The latest update from Internet Archive brings thousands of MS-DOS games from the '90s like 3D Bomber, Zool and Alien Rampage. CNET reports: On Sunday, Internet Archive released 2,500 MS-DOS games that includes action, strategy and adventure titles. Some of the games are Vor Terra, Spooky Kooky Monster Maker, Princess Maker 2 and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. "This will be our biggest update yet, ranging from tiny recent independent productions to long-forgotten big-name releases from decades ago," Internet Archive software curator Jason Scott wrote on the site's blog.

One game that might trigger a few memories is the 1992 action-adventure horror game Alone in the Dark, published by Infogrames. In the game, you can play private investigator Edward Carnby or family member Emily Hartwood, who's investigating the suspicious death of Jeremy Hartwood in his Louisiana mansion called Derceto, which is now supposedly haunted. Fighting against rats, zombies and giant worms, you have to solve a number of puzzles to escape. Another retro game included by Internet Archive is a 1994 title played on PCs and Amiga computers called Mr. Blobby (a remake of the SNES game Super Troll Islands). Players can choose from three different characters -- Mr. Blobby, Mrs. Blobby and Baby Blobby. The goal of the game is to color in the computer screen by walking over it. Levels include climbing ladders, avoiding spikes and bouncing on springs.

Microsoft has started the public preview for the Project xCloud game streaming service that it first announced in late 2018. Thurrott reports: "The Project xCloud Preview is now officially live in the US, UK and Korea," a Microsoft representative told me today. "This preview serves as our opportunity to test, improve and garner feedback. It's critical we bring gamers with us on this journey so we can learn more from them and their experiences in a wide variety of real-world environments and use-case scenarios. That way we can deliver a product that fits the needs of all types of gamers." The initial public preview is only on Android, but it's expected to come to iOS, Windows, and elsewhere in the coming months as well. I'm on the preview, so I'll report back on the experience as soon as I can.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, Microsoft announced that it's rolling out filters that will let Xbox Live players automatically limit the text-based messages they receive to four maturity tiers: "Friendly, Medium, Mature, and Unfiltered." That's a long-overdue feature for a major communication platform that's well over a decade old now, but not really anything new in terms of online content moderation writ large.

What's more interesting is a "looking ahead" promise Microsoft made at the end of the announcement (emphasis added): "Ultimately our vision is to supplement our existing efforts and leverage our company efforts in AI and machine learning technology to provide filtration across all types of content on Xbox Live, delivering control to each and every individual player. Your feedback is more important than ever as we continue to evolve this experience and make Xbox a safe, welcome and inclusive place to game." Microsoft told The Verge that the ultimate goal is a system "similar to what you'd expect on broadcast TV where people are having a conversation, and in real-time, we're able to detect a bad phrase and beep it out for users who don't want to see that." However, instead of live engineers that are doing the censoring, Microsoft is employing machine learning.

An anonymous reader quotes the I-Programmer site: Humans! Rest easy, we still beat the evil AI at the all-important Angry Birds game. Recent research by Ekaterina Nikonova and Jakub Gemrot of Charles University (Czech Republic) indicates why this is so....

"Firstly, this game has a large number of possibilities of actions and nearly infinite amount of possible levels, which makes it difficult to use simple state space search algorithms for this task. Secondly, the game requires a planning of sequences of actions, which are related to each other... For example, a poorly chosen first action can make a level unsolvable by blocking a pig with a pile of objects. Therefore, to successfully solve the task, a game agent should be able to predict or simulate the outcome of it is own actions a few steps ahead."
The researchers also report that the game requires AI to distinguish "between multiple birds, their abilities and optimum tapping times..."

"Despite the fact we have come close to a human-level performance on selected 21 levels, we still lost to 3 out of 4 humans in obtaining a maximum possible total score."

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: Nvidia has a lot riding on the success of its GeForce RTX cards. The Santa Clara, California company is beating the real-time ray tracing drum loudly, adamant on being known as a champion of the technology before AMD steals some of its thunder next year with the PlayStation 5 and its own inevitable release of ray-tracing enabled PC graphics cards.

