Indie darling Arcen Games has created two incredibly stellar titles: the difficult co-op strategy title AI War and the refined puzzler Tidalis. They aren't going to simply sit around and continue updating those two games, however, and their latest announced title is the intriguing A Valley Without Wind. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where monsters roam, supplies are scarce, and magic is rampant, it aims to bring procedural generation to the realm of adventuring. Set out in a direction and explore while interacting with inhabitants in interesting and meaningful ways.
Erik Johnson and Chris Park of Arcen Games sat down with Big Download to talk a little more about previous successes, the direction of A Valley Without Wind, and the future of Arcen Games.
Erik Johnson (OSD) & Ken Jones (Warfighter Engaged) meet with Microsoft Xbox Team to discuss approaches to hardware and software accessibility for veterans.
Good on MS and the XBOX Team for supporting vets and disabled individuals, it's always good to be able to introduce more people into gaming. Gaming shouldn't be limited to just the able bodied.
Who would disagree with the above comment, is it because it's MS, XBOX TEAM or because it wasn't another company
Well said. Would be awesome to see the big companies work together on this to make gaming easier for there respective consoles.
Earlier this year, Valve sent the mod community into crisis mode with paid mods for Skyrim. It did not end well.
It's a screwed up world when we insist that modders aren't entitled to earn money from their hard work, yet we're perfectly OK with Youtubers making videos using these mods and bringing in large sums of cash. A good quality mod can be a lot more work.
Man people said similar types of things defending DLC and microtransaction. Things like "you don't have to buy it" ect. Now look how it is. Major sections and major characters and even endings are being sold as DLC and microtransactions are invading games with things like content you basically can't beat unless you have P2W gear.
Change isn't always good.
If a person wants to make money off their work that's fine but modding is something you do because you want to. It's like a hobby or such. As soon as you charge and change the dynamic it's changed forever and when the change involves money it's rarely for the better.
And on top of that it wasn't even the modders that wanted it as much as Valve and Bethesda who were in reality making the lion's share of the money with both parties making a larger percent than the actual mod creator.
As well as the fact it was a mess to organize as many mods used parts of other mods or were developed by more than one person and it made claiming the rights a huge mess.
It's just a bad idea and that's why it failed.
While I steadfastly think that charging for mods is ABSOLUTELY the wrong way to go I am fine with a donation system.
A collaborative effort is a different beast, someone of course shouldn't be allowed to charge for someone else's work without their consent. The Open Source community has dealt with this issue long ago and has a number of code licenses that stipulate what you can do with derivative works. Modding would have to adopt something like that.
As a coder myself, I resent the idea that people think I must work for nothing and contribute my code out of goodwill or beg for donations at best, just because a bunch of non-coders demand it.
Remember there are two sides to every transaction. The seller can ask for money, but isn't guaranteed a sale. The buyers determine if it is worth the asking price or any price at all. If the mod has value, it will sell. If it doesn't it won't.
No one is forcing you to make a mod.
Just because you feel like you personally need to get paid there are plenty of people who are perfectly fine giving back to people for free. Look how much great freeware software there is out there. (7-zip Open Office VLC Linux ect.)
That and the fact that modding has been around for 30+ years and up till now no one had a problem with it being free.
I don't even really know what to say about that coder non-coder comment except to say no one is demanding that you do anything. For a lot of people it's enough just to know people are enjoying their work.
Edited to add: I don't think the modding community will be better off when you need to get lawyers involved to determine who gets paid for what...
The problem is that the product you are buying might have bugs, be unfinished, or underwhelming. Furthermore, it might stop getting updated at some point. As you've paid money for this, it becomes very grey in terms of legality.
The best compromise, as I see it, is simply having an approved mods system for large expansion or total conversion-type mods like Enderal, or Falskar. Teams can send out proposals to Bethesda, who will accept or reject the scope of the mod. Then if teams complete the mod, they will be able to put it up for sale as unofficial DLC. This retains quality, incentivises good content, but also prevents the creation of a very negative atmosphere surrounding mods.
I'm all for a donation based system.
Pay if you want.
I know A LOT of mods and modders would do quite well with this as there are lots of people who would LOVE to support mods and their creators.
But forcing you to pay with this all or nothing system?
NO THANKS!
everyone love bring up the past an say it great the way it is since...it...free.
an disappointed that their having pay for what other use to do for free.
yes their will be those that milk dlc for easy money but their will also be others that use too too push things forward.
everything cost $$$, paid mods can help modders make a career out of it an teach them financially responsibility. how greedy do you have to be too assumes that you are entitled too anything free, just cause it was before.
why pay for tv? watch it free online. why pay for movie? watch it free online. why pay for a book? free online. why pay someone for work he did? you can find it free online.....
TLDR
am 100% for paying people for their hard work, even if they don't mind working for free. the world need too learn too help each other, not themselves an we all need $$$.
Duh, that was clearly their beta run. They were never going to completely stop.
Mrs Nesbitt from GamersFTW writes: "Valve big-wig Erik Johnson stated that their customer service team is still not up to standard. Having promised at the beginning of 2015 that this was going to be their main priority, it seems the super-company are still having teething issues."
does microsoft, sony and nintendo allow returns of digital games if you don't like it?
I got my account stolen around the time of tht stupid security problem they had with the reset password glitch... Guess who still hasn't got an email from support more than 3 months later O.o
I literally gave up I will just pirate the games I lost back and try another client (not origin).
Origin is a good client and actually has good customer support, don't know why you don't want it
It seems that despite great deals and sales, Steam still isn't quite an (overall) brilliant service, or at least not as much as some fans say it is! Gotta backup those deals with the customer services Steam!
The way they are run it is important users feel comfortable contacting them; especially with purchases and errors. Bad form.
Their sales aren't even very good anymore, more or less the same stuff every year at varying amounts of discount with numerous developers every sale trying to pull a fast one *cough*Rockstar*cough*. You can normally get better deals from the smaller DD sites now anyway.
