The Man recently told Valve to stamp out online gambling which uses virtual Steam items – Counter-Strike gun skins and the like – as chips. The Washington State Gambling Commission gave Valve until October 14th, under threat of legal action, to stop these gambling sites and report back explaining their compliance with Washington State’s gambling laws and Valve have replied, er, several days late. Valve say that they’re doing all they reasonably can, short of cutting off important Steam services for everyone. … [visit site to read more]

I have a terrible confession to make. While, on a weekly basis, I protest about the oft-unchanging nature of these charts, the truth is that a new entry makes me sigh. It means I have to laboriously type out new HTML rather than just copy the links from last week. This means terrible, unspeakable suffering in a week such as this, where there actually are quite a few ‘new’ games. … [visit site to read more]

Dear old Counter-Strike level Inferno has returned to CS: Global Offensive [official site] reworked and prettied-up. Gone is the grunge of early noughties FPSs, the cloudy skies, the illogical architecture, and the lingering sense that maybe CS is set inside the world of Half-Life 2, with Inferno’s village now a scenic spot you might potter around, cooing, on your summer hols. Oh, sure, and they’ve fiddled with a lot of areas to tweak how it plays. After a stretch in beta, the new Inferno is now public in the Reserves Map Group. Even if you’re not into CS: GO, do enjoy the comparison screenshots between 2012’s Inferno and 2016’s – the progress is pleasing. … [visit site to read more]

As it was prophesied, soon it will come to pass. The Steam Charts approach their endgame: where all sales and all pre-order shenanigans converge to ensure that just one game occupies all top ten placements. Soon, there shall be unity. Terrible, terrible unity. … [visit site to read more]

The Washington State Gambling Commission, a state agency governing gambling in that fair corner of Cascadia, has told Valve that they must “stop facilitating gambling” with Steam skins. If you’ve missed this whole fuss, basically: sites have been using Counter-Strike and Dota cosmetic item skins as chips for unregulated – and potentially underage – gambling, all running through Steam channels. Steam’s rules do forbid this and Valve recently stepped up and started sending legal letters ordering sites to knock it off. Now The Man is involved in Valve’s home state, and he’s none too pleased.

… [visit site to read more]

I had all the characteristics of a blogger frayed jeans, opinions, laptop, tea but my depersonalisation was so intense, had gone so deep, that my normal ability to compile charts had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating top ten articles, a rough resemblance of a best-sellers list, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning.

And yet. … [visit site to read more]

I’m trying to think who it could be. I don’t really have enemies any more, or not knowingly so. Some forgotten bully from school who never left our hometown and is still obsessed with tormenting me? A fellow journalist whose article I might have drunkenly tweeted something rude about in 2009? Someone I unfollowed or unfriended because they were tiresome or awful? You Know, Those Guys? Or: all of them, working together. Pooling their life savings to buy as many copies of a certain game as they can. Make no mistake: someone’s out to get me. It’s the only possible explanation.

… [visit site to read more]

This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it?

… [visit site to read more]

Meer stared at himself in the mirror. Was he really a man anymore? Or was he just a machine made of meat that endlessly pasted the same handful of game-names into a CMS post, week after week until he died?

Or was he dead already? Was this hell? Yes, that must be it. What else could writing “a href=”https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/Grand-Theft-Auto-V” for an eternity possibly be?

Yet still, there was faint hope in those dim, anguished eyes. Hope that one day there might be new games, new hyperlinks, new opinions> to be expressed. One day. But not today. … [visit site to read more]

Cos this stuff comes up in comments most every time I run one of these: these charts depict the top ten best-selling games on Steam as accumulated over the week leading up to Sunday just gone. They are not what are the top ten best-selling games at this moment in time, as seen on the front-page of Steam and which are invariably a little different. They come from this here Valve RSS feed. If there is any massaging of figures or weighing of e.g. revenue earned vs copies sold then I do not know of it, but neither can I say for certain that there is not. This is, however, pretty much all that Steam ever lets slip about what’s going on, though you can look to the guesstimates on Steam Spy if you want to try and drill down further into actual figures.

So: Steam’s ten biggest games last week. Well, nine and a half. Deus Ex has been dethroned already.

… [visit site to read more]