The dream is alive. Recently, we posted about the small, passionate community playing one of Rocket League's alternate modes, Snow Day, and how its fans hope a ranked mode could attract more players. I traitorously return to the main Soccar mode now and then, but Snow Day is far and away the main attraction for me. I'd love to play it ranked, and earlier today, we learned that may actually happen.

In a Reddit post explaining some of Psyonix's update decisions, game director Corey Davis wrote that the dev team is "engaged in design discussions" about how to add "an experience equivalent to Competitive play for our existing alternate modes." That includes Snow Day, Hoops, Dropshot, and Rumble.

Alternate competitive modes—or the 'equivalent' to competitive, however that shakes out—are probably a good ways off if they happen at all, given that Psyonix is discussing, not building them at the moment. Just hearing that they're a possibility is great news, though (for me). I had just about written off the idea of ranked Snow Day in particular, given the small playerbase.

Davis also addressed the question of whether new alternate modes were in the works. Nope. Aside from the potential for ranked alternates, the bulk of Psyonix's focus is "the core Rocket League experience." 

"While new game modes are a great way to bring players into Rocket League (both new and returning) and add variety for players of all skill levels, we see the majority of players migrating back to the original mode after a short period of time," reads the post. "While this can partly be attributed to the lack of Competitive Playlists and Season Rewards attached to these modes, we still see a clear demand for a continued focus on features that benefit the core Soccar experience that brought many of you to Rocket League over the last three years (and SARPBC [Rocket League's precursor] for seven years before that)."

As for what's actually on Rocket League's roadmap: The February content update goes out tomorrow with the beginning of Season 7, and Tournament Mode is coming sometime this spring with a beta coming sooner, along with other updates detailed here.

Personally, I'm waiting for season 1. Of competitive Snow Day. Fingers crossed.

Rocket League's long-awaited tournament mode will finally arrive in either March or April, developer Psyonix has said. Players will be able to test out these bracketed, single elimination tournaments for the first time next month as part of a Steam public beta.

The spring road map for Rocket League also revealed that March will see the arrival of new licensed premium DLC (previous licensed DLC has included tie-ups with the Fast & Furious franchise) as well as a spring event that will last into April. 

Looking beyond April, the developer is still keen to introduce cross-platform parties before the end of the year so that you can play alongside your friends on consoles. It's also working on new arenas, a revamp of the progression system to "make XP relevant again", and—very vaguely—"new features" for the game.

You can read the full road map here, which includes plans for various quality-of-life improvements like item stacking (that will arrive in March or April, too). The next update, which will launch the next competitive season, is due on February 7.

It's common to see over 150,000 concurrent players in Rocket League with fewer than 1,000 of them searching for Snow Day, a mode that replaces Soccar's ball with a hockey puck. It's the least-played mode in Rocket League's entire roster of game types, just behind the newer Dropshot and Hoops modes. And that's a shame, because Snow Day is the best mode in Rocket League, at least if you ask the players who saved it from deletion back in 2015.

So why aren't more people playing my favorite mode? It's possible Snow Day is seen as a gimmick, which is how it was presented at first, reinforced by the lack of ranked play. But those who've tried it know that it's just as challenging as Soccar, if in different ways.

Playing on the wall is almost always the best way to get the puck to the front of the goal, a disorienting maneuver every time. Predicting the travel of the puck is also a challenge, with the ability to perform a "super shot" (aka ground pinch) by flipping onto the puck at just the right angle. These powerful shots can reach 200 kilometers per hour and the puck can easily travel around the entire arena without anyone touching it. It's fast, it's relentless, it's incredible.

Rocket League's skill ceiling already seems limitless. Mastering the control of the ball in Soccar takes hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of practice, and most of those skills don't translate to Snow Day. The puck has a habit of flipping and bouncing around. But with enough experience, you can see a puck tumbling through the air and determine if it will land flat against the wall, making for an easy clear, or hit the wall on its edge and have a number of possible outcomes. Taking control and “settling down the puck” like real hockey players dealing with choppy ice is immensely satisfying and takes practice. Knowing how the ball bounces is one thing, but when the object you're playing with can also skip, flip and knuckle around from almost any contact, the amount of patience and observational acuity required increases. 

Because of this, matches often come down to good wall play. A majority of the goals are scored by edging out your opponent on the wall to knock the puck in front of the goal for your teammate to tap in. That's not to say aerials aren't common in Snow Day, but because the puck is flat on two sides and often twirling about, the same aerial that would result in a 'nice little tip' in Soccar could painfully slide off the side of your car.

All of this makes Snow Day great, which is why its champions persist in their quest to make it just as popular as whacking a ball around.

The birth of the Rocket Hockey League 

If you've given Snow Day a chance, you may have seen the 'RHL' tag in some player's names. They're part of a group called the Rocket Hockey League, the group that saved car hockey. 

Snow Day was never intended to be a permanent mode for Rocket League, introduced instead as a sideshow in a holiday themed update in 2015. When Psyonix removed it, the community protested. Players, now members of the RHL, went to the Psyonix forums and Reddit to start a petition to demand its return. "We had no inkling that there would be this weirdly devoted sub-set of players that only play Snow Day," says game director Corey Davis in Noclip's Rocket League documentary. "It's a very hardcore couple thousand people. That's all they do."

I spoke to DankeyKyle, creator and head commissioner of the RHL, about how everything came together. “January 5th will forever be known as Hockey League Day, the day the people came together to save the hockey mode," he said. "In less than 24 hours after the uproar, Psyonix responded.” Snow Day was returned to Rocket League, but only in the form of private matches. One month later, Psyonix announced in a tweet that the mode was returning to playlists across all platforms. DankeyKyle pointed out at the time that the game mode read 'Hockey is Life.'

In the time between the return of Snow Day as a private match mode and its return to the playlist, fans needed a way to get people together for matches, and so the Rocket Hockey League was born. The group started with a pre-season that eventually lead into a regular season of games. Other community members stepped in to help with the setup and figure out the rules. “The pre-season was a giant round robin”, says Petey B, another original member and commissioner. “Season two is a bit more free-form, where teams are more able to create their own schedules. We've been progressing our formats to create less headaches for the people who are sticking around and are willing to play.”