Nvidia has shown that, with ray tracing, it can breathe new life into a decades-old PC shooter like id Software's Quake 2, so why not dedicate an entire game studio to remastering timeless PC classics? A new job listing spotted by DSOGaming confirms that's exactly what Nvidia is cooking up.
The ad says NVIDIA's new game remastering program is "cherry-picking some of the greatest titles from the past decades and bringing them into the ray tracing age, giving them state-of-the-art visuals while keeping the gameplay that made them great." (And it adds that the initiative is "starting with a title that you know and love but we can't talk about here!")

Meanwhile, a China-based industry watcher on Medium reports that "six RISC-V positions have been advertised by NVIDIA, based in Shanghai and pertaining to architecture, design, and verification."

"Fortnite just blew up its entire map and all that's left is a black hole," reports TechCrunch. Some are speculating that this is simply a teaser for a new Fortnite map, but it's unclear when that new map will arrive... Fortnite's website is currently just a Twitch stream featuring a black hole.
The Washington Post reports: Anyone looking for clues on Fortnite's multiple social media accounts were left staring at the same image. The same black hole greets all visitors to Fortnite's Instagram. And intrepid players discovered that inputting the infamous "Konami code" launches a Galaga-style shooting game starring the mascot of Greasy Grove restaurant Durrr Burger.... As the event happened, many Twitch users reported having trouble using the popular streaming service, with more than 4 million people watching the event. Millions more tuned in on YouTube and Twitter, as well.... Rumors have swirled that the famous Fortnite map was going to be completely replaced, and given that everything's now gone, it sounds plausible...

Fortnite's Season 10 has been expected to end soon, and since last year, spectacular one-time live events within the game have been used to build hype, signal changes to the one map the game has used for two years, and usher in a new season and battle pass. This time, players who logged in at 2 p.m. Eastern time witnessed a rocket launch from the Dusty Divot area of the island, which turned into multiple rockets, all zipping around in a manner similar to the rocket that players saw in the first season-ending live event in Season 4. The rockets then converged onto an area where a meteor was landing, and the collision caused players to fly up into the air to witness a black hole suck the entirety of the game inside.

And since then, players have been left with nothing but the black hole.

An anonymous reader quotes Fortune: The battle against gaming addiction entered a new era this week when the U.K. public health system, the National Health Service (NHS), announced the opening of its first center specializing in 'Internet and Gaming Disorders....' Starting in November, the London-based center's psychiatrists and clinical psychologists will work with patients between ages 13 and 25 whose lives have been affected by "severe or complex behavioral issues associated with gaming, gambling and social media," the NHS said in a release... [T]he U.K. center is meant to fill a gap in mental health treatment that was previously occupied by private programs and more generalized NHS mental health services. "We are inundated. We have got sixty referrals already," says Dr. Henrietta Bowden-Jones of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who serves as director of the National Centre for Internet and Gaming Addictions where the new clinic will be located....

Other European clinics have seen similarly desperate growth. The Yes We Can clinic on the outskirts of Eindhoven, Netherlands, for instance, treated 250 children for gaming addiction in 2018 and has so far treated 450 in 2019 -- including 50 from the U.K... Dr. Bowden-Jones says that she expects that a relatively small percentage of gamers will suffer the medically recognized disorder -- no more than 2% -- but that the issue is important to address because about 75% of young people in the U.K. engage in gaming.

"Activision Blizzard Inc., facing the threat of a boycott, reduced the punishment it meted out to a tournament player who voiced support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators," reports Bloomberg: The company's Blizzard Entertainment division originally barred the player from events for a year and stripped him of some $10,000 in prize money. But it said at the end of the week that it would cut the ban to six months and pay his winnings.

The reversal followed an uproar from customers and even U.S. lawmakers, who felt Blizzard was kowtowing to China by punishing the player. Some analysts worried the boycott might take a toll on a company that has already suffered recent upheaval... [C]ustomers and some Blizzard workers felt the reaction was too extreme. In the furor that ensued, several employees staged a protest at its offices in Irvine. They covered up a plaque that read "Every Voice Matters" and held up umbrellas -- a symbol of the Hong Kong protesters.

