-performance Anaconda and the lower-end Lockhart. In June, however, Microsoft announced that Scarlett was a single, high-end console, which led to speculation and then press reports that Lockhart had been canceled. But Kotaku has learned that Lockhart is in fact still in the works as a cheaper, digital-only alternative to Scarlett, as the original rumors suggested. What we don't know -- and what likely isn't finalized yet -- is how the pricing will shake out. But it's easiest to think of Anaconda as a successor to the Xbox One X and Lockhart as a successor to the Xbox One S, with a similar performance disparity. Game developers will be expected to support both Anaconda and Lockhart, which some are worried might hamper their ambitions for next-gen games in the coming years.

As of this week, players who owned a legitimate copy of Tron: Evolution they paid for but never played it, no longer can. From a report: Tron: Evolution, a tie-in game for the 2010 Tron: Legacy film, used SecurRom, a form of digital rights management (DRM), and publisher Disney hasn't paid its bill. This means Disney can no longer authenticate purchases and "unlock" copies of the game that people bought but haven't used yet. Players first noticed they couldn't play the game after purchasing it in October, but a thread on Reddit today brought more attention to the issue. "I often buy games on sales, but don't play them immediately," user Renusek said on Reddit. "Yesterday I decided to play Tron: Evolution, maybe even practice speedrunning it, so I install the game, try to activate it (game still uses SecuROM DRM) and... the serial key has expired (?!)." SecurROM is DRM software that companies attach to video games to make sure they aren't downloaded illegally. It was popular among big game publishers some years back, often causing havoc and annoyance to players.

According to Motherboard, the FBI applied for a search warrant in October compelling Sony to provide data on a PlayStation 4 user who was allegedly part of a cocaine distribution network. The application even asks for what games the alleged drug dealer played, and his progress in them. From the report: "The Provider is hereby ordered to disclose the above information to the Government within 14 days of service of this warrant," the search warrant application, filed on October 22 in the Western District of Missouri, reads. The case revolves around Curtis Alexander, also known as "Dola," who the FBI alleges used PlayStation's online service to coordinate the sale of large quantities of cocaine.

"The CHS [Confidential Human Source] stated ALEXANDER was currently charging $34,000 per kilogram of cocaine. The CHS stated ALEXANDER utilizes the PlayStation username 'Speedola20,'" the application reads, referring to an unnamed informant for the FBI who helped investigate Alexander. The CHS said Alexander contacted them through the PlayStation game "during game." "The phase 'during game' is a reference to audio communication held during the CHS and ALEXANDER's participation in an online multi-player game," the application continues. "Investigators believe that ALEXANDER likely believes that audio communication during the course of his participation in an online game is secure. As such, ALEXANDER likely believes that he can use audio communication during game play on the PlayStation to arrange the details of a drug transaction." The FBI and CHS went on to setup a sting in which the Bureau surveilled Alexander selling the informant a bag of around 100 grams of white powder for $4,400, and Alexander told the CHS he wanted to talk again later that evening on the "game," the court document adds. The FBI asked for essentially all info that Sony may have held on the user, "including stored or preserved copies of emails, chats, or other messages sent to and from the Account, drafts of such, and the source destination addresses associated with each, the date and time at which each was sent, and the size and length of each," the search warrant application reads. It's not known if Sony provided the data.

"On the 25th anniversary of the original Sony PlayStation, The Verge shares the story of the PlayStation supercomputers," writes Slashdot reader jimminy_cricket. From the report: Dozens of PlayStation 3s sit in a refrigerated shipping container on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's campus, sucking up energy and investigating astrophysics. It's a popular stop for tours trying to sell the school to prospective first-year students and their parents, and it's one of the few living legacies of a weird science chapter in PlayStation's history. Those squat boxes, hulking on entertainment systems or dust-covered in the back of a closet, were once coveted by researchers who used the consoles to build supercomputers. With the racks of machines, the scientists were suddenly capable of contemplating the physics of black holes, processing drone footage, or winning cryptography contests. It only lasted a few years before tech moved on, becoming smaller and more efficient. But for that short moment, some of the most powerful computers in the world could be hacked together with code, wire, and gaming consoles. "The game consoles entered the supercomputing scene in 2002 when Sony released a kit called Linux for the PlayStation 2," reports The Verge. Craig Steffen, senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and his group hooked up between 60 and 70 PlayStation 2s, wrote some code, and built out a library.