With a Discord server of over 1,000 members and Steam group of over 4,000, dedicated Twitch channels broadcasting tournaments and games with commentary, the RHL is still making a strong case for rocket hockey. Yet it still hasn't achieved its primary goal: ranked Snow Day. 

I asked RHL commissioner THE MUFFINMAN why he thinks so few people play Snow Day to begin with, and the lack of ranked play is his main concern. “I think it’s similar to the other non-standard modes," he said. "I think the competitive, ranked mode might be the key factor.” 

Adding competitive play to Snow Day could incentivize hardcore Rocket League players to give the mode a try, as well as up the stakes for its current fans. Though as THE MUFFINMAN suggests, if Snow Day gets a ranked mode, it's likely players of all the secondary modes will demand ranked play, too. But would that be so bad?

DankeyKyle is hopeful for a future even beyond ranked hockey. “Our final goal is to have the greater [Rocket League] community get as invested in Snow Day as they are in Soccar, with Psyonix backed RLCS Winter Games!”

I'm on board with DankeyKyle's dream—it's just up to Psyonix to decide how much time to put into its smaller Rocket League sub-communities, and whether they're worth growing. In the meantime, season two of the RHL is underway, and if you're interested in taking your ice skills to the next level, this is where you’ll find the dedicated players.

Over the holiday break, I did a bad thing. Instead of starting a long-ass PC game from the past year that I should probably have an opinion on by now, like Divinity: Original Sin 2, I just played Rocket League for hours and hours. This is a familiar problem at this point. I blame Psyonix's car football game for much of my current pile of shame, because it's too damned fun and easy to jump into. 

This comes after an extended, 18-month break from the game. The secondary factor that keeps bringing me back to Rocket League, beyond the satisfaction of scoring a goal or making a great assist, is the behaviour of the other players. Its quick chat options ('Nice shot!', 'Siiick!', 'What a save!' and so on) feel like they're used sarcastically as much as they are used sincerely, and this is both awful and wonderful. Combined with an individual's play style, this helps me build up a more vivid picture of my opponents and teammates than I would typically get from a multiplayer game. This, it turns out, is fundamental to my enjoyment of Rocket League. I could turn text chat off, and I'd probably focus more on the match. But I can't. 

Two-and-a-half years later, then, plenty of people are still irritating, and I'm delighted about that. It wouldn't be the same game without the personalities that surface in each match. Here are the annoying things that Rocket League players will never stop doing. Not all of them, obviously. Just some. 

1. Teammates not going for the ball at kickoff when they're the closest to it

More and more people are buying Rocket League all the time—because it's one of the best multiplayer games ever made, obviously—and it means irritating habits from the earliest days of the game will never die. There's always a new generation of players willing to carry on the mistakes of their predecessors, and that includes knowing when to go for the ball at kickoff. How is this still confusing? Have a quick look around. If the only other player on your team is behind you, guarding the goal, maybe you should go for the first touch instead of reversing into your teammate, ramming them back into your goal, then watching helplessly as the ball sails into the right-hand corner. 

It's particularly irritating when you see Semi Pro or Pro-level players doing this. Haven't you learned how the hell this game works by now? 

2. Being bad in the air

I've never gotten close to mastering wall jumping and boost to play effectively in the air, but I've made my peace with that. I feel it's far more offensive to make other players watch while you play in the air badly, however. Maybe these players are just practicing, but can't you do that with bots instead of doing it on my time? Watching a player dribble up the wall, then try and double tap the ball into the goal, only to flop off the side of the arena and land upside down is just the worst, because the whole ordeal feels like it takes forever. Everyone else is just parked, looking up, (probably) thinking, 'when's this arse going to finish dicking about and get on with it?' 

If you're actually good in the air, I just look up in impressed disappointment, like a doomed species that suddenly realises it's about to be replaced by a superior one. 

3. Congratulating their own goals/passes because you didn't

There are some needy teammates out there in Rocket League, who demand validation for every little thing they do. Is it not enough to make a good assist, setting up an amazing goal? Sometimes, it isn't, and these players need to congratulate themselves in quick chat as if to suggest you should've been doing it anyway. 'Great pass! Nice shot!' they tell themselves. It's not like you've given me a kidney, pal. I owe you nothing. Everyone wants a medal for turning up, these days. 

4. Not skipping replays

I don't care how good a goal is in Rocket League, whether you're on my team or the opposing team—almost three years later, I don't need to watch it again. Alright, unless it's the winner. Or unless it's such a crazy fluke that all of us find it funny, as evidenced by the reaction in the group chat. Some people still make you watch replays to try and get you to quit early in Rocket League, and perhaps foolishly, I thought the community might eventually grow out of doing that. 

Then, when you score a goal, you feel obliged to make them watch your entire replay in retaliation, savouring it as they immediately skip. Then they make you watch their replay again. Then you make them watch yours, because hey, they started it! And on this goes, until the game is over, and everyone's faith in humanity is slightly damaged. 

5. Going off to fetch boost from miles away when the ball and all the opposing players are in our half, stupid 

When you've conceded a goal from a decent play in Rocket League, you often wonder, what the hell happened to my teammate(s) during that sequence of events? In the replay, you spin the camera around and learn that they were in the other half of the pitch, casually collecting boost at 30mph while you were the only one defending. Yesterday, I played a game where at kickoff, both players on the opposing team drove to the nearest corners to collect boost while I nudged the ball straight into the net on first touch. It didn't take long for one of them to quit.

You can't run from your poor decisions in Rocket League, pal. They'll catch up to you eventually. 

It's been a bumper year (apologies) for Rocket League, and now more than 38 million people are playing football on wheels. But developer Psyonix knows there's still a long road ahead, and has released details of how the game will change in 2018, with a major focus on online performance improvements.

The developer says it's going to start acting on player concerns about wonky game servers, firstly by adding a tool that makes it easier to understand and report bad connections. 

"We’ll be rolling out improved connection quality status information in the game client in 2018 that will tell you if you’re experiencing packet loss, latency variance, or legitimate game server performance issues," it said. "We’re looking into how we can allow the community to report servers they think are performing poorly to help us identify and resolve problems more quickly."