"In hindsight, our process wasn't adequate, and we reacted too quickly," J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment, said in the statement. Still, he added that "if this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same."
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares another update from Ars Technica: Additionally, the two Chinese broadcasters who interviewed (and possibly egged on) blitzchung during his shout of "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" had been fired; they too have had their punishment changed to a six-month suspension from their jobs as official Hearthstone esports "casters."

Following Blizzard's decision to suspend a Hearthstone player for expressing support of protests in Hong Kong during an official tournament broadcast, some gamers are working to turn Overwatch hero Mei into a symbol of the Hong Kong resistance. Polygon reports: A post yesterday on the r/HongKong subreddit suggested people turn Mei, a Chinese Overwatch hero, into a "pro-democracy symbol" to get "Blizzard's games banned in China." (China already censors Winnie the Pooh after the internet began associating the character with president Xi Jinping.) The post has been upvoted more than 12,000 times, and has more than 300 comments, plenty of which are images of Mei supporting Hong Kong. The movement has spread outward into Twitter and elsewhere. Players have also continued to post screenshots of themselves uninstalling Blizzard games and closing their accounts. The #BoycottBlizzard hashtag remains active, with new tweets generated nearly every second.

jimminy_cricket writes: Due to the ban placed on a Hearthstone player for supporting Hong Kong protestors, Blizzard is now receiving criticism from U.S. senators. "Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party," Sen. Ron Wyden said, according to The Verge. "No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck." "Recognize what's happening here. People who don't live in China must either self censor or face dismissal & suspensions," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in a tweet on Tuesday. "China using access to market as leverage to crush free speech globally. Implications of this will be felt long after everyone in U.S. politics today is gone."

Fortnite developer Epic Games said in a statement that it will not ban players or content creators for political speech. From a report: The message comes after Blizzard caught fire this week for banning a professional Hearthstone player for shouting a statement associated with Hong Kong protesters. "Epic supports everyone's right to express their views on politics and human rights. We wouldn't ban or punish a Fortnite player or content creator for speaking on these topics," an Epic Games spokesperson told The Verge. Over the weekend, Blizzard banned Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the protesters in Hong Kong. In a post-game interview on Sunday, Blitzchung said, "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!" Now, he cannot participate in any tournaments for an entire year (effective October 5th), and Blizzard is withholding any prize money he would have received in the Grandmasters tournament over the weekend. Those forfeited winnings have been reported to total around $10,000. Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, added, "Epic is a US company and I'm the controlling shareholder. Tencent is an approximately 40% shareholder, and there are many other shareholders including employees and investors. [Bowing to China] will never happen on my watch as the founder, CEO, and controlling shareholder."

The mobile version of video game franchise "Call of Duty" racked up 100 million downloads in its first week, industry site Sensor Tower said on Tuesday, dwarfing the debuts of previous smashes including "Fortnite" and "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG). From a report: PUBG, Fortnite and Electronic Arts' "Apex Legends" scored 26.3 million, 22.5 million and 25 million respectively in their first week of release. "This is by far the largest mobile game launch in history in terms of the player base that's been built in the first week," said Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower. "Call of Duty: Mobile" was launched by its publisher Activision Blizzard Inc on Oct. 1 and Sensor Tower said the numbers reflected worldwide unique downloads across Apple's App Store and Google Play in the period since.

Sony has confirmed that its next-generation console will be called the PlayStation 5, and it'll be out next year, launching in time for "Holiday 2020." From a report: The company also announced several changes that it'll be making to the controller on the PS5. Chief among them is replacing the current rumble technology that Sony has been using since the original PlayStation for new haptic feedback technology that it promises will offer a "broader range of feedback." The other big change that Sony is talking about today is a technology it's calling "adaptive triggers," which will go in the primary R2/L2 triggers on the PS5's controller. According to Sony, developers will be able to "program the resistance of the triggers," giving the example that you'll be able to "feel" the increased tension as you draw back a bow or force you to push down with extra pressure if you're driving through rough terrain. It sounds pretty similar to a Microsoft patent from earlier this year, which detailed a similar trigger system for a future Xbox controller.

