Nathan Grayson

A Game Was ‘Out’ On Steam For Six Days, But Nobody Could Buy It

Game developer Nikita P. mostly made visual novel Bustories, a game about meeting travel companions for the first and last time, in his spare time. Still, he was eager to see the fruits of his year-long labor on Steam and, hopefully, make some money for his efforts. One problem: no one could buy his game.…

The Dumbest Things We Got Past Overwatch‘s Custom Jersey Censor

Just like in every other sports league, you can now make your own custom Overwatch League jerseys, and certain words are banned from them. They’re mostly obvious, including “butt,” “fuck,” “God,” “Satan,” “Jeffkaplan,” “bitch,” “dick,” “trans,” “XQC,” “trihard,” “sex,” “WarCraft,” “StarCraft,” “Diablo,” “kill,” “Nazi,” “Democrat,” Republican,” “ass,” “fanny,” “doggystyle,” “Pen15,” and “80085.” But there are…

Overwatch Players Figure Out How To Play As Villains From New PVE Mode

Ever since I first got brutalized by an assassin in Overwatch’s new Retribution PVE mode, I’ve wanted to leap on my foes and claw holes in their chests. Recently, a handful of Overwatch players figured out how to do exactly that. Problem: they did it in the game’s competitive mode, giving them a huge upper…

Overwatch League Fans Upset Korean Casters Won’t Say One Player’s Name

Given Overwatch’s popularity in Korea, it’s not surprising that Overwatch League has a separate broadcast with Korean commentary in addition to the regular English one. What is surprising is how much English-speaking viewers suddenly care about it in the wake of the Korean commentary team electing not to mention the name of formerly suspended Dallas…

Red Zones Are Putting PUBG‘s Creator At Odds With Players

Red zones, randomly occurring mortar hells, have been in PUBG since the beginning, but they’ve never been particularly popular with players. To many, they represent death by randomness, rather than skill. Recently, Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene came to the feature’s defense, and now players are pushing back harder than ever. Red zones are small mortar bombardment…

Epic Yanks Guided Missiles From Fortnite, At Least For Now

Imagine if you could produce a missile that would instantly do your bidding. Would you use it to sail across the sky like a combustion-powered witch? Or would you mostly just be a dick to people? It seems that Epic has decided that the latter is a big enough concern to shelve Fortnite’s guided missile.…

You can now win Overwatch’s Retribution mission even if your teammates won’t get in the dang dropship. Blizzard released a small update today that, among other tweaks, causes the dropship to “leave incapacitated players behind to complete the mission.” Sorry, bloodthirsty Rambo wannabes. You deserve this.

FCB Chicago, the marketing firm behind the failed Bully Hunters campaign, has apologized for it. We’ve added the apology to our story on the program, in which “a vigilante hit squad of elite female gamers” were to hunt down harassers. The program is, at this point, effectively over.

Overwatch Devs Accidentally Buff Hanzo’s Most Hated Ability

Yesterday, Hanzo mains the world over discovered a pleasant surprise while using their one ability that actually does damage: scatter arrow now has a shorter cooldown, meaning it can be used more often. Blizzard admits this buff was accidental, but for the time being, may not revert it. Scatter arrow fires an arrow that fragments…

Celeste Taught Fans And Its Own Creator To Take Better Care Of Themselves

For game developer Matt Thorson, tough-as-nails yet kind-as-kittens platformer Celeste represented a breaking point. His depression and anxiety had gotten so severe that he had no choice but to face them head-on. Thorson says the process was “painful,” but it’s also when Celeste’s story began to take shape. Warning: this post contains spoilers for Celeste…

‘Bully Hunters’ Organization Claims To Hunt Down Harassers In Games, Stirs Controversy [UPDATE]

Everybody’s fantasized about owning jerks in games so hard that they drop off the face of the internet. It’s an appealing idea, but Bully Hunters, a group that’s trying to fight harassment by diving into games and killing harassers, has become an object lesson in why that idea works better as an idle fantasy. Last…

How Privacy Settings Compare Across Xbox Live, PSN, And Other Platforms

Earlier this week, Steam introduced a handful of new privacy options and, in a move that doomed number-crunching megalith Steam Spy, changed its default settings so that only friends can see which games you’ve been playing. In this one particular area, Steam is now ahead of the rest of the pack. If you want, you…

The Best Clips And Screenshots From Fortnite‘s New Replay Mode

Like PUBG before it, Fortnite now has a suite of replay tools that allow you to pan around gameplay moments you’ve captured, position cameras, mess with colors, and, if you want, create elaborate clips. Players have already used them to churn out some quality stuff. You can find replays by opening your career menu and…

Game Developers Mourn (And Celebrate) The End Of Steam Spy

In the wake of changes to Steam’s default privacy settings yesterday, unofficial data and sales tracking kingpin Steam Spy is doomed. Many developers who relied on it are mourning its passing, but some are saying good riddance. The service scraped publicly viewable Steam profiles to estimate game sales along with troves of other data. Some…

Latest Steam Update Is Bad News For Steam Spy

Today, Valve added new privacy options that let Steam users decide how they’re viewed by the community. One big side effect: people’s game libraries are now hidden by default, spelling the likely end of data-tracking monolith Steam Spy. Steam Spy is a service that sweeps publicly viewable Steam profiles to estimate game sales and a…

The Stillness of the Wind is a farming game about life, loss, and solitude. You’ll play as an elderly woman on the edge of civilization, creating a routine out of everything from milking goats to reminiscing about the past. You’ll also receive “increasingly disturbing” letters from your family in the city. Fun! It’ll be out…

Overwatch Could Kill Off A Hero One Day, But They’d Still Be Playable

“Heroes never die,” says Mercy on a regular basis. The Overwatch team begs to differ. But don’t worry, says the game’s director Jeff Kaplan—even if an Overwatch hero were to bite the dust, they’d still have a life after death. Last week, I attended an event at Blizzard HQ to preview the new Overwatch event,…

Fortnite Player Rides Guided Rockets Across The Entire Map

Fortnite now offers guided tours of its map. Well, in a manner of speaking. YouTuber NoahJ456 learned how to ride his own guided rockets and then, based on a tweet from another player, realized he could hopscotch between them. These things in mind, it was only a matter of time before the “because why not”…

Twitch Streamer’s Community Revolts After He Plays Fortnite With Jake Paul

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that streamer Summit1g is one of the most enduringly popular personalities on Twitch. Even his fanbase, however, has its limits. By streaming a few Fortnite matches with YouTube pariah Jake Paul over the weekend, Summit tested them in a big way. The stream, which took place on…

BlizzCon is returning to Anaheim, California in November. It’s sticking with its usual spot at the Anaheim Convention Center and will run from Nov 2-3. There’ll be two different ticket sales on May 9 and 12. Will this be the year Blizzard finally cancels all of its current projects to bring back Blackthorne?