So, it sounds like the developer doesn't yet have all the answers—but getting more concrete information on what's going wrong could be the first step. It's also planning to add new servers to the matchmaking system, like US-Central, which should help some players without affecting the quality of West or East coast servers.

A Tournament Mode is definitely inbound and a beta will start early next year, which is later than the team initially hoped.  It also plans to "revamp the progression system to make XP meaningful again", which means you'll unlock banners, titles, and free Decryptors as you level up.

Lastly, cross-platform play is definitely incoming next year, following a series of successful Steam server tests this year. "We’ll begin rolling it out to all of our players sometime next year," Psyonix said.

For the full blog post, click here. What would you like to see added to Rocket League in 2018? 

Sports games come in many shapes and sizes. Football Manager and Rocket League have almost nothing in common, but they’re both undeniably sports games. Meanwhile Fifa has added a story driven campaign, and Pyre is a fantasy RPG that plays like a sport.

To try and help, I’ve broken this list down into four broad categories. Sports Simulations, which attempt to realistically depict a sport, Sports Management games (self explanatory), Arcade Sports, which depict a stylised version of a real sport, and Fantasy Sports, which are wholly invented.

There’s obviously a lot of crossover, since even Rocket League is loosely based on football, but hopefully this will help you tell your QWOPs from your Fifas. 

SPORTS SIMS

Fifa 2018

Developer: EA SportsRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Official site

EA's annual football series is on a high right now, with the addition of a surprisingly compelling single player story mode. Unlike PES, Fifa's strength is in a Xavi-esque short, quick passing game. If you’re looking to play online, Fifa will be your football sim of choice, as a strong and healthy online community ensures it's always easy to find a game. 

PES 2018

Developer: KonamiRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Official site   

While Fifa will draw in those interested in the single player story or online multiplayer, PES is my preference for local multiplayer, or when I want to sink into the signature Master League. The two games also play slightly differently, with PES leaning more towards long passes and lofted through balls for a faster paced, more frenetic game.

NBA 2K18

Developer: Visual ConceptsRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Steam

Basketball is one of the few annual sports franchises not dominated by EA, and 2K's NBA series is one of the few that releases on PC. 2018's installment confused people by adding a strange MMO-esque hub called The Neighbourhood, but what really matters is that the slamming and jamming is as strong as ever. 

MANAGEMENT GAMES

Football Manager 2018

Developer: Sports InteractiveRelease Date: Nov 2017Link: Official site

It’s hard to overrstate the enormity of Football Manager. It is consistently one of the most popular games on Steam, its scouting network rivals real life clubs and once a player received an international call up from the wrong country because of it. It's also incredibly absorbing and fun, even more so since they added the streamlined variant Football Manager Touch. Play it with care: it is all-consuming.

Out of the Park Baseball 18 

Developer: Out of the Park DevelopmentsRelease Date: Mar 2017Link: Official site 

It's strange how few other sports have a Football Manager equivalent, but understandable that the highly stat-driven baseball is one of those that does. Out of the Park Baseball doesn't seem to change that much from year to year, but the underlying game remains an engrossing way to live out your Moneyball fantasies.

Motorsport Manager

Developer: Playsport GamesRelease Date: Nov 2016Link: Official site

Another sensible sport to adapt into a management game, Motorsport Manager is half about the strategy, half about the cars. Between races you’ll spend time improving and upgrading your vehicle, then make strategic calls like what tires to use and when to make a pit stop, but all without having to bother getting your hands dirty actually steering the thing. 

ARCADE SPORTS

Sensible World of Soccer

Developer: Sensible SoftwareRelease Date: Jan 1996Link: GOG

"I don’t like football but I did enjoy Sensible Soccer" is a thing I’ve been told by more 40-year-old game journalists than I care to count. By stripping the sport down to its essentials, SWOS finds a purity in the tick tock of precision passes. GOG only stocks Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, so expect to be stuck in the days of David Seaman and Ian Wright. 

Super Arcade Football

Developer: Out of the BitRelease Date: Early AccessLink: Official site

Super Arcade Football is built on the classic top down approach of Sensible Soccer but with some more modern touches, the most impressive being a physics defying slow motion aftertouch shot. Unlike SWOS it also works online, making it much easier to get a game against a human. 

QWOP

Developer: Bennett Foddy Release Date: Nov 2008 Link: Official site

QWOP is, in many ways, the anti-sports game. Most sports games are about using easy, accessible controls to allow anyone to simulate being a peak athlete. QWOP on the other hand uses an overly complicated control scheme to make the relatively simple act of running a 110m hurdles (yes there are hurdles, most people don’t make it far enough to realise that) astonishingly difficult and hilarious. It’s the Eddie the Eagle of sports games.

Fire Pro Wrestler

Developer: Spike ChunsoftRelease Date: Early AccessLink: Steam

Is wrestling a sport? According to Vince McMahon it’s 'sports entertainment', which is close enough for this list. Unlike the awful official WWE games, Fire Pro Wrestling World leans into the fact that wrestling is a performance, subtly pushing players to put on an entertaining match, rather than just trying to win. That, coupled with its astonishing Steam Workshop-supported character creation makes it unique among wrestling games. 

OlliOlli

Developer: Roll7Release Date: Jul 2014Link: Steam

OlliOlli's great success is in taking all the fun of older skating games like Tony Hawk and distilling them down to two dimensions. The simplicity of OlliOlli's side on approach makes it easier to learn a track while constantly embellishing your performance with tricks and flourishes.

Desert Golfing

Developer: Captain GamesRelease Date: Aug 2014Link: Official site 

I was actually surprised to find viral mobile hit Desert Golfing is available on PC, but it is, via the Windows Store (remember that?). It's a strange, minimalist game that can lulls you into an almost zen mindset. Each hole achieves a lot with a simple geometric layout. Crucially, there is no going back, so every wasted stroke is there forever.

