Gaming

Epic Gives Free Games, GOG Gives OG ‘Diablo,’ Steam Gives Apology



As we had hoped, the sudden increase in competition in digital PC video game distribution services is forcing everyone involved to try out new things to lure in the biggest audience possible. And that works out great for us customers, with companies catering to our interests instead of the other way around. A couple of recent news stories together paint an interesting picture of what challengers are rising to the occasion and what monopolies are cracking apart.

First, the Epic Games Store is continuing to use its Fortnite fortunes to throw everything at the wall to see what gets users to stick. The latest game that just announced surprise Epic Games Store launch exclusivity is Shakedown: Hawaii. I first remember seeing this tropical Vice City-esque 16-bit follow-up to the 8-bit Grand Theft Auto homage Retro City Rampage two years ago as part of the Nintendo Switch indie reveal. But hopefully this news means the long-delayed top-down open-world crime epic is actually committed to its spring 2019 release date.

And if that’s not enough the Epic Games Store also continues to hands out free games like it’s nothing. For the next two weeks Slime Rancher, an apparently underrated game about finding and farming different types of goo, will be free on the service. After that, players can get the awesome indie teen horror game Oxenfree for nothing. Oxenfree of charge?

Meanwhile, classic games store Good Old Games just scored a coup of its own. You can now buy famous good old game Diablo on GOG.com for $10. This is the first time Blizzard’s original hellish RPG has been available digitally. You can’t even buy it on Blizzard’s own stores. But thanks to this GOG partnership you can now get loot and kill the devil like it’s 1996.

You have to actually because outside of support for modern operating systems, the GOG release of the first Diablo mirrors the original version as closely as possible, including the charming but dated visuals. This isn’t a StarCraft remastered situation. This untouched experience might be exactly what you’re looking for though. Expect similar treatment for the classic Warcraft games Blizzard is also bringing soon to GOG. Hopefully this is the first step of the company’s escape from abusive parent Activision.

Finally, in sadder and potentially triggering news (content warning: sexual assault) Valve finally responded to public outcry over the presence of controversial game Rape Day on Steam. And if the title isn’t a clue, this game is “controversial” in that it encourages players to sexually assault virtual women. Or rather it did before Valve removed it from Steam.

It’s not sad this game is gone. It’s sad it was ever up for sale in the first place. It’s sad that Valve’s interpretation of “non-judgmental” developer freedom on its platform actually means harmful negligence and lack of oversight or moderation of any kind. In a blog post Valve said “After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think Rape Day poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam” which is just another cowardly dodge of drawing any kind of ethical line in the sand for acceptable content. Reminds us of Twitter.

For more on the ongoing PC games store drama catch up on what happened with Metro: Exodus and the potential censorship of this Taiwanese horror game.





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