Saved State Heros Podcast Saved State Heros

Ad Induced Twitch


Amazon is considering making some changes to its Twitch tiers and their payout to streamers
With some models not having changed in almost 10 years, pay cuts could be reduced by as much as 20% at the top tier
Possibly the biggest change to come with these considerations is.. Ads!! Yes, who’s surprised?? Ads everywhere!
It’s been noted that creators who stream for at least 40 hours a month can receive up to $100 just by running 2 mins/hr of ads. This amount obviously goes up with ad minutes. However, this new proposal would introduce a revenue sharing “arrangement” which would be more “lucrative” for streamers.
A final interesting note to these changes is that Twitch would consider releasing anyone from their exclusivity deals, who may be a part of one.

A Dead Hard in the right direction


Behavior Interactive has officially announced that David King is their first gay character in DBD
In a tweet today Behavior acknowledged the lack of LGBTQIA2+ from the character roster and have been working to change that
Behavior has been working closely with the GaymerX organization, whose expertise is in integrating LGBTQIA2+ themes into video games
David is was released in the Lullaby for the Dark chapter in July of 2017 and is one of DBD’s 10 most popular characters

There’s room in the clouds


More than 10 million people have streamed games over Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Tuesday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call
It is however currently unclear as what Microsoft is defining as a streamed game (current subscribers, streamed game time, ect)
As a side note you can subscribe for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just a dollar and then cancel so as stated it’s still unclear if people who did that are counted in the numbers
The cloud gaming feature is available on the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier for 14.99 a month


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Let Mom Sleep!


Sega has started working on reboots of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio
In the company’s annual earnings report for the year ending March 2021, it named Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi as “examples of past IP” it wanted to utilize through reboots, remasters, and remakes.
Other games were mentioned such as Street Of Rage, Panzer Dragon, and Rez
Sega exec Shuji Utsami also hinted at building triple AAA multiplatform titles with global releases
Crazy Taxi is set to be released in 2024 - 2025. No time frame for JSR

Say goodbye and Don’t Tera Up


Gameforge and Bluehole will be shutting down Tera (On PC) on June 30th
An official announcement on the Tera Steam page states it is ending PC support to “focus internal development efforts on other projects”
This however leaves the question what does this mean for console players? There currently is no answer to this
Gameforge says the Tera websites and social media pages will be going away as well. But Gameforge accounts will be safe
What could this mean?

F2P, P2W, P2E?!? Oh, just Sony


Are you a fan of F2P games? I think we all are to an extent!
Well, Sony is going to dampen that by putting ads in F2P games..
That’s right. Some Sony F2P games will no longer just be an argument of grinding more versus paying to win
Sony plans to bring ads into F2P games running on Playstation platforms only, so far, late 2022
They are making a system available to game devs to “help them further monetize their games.” The system will incorporate ads via in-game “billboards” and other entities. This advertising method will not be forced, but encouraged to F2P developers.
The ads will be built-in at the platform level of this new system. This means easier integration for rewarding players for interacting with ads (skins, items, currency). They way ads are incorporated are up to the devs, but Sony supplies them.
Allegedly, Sony is still contemplating taking a cut from advertising gains in this manner.


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My Chemical Haptics


Heat and cold (among other sensations) could be coming to VR sooner than we think
Thanks to a team of scientists at the University of Chicago, feeling what your character feels may not be just another VR fantasy.
Currently to fully immerse yourself in VR you would need to own devices such as VR body kits or haptic treadmills but thanks to the team (Jasmine Lu, Ziwei Liu, Jas Brooks, and Pedro Lopes ) chemical haptics might soon be a reality.
Two devices lined with soft silicone will deliver chemicals via the skin to the person wearing them. One on the bridge of the nose and the other across the forearm.
No we can feel how cold Sub Zero really is

A Scalar and a Gentleman


Ubisoft revealed a new cloud-based technology at GDC this past weekend to expand its games
The game developer/publisher said that this new tech named “Scalar” would allow it’s teams to create even bigger worlds
Scalar would be supported across multiple platforms, will work with various components of already existing ubisoft game engines, and would be able to update games and content without the need for specific platform patches
Ubisoft says their Scalar tech isn’t actually for streaming games to players, like Stadia or Luna, but for devs
I think we can all say I embrace and dread this

Metaverse Royale


This week, Sony and Kirkbi (The money behind The Lego Group) announced that they have both donated $1B EACH to Epic to more broadly develop metaverse content. This overshadows Lego’s previous $250M partnership with Epic to develop more child friendly content
This unity has stated that they are going to “create new social entertainment exploring the connection between digital and physical worlds.”
There were statements from all sides praising Epic’s expertise and game engine, the use of Sony’s technologies and focusing on trends that will “impact the future world that we and our children will live in.”
The future mentioned here, of course, is the metaverse