Tennes

Developer: Jan Willem NijmanRelease Date: Nov 2012Link: Official site

Originally a bonus game for people who backed the SportsFriends Kickstarter, Tennnes is a simplified tennis game with a flexible approach to rules. The game does not mind if, for example, you jump over the net and play on the other side of the court. If you liked SportsFriends, you'll like this.

FANTASY SPORTS

Rocket League

Developer: PsyonixRelease Date: Jul 2015Link: Official site

I've had Rocket League installed on my PC for nearly two years now, and I still find myself jumping in for a quick 15 minute game every couple of weeks. The premise is simple: it’s football with rocket powered cars. What makes it work is the strange physics: the ball seems to be moving almost in slow motion, resulting in great slapstick comedy and much rage on the part of PC Gamer editor Sam Roberts. 

SportsFriends

Developer: De Gute FabrikRelease Date: Dec 2014Link: Official site

SportsFriends is a bundle of local multiplayer indie games loosely themed around sports. Hokra is a very fast, minimalist ice hockey game, BariBariBall is a blend of Super Smash Bros and volleyball, Super Pole Riders is a strange pole vaulter jousting game and Johan Sebastian Joust is a kind of full contact musical chairs played with motion controllers. What they have in common is that they’re all a amazing fun with a group of friends.

Bloodbowl 2

Developer: Cyanide ReleaseDate: Sep 2015Link: Official site

The Blood Bowl board game is as old as I am, which is testament to its enduring appeal. It is simultaneously one of the most frustrating and entertaining games I've ever played. Dice rolls are required for everything, meaning sometimes players fall over and die because they ran too fast. The digital port is solid enough, but the real charm lies in the time tested rules.

Frozen Cortex

Developer: Mode7Release Date: Feb 2015Link: Official site

Frozen Synapse's trademark interpretation of turn-based combat, where both sides plan their moves and execute them simultaneously, turns out to translate really well into sports. A paired down version of American Football featuring big stompy robots on a small pitch, Frozen Cortex excels at replicating the execution of a single play, but lacks the back and forth of larger, more fluid sports. 

Pyre

Developer: Supergiant GamesRelease Date: Jul 2017Link: Official site

Pyre is essentially an RPG with a sport instead of random battles. The story and atmosphere are the kind of strong stuff you'd expect from SuperGiant (who also made Bastion and Transistor). The sport itself can end up a little one dimensional, as attacking players can’t move without the ball, there's little point in the passing game. Still, the way in which the fiction and the sport combine is a unique delight. 

Loot boxes, which burst open to reveal randomized rewards in games, don't exist because they're good for game design. They exist because the industry wondered: how do we charge each player the maximum amount they're willing to spend for as long as we can keep them spending? The answer already existed in a model proven successful decades ago by baseball and Magic: The Gathering cards.

In his 2013 book, Uncertainty in Games, Greg Costikyan describes the success of Magic's card packs: "...When you purchase and open a booster pack, you are always uncertain what you will obtain—and may experience delight at finding a new card that works well with others you have, or disappointment at receiving cards that duplicate ones you already have, or worse, quintuplicate them—meaning you already have the maximum of this card you can use in a single deck. This is, of course, one reason Magic's business model is so effective: there's always a temptation to buy more cards, and players can be induced, in essence, to spend the maximum amount they are comfortable spending on their game, whether that be a few dollars or a few thousand."

Like Magic packs, loot boxes turn the experience of getting stuff, rather than the stuff itself, into what's for sale, and encourage us to keep chasing the delight of getting what we want. They 'work' because they offer an uncertain outcome, and uncertainty is a component of good games, whether it results in a botched saving throw in D&D or a lucky bounce in Rocket League. A box which may or may not contain something rare is not sinful on its own—it's fun. It's adding money to the mix that's the problem.

I appreciate that Rocket League, CS:GO, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and other games only offer cosmetic items in loot boxes, and Overwatch in particular is fairly inoffensive as you can work toward skins without purchasing anything but the game. The way Star Wars Battlefront 2 implemented loot boxes, however, shows that the biggest companies are testing the waters: how much can we put in these things? An entire multiplayer shooter's library of upgrades? They tried. 

When a progression system is wrapped up in loot boxes which can be purchased with real money, it isn't a fun progression system, practically by definition. If you've made something players can pay to skip, then you've made something worth paying to skip. With Battlefront 2's premium currency temporarily removed, this is hilariously obvious. There is currently no reason for Credits, the non-purchasable currency, to exist, as their only purpose is to abstract achievement so that it can be spent like the premium money, turning 'achievement' into 'grind,' a paycheck rather than a trophy. Not fun. Loot boxes are surely also why generic upgrades can't be applied to multiple classes, and why there's an overcomplicated crafting system—there had to be something to buy even after 20 hours of play. Also not fun. 

Bad game design which transparently exists to encourage spending is frustrating, especially in a game that already costs $60. What may be worse, though, is that by pairing cash and games of chance, EA and other big publishers are endangering every developer by inviting the scrutiny of politicians.

Are loot boxes gambling?

Buying loot boxes, like gambling in a casino, can potentially be addictive. "We know that the dopamine system, which is targeted by drugs of abuse, is also very interested in unpredictable rewards," said Dr. Luke Clark, director at the Center for Gambling Research at the University of British Columbia, in a recent interview with PC Gamer. "Dopamine cells are most active when there is maximum uncertainty, and the dopamine system responds more to an uncertain reward than the same reward delivered on a predictable basis."

Yet loot boxes are not legally considered gambling in the US and elsewhere, at least according to precedent. A series of 1996 lawsuits brought against baseball card manufacturers under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claimed that limited-run "chase cards"—rare, valuable cards that might appear in a pack—constitute an illegal lottery. The suits were not successful. A similar suit against Nintendo in 1999, which claimed that Pokemon cards constituted gambling, was also dismissed.

Last year, The Washington State Gambling Commission ordered Valve to "take whatever actions are necessary" to put an end to third-party CS:GO skin gambling sites, where players could bet valuable gun skins on the outcomes of esports matches, among other things. The Gambling Commission did not, however, take aim at the practice of delivering skins randomly. It is seemingly legal to sell boxes—physical or digital—with unknown contents, some more valuable to collectors than others. It's a practice familiar to toy collectors, sometimes called 'blind boxes.'

