Valve buys ‘Firewatch’ developer Campo Santo

Firewatch

Valve has just purchased game developer Campo Santo. The small 12-person team known for its game Firewatch will be relocating to the video game developer’s headquarters in Seattle. In a blog post announcing the sale, Campo Santo claims they “found a group of folks who, to their core, feel the same way about the work that they do” in Valve. The studio has confirmed that they will continue working on its next game In The Valley of Gods and that this game won’t be a PC-exclusive under Valve. Campo Santo also plans to continue supporting Firewatch and will still release its literary journal, The Quarterly Review.

Source: The Verge

Steam will not accept bitcoins as a payment method for now

For those who make use of the cryptocurrency to buy games off of Steam, you don’t have that option available for you now. Steam just announced it’ll no longer accept bitcoin as a payment method. Valve made the announcement in a blog post saying the decision is a result of the cryptocurrency’s “high fees and volatility.” In the post, it talks about how bitcoin transactions have gone up to almost US$20 per transaction in the past week, which is huge compared to what Valve says was the $0.20 value it had when they initially enabled bitcoin.

The fees are being shouldered by the gamers who make the purchases, which means costs of the games could be higher if the bitcoin value dips. And if value does go up while the user completes a purchase, for example, Steam will have to refund the difference and then the user will have to pay the transaction fee again. As Valve says in the post, “This year, we’ve seen increasing number[s] of customers get into this state,” making it a pretty impractical way to pay for games. Steam says it might reconsider this decision in the future, if the currency becomes more stable.

Source: The Verge

‘No Man’s Sky’ issues refunds to unsatisfied players

It seems the complaints from fans have gotten too much that Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky can be refunded on several gaming platforms—no matter how long you’ve been playing the game. If you bought it on Amazon, Steam, or the PlayStation Network, the providers are issuing refunds for them. It’s particularly telling for platforms like Valve where you can only refund after playing the game for under two hours or for Sony how has strict refund policies. You can contact these providers if you feel like refunding the game. But there’s no telling until when they’ll allow these refunds to happen.

Source: iDigitalTimes

An introduction to VR through the HTC Vive

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

I've long been a skeptic when it comes to Virtual Reality or VR. I've covered the technologies and evolution of virtual reality since the mid-90's when the idea was that the internet and VR could easily create a connected, immersive and interactive reality alongside reality itself.

But like many widely heralded buzz-worthy technologies, VR always felt like a hollow promise mired by compromise at every turn. It required expensive and enormous headsets, a ton of wires connected to a supercomputer, and the content was, for the most part, as low-rez and blocky as what one could get out of a PlayStation One console.  It is now 2016 and companies are flying high the VR flag again, what's different this time is that there are actual consumer products as well as content generated specifically for VR.

HTC invited me to try their HTC Vive VR headset in a Toronto hotel a few days ago and I brought a healthy dose of skepticism with me. Here's what I learned.

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