"The PS3 entered the scene in late 2006 with powerful hardware and an easier way to load Linux onto the devices," the report adds. "Researchers would still need to link the systems together, but suddenly, it was possible for them to imagine linking together all of those devices into something that was a game-changer instead of just a proof-of-concept prototype."

Valve has confirmed to The Verge that it will stop making its Steam Controller. Currently, the gamepads are on sale for just $5 -- 90 percent off its original price -- but once these controllers are gone, Valve doesn't plan to make any more. From the report: [W]hile I can't recommend it wholeheartedly like I did when Valve discontinued its amazing Steam Link wireless HDMI cable-in-a-box, I will say that $13 is a pretty excellent price if you ever plug your PC into your television, or sling your PC games wirelessly to the Steam Link app on your phone and need an accurate solution. That's because the controller, originally introduced in 2013 as part of Valve's failed Steam Machines initiative, is one of the most fully customizable gamepads ever made, and perhaps the only one to offer mouse-like pinpoint precision. That's because it uses a pair of trackpads, complete with tiny solenoid actuators for haptic feedback, so you can emulate a mouse or trackball. Plus, there are paddles around back for crouching, jumping, strafing, you name it without needing to take your thumbs off those trackpads.

But that's just the beginning. Thanks to Valve's robust configuration software, the Steam Controller has developed something of a cult following with thousands of gamers uploading their custom configurations for their entire game libraries on Steam. It's not uncommon to fire up a game and find dozens of fancy profiles that place the game's functions at your fingertips plus add entirely new control modes. One common modifier is to hold down a button to switch the entire gamepad into a gyroscopic aiming mode, not only readying your character's weapon, but slowing down your aiming sensitivity while allowing you to physically shift the controller a small amount to line up a shot using its built-in gyroscope. [...] I doubt I'm actually going to convince you to buy a Steam Controller if you've never been sold on the idea before. (Plus, paying $8 for shipping seems a bit much.) But I'm keeping mine around as a piece of gaming history, and I'm a little tempted to buy a second just in case I ever lose its USB dongle.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A master player of the Chinese strategy game Go has decided to retire, due to the rise of artificial intelligence that "cannot be defeated." Lee Se-dol is the only human to ever beat the AlphaGo software developed by Google's sister company Deepmind. In 2016, he took part in a five-match showdown against AlphaGo, losing four times but beating the computer once. The South Korean said he had decided to retire after realizing: "I'm not at the top even if I become the number one." "There is an entity that cannot be defeated," the 18-time world Go champion told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. Lee Se-dol is considered to be one of the greatest Go players of the modern era. "On behalf of the whole AlphaGo team at DeepMind, I'd like to congratulate Lee Se-dol for his legendary decade at the top of the game, and wish him the very best for the future," said Demis Hassabis, chief executive and co-founder of Deepmind. "During the AlphaGo matches, he demonstrated true warrior spirit and kept us on the edges of our seats to the very end."

In an interview, Xbox chief Phil Spencer downplayed VR as an "isolating" experience, saying that "nobody's asking for VR" -- at least, from his customer base. From a report: He said, "the vast majority of our customers know if they want a VR experience, there's places to go get those" he explained, though he also said "nobody's selling millions and millions" of VR headsets. For these reasons, the company isn't planning to support VR on its next Xbox console, codenamed Project Scarlett. [...] Spencer's take apparently didn't sit well with Sony's Shuhei Yoshida, who led the company's worldwide studios through much of the growth of PlayStation VR -- a headset that has, in fact, sold well over 4 million units. This morning, Yoshida tweeted that "we oftentimes work hard to make things that no customers are asking for," a fairly gentle retort that recalls the supposed quote from car pioneer Henry Ford, "if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since March, Google has been promising that its streaming Stadia platform would be capable of full 4K, 60fps gameplay (for users with a robust Internet connection and $10/month Stadia Pro subscription). But technical analyses since launch have shown that some of the service's highest profile games aren't hitting that mark. A Digital Foundry analysis of Red Dead Redemption 2 on Stadia, for instance, found that the game actually runs at a native 2560x1440 resolution, which is then upscaled to the 4K standard of 4096x2160 via the Chromecast Ultra. And a Bungie representative said that the Stadia version of Destiny 2 runs at the PC equivalent of "medium" graphics settings and that the game will "render at a native 1080p and then upsample [to 4K] and apply a variety of techniques to increase the overall quality of effect."