What's the legal difference between loot boxes and roulette? Mainly, it's that in a casino I put down money hoping for it to return to me, whereas when I buy a key for a Rocket League crate I know the money is spent—the gamble is whether or not I'll be satisfied with my purchase. That is an important distinction. However, if the contents of a loot box can be sold for a cash profit, which most can be through sanctioned marketplaces or EULA-defying grey markets, the distinction blurs. Still, unlike gambling, your possible reward is never zero, and the in-game items can't be turned in to the publisher like gambling chips for cash. Their value entirely depends on the value collectors assign them. So, it's different, but is it different enough?

While the 1996 lawsuits against baseball card manufacturers alleged that it was not different enough and failed, that doesn't mean legislators will never successfully amend the law. It's unlikely to change, but it's still up for debate. Ebay's policy, for instance, plays it safe by requiring the contents of 'grab bags' to be listed in order to avoid sales which might constitute illegal lotteries in some states. In reality, though, I was easily able to find multiple listings for 'surprise boxes.' Whether they are or aren't lotteries by law is unclear. Do we want them to be?

It's tempting to read recent anti-loot box statements from politicians as a win—we don't like loot boxes, and they're saying they'll get rid of them—but legislators getting involved in game design is concerning. A ban on charging for uncertain rewards would end Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, and all 'blind boxes' and 'grab bags' outright—you would not be able to buy anything without knowing its exact contents, or perhaps at least their value—and lawmakers wouldn't necessarily stop there. It could be just the in they need to form government-run ratings boards for games, which I oppose completely.

It's not far fetched. In 2005, US Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Tim Johnson, and Evan Bayh sponsored the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which would have put the ESRB under federal observation and fined stores which sold Mature games to kids under 17. In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted that videogame violence "must be stopped." Nothing has come of these intentions to regulate the sale of games, but if certain game systems were deemed gambling, you can be sure that 'the danger to our kids' would become a standard talking point again.

Meanwhile, mobile games haven't needed the element of chance to succeed in selling premium currencies. The legality of Clash of Clans-like schemes (premium currencies that directly translate to boosts and bonuses and power) isn't in dispute. So, if loot boxes were declared illegal, we'd get a small victory in pushing game publishers away from design we don't like, but not necessarily toward design we do, at the expense of increasing government scrutiny which could harm small developers who have no part in this. 

As much as I want to stick it to corporations, a legal solution is worrisome. And given the precedent, it's also unlikely to succeed. We're talking about defining Magic: The Gathering and baseball cards as illegal racketeering, an accusation they've weathered successfully for years.

What to do

The dopamine rush described by Dr. Clark is real, and its easy to see how loot boxes could get children and people who are prone to addiction to overspend. For that and many other reasons, I'd love to get rid of them, if not by forcing indie game developers to submit their games to their state's gambling control board for inspection. Frustratingly, though, I doubt the catalyst for change will be reduced profits. 

The truth is that loot boxes are fun to open. I've purchased keys for Rocket League crates—because I must have the coolest car—and spending $10 here and there hasn't left me with regrets. Many probably feel the same way, so I'm doubtful that 'vote with your wallet' is going to force meaningful change. When they're relatively inoffensive, people are going to keep buying loot boxes, and blaming individual players pointlessly sets us against each other, instead of the people actually responsible: exorbitantly-paid executives and board members. 

All I can recommend for now is that we keep calling out obnoxious implementations of loot boxes. We may not like what we get when Battlefront 2's premium currency returns, but that EA removed it the day before launch shows that player criticism had a significant effect. They botched one of their biggest launches of the year, ate a bunch of negative press, and could've avoided it all. Whether they end up making money on Battlefront 2 anyway, or losing money, they may think twice about the nature of their in-game purchases next time.

Inside the industry, I don't expect any individual to risk their job by publicly criticizing their bosses—we recently spoke to insiders about loot boxes, and they all asked to remain anonymous—though I can't imagine the average game developer employee loves designing simulated slot machines. On that note, there's a lot of work to do on the industry that, while seemingly unrelated, would help. Namely, an end to reliance on temporary contractors, crunch, and high turnover, and reasonable profit expectations that don't require every game to pull in half-a-billion dollars per year in microtransactions.

I do think it's understandable that publishers want to earn revenue from existing owners if they're providing a service. Servers cost money. But it feels pretty obvious that they've slowly been working toward something they knew we didn't want, hoping that if they turned up the heat gradually—first pre-order bonuses, then microtransactions, 'games as a service,' and finally cribbing the MTG model—we wouldn't notice that the system is designed to encourage overspending on items. 

Of course we noticed, and so have legislators, reigniting the 'gambling for children' collectable card game debates from the '90s. Collectible card games managed to slip away from the controversy, but now that it's back, the games industry has to reckon with the ethics of how it applies game systems to monetization, as well as the way it produces games and the profits they're expected to make. If they don't back off, at least a little—say, by only putting cosmetic items in boxes and always providing an alternative way to get them—someone else might make a decision for them.

With two European teams in the upper finals of the Rocket League Championship Series, the outcome of Sunday afternoon's lower semi-final would determine which of the two remaining North American teams still had a shot at the trophy. Cloud9 was the favorite to win the best-of-five series by most accounts, while players Kronovi, Rizzo, and Jknaps from G2 Esports were the clear fan favorites. It was the perfect setup for what turned out to be a perfect series.

Both teams were under a ton of pressure. They were battling to be the best in North America, and to be NA's only chance at winning the grand final as underdogs against formidable EU teams Gale Force and Method. The bulk of the crowd in Washington DC was about to pin its hopes on one of them, and in return they put on a show with the most entertaining series of the day. You can watch the whole thing below, and it's worth it.

Right away, the Cloud9 predictions seem to be confirmed as Squishy scores first, but just a few seconds later Kronovi ties it with a beauty. Game one goes into overtime, and Cloud9 brings all the pressure. When G2 finally escapes its end after some tough saves, Torment is forced to make an unreal save on Kronovi. As the ball returns to center field, it looks like the better team is still Cloud9—but Kronovi isn't done, popping a slow shot beneath Torment to win game one.