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Toss a coin for your imports
The US has removed Tariffs on many imported goods from China
Over 350 reinstated products have been added to a list of exclusions to American import tariffs that were put in place beginning in 2018
Most importantly for PC gamers, the list includes: Printed circuit assemblies for rendering images onto computer screens.
Reminder it will take time for consumers to see lower prices in the market


Liberty City Online
Trusted leaker, Matheusvictorbr, dropped a tweet recently stating that R* will be releasing a sizeable GTAO update this coming Summer
Details, as usual, were vague except that the patch will include a map expansion theorized to be that of Liberty City itself. This is due to Matheusvictorbr’s tweet including a picture of the Statue of Liberty
An update this big, Liberty City or not, might seem silly with GTA6 somewhere in the near-ish future. However, it could pair very well with R*’s new GTAO subscription service, GTA+, that will allow players to get early access to new cars, monthly cash, properties and missed unlockable content.

Netflix and Acquisitions
Netflix has acquired Boss Fight Entertainment making this the third game developer the streaming giant has purchased
It also has Night School and NEXT games under its belt both known for their unique games
Netflix’s VP of game development Amir Rahimi said in a statement “this studio’s extensive experience building hit games across genres will help accelerate our ability to provide Netflix members with great games wherever they want to play them.”


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Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/saved-state-heros/support

Toss a coin for your imports


The US has removed Tariffs on many imported goods from China
Over 350 reinstated products have been added to a list of exclusions to American import tariffs that were put in place beginning in 2018
Most importantly for PC gamers, the list includes: Printed circuit assemblies for rendering images onto computer screens.
Reminder it will take time for consumers to see lower prices in the market

Liberty City Online


Trusted leaker, Matheusvictorbr, dropped a tweet recently stating that R* will be releasing a sizeable GTAO update this coming Summer
Details, as usual, were vague except that the patch will include a map expansion theorized to be that of Liberty City itself. This is due to Matheusvictorbr’s tweet including a picture of the Statue of Liberty
An update this big, Liberty City or not, might seem silly with GTA6 somewhere in the near-ish future. However, it could pair very well with R*’s new GTAO subscription service, GTA+, that will allow players to get early access to new cars, monthly cash, properties and missed unlockable content.

Netflix and Acquisitions


Netflix has acquired Boss Fight Entertainment making this the third game developer the streaming giant has purchased
It also has Night School and NEXT games under its belt both known for their unique games
Netflix’s VP of game development  Amir Rahimi said in a statement “this studio’s extensive experience building hit games across genres will help accelerate our ability to provide Netflix members with great games wherever they want to play them.”


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Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/saved-state-heros/support

ARM Amputation


Even since the final “cut” was made in the Softbank/NVidia deal last month, ARM is having to make some severances
Due to the $40B acquisition’s fall-through, ARM is cutting between 12-15% of its workforce to become one ARM. Yes puns, but those are their words.
With a global workforce of ~6,500, most of the cuts will be taking place in the US and UK to reduce costs and remove duplication in their work
Hopefully ARM’s new focus will boost the semiconductor tech in a new, beneficial direction for us all

RTX.. ASUS


A quick quip on GPU prices, which seem to be a big topic here at SSH
ASUS is slashing their GPU prices on RTX 30-series by up to 25% in Australia thanks to declining demand
Although it doesn’t help us much here in the U.S., this seems to be following a slightly lesser global decline in prices due to production gradually ramping up, bitcoin mining falling (not going into that here), and gamers, as usual,  holding off from committing while prices are high. Prices are still up 41% over RRP, but the future is looking better than it has for some time!

Intel Inside.. Everything


Intel’s previously veiled Project Endgame has had some light shed on it. To keep it quick, we’ll just drop one, fat quote and move on
"Project Endgame is a unified services layer that harnesses computing resources everywhere – cloud, edge, and your home, to improve your gaming, and non-gaming, PC experiences. With Project Endgame, we can untether our users from their local hardware specs. Project Endgame is paving the roads for the next decade of real-time GPU experiences for Intel, with the goal of petaflops of compute accessible at a few millisecond latency, and starting in Q2 of this year we will take our first public steps."
Yes. Their GPUs were just their foot into our wallets.. And the cloud market

Since Mando Loves Hideo Kajima..


Hideo Kojima was awarded the annual Japanese Minister's Award for Fine Arts, in the Media Arts category. This is one of the country's most prestigious cultural awards.
The ceremony was held today in Tokyo and, of course, Hideo had some words of appreciation.
He has been making video games, some of which are the most influential in the industry, for 36 years!

Elden Ring-ing Your Neck


With the unignorably Elden Ring coming through with over 12M sales in 3 weeks, with more than 12M sales in 3 weeks, will not be backing off any time soon
FromSoftware has stated that the Elden Ring IP will be moving on to more than just games.
TV Show? Movies?

Russia De-EA’d


More Russian (and Belarusian) punishment by EA: “Effectively immediately, players and teams in Russia and Belarus are ineligible to participate in the Apex Legends Global Series and the EA Sports FIFA 22 Global Series.”


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