An anonymous reader writes: Billy Mitchell is the intense videogamer made famous in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong. Last month he threatened to sue both the Guinness Book of World Records and the videogame record-keepers at Twin Galaxies for defamation after they revoked an entire lifetime's worth of videogame high scores. An online discussion had argued that videotapes of three of Mitchell's performances suggested they'd been achieved using a MAME emulator -- but the organization revoked all of Mitchell's high scores (including his uncontested perfect game of Pac-Man in 1999).

Last week Twin Galaxies finally posted their response to Mitchell's lawsuit. "It is not necessary to hire lawyers and threaten Twin Galaxies out of the blue to get it to review and consider relevant new evidence -- all anyone has to do is simply reach out and directly request an opportunity to present the information...

"There will be no retraction or reinstatement. It should be noted that Twin Galaxies is under no obligation to maintain Mr. Mitchell's scores in its database. He has no divine right to be part of the Twin Galaxies community either. Twin Galaxies has unlimited authority to maintain the integrity of its score database." They also write that any lawsuit will be considered a strategic lawsuit against public participation and countered accordingly, followed by a second suit over malicious prosecution. "Please advise Mr. Mitchell to tread lightly, and choose wisely."

Last week a massive new 16,000-word profile of Mitchell pointed out that after his records were revoked, Mitchell had actually webcast himself playing Donkey Kong on Twitch, "obtaining scores equal to those that had been disputed, broadcast live from public venues.... Mitchell had proven he could earn those scores now. But he hadn't outlined a clear defense to prove he'd achieved them at the time of the original submissions."

CNBC reports that a popular Twitch poker star has been accused of cheating: Stones Gambling Hall in Sacramento, California says it will not livestream poker games pending an investigation into cheating allegations made against one of the game's players, Mike Postle... The original accusations were made by Veronica Brill, another poker player who has played with Postle on "Stones Live." Since then, others have come forward with similar complaints. Brill has no specific accusation of what Postle is doing and even admits that she can't be sure he is cheating. So why does she think he is cheating? His results are too good, according to Brill. She said (and several professional pokers players who talked to CNBC, agreed) no one could do as well as he has, for as long as he has, on these livestreamed games...

It's not just that Postle is winning, it's how he's winning, that is drawing suspicion. Poker commentator Joey Ingram, poker pro Matt Berkey, and others have spent hours reviewing hands Postle played and found several times where Postle made a fold or a call that wouldn't seem "right" but happened to work out in his favor. Berkey said Postle made plays no pro would ever make, and he did them often, and they worked. Poker is a game of incomplete information. Berkey said Postle played "as if he had perfect information."

Stones Gambling Hall said it has hired an independent investigator to look into the accusations. In a statement Stones Gambling Hall said: "We temporarily halted all broadcasts from Stones. We have also, as a result, halted the use of RFID playing cards." The RFID cards contain chips, that combined with readers in the poker table, transmit information about each player's hole cards, so that viewers can see the cards on the broadcast (which is on a 30-minute delay to protect game integrity). At this point, there is no specific allegation, no "smoking gun" as Berkey said. But many pros are pointing to those RFID cards and the hole card information, saying it's just not possible for Postle to play the way he does and win the way he does.

Dave Knott writes: A Montreal legal firm has requested authorization to launch a class-action lawsuit against Epic Games, makers of the widely-popular video game Fortnite. The legal notice, filed on behalf of two minors, likens the effect of the game to cocaine, saying it releases the chemical dopamine to the brain of vulnerable young people who can become dependent on playing. Much of the suit is based on a 2015 Quebec Superior Court ruling that determined tobacco companies didn't warn their customers about the dangers of smoking. Jean-Philippe Caron, a lawyer at Calex, said the firm was contacted by several parents whose kids had become addicted to the game.