The crowd loves the underdog taking game one, but then comes game two: a 5-0 blowout for Cloud9. The series is tied and the theater gets a little quieter, until a gentle Cloud9 chant starts in the balcony.

G2 has only scored two goals in the series at this point, both in game one. I'm starting to wonder if they can keep getting balls past Cloud9's defense. Game three answers that, with Cloud9 and G2 trading goals to a 3-3 tie for another overtime game. This one doesn't end so quickly, though, turning into a four minute endurance battle that finally ends with a Cloud9 win at the wheels of Gimmick.

The crowd is waiting for a moment to breathe, but we don't get one. In game four, G2's reinvigorated defense keeps them leading the game 1-0 as the clock ticks down. The clock hits zero, and then it becomes another thriller. The ball has to touch the ground to end the match, and as it hasn't done that, Cloud9 can still tie it. It bounces around in Cloud9's end, they smash it out, and then Kronovi has to rush across the goal to save a fast shot from Gimmick nearly 20 seconds after the clock stopped. G2 finally wins, and the series is tied 2-2.

Game five's second 1-0 finish, this time for Cloud9, sounds unexciting by comparison, but the series coming down to a single goal is the perfect, heartbreaking cap. 

Cloud9 didn't make it to the grand final, where Gale Force put on a hell of a show against Method, and all the teams and final series were great. Still, this is the one that stuck with me after we filed out of the theater, so full of fantastic Rocket League moments: the narrow overtime win for G2, the blowout, the four minute OT, the thrilling zero minute plays by Cloud9 to nearly tie game four.

Being there made a big difference. With the crowd cheering for every shot, save, and goal it didn't feel any different from being at a hockey game. Watching sports is a social activity for many, so I expect that creating physical and virtual spaces (aside from the mess that is Twitch chat) is going to be a big part of esports' future. Rewatching it now on YouTube, it's still a great series, but in the theater it felt legendary.

In just seven months, Nintendo has sold more than 7.5 million Switch consoles, half what the Wii U sold in its entire lifetime. It's been flying off the shelves and so have Nintendo's big games. But, then, they almost always do. More surprising is how much success smaller indie games are finding on the Switch.

Almost every indie release on Switch reports that it's outselling other platforms. Games like Death Squared, Oceanhorn, and Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap are all doing better on the Switch than on PC. Other games like Forma.8 sold better on other platforms but made more money from the higher-priced Switch version.

With heavy hitting indies like Super Meat Boy Forever and Rocket League still to come, we got in touch with some of these teams to find out what they think about the success of indie games on the Switch, and what it could mean for the future of indie games on PC.

A hungry audience 

Many developers attribute some of the Switch's success to the console still being in a honeymoon period. Mauro Fanelli, CEO of the team behind Forma.8, Mixed Bag, said that's expected from most new platforms. The Switch is still undercrowded, and people are still excited to play games on it.

"First the platform is very young and the player base is hungry for new content, and that’s true for each new game platform that launches on the market. Then the eShop is currently extremely democratic, with no special spots to highlight new games: basically, each new game launching on the platform get the same amount of exposure, and that’s great."

Death Squared publisher SMG Studios pointed out that the limited number of games means new ones aren’t as easily lost. Ultimately, "it's that purity of the console right now that helps," said SMG's founder Ashley Ringrose.

Is the option for portability a big part of a game’s success on Switch? Maybe—but more than once Sony’s Vita was cited as a cautionary tale. Omar Cornut of Wonder Boy developer Lizardcube, who also worked on the Vita exclusive Tearaway, explains "the Vita had that for a while, it was the indie's handheld for a long while. But Sony didn’t support it with enough unique first-party titles so it felt too much like a secondary console and lost some traction."

Despite this reason for wariness, indie developers are still fairly confident in Nintendo's ability to provide for its own console and secure other big-budget developers, which will help drive support and in turn more indie sales.

Jeremy Dunham, vice president of publishing for Rocket League developer Psyonix, said "More than anything, it's Nintendo's active decision to support and promote the indie scene that's exciting the fans and teams involved."

Admiration for Nintendo is what drew many studios to work with the Switch in the first place. Philipp Döschl, co-founded and executive producer of Oceanhorn’s publisher FDG, for example, said they decided to work with Nintendo because of their regard for both the Switch and the company behind it.

"We love Switch!" he said. "It's the perfect gaming platform to date. You can play anywhere and anytime, either on TV or on the go. That being said, we've always been a bit of Nintendo fanboys and it was a childhood dream to make games for a Nintendo platform."

Team Meat’s Tommy Refenes agreed that the intrigue of new hardware drove his decision to port to the Switch. He also gave some insight into the simplicity of the process. "It's very easy to develop on the Switch, and I say this not working with any middleware. I ported the game which is my own custom engine to the Switch in three days… one day was for reading documentation," he explained.

Lizardcube, on the other hand, were simply taking their game everywhere they could, with Cornut saying, "as game developers it’s our job to port to as many platforms as we can, provided it makes sense in term of performance and controls."

And while the difference in specs and hardware were a potential boundary for Rocket League to come to Switch, the success of other indies on the console has positioned Psyonix to be excited for the release. "The fact that they're buying other indie experiences leads us to believe that they'll want to buy ours too."

Looking ahead

When asked whether they'd consider developing exclusively for Switch, the answer changed depending on the size of the studio. Many of the smaller devs thought exclusivity deals with compensation from Nintendo would be out of reach, and without that kind of deal, exclusivity would only make sense if a game was built around the Switch's unique features. 

"Developing an exclusive game has its own advantages: you can fully focus on the platform and on its peculiar strengths. The Switch offers some unique capabilities we would like to fully exploit: the Joy-Cons sure are lovely piece of technology!" said Forma.8 developer Fanelli.

Dunham agreed there's potential there, but generally it doesn’t fit in with Psyonix's ideals. "I wouldn't say it's impossible, but given our approach to community-friendly design and development, I don't think it's likely. We want our games to be available to as many players as possible and limiting a title to only one platform runs counter to that approach."

