Gaming News Roundup – Mar 5: ESRB’s Half-Measure, Brigitte, Yakuza 6 Demo
Gaming News Roundup – Mar 5
ESRB’s New Label
With all the recent talk of loot boxes and microtransactions, a lot of people are anticipating such practices to be regulated or labeled as gambling. With that in mind, there was heavy pressure for the ESRB to discuss the matter. This week, they’ve decided to start stating when a game includes in-game purchases on the label. The new label is separate from the standard label with the game’s rating. An incredibly disappointing half-measure. It turns out that the ESRB don’t have anything against microtransactions.
“We continue to believe loot boxes are a fun way to acquire virtual items; most of them are cosmetic.” said Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB. The president of the ESRB used the “they’re just cosmetic” argument.
The ESRB have stated that they’re going to be looking into additional measures they can take. Until then, they’ve also launched a campaign to teach parents about microtransactions and such, which you can find here. Maybe we’ll see something more substantial in the future? Drop rates maybe? Something more than a few more words on the box? Like seriously, if a parent isn’t taken aback by a label stating violence or nudity, they probably won’t care about the “in-game purchases” label.
Brigitte Flails Into Overwatch
Let’s ignore how bad the above pun was. Brigitte is the newest hero to come to Overwatch! She’s the daughter of Torbjorn and the goddaughter of Reinhardt, which explains her armor. She wields a flail and a shield in battle and, just like her father, is able to give her teammates extra shield to lengthen their health bar. For a full breakdown by Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan, you can click here. You can also get a look at her origin story here, it’s pretty interesting. She looks like an awesome new addition to the game and a very unique character to put in the support class. She’s playable on the PTR currently, but we’re unsure of when she’ll go live on all platforms.
Detroit: Become Human Release Date
David Cage’s next melodrama is going to be available in a little under 3 months. We’ve just gotten word that May 25th is the date, so mark your calendars and remember this scene in Heavy Rain where protagonist, Ethan Mars, screams his son’s name repeatedly in the midst of the game’s climax. (Spoilers for Heavy Rain.) Also the above picture is the cover art.
“Erm.. hi?”
It’s not great. In fact, it makes me quite uncomfortable.
Yakuza 6’s Demo Was More Than A Demo
Your arm isn’t supposed to bend that way.
If you’re enjoying a demo, you’re probably upset to be met with a “Buy Full Game” screen at the end of it. I’m sure numerous people have at some point thought, “What if this demo accidentally gave me the full game?” Well surprisingly, this has actually happened for quite a few Yakuza 6 players. The download for the game was notably the size of the full game, but the demo was intended to lock the rest of the game away after a few chapters. Lucky players were able to negate this barrier without having to do any strange tricks or hacks.
The demo has been taken down due to this major mistake. While those who downloaded may still have access to the full game, the rest of us will have to wait until April 17th on the PS4.
That’s the news for this week! Excited to play as Brigitte? She looks pretty awesome! Were you one of the people that got full access to Yakuza 6? Let us know below! In case you missed last week’s roundup, you can click here to get caught up. Be sure to come back next week for another gaming news roundup!