Over the weekend, Google issued a statement to 9to5Google that essentially places the blame for this situation on Stadia developers themselves (emphasis added): "Stadia streams at 4K and 60fps -- and that includes all aspects of our graphics pipeline from game to screen: GPU, encoder, and Chromecast Ultra all outputting at 4K to 4K TVs, with the appropriate Internet connection. Developers making Stadia games work hard to deliver the best streaming experience for every game. Like you see on all platforms, this includes a variety of techniques to achieve the best overall quality. We give developers the freedom of how to achieve the best image quality and frame rate on Stadia, and we are impressed with what they have been able to achieve for day one. We expect that many developers can, and in most cases will, continue to improve their games on Stadia. And because Stadia lives in our data centers, developers are able to innovate quickly while delivering even better experiences directly to you without the need for game patches or downloads."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After a tease earlier this week, Valve has revealed more details and a new trailer for the first new Half-Life content in over a decade. The "full-length" Half Life: Alyx will hit Steam in March 2020, Valve says, with support for "all PC-based VR headsets." Pre-orders are already available for $59.99, though the game will be free if you own a Valve Index headset. The game, which Valve says is "set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2," has been "designed from the ground up for Virtual Reality" (i.e. you can stop hoping for a 2D monitor release). "Everyone at Valve is excited to be returning to the world of Half-Life," Valve founder Gabe Newell said in a statement. "VR has energized us."

Today's video trailer shows that next year's Alyx-ization of Half-Life is equal parts abstract and concrete. The VR perspective from today's trailer doesn't include any floating body parts or feet; the only part of your virtual self you'll see, at least in today's trailer, is your hands, covered in a pair of gloves. Yet we also hear Alyx's voice, which indicates that this game's protagonist won't be nearly as silent as Freeman in his own mainline adventures. Today's announcement includes video footage that confirms a data-leak examination by Valve News Network earlier this year: a new manipulation system dubbed the Gravity Gloves. And boy do these things look cool. Need to grab or pick something up? Point at whatever that object is (whether it's close or far away) with an open hand until it glows orange, then close your hand and flick your wrist toward yourself to fling the item in your direction. At this point, you get a moment to physically "catch" the object in question. Point, clench, flick, catch.

Today's trailer also confirms bits and pieces of the exciting HLA details I've previously heard about from multiple sources. For instance, the trailer includes teases of the game's approach to VR-exclusive puzzles, particularly those that require moving hands around a three-dimensional space. Some of these puzzles will require scanning and finding clues hidden inside of the virtual world's walls (and moving or knocking down anything hindering your ability to see or touch said walls). Other puzzles will require arranging what look like constellations or grids of stars around a 3D space in order to match certain patterns. And then there's the matter of familiar Half-Life creatures coming to life for the first time in over 12 years, which means they're that much more detailed and gruesome as rendered in the Source 2 engine. The Half-Life website specifies that this game can be played sitting, standing, or with "roomscale" movement. Players can use finger-tracking or trigger-based VR controllers and move around the VR environments by "teleporting" from point A to point B, "shifting" smoothly to a new position, or just walking continuously with an analog stick.

According to CNET, Amazon is planning to announce a cloud gaming service next year, and it may offer integration with Twitch and its other services. From the report: It's begun recruiting people from large game companies like Microsoft to help with the launch, as well as hiring for jobs in a "new initiative" within its Amazon Web Services team, which sources said is involved in Amazon's future gaming service. "We believe the evolution that began with arcade communities a quarter at a time, growing to the live streams and e-sports of today, will continue to a future where everyone is a gamer and every gamer can create, compete, collaborate and connect with others at massive scales," one job posting this month showed. And in at least one other job posting, the company said it wants to "drive innovative new use cases like machine vision and game streaming."

Amazon said in yet another job posting that it plans to integrate its new initiative with Twitch and the company's other services. The Information earlier reported on Amazon's plans, citing a possible launch next year. Industry insiders believe Amazon's plans for a future video game service are a foregone conclusion, despite struggles in its game-making studios, which saw layoffs earlier this year. Instead, these people cite the company's sprawling $119 per year Prime subscription empire, which already includes music streaming, lauded video projects like The Man in the High Castle, free grocery delivery and more.