While exclusivity could be a great way for smaller studios to get help from a larger company, the level of compensation better-known studios like Team Meat would need to make money in a deal like this would probably be too high for a game that isn’t a system-seller, according to Refenes.

"Super Meat Boy is a known franchise, but it's not known like a Call of Duty, Mario or a Minecraft, but it's a game that's extremely popular with a multi-million user fan base. Therefore, it falls into a grey area when it comes to what a platform holder is willing to provide. I think a lot of indies get preferential marketing treatment in exchange for exclusivity which doesn't put any money in their pockets initially but instead gets them guaranteed exposure which in turn gives them money via sales. For a first-timer or a lesser known franchise, this can be a pretty great deal. That wouldn't be a great deal for Super Meat Boy Forever."

We also asked if there was a fear of alienating PC gamers by turning to Switch exclusively. Most doubted that would be an issue, especially if it was a case of requiring the Switch’s hardware. Others cited the plethora of games already available on PC as a reason not to worry. "No, PC gamers already have it pretty good," said SMG's Ringrose.

In the case of Lizardcube’s game, Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap released late on PC due to technical issues but Cornut doesn’t believe that was a reason for lower sales than on Switch. "Eventually what happened is that we sold much less on PC than on consoles, but honestly it isn't very surprising. We’re still happy we developed for PC and we’ll probably release our next game for PC."

He went on to explain that for Lizardcube, developing for PC was actually more difficult than console due to their custom engine. "Curiously, if you are using a custom engine and you are a small developer, developing for PC has become really difficult. It became easier to target PS4 or Switch than PC. That’s because the software, hardware, and drivers ecosystem are a minefield. Engines like Unity are taking care of lots of that minefield for you, but if you are running your own code, shipping even the simplest 2D game is really tough and stressing."

SMG think that the Switch might be able to overtake PC as a home for indies given the current success of the platform. "It has that potential right now," said Ringrose. "Not for all types of games but it's only six months old so it'll be an interesting holiday period as the Switch continues to grow. On PC there's just too many games and they are all so cheap. So many people have a backlog of games they don't play. I've been playing more games thanks to the Switch as it lets me play while hiding from the wife and kids!"

"It’s a very tough question," agreed Fanelli, adding "PC is currently overcrowded and has huge discoverability problems, but it still is and it will continue to be the biggest platform out there. I think we’ll continue to see amazing success stories for PC-only indies. But if you’re an indie developer you just have to be on Switch right now: it’s the hottest platform around for indie developers."

Others think PC is fine, so long as it evolves. FDG's Philipp Döschl sees Steam as the chink in PC’s nigh-impenetrable armor. "To me, Steam is completely broken and I almost stopped buying games there," he said. "From pricing (massively sale driven) to discoverability (harder and harder to find games), Steam has so many problems right now that have to be fixed in order to make it an attractive platform again for players and devs alike. And if Valve will not fix these problems, somebody else may come around and take over leadership. Now's the time for Amazon, Microsoft, GOG or maybe others to rise up."

For the most part, everyone agreed that while the Switch may be a fantastic new indie machine, PC is likely safe as the main home for indies in the future with its huge player base and ability to upgrade as time moves on. The unsurprising consensus from an industry standpoint was to develop for as many systems as possible and, if making a game exclusively for Switch, make it one that uses the unique features to get the full benefit of the system.

"The best advice I'd give to any indie developer is to build your game in a way that lets you put it on as many platforms as possible without needing major port work," Dunham said.

Rather than competing, it seems likely the two systems can complement each other with the boom on Switch allowing for more indie development on all platforms. Games that do come exclusively to Switch are most likely to be designed for Nintendo’s controllers, and those that don't will probably release on PC after a delay rather than leave such a large audience and so many potential sales on the table. It seems likely the success of indie games on Switch will be a good thing for the future of indie games everywhere.

Welcome back to the PC Gamer Q&A! Every week we ask our panel of PC Gamer writers a question about games. This week: which game character do you hate? Okay, 'hate' is a strong word, but we all get annoyed by characters in games, for a variety of reasons—bad dialogue, voice acting, or whatever else. Here we've simply spotlighted the characters (and one car) that we can't stand. We'd love to hear your suggestions in the comments, too.

Wes Fenlon: Basically every character in Final Fantasy 8

I feel slightly guilty for writing this, because I know our editor Sam Roberts likes this game (even I won't defend a man with a ponytail wearing a cowboy hat, though, Wes—Sam), but I can't stand pretty much anyone who opens their mouth in Final Fantasy 8. It's been so long since I played it, I'm struggling to articulate the depth of my loathing. But it definitely started with Squall, the poster boy for aloof, emo JRPG protagonists. Aka bad protagonists. At least Cloud had the decency to have a total mental breakdown, turn out to be a total fraud, and find time to say totally out of character dialogue like "Let's mosey." (Thanks, bad translation).

But Squall? He was a boring stick in the mud from the first cutscene, and maybe he had some character growth by the end of the game but I was too busy rolling my eyes and going "UGH" to notice. Then the whole amnesia thing—the worst plot twist of all time outside a Shyamalan movie—made me write off most of the rest of the gang. I do still have a soft spot for Laguna, who was basically Squall's missing personality, and I always kinda liked Zell, who I believe is the character most Final Fantasy 8 fans actually hate, themselves. Looking back, my reason for liking him seems pretty clear—he annoyed the shit out of everybody else, and that made him the true hero.

Philippa Warr: Warren from Life is Strange

The thing about Warren was that his character seemed tangled up in something the developers were leaning towards. I remember a feeling that no matter how many times I, as Max, tried to just be Warren's friend and keep my boundaries set to "we are just friends and that is all we will ever be" the game would then show cutscenes with him sitting close and hugging Max and so on. The sense of a character you get with a game like Life is Strange is built out of how those cutscenes and the actual interactive sections play out and so, for the way I was playing Max, that led to this idea of Warren as a guy who doesn't really understand boundaries and isn't taking hints. 