Last year, the World Health Organization classified addiction to video games as a disease. It defined the disorder as "a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increased priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences." According to Caron, Fortnite was designed by psychologists to make it more addictive. "They knew that their game was very attractive, yet they did not divulge the risks to the population. It's a little like tobacco."

In anticipation for Google's upcoming Stadia cloud gaming service and Microsoft's Project xCloud, which enters open beta this month, Sony is lowering the price of PlayStation Now for PS4 and PC. "Monthly subscriptions are now available for $10, which is a considerable reduction from the previous $20 price point," reports GameSpot. "Quarterly subscriptions, meanwhile, will now cost $25, having previously been $45 in the U.S. and unavailable elsewhere. Finally, a year's PS Now membership is now $60, down from $100." From the report: The new price points are active right now; existing customers will see the new cost reflected in their upcoming bill. The price cut applies worldwide on the platform's catch-all subscription -- not on individual game rentals. Sony also revealed a number of new titles being added to the PS Now library. God of War (2018), Infamous: Second Son, Grand Theft Auto V, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End are all now available as part of the service's subscription offering--but they will be removed on January 2, 2020, Sony said.

dryriver shares a report from the BBC: Facebook is creating an immersive environment called Horizon to tempt people into spending more time in virtual reality. The VR app will be a mix of social places where users can mingle and chat, and other areas where they can play games against each other. People will inhabit and explore the virtual spaces via a cartoon avatar. The app will be made available and tested in early 2020, by a small group of Facebook users. Details about Horizon and early footage of the virtual space were shown off at Facebook's Oculus Connect 6 developer conference this week. Facebook said anyone using Horizon would be able to call on human "guides" to help them navigate and become more familiar with the virtual environment. The guides will not be "moderators" who will police behavior, said Facebook. It added that it would include tools that let people manage how they interact with other users. It will also have options that let people shape and build their own part of the environment. They will also be able to design their own avatars. The entire space has been given a cartoon-like feel as it is intended to be used on Facebook's Oculus Quest headset, which does not have the high resolution graphics of PC-linked headsets.

Sam Machkovech, a reporter for Ars Technica, who has tried Horizon, said Facebook had put "a ton of work" into the version he saw, to make it as welcoming as possible. But he noted that Horizon was "yet another" combination of apps, chat and avatars which Facebook had produced in just a few years. He suggested that it was still searching for a good combination that proved properly tempting to users. "We're still waiting for Facebook to inspire confidence that it will launch a social-VR app and stick with it for more than two years," he wrote. Anyone interested in joining Horizon can sign up to be an early tester. You can watch the strange YouTube pre-rendered CGI ad for Facebook Horizon here.

Microsoft is enabling Google's Assistant to work with its Xbox One console. From a report: Much like the existing Alexa integration, Microsoft is allowing Google Assistant to launch games and apps, turn the console on and off, pause videos, and much more. You'll need to use the Google Assistant app for iOS or Android or a device like Google's Home with Assistant on it to control an Xbox One. Google Assistant won't run on the Xbox One itself; instead, it will receive commands from other devices running Assistant.

Microsoft's Xbox One game streaming service, Project xCloud, will get a public preview test in October, letting select testers play games like Gears 5 and Halo 5: Guardians on phones and tablets. From a report: The public preview of Project xCloud will initially be limited to players in the United States, United Kingdom, and Korea. Halo 5: Guardians, Gears 5, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves will be playable as part of the preview, and Microsoft says it will add more titles over time. Testers won't need to own the Xbox One games available during the Project xCloud preview in order to play them. Players interested in taking part in the Project xCloud public preview can register for the closed beta based on their country. Microsoft says it will roll out invitations in a phased approach, starting with a "small number of participants," and opening it up to more players over time. Project xCloud's public preview test will initially be limited to Android devices running Android 6.0 or higher with Bluetooth 4.0. Participants will also need a Microsoft account and a Bluetooth-enabled Xbox One wireless controller. Project xCloud will be compatible with WiFi and cellular networks, and Microsoft says it's working with a number of cellular providers worldwide: SK Telecom in Korea, T-Mobile in the U.S., and Vodafone in the U.K.