I think there are elements of that in the game deliberately—Warren clearly likes Max as more than a friend and there are resultant awkward encounters and cringeworthy texts and so on—but I'm not sure whether Dontnod actually wanted people to see him as a creep. I see him as a creep. I hated being around him in the game and the more the game didn't give me the freedom to be really clear about where he stood the more claustrophobic and upsetting I found him. Maybe that's the point? It's certainly a horribly faithful part of the teen experience. Anyway. Warren is the WORST.

Jody Macgregor: Ego from The 7th Guest

Henry Stauf is the villain of The 7th Guest. He's the guy who murders someone for 20 bucks, makes toys that kill children, fills his mansion with malicious puzzles. But I don't hate Henry Stauf. I hate the protagonist of The 7th Guest, the disembodied amnesiac spirit trapped in his mansion named Ego, because he will not shut up.

Sometimes while you're solving Stauf's puzzles the old man taunts you with his spooky-dooky voice, all "I wonder if he will get the point of this!" as you solve another dumb puzzle. But it's Ego's narration, which is supposed to be helpful, that's far more galling. "Which way should I go now?" he says, as you move another queen across a chessboard. "That tune seems familiar!" he says as you try to recollect an 18-note sequence on the piano. "Is there a pattern to this?" And every time he talks, the cursor vanishes and you have to wait for him to finish. I've never finished The 7th Guest, always leaving Ego trapped in Stauf's mansion forever, and I'm glad. I hope he rots.

Andy Kelly: Tali from Mass Effect

Look, I know Tali has a devoted fanbase. When she died in his playthrough, former PC Gamer writer Rich McCormick replayed 15 hours to save her. But man, whenever she's on the screen my eyes glaze over. The quarians are an interesting race with a cool backstory, but I wish they had a better representative in my party. I find Tali's overly earnest manner exceptionally dull. And her awkwardness, while probably written to be cute and endearing, just annoys me. In a game stuffed with interesting characters, she's by far the most boring, and I spend as little time with her as possible when I play through the Mass Effect trilogy.

Joe Donnelly: J'Zargo from Skyrim

J'Zargo was the first Khajiit NPC I met in Skyrim. He came with cool fire scrolls and reminded me a little of Tygra from the Thundercats. I was totally into it. Stat-wise he was a beast, and was one of the game's few NPCs without a level cap. Destruction and Restoration spells were his forte which made him best suited to close-quarters combat support. Moreover, after hitting level 50 he maxed out his One-handed and Heavy Armour skills—both of which made him an absolute tank. 

But, my god, he was such a pain in the arse. As if constantly referring to himself in the third person wasn't infuriating enough, he was full of irritating self-aggrandising quips—to the point where I preferred fighting flocks of Legendary Dragons on my own, if it meant getting shot of him.

"Oh, but you are wrong. The only reason you could disagree is because you are losing so badly you cannot see it." This was the straw the broke the camel's back. I led J'Zargo deep into a cave full of Draugr and stood back. He died in battle. I resurrected him as a faceless zombie cat. He sauntered off a cliff. I didn't mourn him. Good riddance, J'Zargo.

Samuel Roberts: The DeLorean from Rocket League

I almost picked Winston from Overwatch for this. Not because I have any particular problem with the character's personality or anything, but more the 'wacky' thinking behind the design, that's about as generically 'hero shooter' as it gets. Every game in this genre has at least one novelty character like this—Paladins has a walking tree and Battleborn has (had) a large, armed mushroom, for example. What if a gorilla did science? Woah! What will they think of next? 

I like most of the other character designs in Overwatch, but man, it's not too hard to come up with an idea for an animal or plant-related one, or indeed anything that can talk that doesn't in real life. What if a talking mongoose was a political strategist and a support hero? What if a Dutch fox was a taxidermist and was deeply ironic about his profession, but also had a grenade launcher? Hot damn, we've got us a hero shooter! Let's get this baby into Early Access. Pre-order the founder's package now to get the David Schwimmer announcer pack. 

I guess Winston is just Beast from the X-Men, really. Anyway, I'm over it.

Instead, I'll pick this DLC car. Back in 2015 when I was deep into Rocket League, I remember being irritated by the seemingly tens of thousands of people who'd bought the DeLorean in Rocket League around the time of the merchandising tat nightmare known as Back to the Future Day. As well as marking a new low for the kind of event you could stick the word 'day' onto in order to sell toys to adults, this car started popping up all over the game, and its '88MPH' acceleration noise seemed to be the only thing I could hear in matches for months afterwards.

I know it's just people trying to have fun in a game they enjoy, by marrying car football with one of the best movies of the '80s. Who could resent that, really? Well, me, apparently. 

Phil Savage: You, when you pick sniper

To my mind, snipers are the most irritating class in any multiplayer shooter—and I main Scout in TF2, so I know a lot about what's irritating. Yes, there's some skill in knowing a map's sightlines, and not standing in areas where a sniper might pick me off. But being instantly killed from halfway across the map is, for me, the least interesting interaction I can have in a shooter. In a team-focused, objective-based FPS, snipers seem only to reduce the possibility space in which I can be doing cool things. And for what, so you can squat in a bush, clicking on heads?

As for snipers who aren't killing me—the ones on my team—you're not much better. The requirements of sniping are often antithetical to the objective at hand, and, even in deathmatch, snipers are rarely mobile enough to top the leaderboards. Sniper is a bad class for bad people, and my feelings on this matter have nothing to do with my inability to accurately aim a crosshair. Sniping is for jerks, no exceptions. Except Battlefield: Bad Company 2, where they were actually pretty good.

Tim Clark: Anduin Wrynn in Hearthstone

 "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" complained King Henry II, shortly before some knight bros took this as an invitation to go ham on Thomas Beckett, the then Archbishop of Canterbury. And grim though the Wikipedia entry marked 'assassination' might be, let me also assure you that that fate would be far too good for Anduin Wrynn, Hearthstone's priest hero. Anyone who mains Priest in Hearthstone, unless they use the Tyrande Whisperwind portrait or run a dragon deck, is a despicable degenerate. Combo and control Priest is for the kind of fedora-wearing player for whom it isn’t enough just to win, they have to do it using your cards, over the course of what feels like an ice age. Don’t even get me started on the emotes. One more “Wow!” and I’m sending in the knights.